Emelia’s birth story: Part 2

Catch up on these posts here first if you missed any part of the birth story:

34 Weeks: Preeclampsia

34w5d: I get a cervical dilation

Introducing…

Emelia’s birth story: Part 1

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OK, so where did I leave off? Water breaking. Yes. Let me first preface something. I’ve written on here that a VBAC was my ultimate goal. I was certainly not opposed to a C-section if it was medically necessary.

Let me say that again.

I was certainly not opposed to a C-section if it was medically necessary. 

Here are my thoughts. I had a C-section with Olivia. I have friends who had one. Friends who chose one. Friends who chose to have a repeat C-section (RCS). That was a choice they made that was right for them. Here’s what was right for me: I wanted a VBAC. I had a CS and my recovery was rough. Chris was helping me out of bed during the night for feedings a few weeks afterward. I was on pain meds for a few weeks coming home. I was in pain. It took me a good six months to feel more normal again and I still have numbness around my scar. Unless it was medically necessary, I didn’t want another CS. And a RCS because I already had one is not medically necessary. Hence why I sought out Dr. Unicorn for my delivery.

In the days leading up to my delivery, I received comments and private messages telling me a RCS isn’t a bad thing, a healthy mom and baby are the most important things, to not be a hero.

To which I replied—this is the healthiest thing for both Emelia and myself. It’s the safest option. I get it. Again, I’ve had a CS. I wasn’t going to fight another one and if my doctor said I needed one, I would know I truly did need one.

I think the biggest thing motivating me to get this VBAC was Emelia. Because she was going to go to the NICU and they can’t roll a hospital bed back there because there just wasn’t space. And major surgery meant a longer time I’d have to be in bed before I could get up to see her. So you see, I had a huge motivating factor besides just needing to recover as fast as possible to care for a NICU baby.

So. C-section. Medically necessary. There you go. Let’s continue on.

Sunday, October 6th

He broke my water around 1:30 am. I’m not great at the timeline of events because when I say my eyes were closed almost the entire time, I mean it. Luckily, my doula took notes. I was 6 cm dilated, 100% effaced.

I remember the waves starting pretty quickly after that. Hard and intense. This would be active labor. In hindsight, I wish I would have called my doula earlier. I wish I wouldn’t have gone off what my nurse suggested and called her two hours before when things were really picking up.

I wasn’t for sure how I would be during my birthing time (Hypnobabies term for labor). I thought for sure I probably wasn’t going to be all vocal and hollary. Turns out, I was wrong. I “oooo”-ed and “ahhhh”-ed my way through the waves—loudly—and didn’t care who was listening. I couldn’t concentrate on my hypnosis. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, period. In fact, I thought I was failing entirely at this whole Hypnobabies thing in general. In the class, the women showcased were at peace. They had some “discomfort.” Some had blissful looks on their faces as they lounged in a birthing pool, their hair flowing around them like some sort of beautiful goddess. My vagina was supposed to open like a flower. I was supposed to focus on my “wonderful powerful birthing waves.” I was supposed to smile in between waves because I was going to meet my baby soon.

What I was actually thinking was:

Fuck this. 

Fuck Hypnobabies. 

I want an epidural. 

I’m done. 

OK, so things were intense. The nurses never asked me for something for pain. We had talked about options prior and I knew I could try some morphine or possibly nitrous. But no one asked me, like I requested.

And so I never voiced it.

I actually remember sitting on the toilet, eyes closed, moaning my way through a wave ripping its way through my body, focusing on my hypnoanesthesia, breathing my “Peace” cue, and thinking: I want an epidural. This is why women get epidurals. I want one. Now.

And I never said it out loud. I think because when the wave ended and I had a moment of relief, I was just so grateful for not feeling the intensity that I just didn’t say it.

Plus, there was a part of me seriously panicking inside that I was going to lose it entirely. So keeping my eyes shut, swaying or gripping the sheets, moaning or “oooo”-ing was helping me hold it together.

Chris at one point pressed his hand into my forehead and starting talking through his script. We had practiced it probably three times at home—a hypnosis that he led, something that would keep me focused. We didn’t do it that much prior so he quickly ran out of things to say, so he just kept repeating himself, over and over. For maybe 45 minutes? I told him later how much I needed that, while we waited for Aileen to get there.

I remember when the back labor hit. He was in the middle of talking to me and I felt it and knew exactly what it was.

“Call the nurse,” I gasped to him when the wave was over, “I’m having back labor.” I knew we were supposed to do something for this, but I couldn’t remember what. She came and told him how to press into the sides of my hips. It helped and thankfully didn’t last long.

“It’s the baby getting into position, Risa,” she told me.

Aileen came at 3:10. I guess her exit was blocked and it took her much much longer to get there than she wanted. She breezed in, took her coat off, whipped out her phone, and started a hypnosis script.

I kept telling her in between waves: “I want a break. I just need a break.” I’m guessing my waves were coming 30 seconds apart and lasting about 90 seconds. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sustain much more of this.

