A couple of people have said they’d like details about Branwen’s birth, and Joel and I would like a written account of it so we don’t forget details down the line, so we decided that it might be good for me to post it in my blog. Fair warning to would-be readers, this account includes gory and graphic details. As Joel says, birth is a graphic event. Deal with it. 🙂
We didn’t know Branwen’s gender before she was born. In fact, I hadn’t had any sonograms or tests other than the standard urine test at each visit and the occasional hemoglobin tests that could be done with a finger prick and a small portable blood test kit. From the beginning of my pregnancy, we had decided that this time we would do a home birth with as few medical interventions as possible. At least one person has implied to us that we must be hippies for deciding this, and that’s not the case. Actually, I’m not really into a lot of the homeopathic things that are out there and such. But I wasn’t completely happy with my first birth, mainly because it ended in an induction and we were kept in the hospital longer than I wanted to be. So this time we said that unless there were complications along the way we would do things the way we wanted to.
We went with a Direct Entry Midwife named Marilee. She was highly recommended by our friend and former doula (a doula is a kind-of birth assistant to the mother and father, for those unfamiliar with the term), and when we interviewed her we really liked her personality and what she had to say. She had trained extensively and had plenty of experience. We were completely comfortable with her.
The pregnancy went well, and toward the end (around 35 weeks) Marilee had me start taking extra Vitamin C, Alfalfa, and Red Raspberry Leaf Tea on top of my regular prenatal vitamin in order to help prepare my uterus and keep my bleeding to a minimum during and after the birth. Since an episiotomy had been necessary with my first birth (Alexis’ heartrate had dropped drastically), Marilee also had Joel and I start doing perineal massage to try to stretch the area around my scar, which was fairly large.
We should have known that Branwen was going to be really late. I had a history of going late (Alexis was born when I was at 43 weeks and one day), and Branwen was still doing somersaults in my uterus as late as week 38. Each visit, she’d be in a different position, even being transverse at times. Marilee would deliver at home if she was in breech position, but if she was transverse our only hope would be to try to turn her while I was in labor. Thankfully, she did turn head down around 38 1/2 weeks and stayed there from then on.
Branwen had actually dropped at 36 weeks (yes, still turning) and she just kept getting lower and lower. At 41 weeks I started trying various natural induction methods, including lots of walking, driving over bouncing roads, using a breast pump to do nipple stimulation, using Evening Primrose Oil as a suppository, and finally moving on to blue and black cohosh around week 42. Nothing worked. I continued to try things on and off as people continually asked me, “How long will they let you go?” and, “When will you be induced?” Grr. Most people did respond fairly nicely when I explained that I wouldn’t be induced, but there were those who were dubious. As 43 weeks approached, I started considering the option that to me was the last resort of natural induction — castor oil. Ick. But I didn’t want to go too long since the baby can start having trouble if you go too late. I got to the 43 week mark and I was about ready to take the plunge (or use the plunger!) and called my midwife.
Marilee had two women due, me and one other in the area. When I called, the other woman seemed to be in labor, so Marilee asked me to hold off on taking the castor oil, but she told me how to do it so that I could be prepared. We bought the castor oil (two 2 oz. bottles of it) and waited. Just to complicate matters, hurricane Isabel was on the way and we were beginning to wonder what would happen if I went into labor during the hurricane when travel would be next to impossible.
Marilee’s other client was having her baby, and Marilee said that she and her assistant, Amy, would come out to stay with us the next day (when the hurricane was predicted to come through) and that night in case I went into labor. That pretty much settled things in my mind; tomorrow was the day to have my baby. I would take the castor oil.
I waited till Marilee was on her way the next afternoon, September 18th, and I mixed up my castor oil & vanilla milkshake. It actually didn’t taste bad. I couldn’t taste the castor oil at all. But having 2 oz. of the stuff all at once does have a rather unpleasant effect. I started having to use the bathroom maybe an hour or so after taking it, and then regular contractions began… about three minutes apart! However, they weren’t terribly strong and they weren’t very long, only about 30 seconds each. They were crampy, but I’d had plenty of crampy contractions before, some of them even becoming very regular for a while. So I wasn’t sure I was in labor yet. When Marilee and Amy arrived, it was time for me to take my second 2 oz. dose of castor oil. One of the first things that Amy said was, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby so low that was still inside its mama!” I asked if I really had to take the second dose of castor oil, and they assured me that if I wasn’t in labor yet (which was hard for any of us to tell) that the second dose should send me over the edge. I took the second dose, and my contractions became stronger and started getting longer.
