River Willow's Birth Story

We had an almost, sorta, yes but not really, somewhat 95% successful home birth. 

Here's how it all went down: 

 The boys went down to stay with Jeremy's parents for the weekend.  We used this kid free time to go out and about, do a whole bunch of walking (to try and spur on labor) and get a few last minute things we needed before baby came.  I went to work on Sunday and didn't feel any contractions other than braxton hicks, which have been a constant for a while.  That same night, (sunday night) around 10pm, I started to have what I thought might be legit contractions.  They hurt.  They were kinda regular...like maybe 10 mins apart.  I thought I should go to sleep to try to get some rest just in case these were the real thing.

I didn't sleep great...woke up on and off hurting a bit.  It was about 630-700 that I finally gave up on sleeping anymore and decided to get up.  The painful contractions continued.  I didn't start timing them quite yet, because I think I was just in disbelief that this was the real thing.  I didn't get the chance to go into labor on my own with the boys, so I really didn't know how it was when it first starts.  After I walked around the house and cleaned some, I decided that these might be the real thing and woke Jeremy up.  We started timing the contractions and they were about 3 minutes apart.  I also then called my midwife.  She said that since I was induced early with the boys, and hadn't started labor on my own with them, that she was treating me like a first time mom, thus expecting a somewhat long labor.  So when I was on the phone with her about 0800, she said she'd take her time, get her stuff and assistant together and be over in about an hour or so.   It was this time that I also sent out a mass text to friends and family alerting everyone that labor was officially on.

I continued contracting. I walked around the house a lot, vacuumed and cleaned up the area where we were going to birth/set up the pool.  Midwife and her assistant arrived about 0930ish.  They got here and began to set up all their supplies.  I think we started timing contractions again, but I don't remember where they were.  I think around 10 or 1030 My midwife checked my and said I was almost completely dilated.  We didn't expect me to be complete this soon, so we didn't have the pool set up or anything.  Once she checked me, her eyes lit up and she said,

"You're almost complete, we're going to have a baby here soon!"

I got really excited and anxious at that point.  I didn't think that I was going to be dilated so quickly.  It did not feel like I had been in labor very long yet.  My midwife got really excited too.  Her and her assistant and Jeremy started running around getting everything ready.  My contractions started getting more and more intense.  When the pool was ready, I got in and it felt awesome.  I then labored for a while in the pool.

My water had still not broken, and then all of a sudden while I was sitting in the pool, I felt a huge "pop" down there.  And my water broke, in the water.  after that I almost immediately felt the urge to start pushing.  Pushed and pushed for a while, and was even able to reach down and feel baby's head slowly making its way down!

The pain was pretty bad at this point.  I was sort of stuck in a position sitting in the water bent over the side of the pool, on my knees, eating grapes and drinking gatorade between contractions with a cold rag on my head.  At this point my midwife started monitoring baby's heart rate with her doppler. And this is where things got crazy, or exciting as Jeremy says.  As our midwife was listening to the heartbeat, I could see concern on her face.  She said I needed to get out of the pool so that she could get a more accurate listen to what was going on.  I got out of the pool and did some pushing while in the squatting position, and then stood up in between contractions.  Every time I would push baby down into the birth canal, her heart rate would significantly drop.  A significant drop in heart rate like she was having is a sign of oxygen deprivation, usually from cord compression.  We could feel baby's head in the canal, so it wasn't a cord prolapse, but something was going on.  My midwife looked at me after monitoring her during a few more pushes, and she said

"We have to go."

I knew what that meant and I was terrified.  I wasn't terrified that something bad was going to happen to baby, I was terrified that we'd get to the hospital and I'd have to be rushed in for an emergency c-section, and since I've had no pain medication on board, they'd have to put me under general anesthesia.

I totally had a feeling of defeat come over me at that point.  I was hoping I could just hurry and push baby out quickly before EMS got there and then it wouldn't be a problem, but she was taking her time coming out, so unfortunately we had to go in.

