Baby Lily’s Birth Story

 

Our little Lily arrived at 6:30 pm right smack on her due date May 12th. This was especially awesome since beginning at 37 weeks my blood pressure started to inch up, and words like preeclampsia and gestational hypertension started floating around my doctor’s office, both of which could mean, besides the obvious health risks, an induction and missing my grandfather’s memorial service and all my cousins flying into town.

But miraculously at my 38-week appointment my blood pressure was fine, and I got to enjoy the last two weeks with Jackson and going to all the festivities surrounding my extended family celebrating my Grandpa Denny’s nearly 82 years of life.

 

photo credit: poppy & fern

photo credit: poppy & fern

 

After all the aunts and uncles and cousins flew home, and my mom settled into our basement guest suite for the rest of May, we set about making last minute preparations, waiting for the show to begin.

 

 

 

 

Twice that week I woke up to a few sets of 2 am contractions that fizzled out after 30 minutes or so. Then Friday morning after nursing Jackson I had a bunch of contractions, lost my mucus plug, and I knew that things were, at 39 weeks and 6 days, starting to really happen.

Based on my first birth, I did some quick math and thought, well, if at Jackson’s birth it was 28 hours from mucus plug loss to delivery, and second births are often twice as fast, that maybe I was only 14 hours away from delivering. Expectations and other people’s experiences are only predictors, because I had more like 33 hours to go. So it turns out that second births aren’t always faster!

But just because it wasn’t faster didn’t mean it wasn’t good. As a matter of fact, the word “good” was the theme of this birth. Early on in my pregnancy I felt in praying for this little person that God told me it would be “a good birth.” And I clung to that.

When Lily was transverse during my third trimester ultrasound, I thought, well, I guess I’ll have a good birth with a lifesaving C-section if she doesn’t turn. When I had Beta Strep in my urine again, I thought, well, I guess I’ll have a good birth with a penicillin IV. When my blood pressure was getting high, I thought, well, I guess I’ll have a good birth through an induction.

As my friend Emily said, good with God can mean a whole range of things, wild and unexpected. This reminded me of Lucy’s talk with the beavers in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe when she asked if Aslan was a safe Lion, to which Mr. Beaver replies, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King I tell you.” (p. 76)

 

 

So back to Friday, and the start to my long, good labor. It was a rainy day so we went to the mall to walk around, and I had a couple contractions per hour, nothing that I had to stop to work through or anything. We got home around 11am and Jackson was a puddle. We tried to push through to have lunch but he was weeping, begging for nap time. This interrupted what I thought the afternoon should be (mainly me progressing to active labor). But as I huffed and harrumphed around my house that afternoon, still with only a couple of contractions an hour, I felt God remind me that I had a choice to be annoyed that things weren’t going on my time schedule or I could enjoy these last moments with just my son.

 

photo credit: poppy & fern

 

So enjoy them we did. We made Paleo chocolate chip cookies and a birthday paleo pumpkin pie for Lily. We laughed and made a mess, and talked about his sister. And I soaked it up.  That was the second theme of my slow, good labor — enjoying the people I was with even as things were slower than I wanted.

At 4 pm, Evan picked me up for my scheduled prenatal with my beloved Dr. B and we left Grandma and Jackson for a trial solo run. My blood pressure was back up at this appointment (39 weeks and 6 days) but my urine didn’t have protein in it, so that meant just a probable diagnosis of gestational hypertension (not preeclampsia), which usually still means an induction. My doctor was pretty sure that the best course of action was just to have me check into the hospital across the street right then (and send Evan home for our bags), but she wanted to double check with the OB on call to get his opinion. And in a reversal of what most people in the crunchy birth community (including myself!) would guess, the OB said that I could go home and labor, since I was clearly in the beginning of labor, and technically I needed a second blood pressure reading 6 hours later to really have a true gestational hypertension diagnosis.

So we got to go home! We had a good dinner, put Jackson to bed, and tried and get some sleep. About 11 pm I paged my doctor (the first time I ever called a pager number—so very 1990s of me) and reported in my blood pressure from my home machine, still high, but not high enough to warrant my dropping everything and heading in. She wanted me in by noon the next day. But I couldn’t sleep through the contractions, and we ended up heading in about 3 am, mostly because I couldn’t really rest and didn’t want to disturb Jackson or Evan or my mom in our small house by making much noise. Plus, I wanted to get the antibiotic IV started for the Beta Strep, and last time it took forever to get through the ER check in, get up into triage, get monitored in triage, get admitted into labor and delivery, and get the IV started.

As a matter of fact, one of the biggest takeaways that I had from Jackson’s birth was just how much all those people who do the checking and poking and measuring impact a birth. (When I counted up how many people cared for me in the hospital it was well over 20 doctors, nurses, and nurses’ assistants!) My main form of birth prep this time was podcasts, and one of the big takeaways from one of my favorites podcasts, “Birthing in God’s Presence” was to pray about your specific fears. So all through third trimester, I started to pray for the people who would care for me, from the people at the ER check in desk, to the labor and delivery nurse who would be working the night we came into the hospital.

