Hazel’s Birth Story- 12/19/2018
Yesterday was my 35th birthday. I couldn’t help but think about my mother often yesterday as well as Hazel’s own birth day. I never really thought of my birthday as the day my mom actually gave birth to me until I became a mother myself.
When I was 32, I visited my mom in Philadelphia and attended a childbirth educator seminar. At dinner, I asked my mom to tell me about all 3 of her births. I was only 7 weeks pregnant at the time. If you’ve ever been pregnant, you know that people love an opportunity to tell you about all the things that went wrong with their pregnancy and delivery. Not my mom. She told me all of her births were fairly quick and uneventful. She even told me that she agreed with my desire to have a home birth because hers were so uncomplicated. No matter how uncomplicated a birth, you will remember that birth story forever. So now, every year on my birthday I will think of my mother fondly and the birth of myself, and how that helped to shape my mom as well as myself.
Now, onto Hazel’s birth story. It has been nearly 14 months (tomorrow) since Hazel was born and I still can’t think about her birth without tears in my eyes, and a heart full of regret and guilt. My due date was December 14th, 2018 and I had every intention of working until I went into labor or my due date, whichever came first. Looking back, I think this was the first mistake of many that I made. My body was physically exhausted, it was swollen and tired, yet I just kept pushing through. My job is very physical, I was on my feet for up to 10 hours a day. I counted down how many shifts I had left until the 14th came around. When you own your own business with no backup, what choice do you really have? I had maternity coverage set to begin Monday the 17th and desperately wanted to make it until that date. On Sunday December 16th, I went to eat with Jonathan and stated that my stomach felt weird. I got home and relaxed in the tub for a bit. A few hours later, I sat down to write my staff, Christina and Paxton, an e-mail about some things for my maternity leave, and my water broke. Just like in a movie…my water burst everywhere! It’s funny because they say, “that’s not how it really happens.” Well, for me it did. As soon as my water broke and I was not in labor, I had a bad feeling. I knew that I should already be in active labor, and I was not. I texted my midwife and she told me to try to get some rest and to head to Mississippi when my contractions were stronger and getting closer together. Well, I was nervous about having a baby on the side of the highway, so we got our stuff together and hopped in the car about three hours after my water had broken. The car ride to our hotel in Mississippi was fairly comfortable. I had contractions about every 10 minutes, but they did not feel very strong. The first night at our hotel, I did get some rest, but I labored consistently until about 3 am. When I woke up the next morning, (Monday) I felt nothing. No signs of labor at all. We decided to walk around and try to really get labor going but nothing worked. I met my midwife at 10pm on Monday evening. My cervix was only dilated 1cm. My midwife said she would try to stretch the cervix to get things moving and so that is what we did. Jonathan and I went to Wal-Mart to get castor oil and more clothes because we were only planning on a 1-2-night stay in Mississippi and we were already running out of clothes! I started feeling really sick when we were walking around, so we went back to the hotel room. I slept from about 11pm-2am. At 2am on Tuesday morning, I woke up and threw up all over the hotel room. I finally felt like we were about to have this baby. Side note: The next morning, I told Jonathan to call the hotel and tell them we would pay to have the carpet in the room cleaned since I threw up and we did not get it cleaned up very well. The girl at the hotel asked if we got all of our things out alright and Jonathan told her we did and asked why. She stated that the hotel had caught on fire at about 5 am that morning! Talk about wild and just so fitting for this entire labor and birth experience! Back to our story…My contractions were so strong, and so close together. We headed to the midwife. I will spare many of the details about my time in labor in the house, how sick I was, how often I threw up, how much I cried… but it was a LONG three days. Time just flew by, I was counting the time between contractions. The sun would rise and fall, yet I had zero concept of time or how long I had actually been there. My doula had come and gone since we were there for such an extended period of time. I kept thinking, this baby HAS to come eventually, I will give it a few more hours, but my body just never cooperated. Jonathan and I discussed several times if we should transfer, and I kept convincing him that I just needed a little more time. I was chugging castor oil diluted with coke, which