Friday, September 18, 2009

Mat and Mo's Birthstory: Our Homebirth in a Hospital



Disclaimer: This story is long... our baby is too good for Cliff's Notes! If you're one of those people that only look at the pictures anyway, then head straight to our Picasa albums. Enjoy!

Part I: The Waiting Game

The due date of August 30th came and went with little fanfare. We celebrated the eve of the due date with a gourmet, home cooked meal with friends and toasted to the eminent arrival of our new baby. Wow, were we wrong!! The days kept ticking by and we kept trying to keep ourselves rested and occupied. The first milestone was the full moon – certainly baby was waiting to come out into the glow of the mama moon, certainly Mo's cervix was hoping the extra tug of gravity would open it up. And then, even though we know it's not related, we figured Labor Day on September 7th was going to have to be it. After that, 9-9-09 was looking better and better (and what a rad birthday to have!!!) What? This coincided with the Saturn transition into Virgo? Perfect! Let's get this party started!!!

Throughout the week our midwives Mollie, Mason, and Megan (working with Mat and Mo – can you see why we didn't choose another "M" name?!?!) were gradually ramping up the natural induction methods to get this little one out. Mo went to acupuncture almost every day, took herbs around the clock, endured marathon sessions of nipple stimulation and more sex than it took to get us into this mess. We walked the stairs at the Rose Garden, walked the stairs on Vine street, set up our "oxytocin cave" complete with non-stop rom-coms, candles, and mellow chanting cds. Finally, on Saturday morning September 12th, after a night of bizarre lighting and thunder storms in the Bay, we resorted to our nuclear option – castor oil.

We slightly feared the castor oil, but having survived years in India also figured really, how bad could it be. She awoke early at 7 AM like a champ and swallowed three ounces of the vile stuff mixed in an "I am Grace" raw milkshake from CafĂ© Gratitude (you can't make this stuff up!). Excitement ensued – it was a little bit like India all over again – and we just tried to keep her hydrated with electrolyte drink and keep the super soft Charmin' stocked. The worst settled out by about noon and we sat around our house waiting for the contractions. We played backgammon (Mat won!), walked around the block, and finally called Mollie to tell her we were heading to the hospital for our prescribed Non-Stress-test to make sure that at 41 weeks and 6 days the baby was still doing okay.

On our drive to Walnut Creek we started emotionally coming to terms with the fact that our birth might not be at home as planned. We had already gotten a non-reactive stress test the day before – the results weren't terrible but they weren't great either – and our midwives had prepped us for the fact that if we had another one on Saturday they would recommend induction in the hospital.

We checked into labor and delivery and were greeted by the nurse midwife Deb, who did our intake in the exam room while our NST was running. After our terrible experiences with care at Kaiser Oakland we were honestly blown away by her receptiveness, willingness to listen to our hopes for the birth, and professionalism. She left to end her shift with us after only 20 minutes saying "We're going to try to give you a homebirth here in the hospital."

Things were a bit chaotic during the shift change – the NST strip was coming up unreactive again and Mo's blood pressure surprisingly skyrocketed up to 150 / 100. We opened our hearts more and more to birthing wherever and whenever we could, and in a worried call to our midwives they confirmed that we shouldn't come home and that they would have transferred us to the hospital already with her blood pressure like that. A few nurses came in and started pimping the pitocin – "just a whiff, just to get things going…" At this point Mo had to get on the floor to comfortably make it through one of her first strong contractions, paused to vomit in a little barf bag, and plunged into labor.

Part II: Labor and Delivery

They transferred us to a beautiful, large, and open birth room with hardwood floors, colorful walls, and an ample picture window. Mo was in full labor now, on her hands and knees on the floor hugging a birthball during contractions, no longer questioning or wondering what they would feel like. We started manifesting the mind set of a natural, present labor as Mo breathed through contractions and let her soul relax during the breaks. A blood test came back positive for pre-eclampsia, which explained her unexpected elevated blood pressure, and we were informed that we would need to be transferred from the nurse midwives' to the doctors' care. They left us alone – Mo continued to labor and we were waiting for our midwives to come for some needed backup.

Mollie and Megan rolled in just before Doctor Cohen came in for his first examination. He looked like a dark haired, slightly quirky Doogie Howser, and swaggered over to check out the situation. While Mo remained oblivious to his entrance, our anxiety increased as this was the guy who would "technically" be calling the shots all night long. He observed Mo's breathing pattern, checked her cervix, and confidently pronounced that she should keep on doing what she was doing. He told us that if there was continual progress there would be no need for pitocin and that there was still a large hope of doing this thing naturally. That was the only time any sort of drugs were mentioned for the rest of the night.

Doctor Cohen left and the race was on. We had three hours to make significant progress in his mind and immediately focused on supporting Mo however we could. As her labor progressed she deepened in her out-of-body/totally-in-body experience. She uncannily found moments of utter relaxation between contractions as her whole body dissolved into rejuvenating bliss. Her blood pressure dropped back to normal levels as she relaxed and surrendered to the natural process. We breathed together through every contraction, moaning deep, primal, guttural noises and holding hands while the midwives applied pressure and ice to her lower back. Mollie made, err… strongly suggested, that Mo switch laboring positions about every hour, and she was on the floor, then on the bed, then standing, then on the toilet (clearly her least favorite – "I hate the toilet!" Believe it or not this was as vulgar as she ever became). Mollie ordered nipple stimulation between the efforts, and Mo graciously accepted, knowing that it would make the next contraction that much more intense but that the alternative was worse.