Now, you have to understand that I had a lot of false labor before this, so I was asking Marilee every 15 minutes or so whether this was real labor or not. She didn’t want to give me false hope, but she said it certainly seemed to be acting like it. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, though, so for quite some time I continued to keep in mind that this might not be real labor.
Joel and I own a beautiful three story townhouse that we just moved into this past May. One of the features of our house is a lovely, big soak tub in our upstairs bathroom. For the beginning of labor, I was able to sit in my rocking chair and relax through the crampy contractions, but as the contractions got stronger the suggestion was made that perhaps I’d like to try soaking for a bit to help me relax and ease some of the pain. It sounded like a good idea, so I made my way in to the tub which had been freshly cleaned by Joel. It’s pretty much an accepted thing that warm water tends to ease some of the pain of labor, but there were two problems with the whole soak tub situation in my case. First, the castor oil was working full force by that point and I was having to use the bathroom every few minutes. Second, I have a disk injury in my lower back and couldn’t seem to find a position in which my back was happy. I ended up getting in the tub, staying in for maybe five minutes, and then getting out again to use the bathroom, at which point I decided it might be better to labor in bed. 🙂 I put a nightshirt on and made my way in to lay down on the bed. So much for the lovely soak tub!
We had a list of things to do to prepare for the home birth. On the list, among other things, was how to prepare the bed. We put good sheets on first, then a shower curtain liner over them, then older, cheap sheets on top. After the birth Marilee gave us cleaning tips, and between her tips and my mothers hard work, we were able to get even those cheap sheets clean. Even so, I was glad we had them at the time since I didn’t have to worry about getting them dirty.
I labored in bed for quite a while as the hurricane raged around the house. After a little bit, the pain was getting pretty bad and I started moaning to help myself feel better (something I had found to be helpful during my first labor). Joel kept offering me sips of gatorade between contractions, and they didn’t really seem appealing. I took sips occasionally because I knew I needed to stay hydrated, but my stomach was getting progressively more queasy. Finally, I got to the point where I knew I was going to be sick. “I’m going to throw up,” I said, the words tumbling out very quickly, and thankfully someone heard me. Amy caught what I said and jumped to attention, having Joel grab the trash can by my nightstand which he managed to somehow get over me (I was lying on my left side facing the middle of the bed). All of this happened in a flash, which was a very good thing since I then proceeded to lose all of those sips of gatorade plus what seemed to me like several meals. It probably wasn’t nearly as much as it seemed, but it still wasn’t pleasant. It took my stomach a while to settle completely, but it did gradually settle down. Meanwhile, everyone was being very encouraging saying things like, “That’s always good for 1 or 2 centimeters!” and, “If I have to talk to my fiance during a labor, he always asks if the mother has thrown up yet!” I, on the other hand, was sick to my stomach and in a great deal of pain. It registered that everyone present was being very nice, but that didn’t mean a whole lot to me at the time. I just wanted the whole thing to be over with. 🙂
Once that episode was over, I continued to lay there moaning through contractions. It wasn’t long before Marilee suggested that I might want to get up to use the bathroom. I hadn’t gone in a little bit, and she wanted to make sure that my bladder didn’t get too full and keep labor from progressing. Though my contractions were pretty close together by this point, they weren’t completely predictable and I was feeling like I should probably use the bathroom again (effects of the castor oil still), so it seemed like a good idea. When my next contraction ended, Joel helped me get up and start walking to the bathroom. Halfway across the bedroom, another contraction started and I told Joel to stop while I put my hands on his shoulders and leaned on him. Suddenly, there was a small popping noise as my bag of waters broke all over the rug. All three of my helpers gave a cheer as I stood there gushing. 🙂 When my contraction wound down, I said, “So I guess I’m really in labor, then?” My midwife said with amusement and disbelief, “You mean you still didn’t know? We would have left long ago if it wasn’t labor! Well, not really, but we’ve been sure this was labor for a while.”
Joel helped me the rest of the way to the bathroom and I had another contraction while sitting on the toilet. As that one came, I felt the urge to be sick again, and Joel ended up holding a chux pad for me to throw up into. Thankfully I didn’t have much more in my stomach, so there wasn’t much to catch. 😛 I was able to make it back to the bed with Joel’s help after that. Amy already had the carpet almost clean by the time I was back in bed, and an upside down chux pad was over the wet spot. I was informed that my water was almost completely clear, but since there was a slight meconium stain in it, Marilee would be suctioning the baby as soon as I delivered the head.
