Birth Story - Dean

THE PREGNANCY
My journey to this point should be a separate blog post on its own, but here are the cliff notes.
In Jan 2018, I started to interview midwives and plan my perfect home birth. To my surprise, later that week I found out I was pregnant! So, we ended up having to chose a midwife sooner than planned. Since I've been through midwifery care before and my pregnancy and birth were uneventful (other than a surprise breech) I just went with the personality I liked most vs who might have been best qualified.

Fast forward to Memorial day weekend and I'm on my 2nd miscarriage. At this point I tried to focus on improving my health and keeping life moving as normal. One of the changes I made was getting regular acupuncture. In addition to the treatments, my practitioner told me I should hold off getting pregnant for 6 months! It was really hard advice to listen to, but we waited.

Now it's October and it's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month and I post about my troubles on Instagram. A friend from work sees the post and comes to talk to me and recommends her OBGYN. He has a reputation of being good at helping women get pregnant. So, even though I'm not a fan of this type of doctor and pregnancy path, I take a chance and visit him. We do some testing and start a treatment plan and by Thanksgiving, I get another positive pregnancy test!

So, now I'm in the care of an OBGYN and on the path of a hospital birth. NOT the plan I wanted, but it's the path I was on and things were going well early on. At my 9 week appointment, the doc pulls us into his office to discuss the pregnancy plan and he's already trying to schedule my induction, tells me I'll have to birth on my back, and he's totally opposed to delayed cord clamping. I felt these ideas where closed minded of him and I decided this isn't how my pregnancy will go and I leave his care.

Now, I'm on the hunt for a 3rd care provider...

Using Facebook as my research medium, I find a pair of midwives that work in a hospital and at 15 weeks pregnant I pick up prenatal care again. Everything is going smoothly until 38 weeks, when my baby flipped and became breech again. Since the hospital would require me to have a c-section, I was on the hunt again for provider #4.

At 39 weeks, the new plan is now to have out-of-hospital midwifery care and a home birth!!

THE LABOR
I had my 40 week appointment Wed, Aug 7th. I didn't feel any signs of labor but I was really hoping to go into labor that night. I worked from home that day since my appointment was in the afternoon and way down in Dallas. Mom was with me and it was all uneventful. Later that night, mom and I went Kohls to buy new bath towels. It was great because the cashier asked, "when are you due" and I said "today" 😆.

I went to bed that night like normal. Then around 3:30 am on Thur, Aug 8th I woke up with a lot of lower back pain. Since it was only in my back I wasn't convinced it was a contraction, but they were painful and I was already past my due date, so I thought "the timing it right". Since I was really worried if the full birth team would make it or not, I texted my midwife with a general update after about 15 min. Around that point I started timing the contractions and they were averaging 1 min long, but weren't consistent in strength - and were getting stronger but still only in my lower back (nothing in my stomach area).

Not long after 5 am I called the team in (well, I think Dan did) so they wouldn't get stuck in morning traffic. So, I would assume my team started to arrive 1-by-1 between 6 -7am. Meanwhile, Sean was sleeping and eventually got up and got ready for school (his last day of summer camp actually). By the time he was ready to go, I was in the tub and he came in to give me a hug (which we got a picture of!). His "visit" timed pretty well because I was in between contractions, but I could feel another one coming on and tried to wrap it up before it started.

Over the next few hours labor was going alright, but it wasn't progressing as it should. At this point no one was really saying anything but I knew something was off - not bad - but off. I was in an out of the tub for a few hours. The contractions felt a lot better in the tub, but I had started to notice they were slowing down too. Again, while I knew it wasn't "right" it felt good to have those long breaks. I was really getting exhausted. When I was in the tub for this last time, my doula decided to comment that my contractions are slowing down. I said I noticed that too and she suggested I get out of the tub to get this moving.

By now the main birth team wasn't in the the bedroom anymore, it was only me, Dan, my doula, and the photographer. My midwife came in and said if I can't get things moving, she was going to kick me outside to do some weird stuff (and it was really hot outside that day). She asked a few times if I wanted a cervix check and I kept declining. To get thing moving we started all the weird things, started with pacing the house fast, that didn't seem to do much. She figured the baby maybe needed to be positioned over my cervix better, so for the next few contractions they had Dan put a rebozo under my belly and lift up while I leaned back (we were both standing). 1) this didn't seem to work 2) was extremely painful.

