Category: Birth Journey

After a traumatic birth experience with my first child, I was determined to have an unmedicated, natural labor experience. After taking a childbirth class, it was evident that there was no way my husband and I could do this on our own. I thought, “I can’t be referring to class notes, and be advocating for myself at a hospital AND focus on breathing this baby out.”

I discovered that a doula would my own method of “pain management”for childbirth, and quickly started researching doulas near our home in Hopkins. After deciding to hire Midwest Doulas, I met Justine and two other doulas on her team – Ale, and Alicia – to ensure that I knew my doula regardless if one couldn’t make it to the birth. They were all in the Twin Cities metro area and would team up to be available to me when I went into labor. Each woman carefully listened to my birth plan and my previous birth experience.

I met Justine first.
She was caring, reaffirming, and non-judgmental.

Ale was a great listener.
Each doula asked to hear me tell my birth story and during her visit, my husband thought he’d save her time by volunteering the abbreviated version. She compassionately listened and when he’d finished she looked over at me and said: “I’d still like to hear it from your perspective.” It was during her visit that I realized I had some unresolved trauma leftover from my first birth experience. When my husband jumped in to tell the watered-down version, I felt a rush of my power being taken away the same as I did in that hospital. It was at that moment I made the connection that I’d experience birth rap. Although sucky to find out that I was carrying baggage into my next birth, at least I had a little time to deal with it.

Lastly, I met Alicia.
Alicia is compassionate and very passionate about being a doula. I got a strong sense that she was going to fight for me (possibly literally 😉 ) as if she were my sister. In fact, I felt confident that they would all fight for me — and that’s what I needed.

In order to focus on laboring my baby out, I needed to be able to trust my team and my environment. Without these women, I would have kept my guard up during labor which could have led to a more painful birth.

Birth
Justine was the doula who attended my birth,  and holy smokes your second baby comes fast! My labor started around 9:30 pm, and my water broke around 10 pm. Justine came over to assess my progress and (without scaring me) encouraged us to go to the hospital right away. She and my husband were such a great team. She held my hand the whole time and encouraged me that everything that was happening to me was normal, and that I was doing great. Both she and my husband executed my birth plan which was GREAT, because I couldn’t hear anything anybody said. The pain was louder than anyone else in the room.

When we arrived at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, the midwife checked my cervix and said, “You’re dilated to a 10! You may push the baby out whenever you’d like.” That, I did hear, and I got to work. Our baby was born in 6 pushes, 3 hours after my labor started. I was so thankful that I had a doula for this birth; I would have been really upset had I wanted an epidural and found out it was too late to have one!

Natural, unmedicated birth was hard. I felt everything, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. But the most amazing thing happened when my son was born. The emotional pain and trauma leftover from my first birth had lifted. I felt like I was reborn along with my son. That birth healed the scars of my first child, and I felt the return of my former self.

Today, I am three months postpartum and am relieved to have experienced no symptoms of postpartum depression, despite my previous OB’s warning that I might be at high risk.

My family is forever grateful to Justine and her team of at Midwest Doulas. I feel more strongly than ever that a birth doula is a must, regardless of the kind of childbirth you’d like to have.

Love you guys. – Sophia

Part 3:
Q&A with Justine & Staci

In the last of a three-part series about Nina and Matt’s birth journey, Justine and Staci talk about their birth doula experiences during Nina’s two births.

What was it like to work with Nina and Matt?

Staci: “Nina and Matt were inquisitive and educated – they knew that they needed to get a doula. As soon as they were pregnant again, they knew it was time to call their Doulas.”

Justine: “They were so easy to work with, and we had a great trusting relationship form the start.”

What was the most challenging aspect of these births?

Justine: “With Arthur, it was the patience and watching them go through the process. Their birth ‘plan’ was changing and not what they wanted, but they persevered! Their patience and understanding the process got her to exactly what she wanted.”

Staci: “With Rosie, it was the anticipation and prodromal labor that Nina was experiencing. She was not expecting it to be just like Arthur’s birth, but that small glimpse of ‘not again’ was creeping in. We would text and call Nina to assure her that all the ‘things’ she was experiencing were normal, and the baby would come when the time was right. Nina was calm, cool, and collected on the day Rosie was born.”

Are you usually both involved in the same birth?

Staci: “We both meet the client, but it’s unusual that we were both at Arthur and Rosie’s labor. Justine was there in the early moments, and I was the lucky one to be there for the birth of BOTH! That’s not a common occurrence – what are the chances that I was able to attend both?!”

How do you decide how, when and where you assist on births? 

Staci: “Well, it all depends on schedules, family, and general life circumstances. But our clients know that our Team approach ensures they will have a doula at their birth that they know and trust.”

Justine: “With our repeat clients, we try to attend if we were the doula before, it just makes sense. But sometimes it doesn’t happen, so that’s why our Team support approach works so well.”

