Meg’s Birth Story #2
April 25, 2021
Two for One Midwives and a Golden Hour Redemption Story
Postpartum & Pregnant
The story of my second daughter really starts way back at my six-week postpartum midwife appointment after my first pregnancy. My husband and I knew we wanted to have our children relatively close together, so I made sure to ask how long we had to wait in order to safely conceive again. While 18 months would’ve been ideal, she let me know that 12 months would still be ok if that’s what I wanted. Fast forward 6 months to our daughter sleeping well at night, moving out of our room, and my baby fever returning. We cast the caution to the wind thinking it would take us many months to conceive just like the last time. Spoiler alert: it didn’t take many months. I was 7 months postpartum and about to take on another pregnancy followed by raising two children under two years old. We were thrilled, but also apprehensive. Turns out my body just really doesn’t like being pregnant and the first miserable experience wasn’t a fluke. Despite extensive chiropractic work, I was exhausted, sick, in pain, and trudging through life with a rambunctious one year old for my entire pregnancy. Here’s a photo of me about 8 months pregnant – a photo I only asked for because I realized I didn’t have any photos of my belly this time. The proof of mom photos were also few and far between because while she was at the park with dad, I was laid up on the couch most days. In this instance, thank goodness for pandemics and shutdowns that allowed my husband to work from home. I wouldn’t have made it through otherwise.
37 Weeks and READY
On the day of my 37 week prenatal appointment with my midwives, I had been contracting on and off for a few hours. They didn’t feel like Braxton Hicks, which I was very used to since I nursed my toddler throughout the pregnancy and had them very often as a result. While at that visit, the midwife saw and felt my belly tighten for several contractions and offered me a cervical exam. I consented and found out that I was 1cm dilated. I drove home thinking I should pack my bags. I was so excited to be finished with this pregnancy and meet her so I was more than thrilled to let her make her entrance a few weeks early.
False Alarm Again…and Again…and Again
I knew for most of my third trimester that this baby was OP, or sunny side up, just like the last one. I did all that I could to get her to turn the right way from chiropractic adjustments to Spinning Babies exercises. I also knew that her suboptimal positioning might cause me to experience prodromal labor and back labor again when we got close. Unfortunately, I never got her to turn around and I experienced both in excess. I had steady, timeable, painful contractions almost every night from that 37 week appointment on. It was utterly exhausting, because they would fizzle out around 7am each morning just in time for my daughter to wake up and start her day. I begged this baby to come out, but she stayed cozy until 40 weeks and 4 days.
0100 Active Labor Begins…I Think?
I had spent most nights for the last few weeks on the couch downstairs so my husband could sleep. We were both really tired of taking the “just in case its time” shower and putting the bags by the door almost every night and then waking up the next morning and shaking our heads in disappointment. The night true labor began just felt different, though. I chose to stay on the couch again, but I seemed noticeably more uncomfortable (if that’s possible) than usual. My husband offered to put my favorite calming blend in the diffuser next to my head and went upstairs around 10pm. By 1am I was feeling the same contractions I always did, but somehow I knew these were different. The midwives had told me that I would “just know” and I truly didn’t believe them until that moment. I waddled up the stairs and woke up my husband. I expected him to say something like “are you really sure this time”, but he didn’t. With all the middle of the night sweetness he could muster he responded with a sleepy “ok” and got right up and started packing. Within a few minutes I was on all fours rocking and swaying through every contraction. They were 2-3 minutes apart. We decided to call my mom over to stay with my daughter. She lives only a mile away and I told her I still wasn’t positive it was time, but wanted her here just in case things went fast and we needed to run out the door. The midwives had warned me that if at any point she turned anterior, I might not experience the same level of pain that I did the first time with back labor. They explained that it might be easy for me to doubt that this was active labor if I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected to be. Knowing that in the back of my mind, I tried to listen to my body and decide if it was time to go to the hospital. We decided to call the midwife on call and talk it through. My husband us to leave immediately, and I was afraid it was too early. I was frustrated with my body because this was my second labor and I thought I should be more confident in what my body was (or wasn’t) doing. When the phone stopped ringing and the midwife answered “Hi, its Lisa”, my heart jumped and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as another contraction came and went. If you haven’t read my first birth story, go back and check it out here. If you have, you’ll know this was the same midwife who caught my first daughter on her day off and held a special place in my heart. We talked it through and decided to start working our way out the door and towards the hospital.
0300 Hospital Arrival
I got settled in the hospital much the same as the first time around. People ask me all the time how I felt about arriving to the hospital to have a baby in a mask, but I really can’t say that I thought much of it. I walked into work through the same doors in the same mask every day anyway and I didn’t think twice about it being different this time. After a quick visit to triage for a cervical check and signing consents, I was found to be 3cm dilated. I was a little shocked that I wasn’t further along, but I had been here before – too tense and exhausted from weeks of sleep deprivation to cope well with pain and let myself progress. Lisa immediately agreed to admit me anyway and I got settled in my labor room in much the same was as the last time. A warm welcome from the staff, lots of help getting hooked up to everything I needed and hands on support from my husband and midwife, who never left my side again. I waited about an hour for my epidural this time and worked through contractions on a labor ball in the meantime. I didn’t have quite the same amazing anesthesiologist experience I did the first time, which I was disappointed by. I knew this physician as a colleague and knew that his bedside manner left a lot to be desired. I was also not pleased with how much longer and more painful it was than the last time. To this day, if I bend in just the right way, I can still feel the spot where that epidural catheter was placed and its bothers me here and there. Eventually, the catheter was placed and I began to relax and feel better. Before finally leaving my room, Lisa told me it didn’t look promising that I’d delivery before the end of her shift at 0800 and that her relief for the rest of the day was JoAnn, another wonderful midwife from the practice. Although it would’ve been amazing to have Lisa catch both of my babies, I was happy knowing that I would be in good hands with JoAnn later that day.
