Consumers Supporting Midwifery Care

It was Valentine’s Day morning and I was seven days past my due date. I could hear my husband showering and getting ready for work as I leisurely woke up at about 7:15. Suddenly, I felt the baby inside me “jump”. It was a strange feeling that I hadn’t experienced before. It bothered me, so I got up, and soon after noticed a leaking of fluid. It wasn’t a gush or even a steady leak, but every once in awhile I’d have a leak of this yellow fluid, and I figured that at least part of my bag of waters had broken.

I paged my midwife right away to let her know. I had an appointment for a stretch and sweep scheduled for 10am, but there was a raging snowstorm outside, and although I was having contractions that were more or less regular, they were not painful and there was nothing to distinguish them from the Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been having every night for a week. Still, my midwife agreed to stop by the clinic, then drive out to our house to check and see if my water had broken. Because I was GBS positive, a prolonged rupture of membranes was something we would have to keep an eye on.

 Well, by 8:00am I could say I was definitely in labor because the contractions were starting to hurt. The midwife, Becca, called to say she was on her way, but stuck behind a snow plow. I told her to keep on coming because this baby was on the way!

She arrived at around 9:30 or 10:00 and by now I was definitely in active labor. She checked me and announced me at 5 cm. My husband and I had to decide whether or not to go ahead with the GBS antibiotics, and since I was only 5 cm we decided to go ahead and give me a dose. I climbed into our whirlpool tub of hot water and struggled to cope with my contractions while having an IV threaded into my hand. The whole idea of having the antibiotics and the IV was stressing me out because I am one of those people who gets very anxious around doctors and who does not like the idea of drugs coursing through my veins that could elicit some deadly allergic reaction. Honestly, the day I got the Hepatitis B vaccine (they put it in you cold from the refrigerator), I could feel the cold stuff infiltrating my whole body– it ruined my day. Anyway, my veins are bad, and the midwife blew out two of them in my hand before getting the butterfly needle in me and successfully transferring the medicine. I felt panicky and freakish and still worried about a potential allergic reaction. But my midwife said the magic words: if you were going to have a bad reaction we would have seen it by now. Good enough for me. I focused back on my labor.

Shortly after, probably at about 11:00am I started having the urge to push. The second midwife had not made it to our house yet (second midwife didn’t make it in time for my first daughter’s birth either), but there was nothing I could do. The pushes were overwhelming and I tried to just let my body do the work. My mom was downstairs with my older daughter, Kira, and thank goodness, because I was very noisy. I found pushing this baby out more difficult than my first, whether it was her positioning or the fact that she was over a pound heavier. As I struggled with my pushing contractions, I reminded myself that it would be over soon, and thought about all of the political prisoners in third world prisons who were surviving much worse (no kidding, that is exactly what I thought!). I told myself, I can do this! I can do this!

I pushed out the head in the next couple of contractions and reached down to catch the rest of my baby as he/she came out, but the baby didn’t come out right away. I also saw meconium come out as the rest of the head emerged, and I looked at Becca with worry. It was obvious that the baby was stressed. She told me she needed me to push the baby out, and I tried to push, but without a contraction it’s like somebody telling you they need you to poop, but you don’t have to go. I just didn’t have anything to push against. But I pushed anyway, as hard as I could, and Becca jumped in the tub with me. Finally, 2 minutes later, I got a contraction and pushed as hard as I could for my baby. Becca puts this big, blue baby on my chest and says, “Rub the baby”.

Oh my gosh, I have never been so scared. My husband was shellshocked, too. The baby’s eyes were closed and it was blue, blue, blue and not breathing. I rubbed the baby and said, “breathe, baby, please, wake up and breathe!” Becca quickly clamped and cut the cord, jumped out of the tub and took the baby around the corner to where her equipment was set up. I heard the suction machine start, and grabbed my husband’s hands and began praying that our baby would be okay. Even as I prayed, I had a sense of comfort that everything would be okay.

Mark went into the room to see what was happening and started giving me the thumbs up. We heard a hiccuppy crying, which didn’t sound all that great to me– not big and lusty like I was hoping to hear, but Becca said, “Can you hear that?” and I knew that the baby was going to be okay. I said to Mark, “Is it a boy or a girl?” I guess Becca pulled back the towels at the point so he could have a look, and he said, “It’s another girl!” I was astonished! We had another little daughter! And all this time we had assumed a boy.

Mark helped me out of the tub and got me settled to where I could deliver the placenta, then climb into my bathrobe and bed. Becca helped me with the placenta and handed me my beautiful new daughter to tuck under my bathrobe. She had pinked up immediately with some suctioning and a little oxygen blown in front of her nose. She was just perfect.

It took a little while for Mark and me to get over the scare of seeing our baby born like that. Becca explained that there had been a bit of a shoulder dystocia where the shoulder was stuck on my pelvic bone, and she had had to fold the baby’s shoulder down to get her through. It was definitely scary for everyone, but Becca had handled everything so well and knew just what to do. Shortly after, the second midwife and her student arrived and helped clean up and get us all settled. Then my mom brought in Kira to meet her new little sister!

Kira crawled into bed with me while the student was doing Ocean’s newborn exam. I said, “Kira, do you remember the baby in Mommy’s belly?” Kira pulled aside my bathrobe to look at my belly and saw that it was gone. “See, the belly is gone,” I said, “and there’s the baby! That’s your baby sister!” Kira looked back and forth from my belly to the baby. It was so cool to watch the recognition!

So that was our adventure birthing Ocean Alexandra Swift. I had her at 11:18am (give or take 2 minutes) on Valentines Day morning, and fell in love again that day with my amazing brand new baby girl.