Abbie’s Birth Center Birth

I’m the 6th of 10 kids, a middle child, and my mom was using midwives and having homebirths before it was trendy! Her advice to us girls has always been to relax, because babies come when they’re ready. My babies came at 41&3, 41&6, 40&4, so when #4’s due date came and went, I wasn’t surprised!

After three natural births, 2 at Mercy Birthing Center, I did think I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, but THIS birth was full of twists and turns....LITERALLY.

Rise and shine! It’s 3:30 am August 12 and I’m contracting again. I’m 41&1 today, and I’ve felt these for a few nights now. Usually after I switch positions or use the bathroom, they’ll quit. To the bathroom! But this time, there is a pink tinge when I wipe. Interesting...

Back to bed to try and rest, but these cramps don’t quit. I head back to the bathroom, and there goes some mucus plug. Yep, this is looking like a great day to have a baby!

Well, I’m done taking these things lying down! It’s 5, and I head downstairs to my kitchen to eat something and sit on the yoga ball. The contractions are about 5 minutes apart and I’m feeling them in my back. Yikes.

6 am. Better call my mom so she can come watch the kids. 6:30: Better let the midwife on call at the birth center know we’ll be coming in! Contractions now every 2-4 minutes.

7:30 am. Ah, there’s nothing like the sight of that glorious tub at the birth center! But I have a feeling I can’t get in yet. I’m feeling so much in my back I can tell baby’s not positioned well. Let’s check: 5-6 cm dilated, 80% effaced, but that head is way up there at -3.

Well, dilation and effacement are not going to go quickly with that head up there. Time for some laps around the courtyard. It’s peaceful out there early in the morning. My husband and I stroll for a while, chomping on the BC’s AMAZING ice and pausing for contractions.

After a while I’m ready for a break, so we head back in. At this point contractions slow way down. I know I need to keep moving to make progress, so we head back out for more laps.

At this point, these contractions are really confusing me! They feel intensely painful but are too spread out. I suspect a posterior baby like my second, because back labor usually = spine grinding on spine.

My nurse/magician, saves the day here in a very strange way. She and another nurse bring in a massage table. After I clamber my enormous self up there, she contorts my body like a pregnant pretzel. Shoulders stacked, hips leaned over the side of the table, bottom leg straight and flexed foot while top leg bends at the knee over the bottom leg and the side of the table.

Um...how about just a massage? But, this crazy maneuver has a purpose. She suspects my 4x stretched uterus is feeling a little twisty, and spending 15 minutes on each side like this will help things unkink and baby to descend. It is NOT comfortable, ladies. But it is effective! I only have two contractions during each set, so about 7 minutes apart but INTENSE.

Once my 30 minutes of pretzel pose are up, the magical nurse grabs the rebozo and lifts my belly with it and jiggles while I’m on hands and knees on the floor. My super pregnant boobs are bouncing everywhere, I’m pretty sure I’m twerking unintentionally, it’s a hot mess. My husband gets a turn to drive the rebozo too! The nurse finishes out the floor set with a move called “shake the apples” which essentially is her using the rebozo to wiggle your butt like a dog wagging its tail. Oh, the things we do for these babies.

WELL. After all that, it’s time to try some more movement. We head out to do some sideways stair climbs and immediately I can tell the nurse’s contortions did something major. I’m immediately feeling like transition with these contractions much closer together, extremely strong and still stuck in my back.

I’m craving that tub now! I ask to be checked again before I get in and the midwife feels I’m a 7 and more effaced but baby is still really high.

Let’s get this transition over with, ya’ll. We get in a groove: I get on hands and knees as close as I can to the faucet and when contractions start, we turn on the hot water to my front while my husband does counter pressure. I’m doing the pony lips breathing technique during contractions to try to stay loose and not tense. The midwife checks in and suggests putting one leg up during contractions. Every position change feels impossible at this point, so I politely decline...

Time to get out. I get back to hands and knees on the bed. Very painful contractions that seem to be very ineffective. I get on my side to get checked and having a contraction there is excruciating. The midwife suggests moving to the toilet to try pushing which seems impossible, and I say I’d rather she break my water. She does and my husband says “WHOA, that’s green.” Meconium.

With my water burst, I get back to hands and knees and can feel the baby coming faster now. However, my body isn’t really pushing him out. I’m actively having to push with contractions to move baby. Pushing with all my might, I finally feel Baby’s head coming, but as soon as I stop pushing, the head is GOING BACK IN. I hear the midwife call for another midwife to come, and the atmosphere in the room gets urgent. She later tells me this motion is called a turtle effect: my Baby’s head would come out to the chin with each push, then pull back in. I could feel it every time.

I’m pushing SO hard but baby is stuck. The midwife’s trying to deliver more of the baby. One of the nurses helps pull one of my legs up to widen the pelvis, and the head is able to get out, but nothing else. The midwife’s trying to grab baby’s shoulders to pull on. There are so many people in the room now, urging my to push with everything I have. It’s dramatic and loud and scary.

I’m quickly flipped over onto my back, half hanging off the bed, as the medical staff’s training kicks in.

This is shoulder dystocia: my baby’s shoulders are caught in my pelvis. Happens in 5% of births. The baby MUST get out as quickly as possible. So how will they do it?

McRoberts maneuver: my legs are pressed as tightly into my chest as possible to maximize pelvic space for baby. The nurse applies suprapubic pressure, essentially pushing as hard as possible down on my lower abdomen to pop baby’s shoulder out from under my bone. The midwife grasps on to baby and PULLS on shoulders. This feels like an eternity as I’m suddenly staring at a room full of people in high alert, emergency mode, feeling my body and baby’s body trying to do something impossible together.

THEN. Baby explodes out of me, followed by the most enormous wave of meconium-amniotic fluid going EVERYWHERE. nurses find it later on their clothes, shoes, running out from under the bed. One even finds a plastic back to a Doppler pack and a battery in a puddle of it. The cord is wrapped twice around baby’s neck.

The cord is immediately cut and unwound and baby whisked away to the NICU team. My husband tells me it’s a boy! He’s blue and needs oxygen, scoring a 6 and then 8 on APGAR over the next few minutes.

Would you believe me if I tell you after all that drama, the midwife checks me over and NOT A SINGLE TEAR? She delivers the placenta (which weighs 2 lbs 3 oz ) and I finally get to meet my baby boy.

And so my baby boy was born, 8 lbs 9 oz, 21 1/2 inches, with miraculously no aspirated meconium nor shoulder injuries. God is so good.