*** Let me preface this by saying, its a four for one deal. You cannot get Spirit's birth story, without the stories of her brothers because they all effect her entrance into the world. I have tried to think of the right way to word this since she was born 11 months ago. To try to put everything tactfully. There was no way I could find, so what you get here is the whole raw story, without regard for tact. It is not as short as some, because it was a momentous experience in my life, and that is reflected here to the best of my ability. Enjoy.
My oldest child was born via a very traumatic C-section after 3 days of labor, and 3 1/2 hours of pushing, culminating with a nurse in the hall yelling at my doctor to just do the section, and me in tears, just wanting to faint so I wouldn't feel it anymore. It was a classic cascade of intervention, starting with the Pitocin. I begged the OB to knock me out, the pain was too much to bare, but he refused. Telling me how it was more dangerous for the baby. I had been so overmedicated throughout labor that none of the pain meds in the operating room were cutting through it. I remember the doctor repeatedly poking my abdomen, asking if I could feel it, "YES" I screamed at him, it felt like he was stabbing me with a needle (for all I know he was). I got my way, and they had to put me to sleep. I awoke confused, scared, and terrified for my baby. I had no idea where he was...or where anyone was for that matter. They had left me alone. I don't know how long I waited for a nurse to find that I had woken, if there was a clock in that recovery room it was somewhere behind my bed because I never saw it. When she finally found I was awake, she brought me back to the maternity ward to be greeted by my family...but not my son. I had to ask for him, ask if he was ok, because no one told me. My mother's words then "he has huge feet". I later learned that my mother had not allowed anyone else to hold him, thinking I would want to be the first to hold him. I still cry thinking about how he was left cold and alone, with no one that loved him near him for those first few hours of life. When I finally got him in my arms the first thing I noticed was not his huge feet, but instead the huge bruise on the crown of his head, from his half journey trying to access the birth canal. I feel into a deep depression, failed to breastfeed him, because no matter how much time I spent with him latched nothing changed the fact that he got no milk from me.
When I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd a year and a half later I was terrified, but I still knew I wanted a more gratifying birth experience. I attempted a VBAC. After a few hours of labor the attending nurse walked in and said it looked like the baby wasn't going to be able to make it through my hips. I acquiesced, not knowing any different than what she said. This time I was left awake, and they were able to manage to block the pain. I experienced a whole different problem with the medication this time. I couldn't breath. I couldn't remember to breath. And worse. I was so mortified that it was ending this way again that I didn't want to breath. The nurse kept trying to remind me to breath. I kept forgetting. I don't remember hardly anything else, except the shrieking scream coming out of my son as he was "born" and holding him a short time later, and carefully protecting my incision while nursing.
Then 5 years later I found myself pregnant again, trying to convince the doctors to allow another trial of labor. DENIED. I was heartbroken, but didn't know what else to do, or who to go to. When started having contractions a month before his due date I allowed them to go ahead and surgically remove him. The recovery was much different, and I found I wasn't as heartbroken as before, because I felt that I had no choice, and there was nothing I could have done different. And he was supposed to be my last child so, knowing I would never need to let them slice me open to retrieve my child again was such a relief. I started reading, and realized other moms had had the birth they wanted regardless of what doctors had told them they "had" to do, and I felt robbed.
Baby 3 in NICU after premature c-section.
9 months later I found myself pregnant again. Immediate fear struck. I was in love with the idea of having another child (and another chance at maybe finally having a girl), but terrified of the knife. Terrified that this time it would kill me, or my child. At this point I knew how dangerous it was to have so many csection. You just can't open your body up that many times without expecting at some point for there to be lasting effects, permanent damage, or life threatening infection. I know many people are fine after several successive csections, but I had this awful feeling that I wouldn't be. Not just my body, but mentally, I just couldn't take it again. I searched and searched for someone to let me BIRTH my own child. Took me 6 months and calls to midwives across 4 different states, and I finally found a wonderful understanding woman who wasn't scared, who would allow me to do what I knew I needed to do. I knew what I would do if I didn't find anyone, but it was not nearly as calming an idea of having a midwife in attendance. I had contractions of an on for a month before the "real deal". When it finally was time I didn't believe it so I called my midwife, and my best friend who was planning on attending as well that morning and told them both I wasn't sure so just stop by later and check up on me. The midwife and her assistant showed around 5:30, as I was sitting on my yoga ball bouncing away watching "Almost Famous" (the movie I watched during labor with every pregnancy) with my fiancé and breathing through contractions. A couple hours later my bestie showed and my fiancé left, so he wouldn't be so stressed out watching me go through labor. I kept switching around, one moment bouncing on my ball, the next running in the kitchen to make bagels, the next doing my crouching tiger move, just trying to find my happy place as the contractions go stronger.