Describe the most memorable aspect for you about each birth.

Justine: “Arthur – long labor, and a long time after the water bag was broken.”

Staci: “When Nina asked for pain management, it was within minutes of making that decision it was time to push.  It was an amazing birth!”

Justine: “Rosie – the anticipation.  Nina did exactly as her body asked and she birthed that amazing baby with power and grace.”

Staci: “She didn’t question the process and didn’t have all the other hurdles coming at her with Rosie.”

Did Nina and Matt use any other Midwest Doula services?

Justine: “Yes, lactation and we always follow-up with postpartum.  You can ask Nina, she agrees that her postpartum with Rosie was different than Arthur’s, that with most families with their second baby!”

Any final thoughts?

Staci: “I think Nina’s birth stories are great examples showing that every birth is different.”

Part 2:
Rosemary’s speedy arrival.

In part two of a three-part series about Nina and Matt’s birth journey, Nina shares the birth story of her second child Rosemary. Read about her very different experience in Part 1.

“Hypnobirthing is bullshit,”
I weakly declared between contractions.”

– Nina

I’d spent the last few months reading a Hypnobirthing book that promised if could get myself in the right headspace, I would not feel any of the pain commonly associated with childbirth. I’d be smiling! No one would even believe I was in active labor because of the gleam of pure serenity upon my visage. Though I never bothered to take a class, I supplemented my nightly chapters with what Matt called “hypno-baths”: I’d listen to a hypnosis CD I’d found on Apple Music while submerged in my Epsom-salted happy place. By placing his hand on my shoulder, according to the lore, Matt was supposedly going to be able to instantly transport me back to my candlelit aquatic den.

I tried, dear reader. Really I did. But when your body is squeezing in on itself with the force of 10,000 menstrual cycles and your baby is adding injury to insult with frantic kicks to your insides and your midwife is simultaneously pressing against your aching girth on the outside with a fetal heartbeat monitor … it’s really effing hard to imagine each breath filling up a bright blue balloon and then floating away.

***

Aside from this brief dalliance with mind control, I’d come to my second pregnancy older and wiser, determined not to spend so much time mentally curating the twee birth of my dreams like I’d done the first time. That had led to incredible disappointment and a sense of personal failure when things did not go exactly to plan, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. (You can read the full tale here; abridged version: my water broke on a Monday, I had to go to the hospital for an induction on Wednesday, and the kid didn’t show up until Friday after 43 hours of hard labor.)

I definitely wanted to be at the Minnesota Birth Center rather than the hospital this time around, but I tried to be more chill about the possibility that it might not be in the cards for me. I acknowledged but did not celebrate each milestone that made a Birth Center birth more likely: after an early ultrasound gave cause for concern that there may be a developmental abnormality, a subsequent genetic test came back all clear; I passed the gestational diabetes and Group B Strep screens; my blood pressure was always enviable; I made it to 37 weeks without going into labor. All of this would be meaningless, of course, if I had PROM (premature rupture of membranes – your water breaks before you’re in labor) like I did with my son. The other big variable was timing. The baby was due on Dec. 27, and since I’d already met my health insurance deductible for 2017, going into labor on the wrong side of the new year would result in a much more expensive bill. Despite the first go-round with induction being one of the worst experiences of my life, I flirted with the idea of requesting the intervention if I’d had no action by Dec. 30.

In the last few weeks before the due date I’d grown more and more certain that I was carrying a punctual little lady, and she would burst forth into the world on her due date proper or a day adjacent. As the date drew closer, I checked more milestones off my mental list: I managed to stay at work through the office closing for the holidays on Dec. 22. Our son, who was diagnosed with strep throat that same day (UGH), made it through enough of his antibiotics that he would no longer be contagious. We spent Christmas Eve and then Christmas at my in-laws’ without my water breaking on their carpet. Since I felt fairly confident labor was imminent, we made the decision to leave our son at his grandma’s that night and make our way home. My spidey sense had indeed been tingling, because not an hour after returning to our house I lost my … er… “life cork.” After that, my contractions – still quite irregular at this point – changed from the painless Braxton Hicks tightening I’d been experiencing for months to becoming moderately achy. They started to get closer together from 2-4 a.m. that night but eventually dissipated.

They continued the next day every 30-45 minutes or so as I went to the chiropractor for a final adjustment, got a pedicure, and went to lunch. By about 9 that evening they were getting increasingly painful and close together. We decided to go to bed at around 11, and this martyr moaned as quietly as she possibly could through the contractions that were coming anywhere from 5-15 minutes apart. We were in the middle of another brutal cold snap, and I was just desperate not to have to go outside when it was 2 a.m. and -7 F (-11 windchill). By 6 a.m. the contractions had tapered off to every 25 minutes, allowing me to get a bit of rest. As soon as I got out of bed they picked right back up again, and by 8:30 we’d achieved 5:1:1 (contractions five minutes apart lasting for one minute over the course of an hour), our signal to call the midwife. After chatting with the midwife on call and our doulas, we decided to labor at home a while longer before heading to the Birth Center.