The ambulance crew arrived and put me on the stretcher and took me into the back of the ambulance.  They wouldn't let Jeremy or my midwife ride with us!  Which I thought was awful, because had I delivered that baby in that ambulance, those dudes would have had no idea what to do.  The ambulance ride was the worst part of the whole thing.  Here I am still contracting and pushing, lying in the back of a bumpy ambulance with 3 clueless dudes just chilling next to me.  I really thought I was going to deliver on my own in that stretcher.  We finally made it to the hospital and I was rushed up into a L&D room.  Immediately the room was filled with what felt like 20 people in blue scrubs all surrounding me while I'm in terrible pain and trying to push a baby out.  Some of them are positioning me to push, some are strapping on monitors, some are starting IVs, some are talking to me about possible c-section and anesthesia risks.  They have me push a few times in there, and then they have me bear down and not push (which is AWFUL, btw, when all your body is trying to do is push out a 7 lb baby out!)

They tell me that they're going to try everything that they can to allow me to deliver vaginally, but they roll me into an OR room, just in case.  This was when Jeremy showed up.  He had to follow the ambulance and I was afraid that he wouldn't make it in time.  They start prepping everything and I continue pushing.  I think I started crowning at this point, and they mention that they need to use forceps to get  baby the rest of the way out.  I never caught a glimpse of the forceps, but Jeremy said they looked like salad tongs.  As they were maneuvering the tongs and getting ready to pull her out, the doc let me reach down and feel her head coming out.  It was crazy.  I could feel her hair!  Next thing I know she is out and on top of me and the doc said, "look at what you have!"  We looked down and were so excited to see that we now had a little girl in our arms.

She stayed with me for a long time.  They didn't take her away to get her weight or give her shots.  They let me hold her for as long as it took to deliver the placenta and clean everything up.  I was very thankful for that.  We then went back to our room and Jeremy's parents came with the boys not too long after.

River Willow Tucker
Born on November 3rd, 1:52pm.  7 lbs 5 oz.  21 inches long. 

Foxx meeting River

Judah meeting River

Even though we ended up having to transport to the hospital, I am so thankful that I was still able to deliver River vaginally instead of having a cesarean.  I was also thankful how respectful the staff was about treating me having come in from a home birth.  That was also a fear of mine, that I would have gotten some push back or fingers shaken at me for attempting a home birth.  I knew that there were risks going into it.  But there are also risks with hospital births.  And the statistics for the 'crazy emergencies' that would result in severe injury or death are extremely low in the first place.  The key was having a birth attendant (my midwife) whom I knew well and trusted well.  She said we needed to go the hospital, I trusted her.  We did and it all turned out great anyway.  

The heart rate dropping problem?  River had her cord wrapped all around her back and through her arms in such a way that when she would get pushed down into the birth canal, the cord would be squeezed so that it would stop blood flow during the squeeze.  Solution:  Push baby out quicker! 

So there ya have it.  Attempted a home birth, ended with a vaginal hospital birth.  Not too bad.  

All that matters is we have a perfectly healthy, thriving little girl.  

  

  

  

Homebirth

So yes, we're planning a home birth this time.  And I'm soooo excited about it.  Having the boys in the hospital was such an awful experience, that we have decided on having this baby at home, with a midwife that we trust.  I know that this is sometimes a hot and debated topic, so I won't throw all of my opinions on the topic at you right now, but just know that I've done my research, and lots of it. I know the facts, risks, and benefits, and I am completely comfortable with my decision to birth at home.  There are plenty of risks and benefits that come along with a hospital births as well. 

People think I'm crazy.  Maybe I am.  But I'm excited.  

Here are some different reactions that we get from people when we tell them we're doing this birth at home.  All of these have actually been said to my face, at least once.  

"Wow, you're brave."

"Ha, well good luck with that!"

"With no pain medicine? You're crazy!"

"I think that's really awesome, and wish I would have done that."

"Yeah...that's not very smart.  You should rethink that." 

"How does that work?"

"Aren't you scared something is going to go wrong?"

I'm not scared.  I'm excited.  I feel very at peace with my decision to birth at home, and so does Jeremy.  Should either of us have felt any differently at any point, I wouldn't do it.   

I know something could go wrong.  There is that teeny possibility.  But I also know that something could go wrong in the hospital, and there is more of a possibility of that.  My opinion is that today's modern medicine intervenes in the birthing process way too much when it's not needed.  I am very thankful for maternal-fetal medicine  as I have worked with it first hand in the hospital.  I am thankful that we have access to that type of medicine and interventions when it is really needed.  I'm also thankful that in most situations, women are allowed to choose what kind of birth they'd like to have, whether it be in or out of the hospital, medicated or natural, vaginal or cesarean.     