By 3:45 am (apparently—thank you, Aileen, for keeping track) things changed. I had a wave. And then another. And then—on the next one, my body puuuushed. My sounds I was making changed. I still had my eyes shut. The next one hit and I felt like I had to poop. And my body puuuuushed again.

“My body is pushing!” I gasped obviously.

Then, “I have to pee.”

What was with the peeing? I don’t know. The nurse had come in and Aileen told her I was starting to sound different. I stood up and clawed at Chris as another wave hit me.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” I heaved again, totally feeling like I was going to push this baby out onto the floor.

Suddenly, my doctor was in the room (apparently, this was 4 am).

“She has to go to the bathroom,” someone announced.

“We should check her before she goes to the bathroom,” someone else said.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” That was me.

He said I should get back into bed because he didn’t want me to have a baby in the toilet. It’s funny, because through this, no one I think actually talked directly to me because I was too busy wailing to myself.

He did a quick check and said I was complete, the baby was right there and it was time.

There was a flurry of activity. I was hollering and pushing, the bed was being broken down, and there was noise. People came in and the NICU team was there in the corner. My legs went in stirrups and I was reclined back. Then the waves seem to stop.

Oh no, I thought, what if this position changed just stalled everything out?

But my body was bound and determined to do this with or without my help and another one came. My body pushed.

My doctor waited for another wave, looking at the monitor. This was all up to me.

Another wave hit. I screamed, my head thrown back.

“Push, push, push, push,” he said gently. I took another breath and screamed again as my body pushed.

I pushed again. They told me to reach down and feel her head. I felt between my legs and touched the hardness of her skull, probably a silver dollar-sized area.

I pushed again, screaming. But hey, I was told later I didn’t hold my breath, exactly what I was supposed to do.

I still had my eyes shut. I felt another one coming.

“Push, push, push, push,” he said again, gently. Someone told me to tuck my chin to my chest. I thought I was going to rip open. I screamed harder than I felt I ever did and when I ran out of breath, my body just kept pushing so I took another breath and screamed again.

Chris said she popped out of me like a cork.

“You know how the doctor catches the baby?” he told me later. “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. She flew out of you and he literally caught her in his arms.”

4:14 am. She was here. I was gasping, like what the actual fuck was that?

I couldn’t see her face right away until someone turned her. The neonatal nurse practitioner was there, checking her. My doctor waited until her cord stopped pulsing. She was tiny, but she cried coming out. Chris cut the cord.

My doctor gave me a shot to numb me and I shrieked and then apologized to everyone for shrieking.

When it was time to deliver the placenta, Aileen said in my ear, “It’s time for the placenta to come out. Thank it for everything it’s done to grow your baby, say goodbye to it and release it.”

I shut my eyes, and breathed a thank you, feeling it slide out of me like a huge blob, which I guess it pretty much was.

I don’t know how long I held her. Chris was crying. My throat was hoarse. I held her. They said she was floppy and they needed to take her away. And then she was gone and my doctor was stitching me up. I had some second-degree tears, but he said it wasn’t bad.

Chris went to the warmer and my doula stayed by my side. I watched from across the room them assessing her. She was really still. One of them took out some oxygen and put the smallest mask on her face. I watched her from the other side and felt my mind close down. Later on, I would analyze that moment and determine that it was so awful to see that my mind shut off from feeling anything about it.

“She’s OK,” my doula said quietly next to my ear. “She just needs some help breathing.” I don’t know what I would have done without her.

They said they needed to take her to the NICU. I nodded and Chris left with her. I didn’t even know how much she weighed. The nurse had to look it up for me later.

She was 5 lbs 15 oz and 18.7 inches long. Her head was 12.8 inches. The NICU is really precise in their measurements.

Then it was just my nurse and doula in the room. I got an ice pack between my legs.

“You got your VBAC, girl,” Aileen said, “And she got back all of her blood.” That was the first time I cried. I told her a bit later that I felt like I completely failed at Hypnobabies. She told me I did amazing. I did everything right. This was a tool I used.

So. If being successful at Hypnobabies means screaming your head off the entire time… then I rocked it.

She showed me my placenta and got a photo of it.

Sometime later, another nurse came and I got up for the first time. It was awkward. There was a lot of pressure and things leaking out of me. I shuffled to the bathroom and when I came back and got back into bed they asked how I was doing.

“Still better than my C-section,” I groaned, shifting to the side and trying to avoid sitting directly on the stitches.

Aileen showed me the photos she took. I forgot to even ask her to take pictures, so I’m so glad for the hasty ones she took.

“That was the most intense thing I ever did in my life,” I told her.

After she left, my nurse helped me hand express colostrum and I got about 8 mls. “You’re not going to get this much next time,” she said, “This happens immediately after birth.” She had someone walk it down to the NICU. It made me feel better knowing I couldn’t be with Emelia, but I could give her this.

I had to look back on my text messages with Chris for the timeline of this, but I texted him at 6:40 am to tell him I was cleaned up and I needed to rest until 7:15 when they do bedside report and then I could come to the NICU.

But then my blood pressure was high and it was about 40 minutes until it came down enough with medication before I could get wheeled down to see her. That was rough. And frustrating.

To be continued…