Matt made me a gigantic bowl of oatmeal and blueberries and put on an episode of trashy TV to distract me. I took a shower, with Matt waiting just outside the bathroom in case things got nutty. I tried to go back to bed afterward, but at around 10 I ran to the bathroom to throw up the entirety of my breakfast. “It’s time!” I yelled to Matt, and he started warming up the car.

By this time my contractions were three minutes apart, luckily the amount of time it would take us to drive the mile from our house to the Birth Center. I made Matt wait in the driveway for a contraction to pass before starting to drive, and then once we got there, I had to ride out another one in the parking lot before waddling inside. We were greeted by midwife Chelsea and Justine, one of our doulas. Sarah, the midwife who’d caught Arthur and who we’d asked to be present at this birth as well, was on her way despite it being her day off. Chelsea had already filled the tub for me, and after doing a fetal heart rate and mama blood pressure check (but no cervical checks), I sunk in.

I’m slowly losing memory of how I felt while things were ramping up, but I do know my constant refrain was how HEAVY this little girl was in my pelvis. “Heavy heavy heavy heavy heavy heavy…” I moaned during contractions. That eventually transitioned to, “Low low low low low low no no no no no owwwwwwwwww…” while I tried (and failed) to imagine my cervix opening like a flower.

Curiously, my chosen mantra
(“MOOOooooOOOOoooo!”)
was never uddered.

–Nina

Doula Staci switched out with Justine about an hour in. She had me take alternating sips of water and apple juice, and suggested different ways to position my hulking bod to help my pelvis open. She also held the barf bag as I puked all those fluids up because she is a GD angel. Time does not operate in a normal way during labor, so I have no clue how long I was in the tub. Eventually I got out and hung out for awhile on a birth ball at the foot of the bed with my head resting on two pillows atop it. I caught a whiff of something hospital bleach-y and thought I might ralph again, so I asked Staci if she had anything that smelled good. Of course she did! She wafted something that smelled like orange Christmas under my nose and I liked it a lot.

I decided I wanted to get back in the bath. I positioned myself so my head was in the corner, resting on a towel on the rim of the tub, with my rump facing the room. Matt had very determinedly stayed by my upper half at the head of the bed when our son was born, but this setup left him nowhere else to be but at the business end. Angel Staci poured hot water over my back during every contraction, which felt heavenly. Not too long afterward, I felt the urge to push. I had had second-degree tears in my undercarriage with Arthur that I didn’t want to repeat, so I tried as best I could to go slowly. What felt like hours later (but I guess was only like five minutes?) I had her head out, and shortly afterward I felt the relief of pushing out her body.

At 12:44, after only two hours and change at the Birth Center and a mere seven minutes of pushing, Midwife Sarah handed Rosemary Helen to me through my legs. As I lifted her out of the water she reached toward me and took her first gasping breaths. It was an unbelievable moment that Staci managed to catch on film.

After I birthed the placenta in the tub, I emerged from the water and stumble-walked toward the bed, where they put my beautiful little girl on my chest. She was able to latch soon after, and the nurse and midwives departed to give Matt, Rosie, and I the room to ourselves to enjoy a lovely cuddle puddle. An hour or so later, they came back in with a loaf of fresh-baked bread, butter, and local honey, an MBC specialty. I have never in my life tasted anything so incredibly delicious, and I’ve lusted after it every single day since.

After a few more temperature and blood pressure checks, the nurse cleared us to go home a bit before 5 p.m, after having been gone for less than the length of a workday. People have been shocked when I’ve told them that we were home a mere four hours postpartum, but it was wonderful to be able to sleep in our own bed that night, with nary a beeboop machine in sight.

***

It may not have been a hypnobirth, but I ended up with the twee, curated birth experience of my dreams after all.

Part 1:
Nevermind the birth plan.

In part one of a three-part series about Nina and Matt’s birth experience, Nina shares the birth story of her first child, Arthur. Reproduced with permission from Nina and Matt.

Our baby’s due date was Tuesday, Jan. 19, the day after the Martin Luther King Day holiday. I left the office the previous Friday determined not to come back. I was going to have the baby that weekend, dammit.

The weekend happened to be one of those “polar vortexes” we’re prone to in Minnesota. The temperature hovered around 0° starting on Saturday, and dipped to -11° by Monday morning. My plans for walking the baby out were not going to happen, so instead I passed the time cleaning, coloring in my Outlander coloring book, bouncing on my birth ball, eating pineapple, drinking red raspberry leaf tea, and timing my Braxton Hicks contractions.

