Birth is Messy

 

I had dreamed of a Home birth, but my pregnancy had some complications so opted for an “as natural as possible hospital birth”.

It’s time to share, the beauty, trauma, disappointment, love, and life changing moments of my birth story. It’s personal, it’s real, and maybe it will help another woman. The facts are as I remember them, and well, forgive me in advance for the grammar.

I took the courses; childbirth class,  breastfeeding with a coach, had secured both a birth doula and a postpartum doula. I was educated, and had taken a wonderful childbirth preparation/birth empowerment course over many weeks with my husband at Bini Birth center in Sherman Oaks. I’d studied Khalsa Way pregnancy yoga, with Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa. In fact I worked for her, as the general manager of her family’s yoga center in Santa Monica. I’d been the site coordinator for her pregnancy training program, and knew Sarah Kamrath personally. She had even gifted me her collection of DVD’s called Healthy Happy Child. I watched them twice and made my husband too….I’d seen Dr.Elliot Berlin who specializes in chiropractic care during pregnancy for weeks at his center in Los Angeles. I spent thousands and thousands of dollars on all of this, and put my heart into it fully, believing I could have a very personal, informed, private, empowered, and mostly natural birth. I was informed and I was empowered, private and natural, well NO. And so the story goes……

I was 38, and had waited patiently to meet my husband, to get married, work trough the excitement and fear of parenthood. I  dreamed of feeling my beautiful baby girl come through the birth canal as her spirit joined in human form in all its miraculous messiness. I saw images of myself in loose white flowing clothing, breastfeeding my baby. Clothes given to me by my Kundalini sisters at my 120 day ceremony so graciously held by Gurmukh.

I had been taught that childbirth was a spiritual rebirth. And believed it to be an act of service and devotion. I’d seen mammas coming regularly to our yoga center, bountiful, beautiful, and blissful, and they loving being pregnant. Most of them felt great (they said). They sure looked great- long skinny legs, beautifully round and firm belly’s, and eating “just enough for the baby”. They were real, they were honest, “mostly”, and I wanted to be one of them.

I mean I had this beautiful technology, a loving community supporting and surrounding me. I had a shot at this natural pregnancy right? Well maybe…

I had no idea was was coming, and coming, and is still persisting.

I went into early Labor on January 1st (10 days early) around 9 pm. I was watching a movie with my dog, Chance, best friend from San Diego (who was also pregnant), and my husband, Scott. I started working with the contractions on the birth ball, rotating, rounding, breathing, and practicing what I had learned. Continuously leaning into the sensations and waves of labor.

Soon I was bouncing on the birth ball in the shower, allowing long Om-like sounds to permeate out of me as waves of contractions moved through me. I was in the early Labor stage, participating just beautifully, feeling the baby, my body’s strength, and only feeling slightly embarrassed that my naked body was bouncing around!( at 205) lbs in front of my friend and husband.

My husband called my parents in Maryland, my father-in-law in Chicago, and everyone made plans to fly out to see my beautiful baby girl in the hospital.

That night the contractions did not progress closer together. They were arduous, long, painful, scary, and took all of my energy. My husband clocked them at 8-10 mins apart. I did not sleep that night. My doula came in the morning. She told me I was still in early Labor and it would most likely take time. She would go back to Malibu, pack her bags and come back that evening. I was to stay hydrated, try to eat, and welcome the waves working with my breath, baths, balls, pillows, rebozos, and continue using all the methods she taught us. Entering into the 24th hour, the pain was unbearable, and my faith was starting to falter.

Around 1am January 3rd, my Mother, (who had since arrived from Baltimore), my doula, husband and I all went to the hospital to get checked. I remember driving to UCLA Westwood that night in the cold, and seeing some homeless people under the bridge and thinking “I wish I was them”, I could not bear the pain and exhaustion I was in. I felt like I was dying. I was at a low point.

When I saw the OBGYN on duty and she examined me, and then gave me the news….I was only 2 centimeters dilated.  I wanted to take the morphine they offered. I wanted to, but I knew it could really hurt my baby, so I didn’t. My body or baby (or both) were not yet ready for childbirth.

The doctors suggested I take two Benadryl, try to get some sleep, and come back when my contractions were closer together.  I felt defeated.

There was no progression that night. Scott would clock contractions 5 mins apart, then we’d go back to 8 and sometimes 10 mins apart. My doula was still with me. Either my body or my baby we’re still not ready for childbirth.

