Photo by Katie's doula, Jes Deis
This week's birth story was submitted by a Marvelous Kiddo reader, Katie. Here is Katie's own intro:
"My littlest one, Ari, is turning 1 this weekend (the 7th) and I've revisited the story that I wrote nearly a year ago. It's a little different than what you normally share, but I thought I'd offer it up to show that sometimes, you have to fight for what you believe in. My year-late comments are in bold after each paragraph."
It made me sad to read about all of the obstacles and abuse that Katie endured during Ari's birth, but I so very much admire her tenacity and the way the stood up for her rights, even as she was in the middle of labor! I also love the unusual style of this story, with the added dimension of Katie's reflections one year after the event. Thank you so much for sharing, Katie.
--Leigh
When I hit 39 weeks, I assumed that I was in labor. I had slept like crap the night before (which is nothing new), but this was a different kind of sleeping like crap. At my appointment, my OB noticed I was contracting and asked to examine me. 4cm. He assumed I was in early labor and broke the news - he wasn't on call over the weekend. I was going to be stuck having some random doctor in the practice deliver my baby. He walked me down to her office and introduced me ... to the most terrible woman I've ever met. When he told her that I was contracting regularly and already at 4cm, she looked me over and told me that if I were her patient, I'd be heading over to the hospital right then for an epidural and some Pitocin. My actual OB was very supportive of a natural birth. To have this random woman imply that she wanted to control my birth really shook me. I believe that this is the reason that I had only dilated two more centimeters by the time I got to the hospital, as well.
When I told her my plans for low intervention and no medication, she laughed and told me that I'd change my mind. This was only the beginning of the things she would say to me. I tried to lighten the mood by saying something along the lines of, "Oh, no, I'll just have my baby at home," to which she looked horrified, asked if I wanted to kill my baby, and told me that she had never missed a birth before - except for one. The Mother birthed in her car about a mile from the hospital.
So I went home (I stopped at the salon for a haircut & eyebrow wax first!), fed Calloway lunch and put him down for a nap. I could feel the contractions, but they weren't bad and mainly in my hips, thighs and lower back. The rest of the afternoon went by pretty fast. Clayton's parents were supposed to watch C that night so we could go to dinner and enjoy some non-baby time, so we took him over there, grabbed some dinner and went home. Clayton opted to go to bed, since the contractions were becoming more frequent, and I cleaned, packed last minute things, bounced on the yoga ball and played on the internet. I was nervous, but my contractions were consistent. I handled them really well - in between my internet chatting, I was able to sink down into my yoga ball, open my hips up and retreat into myself. I remember telling myself that the pain wasn't very bad, especially compared to the excruciating pain I felt with Calloway. (I chalk that up to not really knowing what it's like to birth a baby, along with the amount of emotional preparation and research I did prior to this birth. With Calloway, I was too scared of the idea of pushing a baby out of my vagina to think of anything besides an epidural!)
At midnight, I realized that I should probably go to the hospital. We made it there shortly before 1am and were settled into our LDR room within the hour. My primary nurse was super sweet and shocked to find that I was 6cm with a bulging bag of water, with contractions coming every minute or two. Jes, my birth partner, showed up shortly after that and I asked to get out of bed after the first 20 minutes. It felt sooooo good to be on my feet, swaying with each. It was weird, to not really care about the pain at first. Jes and Clayton kept me talking about whatever it was that we talked about, which was awesome. They were settling me into a glider to do some monitoring when The Most Terrible Woman EVER walked in. She pushed one of the nurses out of the way and told me to "listen up, girlfriend" before letting the word vomit spew. I thought my contractions were still 2 minutes or so apart when we left for the hospital. The nurse thought that she was going to find me at 2 centimeters or so with contractions 15 minutes apart, I think. They were completely unprepared on how to handle a woman trying to birth without drugs - they really had no idea what to do. They'd wander in and out and stare at me like I was a freak of nature or something. I had NO desire to sit in the glider and expressed my frustration with having to sit, but they insisted that they needed to monitor Ari for a little while. When the OB walked in and physically pushed the nurse, I knew that I'd have to get my fight on.