They had me labor in the captain morgen position and do a number of contractions on the toilet. Overall, not much improvement....I think at this point my contractions were almost 20min a part. My midwife asked again if I wanted my cervix checked and this time I said Yes.

It was probably around 10am, and she confirmed I was fully dilated and she could feel a bulging bag and little wiggling toes. Maybe for the next hour they had me do a whole bunch of squatting, but it wasn't working - just made me more tired.

This entire time I kept watching the clock and felt like I was going to have my baby around 1-2pm. While at the same time, it didn't make sense since I was also seemingly so close to being done.

Maybe around 11/11:30 I asked my midwife if she wanted to break my bag, and she said she wasn't opposed to that idea - so she did. Nothing new happened after that. Maybe around 1:00pm my midwife said, "it's time to have the hard talk" and she recommended we transfer to the hospital.

I very quickly agreed that it was the best idea. She wanted me to go down to Baylor (and she already called them). I didn't want to travel that far so she said Presby Allen was an option and I asked if they have good baby care and the team said Yes - So, we packed up and got in the car.


THE BIRTH
It was only a 15min car ride, but it was painful as my contractions started to pick up. By going to a hospital I knew I was conceding to a c-section, but at the same time I felt like that wasn't my path.

We arrived at the L&D door and mom and dad were already waiting outside. Some nurse wheeled me into an L&D room for triage to prep for a c-section. An OB showed up and said I could only have 3 people with me, so my midwife, my photographer, and Dan stayed and my doula stood outside of the room.

The next bit of information is from a mixture of my memory and what other people have told me:

They nurses were moving fast, but not too fast as I soon said "the baby is coming out" and I could hear (my eyes were closed) the tone in people's voice of disbelief, but they checked and sure enough, baby Dean was really on his way out now.

At this point, the shit was hitting the fan in terms of what the hospital thought. I guess the room wasn't prepped to actually be used for a delivery so they started pulling out furniture so they could put in more equipment and more people. What was an OB and 2 nurses, turned into the Entire L&D staff on that floor - the placed was packed.

I'm wailing pretty loud to get Dean out, but things are generally clam. They have me in the stirrups and the OB said she's never seen a breech baby this happy before. I was watching the clock and it kept approaching 2pm so I thought I still should have this baby soon.

I eventually pushed out two legs and a butt - but after that things took a turn. When they saw the 1st foot my midwife and the OB kept saying, that's a big foot. And I guess when the leg came out, the OB thought to herself, that's a big thigh. And eventually they asked how big my last baby was. Nobody knew, and I wasn't in a place to speak yet - but eventually I did. I know all those questions were pointing to a big baby.

The doc got her hand up in my birth canal to see what she could feel (while Dean was also in there) - the was pretty awful. And she had her hands wrapped around him the entire time and said he was slippery and needed a better grip.

My midwife suggested I push him out on my hands a knees (probably at some point before this), but the OB said no way.

When it came time to push out the shoulder, I hit a place I never knew existed. To say I felt pain was an understatement. There are no words to describe what I felt, but maybe "being split into 2" or "about to explode outward". I went from grunting and moaning to screaming. A type of scream I've never heard before and was closer to a "being murdered" scream then a being in labor scream. Once that started to happen, Dean's heart rate started to drop and the nurses said "your baby isn't happy anymore" and that I needed to stop screaming.

They put an O2 mask on me and told me to clam down and take slow breaths until a contraction came on and that I needed to stop making noise, hold my breath, grab both of my legs, and use all that energy to push him out.

I eventually got him out and he was born at 2:17pm. I looked down and had a hard time seeing him because there were millions of hands and arms in my way, but I saw the doc cut the cord and pass Dean over me to another team of doctors. No one said anything at this point, but what I saw was a limp baby and never heard a cry.