By Monday they hadn’t gotten any closer together than 5-10 minutes and were still very irregular. Matt and I were about to try the only other indoor activity you can do to get things going when I felt a trickle of something that was definitely not pee. I bounced out of bed and told Matt, “Um… I think my water just broke?” Then I felt another trickle. “There it is again!” I said. “GET OFF THE CARPET!” he yelled.

We had a composed a song for exactly this event to the tune of Robyn’s, “Call Your Girlfriend”:

Call your midwife
Tell her your water broke
Tell her the color
Odor, amount, and time!
Cuz youuuuuu
Might have that baby soooooon”

The midwife on-call at the Minnesota Birth Center that day was Sarah, one of our favorites. We made an appointment to test the fluid to be sure it was amniotic and do a non-stress test to see if the baby was still doing OK. The results were clear: my “bag of waters” had indeed released! I triumphantly texted my boss to tell her I wouldn’t be coming into work the next day. Because I wasn’t yet in labor, Sarah told us to go home and try to get some rest, and to check in with her that evening. We made a quick pit stop in the ~*Donna Room*~, which is where we hoped we’d meet our little babe in the coming hours.

We decided to go to Brasa for lunch, which we assumed would be our last meal before the baby arrived. We were so, so excited to meet the little buddy who had lodged its foot in my ribs for the past several months.

We returned home and I resumed my coloring book/birth ball routine. Contractions got to be about 7-8 minutes apart lasting a minute, but they were irregular and not getting more intense. The midwife on call advised me to return to the birth center the next morning for another non-stress test if things didn’t pick up. The baby was still comfy as could be and healthy at that appointment. Midwife Courtney said they could only really give me another 24 hours to go into labor on my own, and then they would need me to go to the hospital to be induced due to the risk of infection. I was feeling very discouraged but determined not to let that happen.

I had spent months envisioning a peaceful water birth in the calming, spa-like ~*Donna Room*~. The hospital was not part of my plan.

I made an appointment with my girl Kennedy at Selby Acupuncture and told her to light me up like a Christmas tree. I waddled down the hallway for a pedicure appointment at Estetica immediately afterward. Matt then picked me up and we went across town to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to try to stimulate labor by walking. There we ran into Molly, a friend from Duluth. She was two weeks overdue and up to the same tricks. Matt and I wandered through the Asian art galleries, stopping every 10 or so minutes while I had a Braxton Hicks contraction. We had another evening of irregular contractions that didn’t add up to much. The midwife on call that night told me if I still hadn’t gone into labor by the next day they’d insist on a trip to United.

The next morning I tried acupuncture again, followed by some prenatal yoga at Blooma.

NOTHING WAS WORKING. After class, I returned a missed call from Midwife Katie, who told me my time was up: I needed to get my stubborn butt to the hospital that afternoon. Just then my yoga teacher came downstairs to find me sobbing, and I snotted all over her shoulder as I conveyed how devastated I was to have the birth I’d been dreaming about and planning for suddenly ripped out of my clutches. I should probably explain a bit about why I was in such a glass case of emotion beyond your usual pregnancy hormonal swings.

An abridged version: Matt and I decided to start trying t get pregnant on my 28th birthday in June 2013. I went off the pill but didn’t get a period for seven months. I finally saw a doctor about it in January 2014, and he diagnosed me with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), a form of infertility that basically screws with my ability to ovulate. He referred me to a fertility specialist, who started me on hormonal treatments that would force ovulation. Miraculously, I got pregnant after the first round, but I soon suffered a devastating miscarriage. I tried a few more rounds of the hormones until I developed an ovarian cyst. That made me want to try a different approach, so I started weekly acupuncture treatments in December 2014 that I continued through the following spring. In May 2015, I found out I was pregnant again.

Throughout that whole process, I felt like my body was failing me in the most basic, primal way. This delay in labor felt like yet another time my body couldn’t get it quite right. Every single part of my journey had felt completely out of my control, and having something yet another choice taken away left me feeling impotent. The one upside was that I would continue to be cared for by the birth center midwifery team.

Matt and I spent a sullen afternoon taking care of last-minute chores around the house and repacking our bags — what we had assumed would be an overnight stay at the birth center was now gearing up to be a multi-day sojourn at United Hospital. We arrived at my recently remodeled, space-age birthing suite at about 5:00, and I got outfitted with a belly band that would hold in place my two constant companions in the coming days: a contraction monitor and a fetal heartbeat monitor. If the latter got dislodged and couldn’t detect the heartbeat, it would beep incessantly until a nurse came in and adjusted it. Both produced piles of graph paper from a machine by the bed that tracked my progress.

