My second baby’s birth story.
I always wanted to give birth at home.
Even before my first pregnancy I knew that’s what I wanted. A dark, quiet, comfortable environment with as little interruption and intervention as possible.
Turns out, both of my babies would be born in a hospital after an induction of labor.
Sometimes our plans just don’t unfold in the way we want, huh?
With L’s pregnancy and birth, this was much more difficult for me to process and accept. I hadn’t yet realized how truly out of control we are when it comes to parenting- it’s no longer all up to us. That all of the intentions, preparation and planning can’t truly predict how things will go. That it doesn’t matter how much we want something… sometimes we just have to pivot and change course.
With my second pregnancy, I was much more at peace with a hospital birth, thankfully. As much as I wanted a redo at a home birth, I just knew it wasn’t in the cards for me, due to nagging complications with hypertension, elevated blood sugar and preeclampsia. I knew the better course of action was to plan a hospital birth from the start, so if anything changed at the end (which it did), I’d be less stressed and have a backup plan already in place.
I worked with midwives and a doula. I felt very supported and cared for during my pregnancy and birth. I also knew that I could handle it. I had done this before. I had been through a looooooong induction and came out the other side with an unmedicated, vaginal birth. That felt really validating to me, even though I absolutely believe in the power of epidurals and belly births, it just wasn’t the experience I was hoping to have.
Right around 37 weeks, my blood pressure started to creep up as did my preeclampsia labs- almost to the day that this happened with L’s pregnancy. Clearly, my uterus has a best by date and it’s not 40 weeks.
V’s induction was smoother. I got to start at home and I actually labored there for a bit. L went to my mom’s and Kyle and I settled into our last night at home before V would arrive.
It’s a truly bizarre feeling walking into the hospital knowing you’re going to meet your baby soon, even though you’re not yet in active labor.
A little pitocin later and we were well on our way to meeting our baby girl. Labor was much faster than last time, so I was feeling excited and ready.
I was also feeling the intensity and pain of pitocin contractions and really wanted to get in the tub as water was my savior with L’s birth.
But my blood pressure was continuing to rise… higher and higher. It didn’t go this high with L’s birth. A few days earlier my labs had shown elevated liver enzymes meaning that preeclampsia was a possibility and we didn’t want to go there.
Magnesium sulfate can be given to the laboring person to reduce any complications of preeclampsia. So thankful for it, and yet, it’s the worst. A stipulation of going on mag is that you have to labor in bed lying down because it can make you feel like you’re underwater/in a fog. No warm water tub, no bouncing on the stability ball, no walking around. Basically, all of my techniques to get through labor without pain medication were no longer an option. If you’ve ever heard that movement and water are natural pain relievers for labor, I can absolutely attest to that now. Laying down in a bed hooked up to pitocin and magnesium sulfate during transition (going from 7 to 10 centimeters in dilation) was perhaps the most painful experience of my life.
I felt so defeated. I just wanted to get through this induction and have my baby. I didn’t want to need even more interventions than my first birth.
Appears I'm still working out my control issues even after becoming a parent 🙃
I asked for an epidural. Mentally, I couldn’t imagine laboring like this for much longer. But before the epidural was ready for me, V was ready to be born. She dropped down so quickly- I couldn’t believe it.
At this point Kyle said our midwife calmly walked over to grab the delivery supplies cart while I was making the most intense noises I’ve ever heard. She knew that baby was coming and coming quickly.
6 minutes later, laying on my side, baby V was born.
I was quite pleased I still had function enough to lay on my side and not my back! Take that, magnesium sulfate! 😂
I was reminded yet again that labor is not linear. How long it takes to go from 4 to 7 centimeters is probably not how long it will take to go from 7 to 10. I learned this lesson with L’s birth and yet the mind still gets so wrapped around these numbers.
I pushed for over two hours with L and only 6 minutes with V. It can be so easy to have our expectations wrapped up in what others tell us and even what we have experienced ourselves, but no birth is ever the same. And I know that my children won’t be the same either.
I’ll be continuing to talk about my journey with hypertension and elevated blood sugar/insulin as I think there is a whole lot of weight stigma and healthism wrapped up into these conditions and this topic deserves its own spotlight. For now, I’ll just say that you can do everything “right”- eat well, exercise often, get plenty of sleep, take supplements, go to acupuncture and yet… you may still have your metabolic pathways change due to pregnancy.
