When one door closes, a window opens: Our owner shares about her 1st birth.

Today, I want to take you all the way back to the year 1997…yes, you read that right. I found out in November of 1997 that I was expecting my firstborn. I was so excited! I had just been married a month and a half earlier and moved to a new state and all I had wanted since I was a young girl was to get married and start a family. 

I took a test early on a Sunday morning because my period was late. We were shocked and excited to have gotten pregnant so soon. 

I had no real bad symptoms or morning sickness over the next few months. I just remember feeling really tired, extra hungry at times and struggling a bit with the smells of certain foods. 

I was not a doula at this point but had attended a few births of family and close friends. I knew enough information to know that I didn’t want just anyone to support me in my pregnancy and birth. 

We made a lot of calls, visited obs and midwives and settled on a midwife that lived about an hour from us in Iowa. She attended births at home and in a hospital near her home. Once we found her, we planned on a home birth and we were so excited. We fully trusted that my body was made to do this and that we would have all the support we needed, and a beautiful home birth. 

We found out at 20 weeks that we were having a boy. Everything looked normal and he was growing well. We found a great local doula and hired her for our birth and also for childbirth education. I read a lot of books to prepare as well. 

With an estimated due date of July 12th, I didn’t expect to have a baby until later in July since I had read and been told that first babies typically come a bit late…usually a week or 2 past your due date. I felt very prepared. I had all my home birth supplies purchased and organized, newborn supplies, meals prepped, etc. 

My Mom arrived from CA. to stay with us for about a month and help out. She got to our home on the evening of July 2nd. The next day I started having some cramping and lost my mucus plug. I was excited but knew this didn’t necessarily mean that I would go into labor that day. 

We did some shopping that we needed to do before the baby came  and things seemed to chill out.

On Friday afternoon, we had a visit with my midwife. This time we went to see her at her office, about an hour away from our house. I asked her if she could do a cervical exam since I’d been having so much cramping going on and she did. In hindsight, I wish I would not have done that. I was 1cm dilated. 

We grabbed some dinner before heading back to our house. On the drive home I felt very uncomfortable all of a sudden, and laid down and stretched out in the backseat. Suddenly I felt a pop and my water broke. When I say it broke, I mean the floodgates opened. There was fluid everywhere and I felt a huge relief. (It’s possible that the very uncomfortable cervical exam contributed to my water breaking) 

We got home soon after and water continued to gush out. Not much more happened and I let my midwife know what was going on. 

We planned to settle in for a night of sleep and hope that things would happen overnight. But by about 10 o’clock at night, I started having contractions.

Contractions continued through the night and into Saturday, anywhere from 5-10minutes apart. These were accompanied by back labor. I had nothing to compare it to, but it was pretty rough. My Midwife came sometime on Saturday morning and hung out, as well as my Doula.  My husband was right with me through it all and was a rock. Having extra support (my doula and Mom) was so vital! Especially since my labor was so long. My husband was able to go to another part of the house and rest a couple of times throughout.

We did all the things- positioning wise to try to help alleviate the back labor. All fours, side-lying, Inversions, you name it. Later, I realized they were doing this because baby’s position was most likely an issue since I was having so much back labor.

I also ate, stayed hydrated, rested when I could , showered, walked, listened to music, sat on the birth ball, played frisbee etc.

I did not get checked a lot, but I was progressing nicely and well into active labor by the middle of the day on Saturday.

Baby boy was getting monitored and everything looked good. We did have an OB at the hospital that knew our situation and that we were using a Midwife and he was on standby just in case we had to go into the hospital for any reason. We let him know what was going on as well.

Saturday night overnight, we walked/curb walked and did many things-nipple stimulation, relaxation, you name it. Late into the night Saturday my midwife checked me again and I was 9 cm. They started to get things ready first delivery and I was super encouraged.

By Sunday morning, though, I still had not made any progress as far as feeling the need to push or anything like that. And the baby’s heart rate was not looking as stellar as it was earlier. He was clearly getting exhausted and so was I.

At about 5 AM Sunday morning, my midwife checked me. I was still 9 cm but she tried to get me to push to see if I could stretch to 10cm; this was extremely painful. I believe I kicked her at this point. Once that was done, we had a conversation. She told me she could give me an IV of fluids to help me have a little more energy, but she didn’t feel like that was the issue as I’d been drinking and staying well hydrated. She said what concerned her the most is that when she would go to touch his head he was not engaged yet in my pelvis and he would just float up. Because his heart rate was not looking as great as before,  she was concerned that there was some kind of issue with the cord or something. 

At this point, I was exhausted and I felt like my best option was to go to the hospital because I was feeling like I was probably going to need a C-section. She didn’t say that, but it was just where my mind went.

We arrived at the hospital around 9 AM on Sunday morning, July 5th. They gave me some IV pain meds to see if that would help my body relax and just get through that last centimeter. I was on all fours which I had done at home many times throughout the last couple of days. They checked me again an hour or two later and still no change. At this point, they called for the anesthesiologist to get me an epidural and we were going to start prepping for a C-section.

I was disappointed but, I felt like it was the only way to get him here safely and I was so ready to meet him.

Everything went well during the C-section. He was born 7 lbs. 4 oz., midday of July 5th and needed a little bit of oxygen right after birth. I was able to see him right away but at that time, I did not get to hold him until we were in recovery. 

My midwife was able to be in the OR and observe the delivery. She told me later that he would not have been able to be born vaginally. His umbilical cord was shorter than normal and it was wrapped around his body and his neck twice. The umbilical cord is made to stretch so that isn’t usually an issue. However, with a shortened cord it just wasn’t happening for us. 

The realization that I did all the “right” things as far as prepping, hiring the right people, etc. and still ending up in a C-section was a tough pill to swallow. Ultimately, it has helped me to realize that we must hold our plans loosely as we never know what labor will be like for this baby/this pregnancy. It took some time for me to process all this. I do believe that it has helped me to be a better doula…. understanding all of this through my own experiences. 

Later, in my early days of postpartum when I was sad about having to have a C-section, I felt better about it realizing that 100 years ago our outcome would not have been so good. I really do believe that this was God’s plan for Carver’s birth as hard as it was. I still think that all the prep I did helped me, even though this birth ended in a surgical birth. My midwife told me that her view of a C-section was that “when God closes a door (vaginal birth), he opens a window (surgical birth). This sounds cliche but it did bring me comfort. 

I’m so happy to say that this sweet “baby” boy is celebrating his birthday tomorrow! Happy 27th birthday to my first baby! You are worth  it all and we love you more than words can say.

 (My next birth was a very redeeming VBAC,  but that’s a story for another day.)