As the OB stitched me up, a team of docs worked on Dean. At one point the OB hesitantly asked the team if the baby's heart was beating and they said Yes. Still no cries though. Dan stayed by my side but kept an eye on Dean (who didn't have a name at this point). He said he could see him moving and eventually heard a cough.

Based on the hospital discharge notes, it took about 10 min to get him stable enough to transfer to the NICU, but once they did, he was brought over to me so I could see him. Even at that point he looked good to me! They dropped the side of his bed so I could see him better and touch him a little bit. Then they took him out. I don't remember it, but I guess his first cry was in front of me as they were taking off the c-pap.

After this chaos - All the millions of people left, Dean and Dan went to the NICU, and my doula came back in. My midwife was the 1st to leave (to get to another mom). I called my parents (who were at Cracker Barrel) to come back and bring food. By the time they got there, my doula left and Dan was back - and my photographer were there. She stayed a little longer to try to get some photos of Dean in the NICU. Eventually she was able to and left, and mom and dad left too so they could pick Sean up from school/camp.

I was in that room for almost 3 hours, and since it was small and not prepped they moved me to a regular L&D&R room. I don't remember how it worked, but they brought Sean back while I was still in the first room, so he could visit. At that time, I told him he had a baby brother and he wiped his forehead and said "few".

THE RECOVERY
At about 2 hours old, I finally got a good look at my son, but it was via Facetime. Dean was crying and Bright red and Covered in machines.
He was about 4 hours old before I could see him in person and it wasn't until the next day that I could even hold him (Friday).

I didn't want to name him until I could hold him without the machines and without his hat. So he was labeled in the hospital as "Stach Boy", but we eventually hurried up on a name because the lady who starts the paperwork for the birth certificate needed a name for him. Getting his first name was pretty easy, but coming up with a middle name was much harder.

I was discharged from the hospital by late Friday afternoon, but we were able to room-in the same room for "free" while Dean was still in the NICU. So, we ran home for a few hours to eat and freshen up. By Saturday morning they let Dean room-in with us and put him in our care but they would keep checking back in. They said they just wanted him in our room for overnight observations. I agreed and thought we would easily be home by Sunday morning. When there was no sign of letting us go, I started to make a fuss. Basically a combo of demanding action and crying. By late Sunday afternoon, we were all home. Just in time to get Sean ready for kindergarten on Monday!

39 Weeks

Well, the home-birth is on and I've told everyone I can think of (Doula, Photographer, Parents, Kate, Ashely). I think non-birth team members are a little hesitant, but I'm mostly being met with support - which is really nice.
I even posted my switch to a home-birth at 38 and weeks in my crunchy mom's group and received comments that "you're an inspiration" and lots of contracts :)

This switch has required us to buy a lot more stuff and my nesting has been kicked into high-gear.

Mom and Dad arrived yesterday. I doesn't yet seem as hectic as I thought...and mom even commented that I look a lot calmer than the last time she saw me!

I have my 2nd prenatal apt with my new midwife scheduled for next wednesday. At that appointment I'll hand in my paperwork and payment.

This midwife even has a separate waiver to sign just for breech births. It mentions she will only do frank breech births (which is what Sean's birth was listed at), but this baby is sort of an incomplete/footling breech. She's done one before and it ready to do it again.

She asked me if I can be filmed and used as a training video - I don't want that. Dan's been trying to push me to do it, which I think is rude, but I'm holding my ground here and not allowing filming.

Sean mentioned to me that the way we have been acting lately makes him feel like we don't love him anymore. It's extremely hard to hear, but at the same time I'm glad he's able to voice that to us.

38.4

It's been such a crazy start to the 38th week, I nearly didn't have time/forgot to blog! I also realized I forgot to take my 38 week pic.

The simplest thing to talk about is that yesterday I woke up with bad arthritis in my left hand and couldn't make a proper fist all day. Today I have arthritis in both hands (all in my knuckles) and it's hard to even use my left hand fully.