I'm excited.  Have I mentioned that already?  I cannot wait.  All of our home birth supplies are out and ready to go.  We've picked up our birth pool, and have everything ready for that.  Midwife is officially on call for labor.   Just waiting on baby now!

"Giving birth should be your greatest achievement, not your greatest fear."

haha, Got to love Jim Gaffigan!  Home birth daddy x4.

Thoughts on Childbirth

The birth of a child, especially a first child, represents a landmark event in the lives of all involved. For the mother particularly, childbirth exerts a profound physical, mental, emotional, and social effect. No other event involves pain, emotional stress, vulnerability, possible physical injury

The creation and birth of a new life is an awesome and beautiful thing.  Such an event can be very unpredictable and chaotic.  I was reading an article today about the effect of birth experiences on 1st time moms.  The more medical interventions and the more control the doctors had over the birth, the higher the rate of postpartum depression and the higher the rate of mothers who stated they had a very negative birth experience.      

I'm one of those women.

Although I don't think that I had full-blown postpartum depression, I definitely struggled with what felt like just more than baby blues.  It didn't start till a few weeks after the babies came, and it lasted well over a month.  What made it worse was that I was extremely hard on myself.  I kept saying, "I should NOT feel like this.  I have 2 awesome little boys and I am so thankful for them."  I felt bad because there are plenty of people who are not even able to have children, yet here I am with 2 kids, constantly feeling sad and anxious.  Those feelings only made things worse.  Other contributing factors were our struggle with breastfeeding, lack of sleep, normalizing hormones, and the occasional arguments between Jeremy and I because of my emotional self.  Even now, I feel like I'm just pitying myself, and I shouldn't be.  

I really think that had my birth experience gone differently, I may not have struggled with all these things quite as much.  I say may because I obviously can't know what would have happened if things that gone differently, but I do feel like a lot of my sadness came from my birth experience.

Women's bodies were made to deliver babies (with a very few having medical conditions that prevent them from delivering vaginally).  God gave women the ability to be able to conceive, grow, and birth a child, and when that right is taken away, it is saddening and disheartening.***  It is the process of how the world has grown to the size it is now.  One mother at a time, one child at a time (or more if you have multiples!), both begin a new life in such a short period of time.  To be able to birth your child without any medical intervention is the most natural, empowering, and raw experience, and when that delivery is taken away from you, it is very depressing.  The loss of control, the feelings of failure, the thoughts of inadequacy.  All these emotions are ones that I dealt a lot with.  

I know you might be reading this and thinking, "Sarah, get over it.  Your boys are now 6 months old, totally healthy and happy, and how they got here doesn't matter.".  Maybe you think I'm over dramatizing things.  Maybe I am.  But I can't help it.  I think about these things often, and they often still bother me.  I think about what could have gone differently, things that I should have done, things that I shouldn't have done, and things I will try to do differently next time.  So you know how they say after deliveries that women forget all the pain of labor because of the rush of oxytocin?  Yeah, I didn't get that.  You miss out on that when they cut.  So I remember my birth experience, I remember the pain and the disappointment.  I get really anxious when I start to think about my next pregnancy and delivery.  Yes, I'm going to try again to have a natural birth.  I don't know where I will deliver or what type of medical personnel I want to have.  I just know that things have to be different next time.

I'm sorry if I seem like I'm over-reacting.  I'm not trying to be a drama queen.  I'm not trying to get any pity.  I'm just being open and real.  These are my feelings, out in the open for you to read.  You can tell me to just "get over it", you can tell me that people have had it much worse than me.  I know those things, and that fact only makes me feel worse for still feeling bad about it.  So that's that.  I'm much better nowadays, which is why it has taken me so long to write this post.  I can finally sit back and process these emotions.  I'm OK now.  But that doesn't mean that I don't remember, and that I'm not going to change things next time.    

If you haven't read my whole birth story, you can read it here >>> Part 1 and Part 2.