A Busy Morning
From the time I was admitted at the hospital to the end of the night nurse’s shift, she stayed in my room. My daughter was difficult to keep on the monitor and she was having some heart decelerations on the monitor when they could find her. As much as I would’ve liked to have been sleeping, I found myself making small talk for several hours while she sat on a stool next to my bed for her entire shift. She was a kind and perfectly wonderful nurse, I just wished I was able to get some rest. At 0700, my husband planned to wait for the nurses shift change to end and then head down to the hospital coffee shop for some breakfast. We figured she would come in to say hello and perhaps do a cervical exam at that point and he wanted to be there for that. I had started feeling some rectal pressure a little bit prior and expected to be quite a bit further along that when I was admitted. My day nurse didn’t come in until nearly 0800 because she was assigned another mom next door to me who was ready to push when she arrived. Understandably, she tended to her first. When she finally arrived to say hello, she asked if she could empty my bladder, which hadn’t been done since I left the house at 3am. I agreed, and told my husband that it would be a good time to go get his breakfast and that he didn’t need to stick around and watch me get catheterized. My nurse left the room to go gather supplies for the catheter and when she returned to empty my bladder, she noted that I had a bulging bag of waters clearly visible between my legs. She suspected that my full bladder might be the only thing holding the baby in at that point and she didn’t want to use the catheter or check my cervix until my midwife was at the bedside just in case. We called JoAnn and waited a few more minutes and my husband returned with coffee and breakfast in the meantime. I got him up to speed and his immediate response was “ok I guess I’m not going to get to eat this then” and set everything down on the tray table. I giggled and was feeling great because I was finally about to meet this baby and not be pregnant anymore.
Baby Time!
When the door to my room opened next, JoAnn AND Lisa walked in the room. Again, I was shocked and excited to see them both! They were in the middle of switching off when my nurse called them, so they decided to come together. JoAnn made a remark that they didn’t get to attend births together often anymore and it was a special treat to do so. My nurse then finally emptied my bladder, my water immediately broke, and it was go time. With my nurse on one side, Lisa on the other, JoAnn at my feet, and my husband behind my head for moral support, we began pushing. Yes, I pushed the entire time in my mask and again, I didn’t even think to do otherwise. I hardly noticed it and it truly wasn’t as terrible as you might expect. I have a habit of always putting a few drops of essential oil in my masks, which may have helped my comfort level. On this day, it was a eucalyptus blend to help me breathe. The midwives offered to let my husband catch her, but he declined (he regrets that now). About 20 minutes later my daughter was crowning, direct OP, and thrashing her head against my pubic bone. There isn’t an epidural in the world that could’ve saved me from that horrific feeling and in one more frantic push to make it stop, Madelyn was born at 8:34am.
She let out a quick little shriek, then promptly fell back to sleep on my chest. JoAnn tried to convince me that she had given me “all the hell she was going to” now that she had finished out the world’s most miserable pregnancy with thrashing her way through my pelvis and settling peacefully on my chest. I can tell you over a year later her favorite way to wake me up in the morning is still with a swift little headbutt. I got the perfect “Golden Hour” this time around and for two hours, she never left my chest – not even for a diaper, which I suppose makes me brave😉. Eventually she was taken to the warmer next to me for a weight and a small assessment. At 8lbs 4oz, she was my peanut. She had some significant bruising on her forehead from the sunny side up position she arrived in. You can tell that she had her brow furrowed when she was head banging her way out by the stripe pattern of the bruises. We started breastfeeding right away and were quite successful. Stay tuned for my postpartum story that includes how I navigated feeding a newborn a full milk supply (I was still nursing my toddler). There’s a lot of spit up in that story.
In summary, I don’t feel like too much of this birth was “eventful”. Sure it happened during a pandemic, but my memories have never really emphasized that detail. She came exactly when she was supposed to. Maddie taught me an enormous lesson in patience and perfect timing. When I was writing this story, I didn’t feel like there were as many exciting details, but it was nevertheless perfect. The events of her birth make me smile because she arrived so perfectly in line with her personality-yelling and headbutting until someone holds her, then quiet as a mouse. 😊
Everyone’s birth story and experience is their own. We wanted to share this with you to share a part of ourselves. Nothing in this birth story or our future birth stories is the “right" or “wrong” way, just the way it happened.
Your postpartum nurses Meg and Carly here to prepare you for postpartum and beyond. We want to make sure you have the education you need to care for your own healing body after birth, not just your baby.
Postpartum prep courses occurring virtually and regularly intended to be taken during pregnancy are now open for registration. Our return to work support group is pay what you can and supports that tough back to work transition. Then join us in our online community for the growth, support and empowerment to continue <3
