To preface this story. This is not the kind of story you want to read if you are looking for a story to calm your fears. This is the kind of story to read if you want to know what can happen if things don't go according to plan. If you want to read a story about what happens when something goes wrong.
Olive's birth story starts with my older son's birth story 3 years ago. I had planned a natural drug free birth and I was really looking forward to it! I thought I had read everything I could (it was one book and a bunch of birth stories on line, but I felt prepared!) and I thought nothing was going to stop me from having the perfect birth. I was so naive! When he was 38 weeks the doctor thought he felt breech and ordered an ultrasound, and said I could have a version to try and turn him around. I went in to get the ultrasound and not only did we confirm he was breech, but we discovered his amniotic fluid was almost non-existant and the doctor gave me only one option. Get him out by c-section TODAY! I was in complete shock for a few days, and I definitely enjoyed my new baby and was so happy that he was healthy and safe, but then after that I just couldn't stop crying, I was absolutely devastated that I couldn't push my own baby out, that I didn't get to see him for over 3 hours, that I couldn't hold him skin to skin right away, that I had this ugly scar now and the skin on my belly was completely numb, and that now my choices for a future natural birth were limited. I hated the word VBAC, hated it!
With my next pregnancy I knew I was going to have a VBAC, there was no other option. And I decided after lots of research and contemplating that a home birth was the only place I could have the calm, intervention free birth I was looking for. I hated that my choices in homebirth midwives were so limited being a VBAC, there were maybe 3 within a drivable distance for me to choose from. But that turned out ok because I found an amazing midwife! Midwife care rocked compared to OB care, I loved my hour long prenatal check ups! I had a very easy pregnancy, just like my son's. I got chiropractic care regularly to take care of some sciatic nerve pain and to make sure this baby would be head down!
I really wanted to make it past 38 weeks because I felt I had missed out on the end of my pregnancy with my son. Well I made it past 38 weeks! Then 39, then 40! I was really excited to be 40 weeks pregnant, loving the anticipation and the thought that I could go into labor at any moment. What would it feel like? what do contractions feel like? they've got to be different from these painless braxton hicks I've been feeling since 20 weeks! I had never been in labor before so I wanted to know what it was like! Call me crazy, but I wasn't really worried at all, I was riding on cloud 9!
I passed 41 weeks too, then at 41 weeks 4 days I took a small amount of castor oil with the approval of my midwife, and sure enough that evening I was having contractions 5 minutes apart! At first I thought they were just gas pains or stomach pain from the castor oil. But they were coming regularly and getting stronger, so they must be contractions! By the time I decided to call my midwife I could barely speak in complete sentences anymore, and I had no desire to talk. So I told my husband to call her, in as little words as I could use to communicate that.
She arrived at about 9pm, along with the doula. And I was 3.5 cm dilated. Contractions were coming even closer, just a few minutes apart, I couldn't do anything in between them, there was just enough of a break for me to not feel completely overwhelmed by the contractions. I got into the birth pool shortly after that.
I remember the contractions coming 3 in a row with no break in between, then I would get a short one minute break, then a string of another 2 or 3. I was a little worried they were so close together for so long, but I trusted my body and I figured it must be ok. This went on for the longest time, and I vocalized through most of them, just a long moan. Once in a while I would feel like it was overtaking me, but then my doula would remind me to relax and listening to her tell me to relax was enough to not feel out of control.
This whole time her heart rate was being monitored every 15 minutes and was perfect. A few hours later I felt like I could not keep going for much longer, then soon after that thought I started shaking. I knew the shaking probably meant transition and I got excited. Then I threw up, and it felt SO good! And by then I KNEW I was in transition and sure enough, I started feeling like pushing a tiny bit at the end of each contraction.
(Now, this whole time I had still not had a bowel movement, despite having taken castor oil. You might be thinking, oh no! she pooped in the pool!... nope. It never came, not until hours AFTER I had given birth...)
So I started feeling more and more pushy, and eventually I was pushing through the whole contraction. I must have started pushing at around 2am, it felt kind of good, not extremely good, but better than just straight contractions.
After about an hour of pushing her heart rate dipped a little and my midwife got concerned. She broke my water to see if there was meconium in the fluid and there was only a tiny bit. But after a few more contractions, her heart rate dipped too low for comfort. She had me get out of the pool and try sitting on the birth stool to see if a change in position would help. It didn't, her heart rate stayed too low, and so she had me lay on the bed on my left side, and gave me an oxygen mask. That did nothing for her heart rate either, so she yelled for someone to call 911.
