Lots going on

We seem to have been spit out the opposite end of a long sickness filled late winter/early spring. I am so grateful. Diva child is still coughing a bit, man puppy is teething....but that is fine. After the last run of sickness, I will be careful not to complain about expected teething.

In my real, grown-up work life, things have become suddenly busy. Massage clients are coming out of the wood work, lots of doula clients are inquiring about my services. It is a feast or famine type of dynamic lately. All in the right time. I was very pleased that things were so slow from February to April as it didn't require lots of cancellations on my part.

My husband is working a lot. I am just moving back into regular doula work. I have a lot of nerves about it all....the unpredictability, the unknowns in regards to childcare, the commitment required, will it really fall into place? A doula friend of mine has a great post that pretty much sums up my feelings as well HomeGrown: The Scent of a Mother. The moving between the roles of doula and mommy can be exhausting at times. Sometimes it is just right. Energizing and great. Other times I wonder what kind of a racket I am running. Thankfully, all of my conflicting feelings over this stuff stays in its rightful place. I have yet to stress out any clients over my own childcare woes.

In the meantime, I also am soul searching about going back to school. I wonder If I should just jump in with both feet and become a midwife. It is very difficult to work in a flawed and broken system as a doula. It is sometimes downright depressing to watch the hospital system break down the prior convictions a mother held about birth right up until she becomes the patient that need curing. Would it be any better to be a midwife? In my state, certified nurse midwives have to work under an OB. I think the OB has the final 'say' in patient care in that scenario. Do I want to dive my family $70,000 in the hole (not to mention all the other sacrifices) to then be unhappy because I will be in the same pinch only providing patient care? I am going to sit on it for a bit. I'm going to keep attending births and try to see if I am more of a doula or a midwife. The roles are so different, and I need to know which one I want fill.

On a related note, I found an amazing website about Birth: The Play . On Labor Day, this play is being performed all over to promote mother friendly childbirth. They also want to get women talking to one another about their birth stories. Women need to talk to one another about their birth experiences. We need a way to discuss our births without being judged. We have all been a part of a birthing system that has harmed women and her powerful ability to give birth. Many of us have beautiful birth stories, and many of us bear the scars of forced procedures or coercion. I feel so strongly that we need to stop judging the women in the middle. It is so hard once you are in 'the machine' to do something different. The stakes are high ...no one wants harm to come to their unborn child. When women start complaining about those women who want an epidural in the parking lot, or those women who are trying to 'prove' something by having a natural birth, we all lose. The system we birth in needs lots of change, and we are all distracted by sisterly judgements and squabbles when we could be making it better for all of us AND our babies.

How we do that? Beats me.

And with that, I'm going to now be mommy to my actual kids!

My baby's almost birthday

All month long I have been thinking of this day a bit. Tonight I was snuggled up with my baby big boy (who is walking now, by the way...) and I thought about how I curled myself around him in an uncomfortable hospital bed praying, crying, and praying some more.

I was 33 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I had thought that maybe my water had broken a few days earlier. I was keeping tabs on that and decided that it hadn't. I had my mom watch my little daughter so I could go to my midwifery appointment. I was pretty sure she was going to want to do a cervical check and I didn't want my 22 month old to be climbing all over me during that.

On my way to the appointment I was having contractions. I tend to have lots of contractions from week 30 on, but they were more than the '4 an hour' that the doctors caution against. When my midwife examined me she was very concerned and thought my water had broken. I will never forget the feeling of fear that engulfed me as I lay on my back, helpless and vulnerable, with my feet in the air. I started to sob and insisted that this wasn't happening and that my boy, who had yet to be named, was not coming tonight.

My midwife walked me across the street to the hospital and I was given a stack of paperwork to fill out. Who would be joining me in Labor and Delivery? I was snotty and pushed the papers back.

"Why do I need to fill this out? I am not having a baby today!" I could hear my midwife quietly talking to a L & D nurse. "Hey, I came over here to have more tests done to see what the status of my amniotic sac is, not to have a baby today!"

I flip through the papers : Do you give this hospital permission to treat your child? I burst into tears. "I am NOT having a baby right now, my husband isn't even here!"


They walk me out of faker labor and delivery, called 'triage' . I would become well acquainted with 'triage' during my 11 days of prodromal labor that were yet to come. I was practically on a first name basis with the residents and nurses by the time by babes actual birthday came!

I was ushered into a labor room and given a gigantic gown to put on. Muttering to myself that this is total bullshit and that I needed to get home to put my first baby to bed, I put on the gown. In walks an intern and a L & D nurse and the conversation starts like this:

"Hi, I am Dr. bla bla bla I see that you had a C-Section with your last baby, is that your plan for today?"

"I am totally NOT HAVING A BABY TODAY, AND IF I WERE IT WOULD BE A VBAC!!"