*** Please note: shit’s about to get real/graphic/real graphic. If this stuff squicks you out abandon ship here!***

At around 7 p.m. (which I am counting as the start of my actual labor) I received my first method of induction: a prostaglandin called Cervidil. It looked like a small sliver of paper attached to a tampon string, and it had to be manually inserted behind my cervix. They wanted to start me on this one because if the contractions got too intense it could easily be removed. I’m sure my lovely midwife was being as gentle as possible, but, dear readers, there is only one way to describe how this felt: like being fisted by a lion. Because I had intended on birthing without pain medication, I had worked on creating a “happy place” I could go in my mind that looked an awful lot like a beach in Belize. The problem was, there was no scenario that visualization worked for me at that moment unless a crab had decided to climb up my hoo-ha.

I soon started to feel real, regular contractions. They weren’t particularly debilitating yet, so I tried to get as much sleep as possible before the party started. I was foiled by the steady stream of nurses in my room every two hours to check my vitals, the constant, irritating beeping of the fetal heart rate monitor every time I changed positions and it got dislodged, and the hip pain that had been a constant companion in the latter stages of my pregnancy and was exacerbated by the uncomfortable hospital bed. Oh, and our room was directly above a loading dock. It made me mourn the loss of the ~*Donna Room*~ so hard… with its real, comfortable bed, spacious tub, soothing color palette, and lack of bright, beepy things. At around 2 a.m. (Hour 7) they gave me a sleeping pill that allowed me to get a little rest.

When the next morning’s on-call midwife Courtney arrived at 7 a.m. (Hour 12), she removed the Cervidel and checked my cervix. I was still only 1 cm dilated, despite my contractions getting stronger/more painful overnight and more regular (3-7 mins apart). The decision to move on to Cytotec, a more powerful prostaglandin that looked like a tiny pill and also had to be manually inserted (but far less painfully). Each dose lasts about 6 hours. After the first one I was still only a few centimeters dilated, so at 1 p.m. (Hour 18) I had a second dose. Things were starting to get really painful, and my hips were NOT LYING.

A nurse told me they had a massage therapist on staff who was “part of the package” and asked if I wanted to see her. Yes. Yes, I did. She wafted into the room a few hours later on a cloud of patchouli. I told her that what I wanted the very most in all the world was to have someone squeeze my hips as hard as they possibly could because it felt like they were falling apart. “Hmm,” she said. “What I’d really like to try with you is some gentle acupressure.” Gentle did not sound fun, it did not sound good, it sounded infuriating, but I said, “Sounds good.” She had me lean against a wall while she put the lightest, most feathery pressure on my haunches. After staying there for a contraction or two, she suggested: “something a bit unorthodox.” She wanted to form a sling with her arms between my legs so she was cupping my bits and “breathe with me.” I believe I said something to the effect of, “Girl, whatever.” Matt and I avoided eye contact as we tried not to laugh. She left me with a cotton ball soaked with essential oils and took her leave as my saint, my savior, my beautiful French doula Justine of Midwest Doulas arrived at around 4:00 (Hour 21) and I immediately felt better.

Want to know why you should get a doula?

I’ll tell you why. Birthing, at least in my experience, gets lonely. The nurses flitted in and out and change every few hours, and I saw my midwives every 4-6 hours for a status check, adjustment to my care plan, or to administer the labor-making meds. A doula is your rock. She stays with you, she answers your questions, she gives your partner a break from being an emotional punching bag, and, most importantly: SHE SQUEEZES YOUR DAMN HIPS WHEN YOU ASK HER TO.

Justine took charge and was exactly the fierce mama bear I wanted her to be when we hired her. At 7 p.m. (Hour 24), Midwife Courtney inserted a Cook catheter, which has saline-filled chambers on either side of your cervix that is supposed to naturally force it to dilate to the point where it just falls out on its own. As soon as that was locked and loaded, Justine took me and my telemetry unit on a jaunt around the hospital floor and distracted me by having me tell Matt’s and my meet-cute story. Every time I had a contraction, she had me hold on to the wall and squat while she provided blissful counterpressure on my hips and whispered sweet nothings in my ear in French. (Just kidding; she was reminding me to breathe.) We eventually wound our way back to my room, where we found my nurse on the hunt for us; apparently, we’d gone so far afield that the telemetry unit wasn’t functioning. Le oops.

That night contractions got bad. Real bad. I wish I could describe what they felt like, but I honestly don’t remember (evolutionary amnesia?). I think I described them to Matt as having 10 bad periods at once. The nurses kept asking me to rate the pain on a scale from 1-10, which I found impossible to do. It was definitely the worst I’d ever felt, but I knew worse was coming so maybe it was only really a 6? Justine was by my side, letting me death grip her hand every time one came on while Matt tried to get some rest. I called the midwife when contractions were so intense I thought for SURE the catheter was about to fall out, but she gave it a quick tug and it was still wedged tight. They gave me some morphine at around 10 or 11 p.m. (Hour 27/28), which chilled me out enough that Justine decided to head home and sleep around midnight (Hour 29) since I wasn’t making much progress. She asked us to call if anything happened, but said her partner doula Staci would be on call and ready to head over the next morning. I did manage to drift off after she left but awoke as the morphine wore off and the pain got very extra awful until I projectile vomited all over my monitoring equipment and piles of graph paper at 2 a.m. (Hour 31).