I went into shock mode, and all I could think about is the sound of my baby's heart rate slowing down which I could hear on the doppler. I was willing it with all my might to keep beating, keep going strong. Stay alive my little baby!
The ambulance came and took me to the hospital, and they hooked up all the monitors, and somehow on the ride over there her heart rate had returned to the normal range! The nicest OB I could have asked for explained everything she was doing and everything she might have to do. She said I could keep pushing as long as her heart rate remained up, and if it dropped then she might have to use a vacuum or do an episiotomy and she asked me if that was ok. At that point Olive was almost crowning, so a c-section was never even mentioned. But I was so terrified I was wishing they could just knock me out and do a c-section so I wouldn't have to worry anymore.
They attached an internal monitor to her head, and that gave me a huge piece of mind because there was some concern earlier that the monitor was on my heartbeat and not hers, which almost gave me a heart attack. After a few pushing contractions her heartrate dropped again, but went back up. They tried to instruct me in how to push more effectively. The next time her heartrate dropped the OB did the episiotomy and used a vacuum, as she was pulling with the vacuum I was pushing with all the strength I had left. She had a momentary shoulder dystocia, and when that happened the nurses pushed my husband out of the way (he had been holding one of my legs) and applied a lot of pressure to my pelvis to open up more room.
Then she was born. Just after 4am. No cry, just silence. They immediately took her over to the table to start working on her. Her APGAR scores were 2, 5, and 8. After a few minutes I heard a tiny whimper, but then they placed a tube in her mouth because she was not breathing on her own, it would be over a week before I heard her make a sound again.
They took her away and I didn't get to see her again until they brought her by my bed before transferring her to a higher level NICU. They told me she had aspirated a lot of meconium. I thought ok, lots of babies aspirate meconium, she'll be ok. They told me she was 9lbs 15oz. OMG you're kidding me right? Then I asked how long she was. 23 inches. Are you sure you're talking about my baby? Me and my husband are average people, I was not expecting such a huge baby at all! My son was 7lbs.
A few hours after she was born they transfered her to a higher level NICU to place her on a cooling blanket for 72 hours, to give her medically induced hypothermia. This was supposed to help prevent brain damage. Brain damage? ok, well she'll still be ok, right? Then they told me she had a few seizures, but not to worry too much yet. The next day they told me she needed surgery to place a central line IV in her leg. They asked when I would be able to go over to the hospital she was in and I told them as soon as the OB came back to discharge me! They called her and told her the situation so she would hurry. I got there just a little too late, she was already having the surgery. I was a wreck. I couldn't even touch my baby before she had her first surgery!
Once we could finally see her, the doctor came by to tell me that she was the sickest baby in there, and she was next to a 1.8lb preemie! My heart sank. She told me she wasn't sure if she would make it. Many many people started praying for her, and over the next few days she improved. Her seizures were finally controlled after a few more days and as she came off the cooling blanket, she started to open her eyes and look around a little. She stayed on the ventilator for over a week though. And as soon as she came off the ventilator they did an MRI. They told me her MRI looked terrible and to expect severe brain damage, severe cerebral palsy and cognitive impairment. I was in a nightmare.
Then over the next few weeks and months she started to give me more and more hope little by litte. She came home after 3.5 weeks, she came home with a feeding tube because it was taking her longer to learn how to master the suck swallow breathe pattern and eat enough food. A few days after she came home I was able to take that tube out though! I was able to exclusively breastfeed her after another week or two. She started meeting milestones and interacting with us and acting like a typical baby, and so her initial prognosis was completely wrong! She has met all of her milestones either on time or early at almost 7 months now, and she is such a social butterfly.
It's hard to tell if she will have any mild long term damage at this point, but there is so much hope that she will make a full recovery, she hasn't shown us otherwise! She is followed by a neurologist, a developmental clinic, and weekly physical therapy to make sure she is getting all the help she needs.
The experience of her birth has changed my perspective so much! I don't have any bad feelings about my first c-section anymore, at all. Every day I am overwhelmingly thankful that Olive is thriving and healthy. I am so thankful that I was able to experience a vaginal birth, but I would have had a c-section in a heartbeat if I knew it would save her from the ordeal she went through.