***My heart goes out to those who are unable to conceive a child, or who has lost a child.  I cannot imagine the hurt that they feel, and I hope by writing this post that I am offending NO ONE.  If I do, please let me know, so that I may rephrase my words or delete the post, to be less-offensive to others.  I also do not want to offend anyone who has had or wants to have an elective cesarean section.  I am thankful that we are able to have a choice with our births, and those choices are personal and individual.  I do NOT mean to judge anyone, and certainly not to judge the way they have chosen to give birth.   

   

The Best of 2011

2011 has been a crazy and exciting year for us, and as we near the new year, I can't help but think that every year from here on out will be so different and crazier than any of our past years.   We have made so many changes in our lives, including a new house and 2 precious little additions to our family!  Here are a few things from each month this past year that were especially memorable for us:

January:

We found out we were having twins!!  That early ultrasound had both our jaws to the floor.  Tears and laughter filled the room.  Never would either of us had expected that we would get pregnant with twins!  I often think back to my high school or younger self years and try to picture that girl, all grown up, and now with twins.  It completely blows my mind.  

February:

The month that I started this blog.  I wanted to start writing.  To somehow keep track of important events in our life, with words and not just pictures.  I wanted to write also about the emotions of all of it, which aren't always seen through pictures.  I wanted a "journal" so to speak, that others who were interested could share in with our lives.  It's been fun to blog so far, and I see it continuing for as long as my fingers have we have the means and my fingers have the dexterity to do so.  

March:

We bought our first house.  It turned out to be a lot better than we had hoped.  It was a fairly quick and painful process, surprisingly.  I love how we have made this house our home, and how it will turn into the comforting place where our kids will call home one day also.  

April:

As soon as we found out we were having boys at our Gender Reveal Party, we started working on the nursery.  We went with the theme from the book, The Giving Tree.  I painted murals and got tree/apple accents.  I'm very pleased with how it all came out, and love that it wasn't a theme that you could just easily buy stuff for.  It was original, and that made us have to be creative.  

May:

My belly keeps on growing and growing (and this pic is around 24/26 weeks I believe...it got much bigger!).  I never thought my belly would get as big as it did, and every week I would be amazed by how much it grew.  I just kept thinking, "I don't know how I can get much bigger", but it kept happening.  Big belly housed 2 little boys for 9 whole months!  

June:

All my sweet friends threw us a baby shower!  We were given lots and lots of neat and useful gifts for the boys!

July:

The most anticipated day of 2011:  the day our boys arrived!  Although the delivery was entirely disappointing, my boys were completely healthy and I could not have been more excited about their arrival out of my belly and into my arms.

August:

Our boys' first photo shoot at one week old.  A huge thanks goes out to Marissa French of Rylan's Riches Photography for photographing our precious little dudes.  She has also done their 3 month pics, and will also do 6, 9 and 12 month photo shoots!

September:

We took our boys on their firsts outdoor adventures, to both Percy Warner Park and Radnor Lake.  They very much enjoyed the gorgeous Tennessee fall weather, as did we, while toting them around in our carriers.

October:

The boys' first halloween!  They went as Thing 1 and Thing 2.

November:

We had some more photos done...the boys' 3 month pics and also some family photos!  3 month photos done by Rylan's Riches Photography, and family photos done by my talented friend, Lane.  This month was also the boys' first trip to Michigan, and first plane ride, which they did awesome with.

December:

The boys had their 1st Christmas, and we sent out our 1st Christmas card!  The boys had no idea that it was even Christmas, but we had fun with them, dressing them in little elf outfits, opening presents to each other and then taking them for a cold tour of Nashville's ICE! exhibit.  1st Christmas success for sure.  Man o' man do I feel old now, sending out Christmas cards and all!  

This year has been beyond amazing, and we are so unbelievably blessed to have these magical little boys in our lives.  Here's to many more great years full of bliss and excitement ahead.

Peace & Love to you in the new year!

Part 2 Of My Birth Story; The Cesarean Section

If you haven't read part 1 of my birth story, start here.

So I agreed to the cesarean.  As soon as I said yes, all the doctors and nurses cleared the way and a whole crew of new doctors and anesthesiologists come running in the room like a code was going on.  I was immediately surrounded by 5 or 6 medical personnel, my arms are being grabbed and poked with needles as new IV's are started, more fluids hooked up, and tubes and wires are attached to my arms and chest.  I could no longer see my family in the room because I was surrounded by all these new people and was being asked a million questions all at once.