made me so sick every time. (I still cannot drink coke because of this.) Nothing was helping. I was not progressing. A backup doula arrived Wednesday morning, and she was so amazing in helping us make decisions about what to do next. The final time my midwife checked my cervix, I was only 4 centimeters dilated. I felt so defeated. I burst into tears. It had been 3.5 days! Why is she not coming out? My body is supposed to be made for this! Eventually, Jonathan looked at me and told me it was time to transfer. I knew that he was right. My feet were so swollen I could not stand properly, I could not keep any food down, and I had not slept in almost four days. So, on Wednesday, December 19th, we made the decision to transfer to Gulfport Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Mississippi. Our midwife gathered our paperwork and called and let them know that we were on our way. I looked at my midwife and cried. I told her I felt like a failure. I told her I was afraid. She encouraged us and sent us on our way as there was another birth she was attending and could not come with us. I knew that I needed rest, and I was so ready to get this baby out. I also knew we were in a danger zone of having ruptured membranes for 3.5 days and the chance of infection was likely. When we got in the car, I felt at peace with our decision. I called my Mom and told her we were headed to the hospital, she was so relieved. I know everyone was. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to know your child had been in labor since Sunday and being so far away. I told Jonathan I didn’t want anyone to come to the hospital. I think it’s because I was mostly embarrassed and that I felt like a big fat failure. I wanted a home birth so badly, and it was over. We were going to the hospital. The whole ride to the hospital, I had no contractions. Nothing. My body just stopped. At this moment, I knew I needed intervention and that we had made the right decision. I will say this though, during the drive to the hospital I truly believed this baby would still be born vaginally. I never, not even after all this time, did I think I would have a c-section.
When we arrived at the hospital, I was sick to my stomach worried about how we would be treated as a homebirth transfer. Our back-up doula, Star came with us. She is so important to our birth story. She guided us in decisions, and never made me feel badly about what we needed to do next. I am so grateful for Star, who conveniently knew our labor and delivery nurse. (Talk about a God thing!) The staff was wonderful, and I felt nothing but cared for and supported. They checked to see if I was dilated, and she told me I was 5cm. The nurse asked what I wanted, and I said, “I want Pitocin, I want an epidural, and I want to lay down.” She told me they would need to run some blood panels to make sure I did not have an infection. Turns out, I did, and this is where things would take a turn for the worse. Since I had an infection, I could not have an epidural. If you’ve ever had Pitocin contractions with no medicine…I salute you. It was awful. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this any longer. The labor and delivery nurses let me labor for about 4 more hours, until they saw meconium. Paperwork I also had dated me 10 days before my original due date, so I was being told my baby could be huge! You are almost 3 weeks past your due date! (I wasn’t) They told me my baby’s heart rate was decelerating with contractions. I was told by my delivering doctor that I needed a C-section. I was devastated. I even used the words “I am devastated.” Followed by, “What will I do about work?” (If any of my patients are reading this, I really love y’all.) Jonathan assured me that we needed to do this, everything would be ok, and we would figure out what to do about the office. I asked the nurse if she agreed with the doctor, did I really need a c-section? She agreed, and so I consented to the cesarean. Since I had an infection, and could not have an epidural, the surgery would need to be performed under general anesthesia. I didn’t even know this was a possibility. I have never known anyone to have a C-section under general, and truthfully, I did not grasp what this even meant in the moment. I was 100% unprepared for a C-section. It meant that Jonathan could not be in the operating room with me, it meant that I would be literally unconscious for the birth of my first child, it meant I would not meet her for hours after she was born. One of the scariest parts was when they asked me if I was allergic to medication, and I truly did not know. I have never had surgery before, what if I was allergic and died? When they were taking me back to the operating room, I was terrified. I looked at Jonathan as though it may truly be the last time I ever saw his face. This may sound dramatic, but there were so many unknowns and I was never more scared of anything in my whole life.
