This story comes 14 months and 20 days after my daughter's birth.
Juliet was born December 15, 11 days before her due date. My blood-pressure had been rising throughout the final months of my labor and the time came to make the call to induce. I had hoped to have a minimally-invasive "natural childbirth" attended by my physician. I knew once the induction bell sounded there was little chance of that happening. My hopes to walk around during labor were dashed when I was informed at the hospital that I'd have to lay on my left side and could only get up and move around to go to the bathroom. I didn't want continuous-fetal monitoring, but with the pitocin drip I, once again, didn't have a choice. "Labor" began at 8:30am, though I use the term only of the medical, technocratic sense. Four hours later my doctor dropped by and broke my water to "speed things along" even though my blood-pressure was fairly stable. I begrudgingly agreed. That's when I feel labor really began.
I had a feeling (as did my doctor) that labor would progress quickly. About 2 hours later I started getting uncomfortable... not in pain really, just quite uncomfortable. It was around that time that my husband Mike (and I really do love him to death) chose to bring up a really bad topic. It was with that action that all of my mental fortitude broke down. I could no longer focus on staying relaxed and letting my body do what it needed to do. Suddenly the tension in the room became tension throughout my body... not a laboring woman's friend. It was as if flood gates had opened and pain was washing over me in torrential rushes.
Around this time, I retreated to the bathroom. It was there that I was most comfortable, not only laboring, but avoiding the tension that was on the other side of the door. It was while having a contraction on the toilet that I knew things were picking up there pace. Reluctantly, I headed out to the room and asked the nurse to check me. (She had checked me just before I'd gone in and said I was merely 5 cm and had said I had a good 5 or 6 more hours to go.) She did her exam, and said that nothing had changed. But it had, she just didn't seem to agree.
I couldn't imagine another 5 or 6 hours in the pain I was in, let alone laboring on no sleep (I hadn't slept for more than 4 or 5 hours over the last several days.) It was then that I decided to give in to the fear and asked for something to help me rest. I remember asking Mike if I was selfish for not being able to get through it, but he assured me I wasn't because we both believed we had several hours ahead of us. The nurse walked back with the syringe and I waited from the grogginess to to take over.
All the while, deep down, I knew that the nurse had to be wrong. I knew my body. Though this was my first pregnancy I believed that I knew, my body knew, how to birth my baby. Less than a minute after receiving the drug, I felt the urge to go to the bathroom again. I really needed to go! With hesitation, she let me go back to the bathroom and nothing came out. Knowing that feeling like I needed to go to the bathroom could be a sign that the baby was pushing on my bowels as she descended I asked, once again, that the nurse check me. The frustration was visible on her face, but I insisted. I told her I thought I was getting close. (Mind you less than 10 minutes from her last exam had passed.) She checked and immediately shot up, looked flustered and said that she had to go call the doctor because we were going to be delivering the baby.
After that, things are a blur. I don't know if it was from the drugs the overwhelming pain or both. All I can remember before the doctor arriving was telling myself over and over again not to push (which of course I was because I no longer had a say in the matter, my body had taken over.)
Once the doctor arrived, I was told I could push. Pushing was surreal. It was as if I had turned in to myself. Eyes shut and, with the relief of pushing upon me, I was transported to another time, another place, another reality. I was outside my self, but within myself in the deepest way possible. All I could hear of the outside world was my husband, apparently underwater, counting to 10 in the most pleading voice I've ever heard. I vividly recall feeling the doctor cut my episiotomy, but at that point I wasn't able to complain. I was other-worldly. I wish I could describe it better, but to this day, that's the best I can come up with.
After only 20 minutes of pushing, Juliet entered the world. I wish desperately that I could remember it. I have a vague recollection of her coming out and a flurry of activity. After that, a swirly sense overtook me. I guess that's when I started to hemorrhage. At some point I felt the doctor tug vigorously on the umbilical cord, trying to free the placenta. I, again. vaguely recalled that he shouldn't have been doing that, but was unable to complain. I just figured at the time that he knew best.
Juliet, as it turns out, had shoulder dystocia
Had I listened to my body, not the nurse, I would never had agreed to the medication that likely caused her breathing problems. Had I been awake and aware, I could have changed laboring positions and could have helped push her our more effectively. That being said, I also believe the strict rules about only being able to lay on my side as a contributing factor to her shoulder dystocia.
I was after learning what can happen when you don't trust yourself that my re-birth began. At the time my daughter was born, I told myself that I knew what to do and how to do it. The problem was, I didn't believe it.
While I am grateful to the people who resuscitated my daughter and stopped my bleeding, I firmly believe that the 'cascade of interventions' caused by the distress my daughter and I both suffered.
Now, as I write this I know that I should trust my body, my inner voice.
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As a side not, Juliet is a beautiful, perfectly healthy little girl who suffered not ill side-affects from her traumatic entry into the world.
It was through these events that's I have discovered things about myself and women in general. We were designed by God to birth our baby's naturally without intervention. Advocating natural childbirth is now my passion. I hope to inspire other women to trust themselves and their bodies.
We are all asked at some point, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I followed my dreams from long ago and pursued a career working behind the scenes as a television newscast director. Now, as a 29-year-old re-born woman who has "grown up", I can say I want to be a doula and eventually a midwife who can help women believe in their bodies and in their own inner strength.
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