Several times throughout my labor I thought of having Marilee check me to see how far along I was, but I was afraid to do so because I figured I wouldn’t be as far along as I wanted to be and it might discourage me. That being the case, we can’t be absolutely sure when I went into transition. Our best guess from the timing of contractions and other signs would be that I had already started transition by the time my water broke. When I got back into bed, the contractions were hard, long, and often. I won’t say they were regular, because it seemed like sometimes I would have two on top of each other, and other times I’d get a little break in between. I lived for those breaks. The pain began to seem unbearable and I was having a lot of difficulty relaxing through the contractions, so my moans began to sound pretty loud and desperate. Apparently I was at least putting on a good show of relaxing, because I got compliments from everyone afterwards about the great job I did of staying so nice and relaxed. 😛 Anyway, as my moans got worse, the midwife started gently suggesting that I may want to start pushing. I didn’t start, though, because I was afraid I might not be supposed to yet. I wasn’t feeling an overwhelming urge to do so. But Marilee and Amy both were becoming increasingly convinced that it was time for me to bear down. Amy finally asked me if I wanted Marilee to check me to see if it was ok to push and I managed to choke out a, “Yes!” So Marilee did a quick check and found that I was pretty much 10 centimeters but had an anterior lip, so a little piece of my cervix wasn’t quite out of the way. She asked if I wanted to try pushing while she held it back and I agreed to try. Well, that was awkward. I think she saw right away that that wasn’t going to work so well, so she suggested that I roll onto my right side since the lip was on that side of my cervix and try pushing in that position. They helped me roll over and get into position. It took a couple of contractions for me to even get into a good position. After I managed to get onto my right side, I had to get my legs up, which was difficult in and of itself. I pulled my right leg up a little bit, and Joel held my left leg. Once that was accomplished, I was able to push and felt the baby come down.
With Alexis, labor was swift and extremely painful, but when I got to the pushing stage I felt an incredible sense of relief. The pain wasn’t nearly as bad and I knew things were almost over. This time was different. As I pushed, I still felt the pain of the contractions, and the actual act of pushing the baby down hurt quite a bit. After the first or second push, I cried out, “It hurts!” Marilee said she knew at that point that the baby was in a bit of a funky position.
The pushing stage of labor wasn’t very long for me, but we drew it out a little bit because I really wanted to avoid tearing. To help me do so, Marilee had me put my hand on the baby’s head as it crowned. Then she would coach me, telling me when to push and when to stop pushing. That part wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected. It helped to have my hand there so I could better feel what I was doing. It helped me control my pushes more. The other thing that helped was she didn’t tell me to stop pushing altogether; rather, she told me to hold the baby where it was, not to let it slip back in. That meant I had to keep giving a gentle push through the end of the contraction. The whole time the baby was coming out, I was saying, “It’ll be here very soon… very soon…. very soon…” It was what I held on to to keep myself going.
The worst part of recovery from my first labor was the episiotomy. It had been large and took forever to heal completely. Once it did heal, it turned out I had been stitched up a little too tightly, and that caused its own problems. One long-range problem that it caused was in this, my second birth. Even with the massage we had been doing, my perineum seemed more like that of a new mother than that of one who had already given birth once. That being the case, Marilee wasn’t sure if we could get through the birth without me tearing. She coached and coached, and I followed her instructions as best I could. And then, the head came out! Marilee immediately suctioned her nose and mouth, instructing me not to push. Just as with my first one, I laid there squealing, “I have to push! I have to push!” with everyone else encouraging me not to. 😛 Thankfully that part doesn’t last very long. Next thing I know, Marilee is instructing Amy to take my leg so Joel can catch the baby and she’s telling Joel exactly what to do. Other than the suctioning, Joel was the first person to touch his baby. 🙂 I called out, “What is it? Boy or girl?” and Joel responded, “It’s a little girl!” in a joyful voice. 🙂
Delivering the head didn’t cause me to tear. It was only a while later that we found that I had incurred a small tear along the side of my episiotomy scar. The same thing caused that little tear that had caused the pain while I was pushing. Branwen was born with both of her little hands right up by her cheeks and the cord then wrapped around her arms and body. The term for the position of her hands is “nuchal”, and it turns out I was the first mother that Marilee had helped who had a baby with two nuchal hands. (I was also her first mother who had gone all the way to 43 weeks…. two firsts I could have done without!) She said it was amazing that I had only gotten that little tear when I had birthed a nice size baby with two nuchal hands. According to Marilee, I could birth anything! 🙂 I’d prefer not to test that theory in the future, but it’s nice to know. Marilee was able to put three little stitches in my tear and fix it right up. The recovery wasn’t nearly as bad as my first one.