She told me that she wanted to break my water. She wanted things to move along and wasn't happy when I refused. She then decided to really piss me off and make up her own ACOG guidelines - threatening me that I would most certainly kill my child by not being monitored 5 out of every 15 minutes. I'm assuming that she wanted to punish me for not agreeing to let her break my water by tethering me to that damn chair. Before she left, she made sure to let me know that she would NOT be returning within the hour just to break my water and get me the order for an epidural. We actually checked the ACOG guidelines and found that no, they didn't change, that 20 minutes out of an hour would've been just fine. The nurses were too scared of this woman to challenge her and I felt stuck. And defeated. All I wanted to do was get up & walk! It also gave me a fierce determination to make it through the birth without meds - the last thing I wanted was for her to be able to say, "I told you so!" in the end.
So I labored there in that effing glider until 5:45ish? It was painful, but it was better than being in bed, and since the doctor followed her own personal ACOG guidelines, I was kind of stuck. (I told one nurse that I wanted her to catch my baby rather than that horrible woman and let everyone know that I didn't want her back in the room. At that point, I was willing to 'steal' someone's OB than let her come near me.) Clayton watched horrible headlines from Headline News and Jes rubbed my back and shoulders, which felt AMAZING. The headline from Headline News was about a baby that they found inside of a wooden box, underneath a family member's bed. I can't remember the details at this point, but it was horrifying. I remember what the baby (they found her alive) looked like and the town's sheriff as he sobbed on national TV. I have NO IDEA why no one thought to turn the channel. At some point, while I was sitting in the glider, I stopped being able to talk through contractions. I would lean back, close my eyes and try to focus on breathing out, expelling the energy that I could feel working in my body. Each one, I was closer to my baby. I know I started to make noise with them, pushing the energy out with my voice since just breathing wasn't working anymore. The time between contractions was heavenly - zero pain.
I moved to the bed so the nurse could check me and I was 7cm. Water bag still bulging. I was having some EXTREMELY intense contractions at this point and complaining that I was feeling kind of nauseous. I was able to breathe and make low noises while I was contracting, but once I got on the bed, everything changed. As the nurse walked out of the room (right after checking me), I felt my body start to push. It was terrifying at first, because I had no clue what was going on. I managed to tell Jes to get the nurse, or maybe she asked me if she should, I'm not sure. She came flying back in, checked me in between two insane contractions, confirmed that I was 9cm - water bag in tact. She was moving to the other side of the room when that broke, quick check confirmed that I was complete and definitely having a baby. Right that second. I remember saying, "Oh, I think I'm going to shit ... or puke on myself," and Jes replying with, "That means you're close!" right before my body decided that it was finished and wanted to present me with a baby.
I was gripping the side of the bed, holding onto Clayton's hands, and Jes was behind me, still rubbing my back and encouraging me - and I was pushing. My entire body was pushing and there was NO way I could stop it. Everyone kept telling me to pant, to act like I was blowing out candles, while the OB took her sweet time getting there. She ordered me to flip over, they raised the bed up incredibly high (it was because the OB was extremely lazy - she didn't want to do much more than stand there) and put my legs in stirrups. I had absolutely NO desire to push on my back, with my legs in the stirrups and with them telling me to not push, my body was doing whatever it wanted to do. I vaguely remember kicking out at the stirrups and trying to move back onto my side, where it was much more comfortable, but I gathered my wits and pushed a good three times - relief. I don't know about you, but there was absolutely no way that I couldn't stop pushing. I tried because I was overwhelmed, but I was so confused (seriously - where was transition? I was in a groove!) by all of the commotion and people telling me what to do that it was pointless. I'd huff or puff three or four times and my body would groan and I'd feel him move down. I could hear Jes cheering for me, the nurses and OB telling me to hold still/stop pushing/hold onto my legs, I just wanted him OUT. And then, all of a sudden, there he was! The very first thing I said was, "Is he still a boy?" because my entire pregnancy had been plagued with dreams of being handed a tiny little girl at the hospital. Thankfully, my dreams were only dreams. :)
Sometime in between being stuck on my back and getting my sh-t together, I heard her say, "An epidural sounds REALLY good about now, doesn't it?" and laugh. Another lovely moment was when I managed to tell her that Calloway was 9 pounds, 4 ounces and she assured me that if I had another 9 pound baby, he would get stuck ... basically telling me that I was dumb for opting for no pain medication. I told her that I pushed him out in 15 minutes. Her doubting my ability to give birth was extremely frustrating, to say the least. As horribly as she treated me, I know of another Momma that had a pleasant birthing experience with her. The circumstances were complete opposites, though. It was a reminder to me that yes, she is capable of being kind. Not that it excuses the things she said or the way she treated me, though. I also learned that she is very good at her job - which I don't doubt - but lacks a good bedside manner (shocking!). It's been hard for me to process all of this, but I hope that she ends up with a few more Mommas that are strong enough to stand up to her and show her that birthing without the help of medication is completely doable. I still wish that my regular OB had been there.