"Can you please state your name and birthday?"
"How much do you weigh?"
"Can you feel this?"
"How about this?"
"Does this hurt?"
"Is this cold?"
"Can you feel my hand?"
"Do you know where we are? what time it is? what day it is?"

(some guy in the background rattling off side effects of medications)


All of this happened soooo ridiculously fast, it really felt like I was all of sudden thrown into a whirlwind and all went blurry.  I was scared out of my mind.  The lady that kept asking me if I could feel different stuff and whether or not it hurt, I kept trying to tell her, "Yes, I can feel that.  Yes, it hurts when you pinch me."  There was so much going on that I really don't think she heard me.

Next thing I know I am in the operating room, lying flat on my back, a nasal cannula (oxygen) in my nose, a curtain draped in front of my face, IV poles and fluid bags hanging above my head, and a anesthesiologist next to my head.  I see Jeremy walk through the door and come sit next to me.  He's dressed all in blue surgical scrubs.  He's smiling.  I'm not.  I'm so scared.  A lady again starts to pinch my legs, belly and chest, asking about what I can feel and what I can't.  She said that I should only be able to feel pressure.  I said that I could feel her pinching.

The guy next to me begins to tell me that I may feel a lot of pressure in my abdomen, but that I shouldn't feel any pain and that if I needed anything or felt weird, to let him know.  He was nice.  There is a lot of haze in here also, but things are going ok.  They have started the procedure and I am talking to Jeremy, trying to stay calm.  I start to feel pain.  Not pressure, I felt pain.  Sharp, stabbing pains that were escalating.  I told the guy next to me.  He said, it should be just pressure.  "It's more than pressure!"  I said.  No one did anything.  (I don' remember much of this, this is Jeremy's report).  I started screaming and screaming, very loudly.  Then people started doing something.  They started pumping me full of fast acting pain meds.  My upper body started convulsing.  Jeremy was freaking out and thought I was seizing. The anesthesiologists told him it was just because of the medicine.

This was around the same time that the boys were born.  I remember hearing a cry.  Jeremy went around the corner.  I couldn't feel the pain anymore, but I was extremely nauseated.  A nurse puts a vomit dish and suction catheter up to my mouth.  Jeremy comes back around the corner and says "Judah has sideburns!"  He had to repeat it like 5 times because I was so drugged up I couldn't understand what he was saying.  Then they called a "STAT" on baby Judah.  Apparently he wasn't breathing all that great, and they called to get help in their quicker (He ended up being just fine).  Jeremy said he was so scared at this point because I was lying on the table completely out of it and convulsing, and Judah was having trouble breathing.  He was afraid that it was just going to be him and Foxx left.  I'm not sure how much time had elapsed, but I finally got to see my babies (while still in the OR).  They were both swaddled up and put up to my chest/face.  After just a few minutes, they were taken away, and Jeremy followed them.

I don't remember anything after this until I got back into my room, and I don't know how long it was until my babies got there.  I see my babies roll into our room in their little bassinet cribs.  The nurse said something about Judah's blood sugar being low, so she gave him to me nurse him.  I did.  I felt completely drugged and out of it still, so I wasn't sure if he was getting any milk or even doing it right.  They took him back and Jeremy fed him a bottle, to try and get his blood sugar back up to normal.  It eventually got high enough.

We spent some time with our boys, taking pictures and such.  While I was being moved to the postpartum room, Jeremy went with the boys to help with their first bath.  My boys came back to my room and nothing else mattered at that point.  I had them with me, in my arms, to stay.  I breastfed them and they slept on me.

Recovery wasn't bad at all.  I was up walking very quickly after the surgery, and everyone was surprised at how easily I was moving around.  I was extremely sore, but I didn't care.  I wasn't going to just sit in that bed after everything I had just been through.  The next few days were fine.  The staff was awesome, the boys did great, I healed well.  We had lots of visitors and it was nice.

One of the days an anesthesiologist came by and took a survey from me about my c-section.  I let him know good and well that I felt pain during the surgery.  not just pressure, but pain.  He looked a little worried.

All went well and we got to go home on Sunday, the 31st.  We went home and Jeremy grilled us a nice steak dinner.  We took lots of pictures and just watched in awe as our boys slept.