Ok, now the crazy stuff. The day before my 38th week, I went to the chiropractor and she said she's nearly 99% sure the baby flipped to breech. She wanted me to tell my midwife, but I didn't want to tell anyone. I just wanted to see what happens. So, the next day I had my regular checkup with my midwife and I walk into the room and an ultrasound machine is waiting for me..... I asked why and she goes "don't you remember, we talked about doing this". No, we said if you found the baby was breech a few weeks ago, we would start to monitor - but they weren't. So I'm assuming my chiro messaged my midwife and gave her a head's up.
Well, the ultrasound very clearly showed that fire-baby was/is breech. I just started crying. My midwive had a list of names ready of OBs in the area that do vaginal breech births and she hinted at that there is a midwife that will also do vaginal breech births.

The options that were presented to me were:

• Stay with current midwife:
• Have a scheduled c-section
• Come into the hospital crowning and have a vaginal birth
• Try to flip the with an EVC
• Go to one of 3 male OBs that do vaginal breech births
• Go to the new midwife

I cried a lot more and further discussed my options. At the end of the appointment, she basically tried an EVC and the baby wasn't budging. So we are assuming that scheduling a full one wouldn't turn out much better.

I had originally planned on going back to work, but after the news I decided to take the day off - plus after the EVC I assumed I would be pretty sore (which I was!). I ended up going home and making a few phone calls to get the ball rolling on moving to a new practitioner.

The OB's office I called was a typically OB office - so F them.

I had a nice conversation with the midwife and luckily my midwife called her earlier and gave her a heads-up. She seamed very confidant and easy to talk to. So, I was able to scheduled an appointment with her the next morning - in which we basically did a consult.

Dan and I decided we want to go with the midwife, but nothing is final right now - we are influx. And while I originally wanted to go into labor this weekend, I now hope I wait longer until we get this all sorted out!

I had an ultrasound on Friday morning to determine the exact position of the baby, the cord, and the placenta. That information needs to make its way to the new midwife (which is hasn't) so she can confirm that she can take my case. But based on my consult everything looks good.

In all of this, I've been trying to keep in touch with both midwives and keep my doula, photographer, and Kate in the loop on the changes! That's been a lot to juggle - and a hard switch from when just a few days ago I thought I was at the point of just costing into the finish line. 

Another change is that even though this midwife will do a vaginal breech birth, since she doesn't have hospital privileges, and no birth center around me will take my case, I will have to do a home birth! Which is crazy since that's what we originally wanted! But now I'm nesting at full blast since the birth and birth photos will be here!

37 Weeks

I started on Heparin last week. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. The needles are far less painful and as long as I go slow, the medication doesn't sting. I'm also not noticing any major bruising yet from heparin. I still am healing from my large lovenox bruises.

We finished out pediatrician meet n greets - I'm glad we did this because we ended up going with the person I didn't think I would originally want!

I started drinking "3rd trimester tea" and eating dates. I'm supposed to have about 3 cups a day, but I'm only doing 1 and I'm supposed to eat 6 dates per day, but at best I'm eating 4. I made the dates into date balls - but they still aren't that great to eat. Once I'm out of both, I think I will stop.

My acupuncturist insisted AGAIN that I take magnesium. He gave me a specific type to try from Costco, so I've started those. Surprisingly, I haven't had any issues. But I've decided to only take 1 every other day.

There's been a lot of changes in my body this past week. Things are a lot more tender, sore, achy, popping, Lots of cramps.

My midwife told me just yesterday that the other midwife I've been working with is on vacation all of next week! The main midwife will also be out of pocked for about 4 hours next saturday so if I went into labor then, I would need to be handled by the backup! How bogus. All of a sudden she thinks it's not likely that I will go into labor then, but that's Exactly the time-frame I was planning/envisioning on going into labor. I told my doula too so that she know and she thinks it's bogus too.

I thought for sure I was going to get away with out getting the dark line on my belly...well, it just appeared in the last few days! I thought for sure if I didn't have it now I wouldn't get it. But it is pretty faint and thin.

36 Weeks

It's getting harder to breath, which is weird because the baby dropped probably a few weeks ago. It's also crazy hot outside right now (heat indexes over 100); I tried to walk around the block the other day and I might have gotten a bit of heat stroke??? I couldn't make it all the way around the block and and a few times I felt like I was going to puke. It took me the rest of the day to recover but when we got back in the house Dan help me put ice packs under my armpits and behind my neck. It help mostly.