She kept telling me to look at my baby, but where she had the bed so high, I couldn't see him. I reached for him, but she held him there, suctioning him, just out of my reach (I dunno if this was on purpose or not). He cried and she ordered that I pull down the top of my gown if I wanted to hold him and finally handed me my baby. She then pulled him away, pointed at the cord and said, "See? It's not pulsing anymore," even though it DEFINITELY was, clamped it and handed J the scissors after Clayton declined cutting it. Before Jes took the scissors, she caught my eye. I know that she felt pressure from the OB. I felt the pressure, too. I wish that I had told her no - that she could wait a little longer and let me check out my baby - but I didn't stop Jes from cutting it. Since Clayton's not a big fan of birth, Jes was a huge help to me. Having her there to welcome Ari into the world and be an active participant in his birth means more to me than she'll ever know. (Ladies - if you don't have a doula, find a woman that you love dearly to be a member of your support team. Not necessarily your Momma, because Mommas don't really like to see their babies in pain, but a strong, kind woman that can be the voice of reason, the rubber of backs, the teller of jokes & even the cutter of cords if your husband is of the stand-offish type. A little bit of humor helped me out a lot, as did a running commentary with a person that understood what it was like!)
They took him over to check him out and I delivered the placenta. I had wanted to take it home but couldn't get the words out. She gave me four or five stitches (my actual OB told me that he wouldn't have given me stitches ...) and dug around, saying that she was checking for tears (this happened a few times). She kept making snarky, rude comments about the whole situation, disagreed when the baby nurse gave him Apgar's of 9/9, and they finally brought him back to me. The 'digging around' was actually the fundal massage from Hell. I lovingly refer to it as 'that time my stomach was fisted' because I swear, it was the most violent thing I've ever experienced. It was a million times more painful than giving birth. I was afraid that I was going to break Jes' hand, since Clayton was with the baby and she was the only thing I had to hold on to.
Ari was 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21" long, born at 6:12am. Going from 7cm-10cm took just a minute or two.
When I told her my plans for low intervention and no medication, she laughed and told me that I'd change my mind. This was only the beginning of the things she would say to me. I tried to lighten the mood by saying something along the lines of, "Oh, no, I'll just have my baby at home," to which she looked horrified, asked if I wanted to kill my baby, and told me that she had never missed a birth before - except for one. The Mother birthed in her car about a mile from the hospital.
So I went home (I stopped at the salon for a haircut & eyebrow wax first!), fed Calloway lunch and put him down for a nap. I could feel the contractions, but they weren't bad and mainly in my hips, thighs and lower back. The rest of the afternoon went by pretty fast. Clayton's parents were supposed to watch C that night so we could go to dinner and enjoy some non-baby time, so we took him over there, grabbed some dinner and went home. Clayton opted to go to bed, since the contractions were becoming more frequent, and I cleaned, packed last minute things, bounced on the yoga ball and played on the internet. I was nervous, but my contractions were consistent. I handled them really well - in between my internet chatting, I was able to sink down into my yoga ball, open my hips up and retreat into myself. I remember telling myself that the pain wasn't very bad, especially compared to the excruciating pain I felt with Calloway. (I chalk that up to not really knowing what it's like to birth a baby, along with the amount of emotional preparation and research I did prior to this birth. With Calloway, I was too scared of the idea of pushing a baby out of my vagina to think of anything besides an epidural!)