The hours passed, the doctor came and went, leaving us totally alone in the room with our midwives and the baby. Every two hours he came in, applauded her breathing patterns, updated us on the dilation of the cervix, and left us to our laboring again. Strangely enough, this young, male doctor that spent his time doing trauma deliveries and things much more complicated than natural birth, believed in the process and was perfectly fine leaving us alone to make it happen.

The next few hours blurred together as Mo labored through to the early morning. Around 4 AM she was 9 cm dilated and we all began visualizing and willing the baby further and further down, down, down, down…. At one point she begin inquiring about what it would feel like to push – saying that she didn’t know what to expect as she didn't think the baby could get any lower. At this point, Mo was on her hands and knees on the bed and Mollie looked behind her to check the situation out. Sure enough, the baby's head was just starting to poke through her labial lips. "Oh," Mollie said in her utterly calm, professional midwife voice, "I'll go get the doctor!"

Suddenly the flood lights in the room came on and a delivery team ten deep rolled in, led by Dr. Lee, who was filling in for Dr. Cohen who was now in the ER. She introduced herself to Mat and before he even gave her his name he asked her if we could turn the floodlights off to keep Mo calm. She complied and we all sort of looked at each other, thinking, hey... this might not be so bad after all.

Dr. Lee assumed the position behind Mo's butt and didn't even ask her to get off her hands and knees, simply stating that we should start "getting this baby out." Mo pushed naturally with the next contraction, made a little progress on the head, and then took a breather as Mollie positioned herself at the head of the bed right by Mo's face. By this time everyone in the room was all telling her to do something different, and yet she blocked all of them out and focused on Mollie's face and voice, knowing that Mollie would tell her if she had to do something other than what felt natural. On the second contraction Mo started pushing again and the baby's heart rate dropped considerably and didn't come back up, which wasn't a great sign but really just meant that we needed to get the baby out of there. Mollie zoned in on Mo and coached her through the next contraction, telling her that she needed to push for a 10 count, take one breath, and then push like she had never pushed before. With that effort the baby crowned and its heartbeat began to stabilize. One push into the next contraction and baby slithered out, let out a majestic cry and Dr. Lee immediately placed him (It's a boy!) on Mo's chest.

In another example of Kaiser's amazing cooperation with our wishes and wants they exactly followed our birth plan that we had been anticipating with our homebirth. They didn't cut or clamp the cord until the placenta was delivered; they didn't wash, inject, touch, or mess with the baby, and they left us alone almost immediately after the delivery. What followed was two hours of pure bliss and the single best moment of our life together, watching him bond with Mommy and Daddy in a spiritual, primal, and deeply instinctive way. We all stared at each other for a couple of hours and then bid goodbye to our midwives with hugs, kisses and love while we began the somewhat mundane process of transferring to Kaiser New Mom and Baby Care.

Part III: Falling in Love

What we experienced in that 14 hours was the most perfect birth that we could have ever asked for. During the pregnancy and especially the last week of attempted induction we had unfairly tied many of these feelings and wishes for the birth to its physical location. Yes, we would have loved to have been in our home through the whole experience (hey – a good reason to have some more babies!!!), but even though we weren't, we were able to manifest a loving, caring, and supportive environment to welcome our baby into the world, with the help of our amazing midwives and the incredible staff at Kaiser. The doctors at Kaiser believed in us and the natural process of labor enough to leave us alone in the birthing room for hours on end, naturally progressing toward the birth. Our midwives believed in us enough to give us the strength, guidance, and direction to have a transcendental birth experience within the physical confines of a hospital room. Sage believed in us enough to bide his time and kick it into gear the first time he seriously heard the mention of a hospital induction. Mat believed in Mo enough to get on the floor with her through every single contraction, grunt and moan, breathe in and out every single breath, and transfer all of his possible energy during the labor straight to her. And Mo believed in herself enough to think we could do this crazy thing together in the first place.

We've spent the past four days falling in love with our little baby boy. People told us this would happen and we had no understanding of what it meant – how do you fall in love with a new baby? Well, you spend every single moment of every day with him, not even thinking about leaving for errands or groceries or reading the newspaper. You gaze into his eyes when they are open and bathe him with love when they're closed. You wake up in the morning to see him sleeping and fight to hold back tears of joy. You listen to the same music he heard in the womb, sing to him as you pace back and forth across the house, and hand him around to friends, family, and neighbors only to see the divine exuberance on their faces. You giggle like a child when you discover a new dimple on his face, or see him cringe his eyes in his best pirate scowl. There's really no other way to explain it - you simply stare at him and fall in love.

We spend extra time cuddling and hugging, enjoying the new found freedom and body contact without a pregnant belly in the way. We count, catalogue, and investigate poop and pee in a way that we didn't know was possible. We wake up refreshed and alert after 3 hours of solid sleep. We destroy our house with dishes and laundry over and over only to be cleaned up by an angel of a grandmother. We plow through delicious food that neighbors bring, eating with a voracity that gives us the sustenance we need to go on. We relax, laugh, smile, dance, do the crossword, walk outside, and do it all over again. He sleeps, nurses, pees, poops, and does it all over again. And all of the sudden, just as quickly as the first contractions of labor came on, just as quickly as he cried his first breath outside of his mom, just as quickly as he falls asleep on your chest after a nursing session, life seems perfect.