I still don't know what went wrong exactly, but the two most likely scenarios are cord compression, or there was something wrong with the placenta. Maybe some day I'll find out!
Olive's birth story starts with my older son's birth story 3 years ago. I had planned a natural drug free birth and I was really looking forward to it! I thought I had read everything I could (it was one book and a bunch of birth stories on line, but I felt prepared!) and I thought nothing was going to stop me from having the perfect birth. I was so naive! When he was 38 weeks the doctor thought he felt breech and ordered an ultrasound, and said I could have a version to try and turn him around. I went in to get the ultrasound and not only did we confirm he was breech, but we discovered his amniotic fluid was almost non-existant and the doctor gave me only one option. Get him out by c-section TODAY! I was in complete shock for a few days, and I definitely enjoyed my new baby and was so happy that he was healthy and safe, but then after that I just couldn't stop crying, I was absolutely devastated that I couldn't push my own baby out, that I didn't get to see him for over 3 hours, that I couldn't hold him skin to skin right away, that I had this ugly scar now and the skin on my belly was completely numb, and that now my choices for a future natural birth were limited. I hated the word VBAC, hated it!
With my next pregnancy I knew I was going to have a VBAC, there was no other option. And I decided after lots of research and contemplating that a home birth was the only place I could have the calm, intervention free birth I was looking for. I hated that my choices in homebirth midwives were so limited being a VBAC, there were maybe 3 within a drivable distance for me to choose from. But that turned out ok because I found an amazing midwife! Midwife care rocked compared to OB care, I loved my hour long prenatal check ups! I had a very easy pregnancy, just like my son's. I got chiropractic care regularly to take care of some sciatic nerve pain and to make sure this baby would be head down!
I really wanted to make it past 38 weeks because I felt I had missed out on the end of my pregnancy with my son. Well I made it past 38 weeks! Then 39, then 40! I was really excited to be 40 weeks pregnant, loving the anticipation and the thought that I could go into labor at any moment. What would it feel like? what do contractions feel like? they've got to be different from these painless braxton hicks I've been feeling since 20 weeks! I had never been in labor before so I wanted to know what it was like! Call me crazy, but I wasn't really worried at all, I was riding on cloud 9!
I passed 41 weeks too, then at 41 weeks 4 days I took a small amount of castor oil with the approval of my midwife, and sure enough that evening I was having contractions 5 minutes apart! At first I thought they were just gas pains or stomach pain from the castor oil. But they were coming regularly and getting stronger, so they must be contractions! By the time I decided to call my midwife I could barely speak in complete sentences anymore, and I had no desire to talk. So I told my husband to call her, in as little words as I could use to communicate that.
She arrived at about 9pm, along with the doula. And I was 3.5 cm dilated. Contractions were coming even closer, just a few minutes apart, I couldn't do anything in between them, there was just enough of a break for me to not feel completely overwhelmed by the contractions. I got into the birth pool shortly after that.
I remember the contractions coming 3 in a row with no break in between, then I would get a short one minute break, then a string of another 2 or 3. I was a little worried they were so close together for so long, but I trusted my body and I figured it must be ok. This went on for the longest time, and I vocalized through most of them, just a long moan. Once in a while I would feel like it was overtaking me, but then my doula would remind me to relax and listening to her tell me to relax was enough to not feel out of control.
This whole time her heart rate was being monitored every 15 minutes and was perfect. A few hours later I felt like I could not keep going for much longer, then soon after that thought I started shaking. I knew the shaking probably meant transition and I got excited. Then I threw up, and it felt SO good! And by then I KNEW I was in transition and sure enough, I started feeling like pushing a tiny bit at the end of each contraction.
(Now, this whole time I had still not had a bowel movement, despite having taken castor oil. You might be thinking, oh no! she pooped in the pool!... nope. It never came, not until hours AFTER I had given birth...)
So I started feeling more and more pushy, and eventually I was pushing through the whole contraction. I must have started pushing at around 2am, it felt kind of good, not extremely good, but better than just straight contractions.
After about an hour of pushing her heart rate dipped a little and my midwife got concerned. She broke my water to see if there was meconium in the fluid and there was only a tiny bit. But after a few more contractions, her heart rate dipped too low for comfort. She had me get out of the pool and try sitting on the birth stool to see if a change in position would help. It didn't, her heart rate stayed too low, and so she had me lay on the bed on my left side, and gave me an oxygen mask. That did nothing for her heart rate either, so she yelled for someone to call 911.