As I got closer to transition, I found myself getting slightly tense and panicky, and my midwife noticed and told me to hum low sounds instead of the strained screams I was approaching, and I realized that wasn't quite enough. So the bestie helped me into the shower, and helped bring in some music (Sublime - as weird as it sounds, I needed something I could sing with). Once I got out and back to my big bouncy ball, I couldn't sit on it anymore, so I draped my chest over it and hugged it, asking for a bowl since I was ready to vomit after all the work it took to get in that position. After my brief interlude with the bowl I found myself really in some serious pain, and my mind wandering to ways to manage.
My watch and jewelry made me feel claustrophobic so I threw it all off. I asked my friend to run and get a the yellow calcite rock I kept on the bathroom window sill. I didn't know why I asked for that stone, I have several different specimens I keep, but I wanted that one. Looking back now it makes perfect sense. Yellow calcite is said to help organize thoughts, and focus energy, and is grounding for meditation. That is exactly the function it served for me. I started zoning out more, and envisioned myself sending my pain into the stone, and receiving strength in return. I also started singing (not well, by any means, lol). As the initial urge to push came upon me "Tiny Dancer" was being sung in that memorable scene in Almost Famous (which was playing through for about the 5th time since I had started watching during labor). I vividly remember the feeling of that smooth stone imprinting my palm and singing (mumbling) "hold me closer tine dancer" as I first pushed. There was so much pressure it was unbelievable. I knew it couldn't go on forever, but it felt like it was taking long enough, and all of a sudden there was this blissful release, along with a pop and a woosh. My water had finally broken. I was actually a little disappointed, because I had really thought that with all that pressure, it surely must be my child's head engaged and pushing through...it certainly hadn't occurred to me that the bag of waters itself could cause that discomfort. But it was, and as soon as it burst I found myself with renewed energy, and the pressure that had been was all but gone. The next 45 minutes or so I only existed. I don't know any other way to describe it. I reached a meditative state I have never reached any other time, before or since. My mantra? Come on, baby. We can do this. Come on out. You can do it. I whispered words of encouragement under my breath over and over.
I was sorry to come out of it as I felt a head push through, even as my midwife was telling me the baby was coming out completely relaxed with her hand resting on her cheek, and eyes open. I think everyone was expecting one push more than was needed, and she slide out into my best friends hand, and then slipped through her grasp to be caught by my midwife (good thing she was spotting, lol). Right then my fiancé walked through the door, and I could see he was upset that no one had called him, but when they mentioned calling when I started pushing I just told them no. I didn't want anyone else in the room. Not because I wanted to take the experience away from him, but because I had wanted to be able to be in my zoned out state without him feeling like he had to help me in some way. I thought it would be a distraction.
Our first meeting
My friend immediately grabbed the baby to see the sex. She had been just as upset that I wouldn't find out the gender during pregnancy as my fiancé, so she couldn't even wait til the baby was in my arms before telling me it was a girl. I didn't believe her, and I was starting to feel faint. Everyone helped me on the couch to lay back, and I was handed the baby. The cord was short and she had to lay on my belly, but I held her close. My first words to my little girl, "we did it!!" as I cried, and she stared at me. I don't remember her crying, but I remember seeing the most beautiful angel kisses on each of her eye lids. My eyes met my fiancé's over her head, and I saw the hurt in his eyes, that I had not called him home. The energy in the room had changed as he had walked in and our baby made her entrance. I felt like all the energy had been drained from me, and I didn't have it left in me to deal with more emotion. I couldn't deal with the overwhelming joy at her birth, and his hurt feelings at the same time, and I started to bleed. Weakness took hold of me quickly and as Spirit's cord finished pulsing, and was cut I told my friend to take her, just in time for my arms to give way and fall to the side. I watched, in the most detached way, as I saw the urgency on my midwives' faces as they gave me shepherd's purse, and then Pitocin. I was bleeding way too much, and my placenta refused to move. They gently checked to see if the placenta was starting to detach, and I vaguely remember screaming. The greatest feeling of peace overtook me, and I remember being slightly delusional and thinking I could not be happier right as I passed out.