I shakily pressed the call button, and the nurse that answered was, like, really disappointed in my aim. She huffed and puffed as she cleaned everything up. I hid in the bathroom while she changed the sheets and apologized to Matt for waking him up. He was able to get back to sleep after the commotion died down, but I was in a really bad way. Instead of calling Justine or waking Matt up or getting literally anyone to help me, I decided it was my job as a martyr from a long line of martyrs to suffer completely on my own and not trouble a damn soul until Staci was on call at 6 a.m. I remember closing my eyes between contractions and promising myself that the next time I opened them it would be *at least* a half an hour later. In reality, only two minutes would have gone by. I labored on my back, moaning as quietly as I possibly could. When that got too miserable, I crept over to the birth ball and labored on that. I threw up a few times. I thought maybe I was going to be in labor forever. I thought maybe I was dying. I fantasized about them just cutting the baby out of me so I could be done with it. It was the longest, darkest Dark Night of the Soul I have ever known.

Finally, at 5 a.m. (Hour 34) I couldn’t take it anymore and called Staci. “I’m so sorry,” I martyred, “But I need you.” She said she’d hop in the shower and be right on her way. Midwife Courtney stopped by before going off duty at around 6 a.m. (Hour 35) and checked the catheter. After the night I’d had, I was positive I’d be *at least* 7 cm dilated. Nope. Try 2. Staci, sweet, wonderful Staci, showed up as I started to spiral, and had the first good idea I’d heard in years: I should get in the bath. The bath! I forgot about the bath! I love baths. Baths are my friend. As I eased into the water I felt the best I’d felt in days. I was so relaxed I actually managed to fall asleep betwixt contractions. And then I threw up and had to get out.

By 10 a.m. (Hour 39) I was in was in The Dark Place. I hadn’t slept in days and I had absolutely no sustenance in my system. I tried so hard to rally and make jokes, but all I could do was quietly weep. I’ve never felt so weak and powerless. They were talking about putting me on Pitocin within a few hours to get things moving, and that terrified me. I had spent years consuming everything on medication-free childbirth I could get my paws on watching Ricki Lake documentaries, reading Ina May Gaskin’s books and listening to interviews with her, taking natural childbirth classes, etc., and my takeaway was that Pitocin is the actual devil and will send your body on a roller coaster of pure pain and evil. (Note: It’s not, and it has many useful applications, but LABOR DOES NOT A RATIONAL HUMAN MAKE.)

At this point, I put my pride (and birth plan) in the garbage and requested an epidural. I was already so weak I couldn’t imagine tolerating pain more intense than I was already experiencing. Because you can’t eat or drink while the epidural is in effect, they hooked me up to the biggest, slowest-dripping bag of IV fluids in America. While we were waiting for that to finish, a curious thing happened. Staci was helping me go to the bathroom when I felt something shift and water came gushing out of me. None of this trickle business I’d been experiencing all week. I really hoped my nurse would be proud that I’d managed to keep the mess contained in the toilet. Soon after, my contractions changed and became more… grunty. I wanted to push.

By this time it was around 11:30 or so (Hour 40.5). The midwife (this time it was Sarah again!) checked me again and I was 9 cm dilated. “Cancel the epidural,” I said, with what I want to imagine was a glint in my eye and a look of fierce determination on my glowing, maternal face. “I can do this.”

They made me wait another half an hour until my IV bag was done before I could start pushing. I started out facing backward on the toilet (which is actually a really good pseudo-birthing stool because of the way it positions your pelvis). I got some good pushes in before deciding I couldn’t let my child be born on the terlet, so they had me move to the bed. It felt the most natural to be on my hands and knees. Between contractions, I flopped over a peanut-shaped birth ball and rocked side to side while Matt fed me ice chips. When I had to push, I’d grab one of Matt’s hands and one of Staci’s, and bear down. I guess I was squeezing the life out of them because they soon threaded a sheet through the back of the bed for me to pull on instead. Pushing felt good. Like, really, really good. Middle of a great workout good. I hated feeling the baby’s head recede back between contractions, and I just wanted to keep pushing and pushing until he was out. When they wouldn’t let me I channeled my frustration by howling like a wounded animal.

At some point Matt asked,
“So how’s that beach in Belize?”
And I said, “SHUT UP!”

At some point one of the nurses said, “Mom and Dad and Uncle are waiting in the lobby!” and I said, “I wonder which uncle,” and Matt said, “Probably your Uncle Nate, right?” and I said, “The BABY’S uncle, IDIOT.”

