Hello friends! Happy belated vday! While the details are still vivid in my memory I’m here emerging from my birth bubble ready to share the happenings of the last month.
Today my baby girl is 11 sweet days old. 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 21 inches of cuteness, Lily Rose came to the world on 2.4.25 and it was truly the most incredible day of our lives. Her birth was so wild and unexpected, but absolutely beautiful. As a certified doula and public health PhD student focusing on women’s health, I thought I had heard of every type of birth scenario. But wow- this was so incredibly different, long, wild, but ultimately amazing.
So let’s get started with her birth story.
My original birth plan.
One thing I know about from all my learnings is that you have to be flexible when it comes to pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. While I originally wanted a completely unmedicated birth, through pregnancy and working with pelvic floor physical therapist, I learned I had a huge amount of tension in that area ( and even a considerable amount of scar tissue). This is largely due to my surgery in infancy and all my urinary issues I had as a baby and young child. She and I were both worried about potentially causing more trauma to that region and we discussed the pros and cons of epidurals, non medicated and c-sections.
My biggest concern with the c-section was the fact that I have factor 5 Leiden, a gene that increases clotting risk. I already knew that I was going to have to be on injections of lovenox postpartum daily for 6 weeks, and I knew a major surgery would increase my clotting risk considerably. So we both agreed that a c-section would be the last resort. Next, we discussed the epidural. My main concern with the epidural was that it does increase risk of tearing, episiotomy and c-sections. My mom had a horrific experience with getting the epidural with my sister. She could not feel at all to push, labor stalled and she ended up with a forceps delivery and 4 th degree tearing that took weeks and weeks to recover from. Needless to say, I was not totally on board with the epidural train. Then, there was the non-medicated route. In general I don’t do well with medications and have pretty good pain tolerance so I really wanted a no intervention birth. But after talking to my PT, she told me to play the whole thing by ear. Although the epidural stalls labor for some, for others it actually speeds things up because the body relaxes. Given the extreme tightness of my pelvic floor, I definitely took note of this and decided to play the entire birth by ear. My intention was still as little medication as possible but I was open to anything.
The week before going into labor…
Ok so just to set up the scene let me take you through the last week of my pregnancy. I started to have intermittent contractions at night, after exercising, and after acupuncture. From my training as a doula, I knew these were more than my typical Braxton hicks contractions but not true labor. They call this pre-labor. It was definitely annoying and at times quite painful but not horrific. At this point we were almost into February and passing my due date. I was determined not to get pitocin (not that it’s bad but more details on this later) so I kept doing all the things- relaxation techniques, red raspberry tea, dates, my gentle birth tincture, acupuncture, electrical stimulation. By the morning of February 1st I had my induction scheduled for February 10th, about 11 days post due date. But I was so determined not to go that long. I felt my baby getting bigger by the day and she was so low I felt like she was going to fly out at any moment.
By the evening of February 1st something felt different. I had gone to acupuncture again to induce a few hours before and felt a profound shift in my body. I was having severe back pain and leg pain that wouldn’t go away. By 10pm my contractions began. It was 1000% back labor meaning I felt everything in my back instead of my stomach. My intention was to stay home as long as possible so I was mentally prepared for a long labor at home. In general, the longer you stay home, the less interventions you get. My midwives suggested staying home until all contractions were 4 minutes apart, lasting 1 hour. They said even having some 3 minutes apart was okay. So I diligently timed my contractions all night. I didn’t sleep for even 20 minutes because the pain was keeping me up. But even so I was so excited. I figured I’d have one bad night sleep and go to the hospital sometime in the morning of February 2nd.
By 7 am, the contractions were still there but a little erratic. Although some would be 3 minutes apart, others were 7. According to the contraction tracking app I was using, the average time apart for all my contractions was 4 minutes and 30 seconds. So, at 8 am I decided to call my midwife with an update. My midwife answered and was excited for me. But, she assured me not to come in until every contraction was less than 4 minutes apart (not an average) if I wanted to avoid pitocin. She was confident I would be at that point in a couple hours and I was MORE than ready to have a Feb 2nd baby after a night of zero sleep. Even though I was in quite a bit of pain I decided to go on a walk after talking to the midwife to move things along.
But something happened that I didn’t expect- the labor totally stalled. Suddenly contractions went from every 4,5, 6 minutes to every 15. I talked to the practitioner again and told them I would call back as soon as things picked back up.
By 5 pm on Sunday I was completely frustrated. Labor had halted completely- and contractions were happening every 15 to 30 minutes. They were minor enough that I even went to Whole Foods, something I could not fathom doing with 4/5 minute apart contractions. I began to frantically google what was going on. I quickly realized that although rare, sometimes labor can stop and last for days and days.