I had my final meeting with my doula. It went well, but also I can't think of anything of note to talk about.

My arthritis has started and my carpal tunnel has returned. Looking back at my old blog from being pregnant with Sean, this started closer to 37 weeks.

I had my 36 week apt yesterday and it was mostly all the NST. They caught one "good" contraction on the chart and the baby was moving around like crazy. Both midwives seems to be very surprised at the amount of activity - and from my point of view, it was a lot but also not a lot compared to how they move in the evening!
They want to keep doing the test every week but I think I will be declining them unless I start to feel some concern. Fire baby doesn't like the test and each one is an additional $150 per visit.
At the end of my appointment my midwife looks at my stomach an says "you can come anytime you want now"

Later that day I had a chiropractic appointment and she started pushing on the back of my pelvis (right above my tail bone) and it was tender - which is normally isn't. She said my body is getting ready to have this baby anytime now as my hips are loosening up. She could tell b/c my pelvis was springy. She said it was the relaxin, but I thought that was a little bit weird since everything you read says I start releasing relaxin pretty much since day one and I've even seen one place say it peaks around 15 weeks!
I told her (before she told me this information) that I was hoping to have the baby before 39 weeks and she told me I won't be waiting that long. She kinds joked at the end of the appointment that she might not even see me for my appointment next week!

35 Weeks

The swelling has really started. Mostly in my feet, toes, and ankles, but I've also noticed a bit in my fingers. I remember from reading an old blog post that near the end of my pregnancy with Sean I started to get arthritic in my hands. I don't feel I'm there yet, but I do occasionally notice some stiffness.

The leg cramps are getting sooo bad!

I finished my visual birth plan. It looks pretty good. I paid someone $19 to do it - totally worth it. I just hope it holds up - that I stand up for what I want.

I think baby has been head-down for about a week now, but I feel like in the last 2 days they are transverse again. No confirmation though - just hoping they get head-down and stay there by next week (for my next apt).

34 weeks!

I'm still pretty sure baby is head-down - so that's good. I have an appointment today, so hopefully that will be verified soon. Along those lines, I've noticed that since the baby has been head-down my cramping and BH seemed to have increased with frequency.

My emotions have also been running high again - I get mad really easily and for a while I've felt like I've needed to hibernate, but I'm also conflicted b/c I'm worried about losing touch with my friends if I do that, plus the time lost when the baby is here. So I'm trying to make an effort to stay in touch and see people, but it's sooooooo hard.

I can't believe that I'm only 6 weeks away from being full-term! I don't remember anymore what made me look into it, but I found out today that just after Sean was born (late 2013) "they" changed the definition of full-term from 37 weeks to 39 weeks! I had no idea, but I like the change - hopefully it will encourage doctors to not be so pushy to induce or schedule c-sections until at least 39 weeks.

Sleeping is getting so much worse - my charlie horses are back my arms are going numb more frequently and my hips are always hurting

As part of my effort to turn the baby and/or keep them head-down, I've stopped sitting on our couch at all. That has been really exhausting - not having a place to relax is causing my body to get tired really quick, so much so I'm worried I'm already tiring it out too much before birth.
I found a way to sort of alleviate that - I sit on the floor now, facing the couch and put a huge pile of blankets in front of me and then lean over on that. It works for my back, but is rough on the lower 1/2 of my body. However, the best part of it is that Sean has been coming up and giving me big hugs when I do that and tucking me in with his Fuzz :).

Not sure if I mentioned it in a previous blog, but mom and dad are well on their way to moving here by the time the baby arrives! It's all happened to fast - they are moving quickly on figuring out movers and getting rid of stuff, but are currently in a state of waiting for the results of the inspection on the sale of their house and the closing of the buyers house. I'm assuming by the end of this week, it should all be official. They are scheduled to close on their house 7/31, but they plan to be in texas by then.

I had my 1st official meeting with my doula the other day and dan finally go to meet her too. The meeting started off a little awkward, but ended up being very good. I still like here, and she had a lot of knowledge of how hospital births work, so that was helpful. We spend most of the time (1.5 hours) discussing the details of my birth plan. Now I just need to put it all together.