At midnight, I realized that I should probably go to the hospital. We made it there shortly before 1am and were settled into our LDR room within the hour. My primary nurse was super sweet and shocked to find that I was 6cm with a bulging bag of water, with contractions coming every minute or two. Jes, my birth partner, showed up shortly after that and I asked to get out of bed after the first 20 minutes. It felt sooooo good to be on my feet, swaying with each. It was weird, to not really care about the pain at first. Jes and Clayton kept me talking about whatever it was that we talked about, which was awesome. They were settling me into a glider to do some monitoring when The Most Terrible Woman EVER walked in. She pushed one of the nurses out of the way and told me to "listen up, girlfriend" before letting the word vomit spew. I thought my contractions were still 2 minutes or so apart when we left for the hospital. The nurse thought that she was going to find me at 2 centimeters or so with contractions 15 minutes apart, I think. They were completely unprepared on how to handle a woman trying to birth without drugs - they really had no idea what to do. They'd wander in and out and stare at me like I was a freak of nature or something. I had NO desire to sit in the glider and expressed my frustration with having to sit, but they insisted that they needed to monitor Ari for a little while. When the OB walked in and physically pushed the nurse, I knew that I'd have to get my fight on.
She told me that she wanted to break my water. She wanted things to move along and wasn't happy when I refused. She then decided to really piss me off and make up her own ACOG guidelines - threatening me that I would most certainly kill my child by not being monitored 5 out of every 15 minutes. I'm assuming that she wanted to punish me for not agreeing to let her break my water by tethering me to that damn chair. Before she left, she made sure to let me know that she would NOT be returning within the hour just to break my water and get me the order for an epidural. We actually checked the ACOG guidelines and found that no, they didn't change, that 20 minutes out of an hour would've been just fine. The nurses were too scared of this woman to challenge her and I felt stuck. And defeated. All I wanted to do was get up & walk! It also gave me a fierce determination to make it through the birth without meds - the last thing I wanted was for her to be able to say, "I told you so!" in the end.
So I labored there in that effing glider until 5:45ish? It was painful, but it was better than being in bed, and since the doctor followed her own personal ACOG guidelines, I was kind of stuck. (I told one nurse that I wanted her to catch my baby rather than that horrible woman and let everyone know that I didn't want her back in the room. At that point, I was willing to 'steal' someone's OB than let her come near me.) Clayton watched horrible headlines from Headline News and Jes rubbed my back and shoulders, which felt AMAZING. The headline from Headline News was about a baby that they found inside of a wooden box, underneath a family member's bed. I can't remember the details at this point, but it was horrifying. I remember what the baby (they found her alive) looked like and the town's sheriff as he sobbed on national TV. I have NO IDEA why no one thought to turn the channel. At some point, while I was sitting in the glider, I stopped being able to talk through contractions. I would lean back, close my eyes and try to focus on breathing out, expelling the energy that I could feel working in my body. Each one, I was closer to my baby. I know I started to make noise with them, pushing the energy out with my voice since just breathing wasn't working anymore. The time between contractions was heavenly - zero pain.
I moved to the bed so the nurse could check me and I was 7cm. Water bag still bulging. I was having some EXTREMELY intense contractions at this point and complaining that I was feeling kind of nauseous. I was able to breathe and make low noises while I was contracting, but once I got on the bed, everything changed. As the nurse walked out of the room (right after checking me), I felt my body start to push. It was terrifying at first, because I had no clue what was going on. I managed to tell Jes to get the nurse, or maybe she asked me if she should, I'm not sure. She came flying back in, checked me in between two insane contractions, confirmed that I was 9cm - water bag in tact. She was moving to the other side of the room when that broke, quick check confirmed that I was complete and definitely having a baby. Right that second. I remember saying, "Oh, I think I'm going to shit ... or puke on myself," and Jes replying with, "That means you're close!" right before my body decided that it was finished and wanted to present me with a baby.