And so our new lives began!

Part 1 Of My Birth Story; The Labor

WARNING:  This post is extremely long and may contain information that may have a little too much personal/medical details for you.  If that scares you, you can quit reading now-cya later!  If you are not intimidated, then continue on my friend.

I know it's been over 2 months since I've delivered, and my birth story probably seems like old boring news, but I think I need to write about it anyway.  If nothing else but to come to terms with it myself.  I haven't shared it before now because I've been struggling with a lot of feelings that I have had about it since then.  Feelings about the pregnancy, about the birth, about the medical personnel, about the decisions made, about my control of the whole situation, and about my perception of the whole occurrence.  People have asked me about how it went and up until now, I kind of just gave a vague answer and quickly changed the subject so I wouldn't have to talk about it.

I'll start this out with a very fitting quote:

"We make plans.  And God laughs."

It started on Tuesday, July 26th.  The very day that I turned term (37 weeks).  I had a routine prenatal appointment.  I was really excited for this appointment, because I was hoping that I might have dilated and effaced more than last week (I was 80% effaced and 1.5 cm dilated the previous week).  I was also excited because my OB was going to strip my membranes, which would hopefully then jumpstart my labor.  Jeremy came with me to this appointment.  I'm not sure why he came, but I'm glad he did.  First thing that happened was my vital signs and weight was taken.  

Blood pressure was 151/98 on the machine.

holy crap that's high.  

Weight was 9 lbs more than a week ago.

wow that's a lot to gain in one week.

Both these number made me nervous.  High blood pressure and quick weight gain immediately triggered a thought in my mind that scared me.  

Pre-eclampsia.  Maybe even eclampsia. I'm at high risk for this condition because it's my first pregnancy and there is more than one baby. 

I freaked out for a minute, but then just thought maybe the blood pressure was just because I've had a lot going on lately, and I was tense.  (I had gotten rear-ended in my care 2 days before this, and had to stay overnight at the hospital in observation, but all was well and no one was injured).  I blamed it on that and on the machine (those things can be a little off sometimes right?).  The weight?  Maybe I've just been eating like crap this week and gained a few extra pounds (I'm trying to ignore the fact that my legs and feet have been more swollen this week as well). 

I get in the room to see my OB, and she orders a urine test.  To check for protein.  Yet another sign of preeclampsia/eclampsia.  Luckily, I only had trace protein in my urine (good sign).  My OB came in and checked my blood pressure manually.  It was still high, at 141/92.  My baseline throughout my pregnancy was 100-115/70-85, so this was up quite a bit for me.   


I started to cry because I knew what this meant.  This means that I'm either going to have to have a scheduled c-section or have to be induced, which very well may end with a c-section.  My OB tried to comfort me.  I think she said something to the effect of..."It's ok, you can fix this problem very easily...by delivering those babies."  Yeah, that didn't really help.

The OB told me to go home, pack a bag and go to the hospital, because I'm going to have some serial blood pressures done and may possibly be induced.

Crap!!!!

I cried the whole way home.  I called my mom, I called our doula, I called Jeremy's mom.  I whined and complained to everyone about how I can't believe this had to happen the day I turned term...I had made it the whole pregnancy without any complications, etc.  Jeremy tried to calm me down the entire ride home, by trying to get me to see the end result, our babies.  He kept saying, "but honey, we're going to meet our baby boys really soon!"  As excited as I was to meet them, this is NOT how I wanted it to happen.  If you know me at all, or if you have read any of my previous posts about my pregnancy and delivery hopes, you know that I was hoping for an all-natural, no pain medicine, no medical intervention delivery.  I knew that most-if not all of those things were going to get tossed out the window if I had to be induced.  

Our doula made a great suggestion.  She said on the way to the hospital, that we should stop and eat a big meal, because they wouldn't let me eat in the hospital.  We ran home, threw a few things into our bag (most of it had already been packed for a few weeks), and headed out.  We stopped at Harris Teeter on the way to grab some food.  We each came out with just a sandwich and salad that was mediocre.  Looking back, I totally wish we would have went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants and just had a relaxing dinner, but I was so upset and anxious and excited and nervous all at the same time, that I couldn't really think of much else except what was about to take place.