By the time evening came on Sunday I got in my pjs hoping to go to bed early and at least get a little sleep since the contractions were far enough apart. But like clock work at 11 pm everything picked back up. Just like the previous night contractions were 4-7 minutes apart. These were definitely more painful than the night prior and I was honestly grateful for it. I was so ready for baby to be here!!
But yet again after 8 hours of painful contractions around 7am everything slowed once again. Contractions that were once 3 minutes apart turned to 6 and I was beyond frustrated and sleep deprived. Looking for answers, I called my midwife for some advice. She knew my desire to go unmedicated (or at the very least without pitocin) but she also knew that time was ticking and I couldn’t go a third day without sleep and in this early labor. So she gave me two options: take a bendryl and a hot bath (sometimes sleep can actually help promote stalled labor) OR do the miles circuit. The miles circuit is basically a series of poses that you hold for 30 minutes each that helps move stalled labor forward. It is especially helpful if the baby is in a poor position and that is the reason for the labor stall. The whole circuit takes 90-120 minutes. Although I had been doing bits and pieces of it for days, I hadn’t done the whole 2 hours in one sitting. Determined to go to the hospital that day, at 11 am I decided to go immediately into the circuit. This time, the contractions started to stick. I labored for a couple additional hours at home in the tub (the tub was a complete godsend) and by 6:30 I started to prep my things to go to the hospital.
By around 8:30 I saw my midwife and she checked my cervix. I was 4.5 cm dialated and 100% effaced. Finally good enough to stay. We immediately came up with a game plan. Although my pain was not super significant 3-5/10 my midwife was concerned that I wouldn’t make it through a vaginal delivery and pushing because I had not slept a wink the past 2 nights in a row. Although I was hesitant for the epidural, the midwife and I agreed to try to get me dilated a bit more (we didn’t want another stall) and then get the epidural right before the pushing stage. She was worried given my already exceptionally long labor the pushing stage could be lengthy and my pain tolerance would be low because of my sleep deprivation.
Around 10:30, I finally got settled in my room. In order to get baby moving and more dilated before the epidural, instead of Pitocin, we decided to do the Rebozo. The Rebozo is a special woven cloth used around your belly during contractions to relax tight uterine ligaments and abdominal muscles. It also helps a baby rotate in pregnancy or labor more easily. We figured baby was malpositioned due to the length of my labor, and so Reboza seemed like a good option. After doing the Reboza, we checked my cervix and I was over 7cm dialated. It was time to break my water! We broke my water around midnight and I got the epidural. I started shaking pretty badly and honestly didn’t love the feeling of the epidural but I was more relaxed. 1:45 am, an hour after the epidural they checked me again I was 10 cm dilated. After being in my room for only about 3 hours, I was ready to push. After 2 days laboring at home, the rather fast pace of this without induction medication felt miraculous.
The pushing
What I didn’t expect was the length of the pushing. I had taken all the classes, watched all the videos, and thought I was prepared with all the techniques. I was happy because I never “turned up the epidural” so I could feel all the contractions which I was so happy about. Granted they weren’t as strong but I definitely knew when to push, unlike my mom who was completely numb and had no bearing of when to push.
Needless to say baby had a couple things working against me which made a vaginal delivery quite difficult— short umbilical cord, sunny side up (the reason for back labor), and hands in face. Sometimes even just one of these things can cause a vacuum delivery or c-section so the cards were definitely against us. There were points after the 3 hr mark where they called the obgyn and started listing alternative options, but since baby was not in distress I was allowed to keep pushing through even past the typical 3 hour threshold. Of note, one reason I did not get the pitocin is because it can increase fetal distress. It’s not a terrible drug AT ALL but I had a motherly instinct that it wouldn’t work for my baby. Plus I wanted her to have her own timeline and not be rushed.
BUT after nearly 5 hours, at 6:42 our beautiful baby girl was born. The midwife said it was the longest pushing time she’d ever had for a vaginal delivery! She used oils and hot compresses and guided me through how to push through the final pushes. Because of these steps I had no tearing. Wohooo!! A true miracle for me considering the exceptionally long pushing time.
We didn’t know the sex of the baby til birth and finding out I had a baby girl was truly the best moment of my life. I truly recommend anyone waiting til birth to find out because it was such a surreal and miraculous moment. I had a vision of a baby girl coming during a meditation right before we conceived (and the conception was totally unexpected). My husband announced we had a baby girl and we all started crying. So many people thought I was having a boy but my intuition was right! Even the nurses in the room were crying. After 55 hours of labor, it was pure bliss.
While the sleep deprivation is still very much real, I am so incredibly grateful for how good I feel 10 days postpartum. My Lily Rose is such a good baby and she is my little miracle. My little Aquarius ♒️ girl just like my own mom. My mom is my best friend and I will never be over the fact that I now have my own daughter. I am completely awestruck.