Soon enough, I felt the baby’s head heavy in my pelvis. It was incredibly uncomfortable not to keep pushing between contractions, but they didn’t want me to tear. I fought my way through the Ring of Fire and then… the baby just seemed to tumble right out into the midwife’s arms behind me at 2:09 p.m. (Hour 43).[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vcex_image_flexslider image_ids=”1812,1811,1810″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
I took him – it was a him! — into my arms. He was warm and slippery and weirdly not at all goopy and perfect and smelled like the sea. I looked up at Matt, who was as completely ecstatic as I’ve ever seen him, clutching his hand to his chest and laugh-crying, not able to take his eyes off our son.

At that moment, nothing else mattered. Meeting my son was the strangest feeling of recognition and pure and total love. “That was you inside me, the whole time!” I marveled.

Those were your little feet
and your little hiccups!”

I have no idea what else was happening in the room because the universe had contracted to just our little triad.

During the whole labor, I’d thought to myself, “This is so horrible that when it’s over Matt has to give me whatever I want. And if this is a boy I want his name to be Oscar.” But I took one look at our little meatball and acknowledged that the name Matt had chosen was actually perfect. “OK fine he’s totally an Arthur WHATEVER.”

And that is Arthur’s birth story.

Part 3:
A Midwest Doula Birth Story

In the last of a three-part series about Olivia and Quinn’s birth experience, Justine shares her perspective as a doula caring for the family. Read Part 1 and Part 2. here.

When we met Olivia, she told us the story of her first birth. It had been an unexpected surgical birth at just over 35 weeks that was traumatic, challenging and difficult to process. She was quickly separated from her sweet baby, and the following days were a blur. Her experience provided painful memories.

Olivia and husband Quinn knew they wanted a different experience for their second child. They needed to be in control of every decision and feel empowered.

After careful research and great conversations, they made the educated decision to have a home birth.

Don’t cry over the past, it’s gone.
Don’t stress about the future it hasn’t arrived.
Live in the moment, make it BEAUTIFUL!”

–Olivia’s mantra.

As preparation for Olivia and Quinn, Midwest Doulas selected three Birth Doulas to be on call. We also had two Sibling Doulas ready to support and care for their firstborn child, Owen, while he witnessed the exciting birth of his new sibling.

Olivia and Quinn chose the amazing Peacefully Born Traditional Midwifery, and they also prepared a plan B and even a plan C just in case. Olicia read all the books and watched all the documentaries. She learned from podcasts and webinars. She wanted to be fully prepared for the enexpected.

As Olivia patiently waited for the 35-week and 6-day mark to pass, she hoped her little one would not come early. At 37 weeks, “on the dots,” as Olivia would say, her water broke and the moment of deliverance was upon us. It was happening fast in the middle of the night on a day just after a major snowstorm.

Wilder! Wilder! Wilder!

Olivia called her baby boy’s name in between the strong waves of pain to keep her feeling grounded. She hugged her loving husband tightly, giving him a glimpse of her strength. We could see him shake a little.

Quinn, midwives, doulas and photographer (@tiny moments) would repeat her beautiful baby’s name over and over while making eye contact with her.

Wilder! Wilder! Wilder!

Olivia had explained prenatally that she remembered looking for eye contact during her first birth. She recalled locking eyes with the anesthesiologist, eyes that she would never forget. During Wilder’s birth, Olivia made intense eye contact with her birth team and her doula in particular. She described later how healing that eye contact felt.

Eventually, the sounds of the room changed, and Olivia delivered her baby into the world at 3:40 AM. The beauty of this moment in time can’t be explained.

She roared her baby into the world!

Olivia knew she could do it, and she did. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and it doesn’t always work as planned, but her strength gave her confidence. Her faith in herself and family gave her the ability to make her own birth decisions. She trusted in her partner, her team, and most importantly, she trusted herself.

Midwest Doulas feels so honored to be part of this amazing birth story. Thank you, Olivia & Quinn, for allowing us to share it.

Wilder you are so loved!
Olivia you are so fierce!
And Quinn we love you with all our heart!

–Midwest Doulas

‘Part 2:
In her own words

In part two of a three-part series about Olivia and Quinn’s birth experience, Olivia shares her birth story of her second child Wilder. Read Part 1 here.

“I’m so glad I started working with Midwest Doulas early on in my pregnancy (with Wilder, my second child). Their prenatal support helped me navigate through the available providers and birthing environment options to make the choices that served our needs best. Most importantly the emotional support and encouragement helped me face my fears around reaching full term & develop the confidence to have a successful home birth after cesarean.”

‘To say this was a healing experience is an understatement. It was so much more than that.’

– Olivia

“With our first child Owen’s surgical birth, I felt like it happened to me – like I wasn’t part of it at all. This was partially due to the nature of a C-section where someone else’s hands removed my baby from my womb, but also due to the lack of communication regarding protocol for breech presentation.”