I went into shock mode, and all I could think about is the sound of my baby's heart rate slowing down which I could hear on the doppler. I was willing it with all my might to keep beating, keep going strong. Stay alive my little baby!
The ambulance came and took me to the hospital, and they hooked up all the monitors, and somehow on the ride over there her heart rate had returned to the normal range! The nicest OB I could have asked for explained everything she was doing and everything she might have to do. She said I could keep pushing as long as her heart rate remained up, and if it dropped then she might have to use a vacuum or do an episiotomy and she asked me if that was ok. At that point Olive was almost crowning, so a c-section was never even mentioned. But I was so terrified I was wishing they could just knock me out and do a c-section so I wouldn't have to worry anymore.
They attached an internal monitor to her head, and that gave me a huge piece of mind because there was some concern earlier that the monitor was on my heartbeat and not hers, which almost gave me a heart attack. After a few pushing contractions her heartrate dropped again, but went back up. They tried to instruct me in how to push more effectively. The next time her heartrate dropped the OB did the episiotomy and used a vacuum, as she was pulling with the vacuum I was pushing with all the strength I had left. She had a momentary shoulder dystocia, and when that happened the nurses pushed my husband out of the way (he had been holding one of my legs) and applied a lot of pressure to my pelvis to open up more room.
Then she was born. Just after 4am. No cry, just silence. They immediately took her over to the table to start working on her. Her APGAR scores were 2, 5, and 8. After a few minutes I heard a tiny whimper, but then they placed a tube in her mouth because she was not breathing on her own, it would be over a week before I heard her make a sound again.
They took her away and I didn't get to see her again until they brought her by my bed before transferring her to a higher level NICU. They told me she had aspirated a lot of meconium. I thought ok, lots of babies aspirate meconium, she'll be ok. They told me she was 9lbs 15oz. OMG you're kidding me right? Then I asked how long she was. 23 inches. Are you sure you're talking about my baby? Me and my husband are average people, I was not expecting such a huge baby at all! My son was 7lbs.
A few hours after she was born they transfered her to a higher level NICU to place her on a cooling blanket for 72 hours, to give her medically induced hypothermia. This was supposed to help prevent brain damage. Brain damage? ok, well she'll still be ok, right? Then they told me she had a few seizures, but not to worry too much yet. The next day they told me she needed surgery to place a central line IV in her leg. They asked when I would be able to go over to the hospital she was in and I told them as soon as the OB came back to discharge me! They called her and told her the situation so she would hurry. I got there just a little too late, she was already having the surgery. I was a wreck. I couldn't even touch my baby before she had her first surgery!
Once we could finally see her, the doctor came by to tell me that she was the sickest baby in there, and she was next to a 1.8lb preemie! My heart sank. She told me she wasn't sure if she would make it. Many many people started praying for her, and over the next few days she improved. Her seizures were finally controlled after a few more days and as she came off the cooling blanket, she started to open her eyes and look around a little. She stayed on the ventilator for over a week though. And as soon as she came off the ventilator they did an MRI. They told me her MRI looked terrible and to expect severe brain damage, severe cerebral palsy and cognitive impairment. I was in a nightmare.
Then over the next few weeks and months she started to give me more and more hope little by litte. She came home after 3.5 weeks, she came home with a feeding tube because it was taking her longer to learn how to master the suck swallow breathe pattern and eat enough food. A few days after she came home I was able to take that tube out though! I was able to exclusively breastfeed her after another week or two. She started meeting milestones and interacting with us and acting like a typical baby, and so her initial prognosis was completely wrong! She has met all of her milestones either on time or early at almost 7 months now, and she is such a social butterfly.
It's hard to tell if she will have any mild long term damage at this point, but there is so much hope that she will make a full recovery, she hasn't shown us otherwise! She is followed by a neurologist, a developmental clinic, and weekly physical therapy to make sure she is getting all the help she needs.
The experience of her birth has changed my perspective so much! I don't have any bad feelings about my first c-section anymore, at all. Every day I am overwhelmingly thankful that Olive is thriving and healthy. I am so thankful that I was able to experience a vaginal birth, but I would have had a c-section in a heartbeat if I knew it would save her from the ordeal she went through.
I still don't know what went wrong exactly, but the two most likely scenarios are cord compression, or there was something wrong with the placenta. Maybe some day I'll find out!