I totally lost it. For about the 30th time in an hour I explained the story.

I was walking around a store 3 days ago. I felt a big gush. I thought, Oh my god, did my water just break? I went to the bathroom. I went home and I rested. I made sure that I wasn't leaking any fluid. I made sure my bladder was empty. The baby is moving great, I feel great, I'm not leaking. Big misunderstanding....last time I bring anything up again. I'm a Birth Doula for crying out loud....I think I would know if my water was broken!

Next thing you know, I am hooked up to a monitor having contractions every 2 minutes. Now, I wasn't feeling them. I was sufficiently freaked out by being in the hospital all alone without my family. I all but abandoned my daughter whom I had never left for more than an hour or two. I didn't tell her I was going to be gone. I didn't tell her I wasn't coming back before bed. This was total crap. I knew the never-leaving-my-firstborn-child-ever thing was going to be changing with the birth of my second child. However, it didn't change the fact that, up until this point, I had not felt the need to leave her, and now I had to in the interest of baby number 2.

I called my husband. I told him to go home, get our girly dinner and to bed and to send my mom. When our girly was asleep he could trade off and come to me and bring me home. I told him that this was a huge over reaction and that, at worst, I would be out of there by morning after a bag of fluids and monitoring.

In walks my midwife. No, you are not going anywhere. In fact I want you to have steroid shots to rapidly mature your baby's lungs. Your son is going to be born sooner rather than later. We are sending people from the NICU to come and talk to you about his probable stay. We are going to try and stop your labor long enough for the steroids to work. But after your second shot we will let your labor begin.

NO NO NO I am NOT having a baby. I am not even feeling these contractions. I had an ultrasound and my levels of fluid were within the range of normal for my baby's gestational age.

I was beyond pissed. I was beyond scared. I was being treated like a person who is crazy and using denial to get through it all. I was told that I wasn't going anywhere and that I would be in the hospital, on bed rest, until the birth of my son.

I was given the most HORRID drug to stop my contractions. It was all the drunk and none of the fun. It blurred my vision and slurred my speech, but spared my mind. I lost muscle control and couldn't lift my arms or legs....they felt like they belonged to someone else. I had to be catheterized. I was burning hot and thirsty, but I couldn't drink much water because the water could flood my lungs and give me pneumonia. A nurse came and moved me around and gave me ice and cold cloths to keep me as comfortable as possible.

My husband came for a little while, and then I sent him home so that my daughter could have things be normal for as long as possible.

I was trying to imagine my world where my 'baby' girl at home who had really never been away from me could be without me for days to weeks. Who would take care of her? I'm a stay at home mom and my husband only has so much time off....time we were intentionally saving so we could 'babymoon' at home as a family.

I was being told that I would have a baby in the NICU. How would I be with my new son and pump breast milk and be mommy to my little girl at home? I would have to adjust my whole life and what I believed to be best for everyone to what was being thrown at me, against my will. I didn't want my baby to be far from me, I didn't even want him circumcised...how would I deal with watching him being poked and prodded and kept in a little plastic crib far from his mama??? All of these things swirled around my brain all night. Everyone tried to encourage me that his chances were really, really, good. The survival rates for 33 weekers were really great. Holy shit...they are talking to me about survival rates?!! He would have only a few weeks in the NICU. He would be fine long term. No big deal, right? I guess not if you work in labor and delivery and this is what you deal with every day...but this is my baby...my son.

My sobbing came in waves. All I really wanted was a normal pregnancy and birth. Now I would give all of it, in a heartbeat to keep my sweet boy inside. I talked to him. My husband and I named him that night. I couldn't bear the possibility of him being born and taken from me without a name.

I prayed and prayed. I had a sense of peace in the middle of it....it would be completely unraveled in a moment, and then it would come back. I just wanted my boy to be okay. I was mad at God and told him so. But I also cried out to him. I figure God is big enough to handle my anger and love in the same moment.

The next day I was the medical anomaly of the floor. The question of the day: Is Sarah's water actually broken? How can we know? There was a resident who thought this was total bullshit right along with me. I think I love him still to this day. He was the one who pushed for more testing. I was still on the stop-the-labor-drugs that made me feel really bad while everyone did their rounds and discussed my 'case'.

My mom and dad came...my husband came...my doula came. People came to stay with me. At one point everyone had left the room except my doula. All of a sudden I felt a massive wave of nausea hit me and then I felt myself start to go unconscious. I felt myself try to press the nurse call button and I heard myself say 'turn it off..the drugs turn it off' and then I passed out.

I was metabolizing the drugs at a very rapid rate. Because of this, my blood pressure dropped to 80/20. This was not good. I had been nagging them to turn down/off the meds for hours. Luckily, my doula had been in the room with me when I passed out and got the nurses in immediately. They stopped the meds. My wonderful nurse told me that I could eat once they stopped the meds. I must have been a very sad patient because I had captured the sympathy of all the floor nurses. She brought in a tray of food and promised to get the resident so I could inhale the food as soon as he gave the all clear.