I was gripping the side of the bed, holding onto Clayton's hands, and Jes was behind me, still rubbing my back and encouraging me - and I was pushing. My entire body was pushing and there was NO way I could stop it. Everyone kept telling me to pant, to act like I was blowing out candles, while the OB took her sweet time getting there. She ordered me to flip over, they raised the bed up incredibly high (it was because the OB was extremely lazy - she didn't want to do much more than stand there) and put my legs in stirrups. I had absolutely NO desire to push on my back, with my legs in the stirrups and with them telling me to not push, my body was doing whatever it wanted to do. I vaguely remember kicking out at the stirrups and trying to move back onto my side, where it was much more comfortable, but I gathered my wits and pushed a good three times - relief. I don't know about you, but there was absolutely no way that I couldn't stop pushing. I tried because I was overwhelmed, but I was so confused (seriously - where was transition? I was in a groove!) by all of the commotion and people telling me what to do that it was pointless. I'd huff or puff three or four times and my body would groan and I'd feel him move down. I could hear Jes cheering for me, the nurses and OB telling me to hold still/stop pushing/hold onto my legs, I just wanted him OUT. And then, all of a sudden, there he was! The very first thing I said was, "Is he still a boy?" because my entire pregnancy had been plagued with dreams of being handed a tiny little girl at the hospital. Thankfully, my dreams were only dreams. :)
Sometime in between being stuck on my back and getting my sh-t together, I heard her say, "An epidural sounds REALLY good about now, doesn't it?" and laugh. Another lovely moment was when I managed to tell her that Calloway was 9 pounds, 4 ounces and she assured me that if I had another 9 pound baby, he would get stuck ... basically telling me that I was dumb for opting for no pain medication. I told her that I pushed him out in 15 minutes. Her doubting my ability to give birth was extremely frustrating, to say the least. As horribly as she treated me, I know of another Momma that had a pleasant birthing experience with her. The circumstances were complete opposites, though. It was a reminder to me that yes, she is capable of being kind. Not that it excuses the things she said or the way she treated me, though. I also learned that she is very good at her job - which I don't doubt - but lacks a good bedside manner (shocking!). It's been hard for me to process all of this, but I hope that she ends up with a few more Mommas that are strong enough to stand up to her and show her that birthing without the help of medication is completely doable. I still wish that my regular OB had been there.
She kept telling me to look at my baby, but where she had the bed so high, I couldn't see him. I reached for him, but she held him there, suctioning him, just out of my reach (I dunno if this was on purpose or not). He cried and she ordered that I pull down the top of my gown if I wanted to hold him and finally handed me my baby. She then pulled him away, pointed at the cord and said, "See? It's not pulsing anymore," even though it DEFINITELY was, clamped it and handed J the scissors after Clayton declined cutting it. Before Jes took the scissors, she caught my eye. I know that she felt pressure from the OB. I felt the pressure, too. I wish that I had told her no - that she could wait a little longer and let me check out my baby - but I didn't stop Jes from cutting it. Since Clayton's not a big fan of birth, Jes was a huge help to me. Having her there to welcome Ari into the world and be an active participant in his birth means more to me than she'll ever know. (Ladies - if you don't have a doula, find a woman that you love dearly to be a member of your support team. Not necessarily your Momma, because Mommas don't really like to see their babies in pain, but a strong, kind woman that can be the voice of reason, the rubber of backs, the teller of jokes & even the cutter of cords if your husband is of the stand-offish type. A little bit of humor helped me out a lot, as did a running commentary with a person that understood what it was like!)
They took him over to check him out and I delivered the placenta. I had wanted to take it home but couldn't get the words out. She gave me four or five stitches (my actual OB told me that he wouldn't have given me stitches ...) and dug around, saying that she was checking for tears (this happened a few times). She kept making snarky, rude comments about the whole situation, disagreed when the baby nurse gave him Apgar's of 9/9, and they finally brought him back to me. The 'digging around' was actually the fundal massage from Hell. I lovingly refer to it as 'that time my stomach was fisted' because I swear, it was the most violent thing I've ever experienced. It was a million times more painful than giving birth. I was afraid that I was going to break Jes' hand, since Clayton was with the baby and she was the only thing I had to hold on to.
Ari was 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21" long, born at 6:12am. Going from 7cm-10cm took just a minute or two.
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