“Before I knew it, I was 9 cm dilated with a frank breech baby, and I found myself on an operating room table getting a spinal and prepped for a C-section. There was no conversation about vaginal breech birth delivery in the hospital setting or why it wasn’t a choice available to me. My records say I had verbally consented to the operation, but I have no recollection of that moment. I only recall looking at my husband beforehand and saying, ‘I don’t want a C-section.’ I wasn’t prepared for it. I skipped that chapter when reading the childbirth preparation books. It was happening a month before it was supposed to and we hadn’t even started to look at baby’s positioning at my appointments yet.”

“During it, I felt left out of the equation. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t feel anything. I felt disconnected from the entire process, and when they took Owen to the NICU due to his breathing issues and wouldn’t bring me down to see him for 8 hours, that feeling intensified.”

“When it was over, it was hard to process the fact that I had become a mom. Our NICU stay exacerbated that feeling when I couldn’t sleep near him, couldn’t nurse on demand when he cried, couldn’t rest easy for fear he would stop breathing. It wasn’t until we left that hospital ten days later that I truly felt like his mom.”

“I pushed all of that hurt aside until I got that positive pregnancy test in early last September, just days before Owen’s second birthday. I knew then that I had to do something to feel better. I had to try to get to a healthier place before I could find the strength to go through childbirth again. I had to process his birth and work through the negative feelings I had built up. I started to look at what happened, what I might have changed if I could, and what I might be able to do differently this time to give myself a better outcome.”

“Birthing vaginally was important to me because I wanted to experience natural childbirth fully. I wanted and needed the polar opposite experience from my first. This time I wanted to feel every single thing and be present for it all. I wanted to remember. I wanted to hold my baby immediately after birth with nothing and no one between us. I needed to find a provider who I could trust would help me achieve that.”

“I left the OB office that delivered Owen for a different in-hospital midwife practice with a great reputation for being VBAC supportive (vaginal birth after Caesarean). Two midwife appointments, a TOLAC consult (trial of labor after Caesarean, and a hospital tour later I realized that it wasn’t the right fit for me. The hospital was an emotional trigger and instantly snapped me back to being wheeled down the hall into the OR. I didn’t want to be “allowed” to have a trial of labor after cesarean. I wanted to have the care of someone who was as confident in my ability to have a VBAC as I was, and I wanted to know exactly who would be there by my side versus whichever midwife happened to be on call.”

“After a number of interviews with different homebirth midwives, I felt my best chance of getting the birth experience I wanted was at our home, under the care of my midwives from Peacefully Born Traditional Midwifery and our doula. If this baby decided to be breech, at least my midwives were willing to have the conversation about a vaginal birth, as they had delivered breech babies before. Just having the option was comforting, whereas it was totally ruled out in the hospital setting. For my homebirth to happen, we had to make it to 37 weeks.  I had to learn to trust my body to hold my baby in until he could be delivered healthy and safe. I had a lot of fear about when my body and my baby would decide it was time.”

“For a while, everyone was trying to reassure me that all would be well, that we’d make it to term, and that I needed to ‘get out of my head’ or stop worrying about it so much. That was an impossible expectation. Instead, I gave myself some grace and made space for myself to feel that way.  I was worried about this very real possibility, and rather than just trying to forget about it, I acknowledged it, allowed myself to worry. Then I formed a backup plan for that hypothetical situation. With a plan in place, I could breathe a little easier and surrender to the idea that my body would birth my baby in its own time. I think the worry of a preterm birth will be present during any future pregnancy I may have, but at least now I know what to do with those feelings and move on.”

“Luckily, this time my body and my baby waited just long enough to deliver at home, and I got to experience what I missed out on the first time. I felt my contractions, which started out fairly close together and long right away, increasing in intensity as we progressed. I felt him descend, felt him crowning, that ring of fire, and I could tell when his head eventually came out. I felt the midwife’s hands as she helped his body out. And finally, that sweet relief and satisfaction when the placenta came out. Nothing will compare to that feeling!”

“Birthing vaginally was much harder than a C-section. But it wasn’t as scary because I felt connected to my baby as we worked together, connected to my husband as he stood tall and held me up, and connected to my midwives and doula as they encouraged us along and helped me meet my baby.”

“I’ve never felt as amazing as I did after birthing Wilder.”

– Olivia

“Without the hurt and trauma I had experienced from Owen’s birth I probably wouldn’t have had the drive to find this better, more peaceful and supported way to have a baby. All I wanted was an experience that would make me excited to have more babies. I got that and more. I learned to birth without fear, and I’ve never felt more alive, empowered and proud of myself.”

“My journey through my pregnancy with Wilder and his birth changed what motherhood means to me. It made me stronger and wiser, and I’m so grateful that I got to experience this wild ride with my husband, midwives, and doula by my side.”

Photography by @tiny moments