The brief moment I held Spirit before I passed out
Voices, movement. Emergency crews and swimming faces all around me, trying to urge me up, onto a gurney. I couldn't do it, they must have lifted me, but I don't remember. I remember the cold. I was naked under the blanket they covered me with, and the blood loss along with the IV, and the snow that had fallen outside as I was laboring made me so cold. Brief moments in and out of consciousness in the ambulance, and at the hospital while waiting to go in for the D&C.
The doctor and anesthesiologist kept coming to talk to me. I was relieved when I saw the doctor, he was the godsend that had come to my rescue and operated when I needed River removed from my womb, but instead of the gentle smile I had seen from him before this time when he spoke he yelled. Apparently, childbirth is too much of a risk, for a mere woman to make that choice, so he felt it his duty to chastise me while I lay there bleeding. The contractions were worse than when I pushed Spirit out, and I kept feeling large masses pass. So I ignored the doctor's ranting, and asked if that was the placenta, finally coming out. Later I learned it was just huge blood clots. I (think) I answered his questions, and signed his paperwork. I put a lot of effort into keeping my eyes open, because I needed my placenta. I needed to tell him. When he finished talking I told him. I told him to keep it for me. That I wanted him to give it to my friend, or my midwife, or my fiancé to bring home. I needed it. I would need it even more after the blood loss, I said. "That's not what you need to be concerned about right now" was the reply I got, and I knew that he wouldn't help me. Every nurse, assistant, everyone that walked near the table I was on was enough to wake me because I needed their help. I think I told 4 different people, after the doctor, that I needed my placenta, that it was mine. As I got weaker and weaker I knew no one cared what I said. I was just the stupid girl bleeding out because I wasn't smart enough to listen to the doctors that said I needed a C-section. They refused to treat me with dignity, because I made a choice they couldn't understand.
I woke in the ICU. I had been given 5 units of blood, I felt like I had been beaten, and I had the hardest time focusing on anything. My fiancé was there. God, he was mad at me. I had scared him too much. He was pale, and shaking. I asked if we had really had a girl. I couldn't remember for sure. He showed he to me, and was hustled out of the room for me to rest.
The next day there were more intake questions, and I was so drained and drugged that I kept falling asleep as the male nurse tried to converse and get information out of me. Three days in ICU before I was transferred to L&D to continue my recovery, where the doctor came to visit and castigate me again, when he was certain I was coherent enough to pay attention to his authoritarian ranting.
When I was finally released from the hospital my iron levels were still dangerously low, and I was unable to walk without assistance, and someone to spot me in case I wavered.
It took more than a month for me to feel like the effects from the blood loss were over, and I was fairly normal again. All that and I still am most thankful for Spirit's birth. Even with the recovery, her birth was by far the most healing choice I could have made, after the C-sections. I would do it all over again just to feel the wonder of the way my body took charge and did everything. Yes, you read that right. I would still choose the same. It would be wonderful to do it minus the placenta retention and hemorrhage (or at least without the doctors telling me what a stupid thing I did), but even with the ICU trip it was better than the surgeries that left me feeling hollow and empty.
11 months later, I feel the same way. Spirit's birth was truly what I needed to heal from the boys' un-births. There are a lot of words here, but I feel none can convey the beauty I experienced in this little girl's birth, and knowing that those 3 times before that I had been told that I couldn't that they had been wrong. They had been wrong about me, and what I could do. I had been underestimated, and robbed of the opportunity to bring my older children into this world the way they deserved to be delivered....the way Spirit was delivered. Peacefully. And into loving arms.
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