But Branwen wasn’t breathing when she came out. As Joel placed her on my chest, Marilee was encouraging us to rub her and stimulate her to breathe, but nothing was happening. She didn’t wait long before instructing us to quickly place the baby beside me on the bed. I couldn’t believe how fast things moved after that. It seemed like there suddenly appeared in Marilee’s hands an oxygen mask, and the oxygen tank was suddenly at the bedside. Marilee and Amy began giving the baby oxygen and checking heartrate regularly. As soon as she started getting oxygen, Branwen’s skin turned from a gray-purple to a nice pink color, which was a good sign. Her heartrate went right up into the healthy range, too. The only problem now was that she didn’t seem to want to breathe on her own. Marilee had us call 911.
This is where a lot of people have responded to my story by saying, “Well, now you’ve convinced me never to have a homebirth!” or something similar. I then tell them that this experience has done exactly the opposite for me. It’s proven to me that homebirth is at least as safe as a birth in a hospital. I say that because although EMTs responded to the call in less than 5 minutes, they were never needed for their life-saving services. They did have a machine that kept track of heartrate and oxygen level which came in very handy, but other than that they stood back and let Marilee and Amy continue their efforts. The EMTs saw that things were going just fine and they knew that they were mainly there in case we needed to transfer the baby to the hospital. For the most part, they stood around and chatted with us, then when they knew things were ok they headed back out. Marilee and Amy handled everything on their own.
It took about an hour before Branwen was able to be completely on her own for oxygen. She was on blow-by (where oxygen is waved in front of her face but not actively given through a mask) for about 20 minutes of that, but the first 30 to 40 minutes she was being “bagged”, meaning the breaths were being forced in because she wouldn’t take them on her own. We never really got scared, though. Everything seemed so under control and Marilee and Amy were both praying with us the whole time. Joel and I were both at peace throughout the process.
At some point while Branwen was still being bagged, I felt an urge to push again as the placenta got into place for delivery. I felt really odd, though, since I was still on my side and I would have to lift my leg to push out this… well, this bloody mass, in the midst of all of these strangers, most of whom were men. I held off through two or three contractions, but gradually realized that holding off wasn’t very healthy and I should probably just get it over with. I tried to push quietly, but Marilee noticed that I was suddenly seeming withdrawn and she asked me if I was ok. I paused to tell her I was pushing, and she quickly ordered Joel to pull back the sheet they had put over me and help hold my leg. The placenta was out with one more good push and that part of the process was over.
Probably the most difficult aspect of that post-birth time was the fact that I couldn’t roll over to face my new baby. Up until I had to push out the placenta, I was managing to twist my upper body around so I could touch her and talk to her, but it was difficult. I couldn’t roll over on my own, partly because the cord was still attached, and I knew that everyone was too busy to help me for a while. After I delivered the placenta, Marilee got a chance to instruct Joel on clamping and cutting the cord, then she had him take away the chux pad with the placenta on it and help me roll over. It felt good to be able to touch my baby a bit more and really see her well for the first time. She was beautiful, of course. 🙂
After things had calmed down a good bit, Branwen was weighed and measured. She was 9 lbs. 6 oz. and 21 1/2 inches long. 🙂 She had trouble nursing for a bit. We think that was due to the resuscitation that she needed at the beginning. She began to show some signs of low blood sugar, so we had to get something in her tummy. Joel ended up making a 2 AM run to an open convenience store (hard to find since hurricane Isabel had knocked out power to several of the stores nearest us) to get some formula. We gave her a little of that and it seemed to help. Thankfully, she was able to nurse later and has nursed like a champ since.
Just a few comments on God’s goodness. Though places all around us lost power, we never did. We also didn’t incur any damage to our house or property from the storm. The next county over had a possible contamination to their water supply, so everyone was supposed to boil their water before using it. Our county had enough in reserve that we weren’t effected. My mother had come up to stay with us a week before the birth and stayed for two weeks after. She was there that night and was able to care for Alexis who had come down with a bad cold that day and couldn’t sleep.
So after 6 hours and 45 minutes of labor, Branwen Rose Fouse came into the world at 11:15 PM on September 18th, 2003. Praise the Lord for His provisions and for His most beautiful of creations, a newborn babe! 🙂