The next morning I could no longer take the exhaustion and pain, and mental fatigue. I called my back-up OBGYN, Dr. T we will call her. I said here’s the situation, what would you tell your best friend or so sister to do….she told me she’d get a bed ready for me in the UCLA Westwood birthplace, and that I could get an epidural and sleep for a while. She was an angel. Truly a blessing from God. She came to see me. I felt better.

The nurses were so kind, compassionate, worked lovey with my doula (still with us), and they helped me get stabilized. Then the epidural. I was terrified of having an epidural. I had not wanted one, that needle size, length and location of entry into the spine, was so terrifying, not a risk I wanted to take…plus it’s the fist set of childbirth drugs that can slow down labor and alter a woman’s hormones.

ahhhh, once it was in though, I slept. I could relax, my body and mind were settled and I was out of pain for the first time in 2 days.

I remember waking from sleep and being so hungry. Only ice chips from here on out. I begged for some juice and told the nurse I wouldn’t tell the doctors. I got my last juice. For 28 more hours.

I threw up, I was shaking, I was present. I was still not dilating so we used Pitocin. Baby girl did not tolerate it well. The team came in, on high alert, but baby’s heart rate settled back to normal. Five or 6 more hours I was not progressing in labor, so we tried Pitocin at at a very low dosage, at .5. It was up and down with baby’s heart rate, and finally baby tolerated it. But we had to go slow. Starting and stopping, starting and stopping. Thank God for my Doula, she was my steady pole, grounding me to my center, to my core, reminding me I could do this, with my baby, that we were okay.

Becoming a Mom starts so early. Am I making the right choice not to have a C-section, is my baby safe, why isn’t she coming faster, what’s wrong with my body? Can I do this? What did I sign up for?

The last hour of pushing, I remember seeing a light deep inside of me, a light that helped baby girl make her way through and over the pubic bone.

Our primary OBGYN had been in Costa Rica at the time and was due back the night of the 3rd.  She made it to the birth to deliver my baby on the afternoon of the 4th! Perhaps Bailey or I really wanted her to deliver? Perhaps another doctor would have insisted on a C-section? Perhaps it was just a contract that she deliver us? Or perhaps it was just coincidence?

I’ll never know, but what I do know is, Bailey came through the birth canal, which ultimately was our greatest wish. I felt her crown, touched her head, and could not believe a human being was coming out of my body. I was so present, I was with her and could not wait to meet her, to hold her. Skin on skin, to help her latch, to have our Golden Hour.

Well as it was, she had the thickest Meconium that the UCLA team said they had ever seen! She was quickly carried off by the NICU team and they helped clear her lungs. My husband went to the NICU with her (which we planned ahead of time should she need NICU care.) He was the first to hold her, to look in her eyes. He said later, that it felt like she was looking into his soul. She was okay and only there for a few hours.

No messy, bloody, womb covered baby skin-to-skin on my chest. Another disappointment. But so grateful baby was okay, and we were in such good care. My Doula promptly helped me extract my colostrum into a syringe to save for Bailey and help my milk production start.  All this while I was having my own Meconium cleaning and stitching from my tear.  My placenta took a while to deliver, and I had it encapsulated.

A few hours later, baby was on my chest, she latched and I was in love. I cried tears so deep. I did not know I could feel that deeply, and I’m a deeply feeling person. My body grew her, and with the help of the Divine, nourished her,  cleaned out her waste, and housed her for almost 10 months. We were never apart. Two nervous systems and two souls in one, moving through the world together. Now she was outside of me. It was beautiful, powerful, and days later I came to realize, a little bitter-sweet.

There is so much to share about my postpartum journey, joy and struggles, It will have to be a separate story. I will share, we ended up back in the hospital for three days, a week after Bailey was born. I had severe infections related to the Meconium, and I was very sick. I could barely walk for weeks, almost months.

I had been planning to do 40 days at home (an ancient ritual for new Moms and Baby’s auras to bond, and time for both souls to be together).I started my 40-days after our second hospital visit. We made the best of it.

Mammas, I know about the struggles of breastfeeding, real struggles. My milk did not really even come in until 12 weeks because of all the infections. I pumped 5-6 times a day, breastfed best I/we could, saw three different lactation consultants, worked through cracked and bleeding nipples, and Raynaud’s phenomenon affecting nipples.

I met postpartum depression and anxiety. Thankfully, not alone. I was afraid, I was in love, I wanted my body back, yet I did not want to let this perfect being off my body ever. I met myself on a deep level.

It was all as it was meant to be. And I was informed, present, cared for loved, and held through it all. Amen.