So, to recap: we started off a normal prenatal visit, turned 'be admitted for some tests', turned did you want another c-section? turned the NICU is coming to talk to you about your eminent birth and baby's hospital stay, turned you will at least be here on bed rest the remainder of your pregnancy, turned maybe you are right and you can go home soon.

After all of that, my water seemed fine. Now, we will never know if it had a leak which resealed (that is something that is fairly common), or if everyone was in overreaction mode. Either way, I was elated that things were fine. A hospital Salisbury steak has never tasted so damn good. Yes, I relished every.last.bite. of a crappy hospital meal. It may have been gourmet meal as far as I was concerned. I was that hungry, tired, and grateful.

When the OB from my practice came around to talk to me and my husband I talked her into releasing me that night. They had wanted to keep me one more night and day. I promised to rest and stop seeing massage clients. All I wanted was my bed, my house, a shower, my jammies, and to hug by little girl. I was sent home on Friday night. Here is where a picture is worth a thousand words. I had my husband snap this photo of me in my bedraggled glory because the moment needed some sort of documentation:

I love the look of exhaustion coupled with 'what the hell just happened to me here?'

I will never forget the fragility and relief I felt that whole weekend. I was also quite angry about my blood pressure drop. I just kept thinking They could have killed me, for no reason at all...we almost died.

I just wanted to lay in bed with my husband as he held me and whispered to me that we are all okay. We had pancakes on Saturday morning and just lazed around the house together. It took a lot for me to move forward and forgive the over reaction of the midwife and the hospital staff. I tried to believe that maybe it had been a miracle that my water had broken and resealed. I still don't really know what to make of it all. All I know is that I am sitting here with big boy on my lap while he sucks his thumb and snuggles me. I'm really glad that we are just here and fine and healthy.

Letting it go

From time to time I get really reflective about my childbirth experiences with my two sweeties. Part of this is my nature and part of this is to sort out my feelings so I can be professional as a doula.

I became a doula before I was a mother. I have always been amazed at the capacity of the human body to bring forth life! Childbirth is a transformative experience even if it is a small part of the mantle of Motherhood. I believe in women's bodies to do the work of childbirth and have been at the side of laboring mothers as they find their inner strength and resolve to do something they have never done before. Even if a woman has had a babe before, each birth is a unique and different experience that requires every ounce of strength a woman has within herself.

How ironic that I hold such faith in the bodies of women and yet I can not have the vaginal delivery I have always wanted. It is a place that stings in my heart. It is the first real experience that involved just me that I couldn't make work no matter how hard I wanted it or tried. I fantasized about the moment when my baby would be born and that warm new little person would be placed on my chest for me to breath in and admire. A moment I have shared with other women but a moment I will never have myself.

It is not for lack of knowledge...It is not for lack of desire. I never doubted my ability to give birth. In fact, my labor with her was a beautiful experience. When my daughter became stuck in my pelvis when I reached 10 cm I was sure she would just move down, I had seen it happen. I rested, I pushed, I walked, I cried, I pushed, I moved....for 6 hours. Her heart did not like it. Her heart rate dropped and dropped and dropped. Being on the brink Motherhood, I would have given my life for her. I had a very unexpected Cesarean birth.

When I was pregnant with my son I was sure it would be different this time. If only I had moved more, given it more time, had a more relaxed atmosphere, I 'knew' I could have birthed my daughter. I picked apart every last detail of my unmedicated labor with my daughter to make sense of it all. I visualized my son being born. I drove myself crazy researching midwives and Ob's who were supportive of VBAC. I looked into homebirth. I read encouraging data about VBAC outcomes. I 'knew' I could do it. After a preterm labor scare at 33 weeks, 11 days of prodromal labor with contractions 2-5 minutes apart several times a day as his birth drew near I was excited.

My labor with my son was a beautiful and empowering experience. My husband, my doula, my midwife, and a lovely labor and delivery nurse were all with me; believing with me. Every breath. Every contraction. Every time I sank into despair.

When I reached 10 cm and my son became stuck in my pelvis I was sure he would just move down, I had seen it happen. I rested, I pushed, I walked, I cried, I pushed, I moved....for 3 hours. This time I knew he would not come. In the quiet space within I cried.


My body can not do it. And I am sad.

My gratitude that we are all alive and well is deep. My sadness that I won't have the experience that I thought I could create will leave in time. But it's here now. More pronounced as we quickly move towards my son's first birthday. More pronounced as I contemplate having more children and knowing that I will never be in labor again with the goal of a vaginal delivery. It's more pronounced because I don't know that I can have an invasive surgery again for someone who I do not yet know...who is not yet growing inside me.