And the first gentle reminder that God heard those prayers was that my triage nurse Stela had been one of our postpartum nurses with Jackson. This made the two hours I spent in triage a bit less onerous. And, towards the end, I asked if I could stand up and work through contractions, which Stela happily allowed me to do. I don’t know why I didn’t ask sooner!

My contractions had been getting closer together before we left for the hospital, and spaced back out in triage. But when I got checked at 5:15 am I was 5 cm dilated and a +1 station, 60% effaced, which was more than I had been admitted with Jackson, so I knew this was the real deal.

It took another hour to get into my labor and delivery room, get the IV in (evidently, I have terrible IV veins), and get the penicillin started. We briefly had a nurse before the shift change who was young and into English Premier Soccer, and helped us get set up for walking a few laps around the floor. We texted my sister-in-law, and doula, Candace just about 6:45 to let her know we were at the hospital and finally all set, so she could come whenever. (If we had a different doula, I’m sure we would have been keeping her up to date throughout the night, but since Candace is family and was 8 months pregnant, and I knew that things were going slowly, we let her sleep. But normally you want to let your doula know the play by play, and to have them come labor with you at home.)

 

 

Evan and I and my IV pole took a few laps around the labor and delivery floor, stopping to grip the wooden rail on the wall to work through contractions that were a bit more regular with the walking. Several nurses cheered us on, and by the time we got back to our room, it was shift change time, and one of those nurses was our new nurse: Cathy. Cathy was the biggest answer to all my prayers about who was on call. She was awesome, she’d been a labor and delivery nurse for 30 years, and she knew what she was doing. She never strapped the belts on me, but just held the monitors against my belly and waited for me to have a contraction to make sure Lily and I were doing well. We had her for her whole shift, and I can’t say enough wonderful things about her.

When Cathy introduced herself, taking in our Christmas lights, put out our copy of Rublev’s the Trinity Icon y , and our portable speaker playing George Winston and Jill Phillips music, and our Trinity Icon, she said, “Well I saw you guys in the hall, I didn’t know that I’d get to be your nurse! You are such a good team, and I love this music.” (Clearly she had excellent taste.)

 

 

Soon after that, my first round of penicillin finished, and Candace arrived. And I was ready to get down to work, hoping that I could have this baby by 11am, giving the penicillin enough time to get through my system and into Lily’s. We took a brisk, IV-pole-free walk, cracking up the nurses as two animated pregnant ladies were walking fast, with Evan lagging behind. And it struck me that I was in fact getting to spend the day with two of my very favorite people (Candace and Evan), without any toddlers.

 

 

As the hours of the morning crept by, and my contractions were staying about the same, I started to feel a bit like an imposition—that perhaps I should have waited longer to come in, that I was wasting everyone’s time. But again, just like the afternoon before, I felt like God put before me the option to have a good attitude about the slowness of my labor and the quality time with the people I loved that I was getting, or I could be impatient.

In the late morning, Candace suggested that we try and get Lily in a more engaged position by having me lay down with my bottom up high on pillows and then take a little cat nap.

About the time for another round of antibiotics, I got checked by a new on-call resident at 11 am: I was 6 cm dilated, at a 0 station, and 60% effaced. That drop from a +1 station to a 0 was a good sign that Lily was moving on down, and no one seemed put out by the slowness of my progress but me.

But by noon, it was apparent that I wasn’t about to have this baby, and my beloved Dr. B came in for a chat. She had been up all night delivering other babies after working since Friday morning, and as she put it, she was worried that she wasn’t going to be able to make the best decisions as my care provider, and she wanted me to have the best care, and there was a great midwife on call named Nicole who, if I was willing, would take on me on.

In the middle of Jackson’s labor when I was told I couldn’t have my doctors, I cried and cried, and it was one of the most difficult moments of my labor. But this time, I felt like God had told me I’d have a good labor, and I prayed for the people who were going to be there, and while it wasn’t what I pictured, it would be alright. (And I was tired enough to be very sympathetic about Dr. B’s needing to sleep!) Plus, my nurse Cathy said that Nicole was great, and if Cathy said she was great and Dr. B said she was great, then I trusted that she would be great, and she was!

Nicole came in and gave me a great little pep talk about how they were going to trust my body (not unlike the one that Dr. B gave me with Jackson) and left me alone to labor and drink chicken broth and eat Lara bars, and keep working.

 

 

And work we did. We walked around. We did lunges, and hip circles, and slow dance hanging, and peanut ball bouncing. And through it all, I was so chatty and happy between contractions. Cathy kindly said I certainly wasn’t acting like I was in active labor yet. But we were having a grand time.

As the afternoon wore on, the pelvic pressure slowly increased. Last time I had been in the laboring tub about 10 minutes and it kicked me into transition, but the tub wasn’t available this time. So I tried the shower which felt great, but slowed things down a bit.

By late afternoon, the pelvic pressure had gotten so I wanted to get checked again. I was 8 cm, 0 station, and 80% effaced with bulgy waters.  Nicole asked if I had “any requests.” To which I said, “You mean do I want you to break my water?” She nodded. “No, I’m fine,” I said because even if I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t miraculously at 10 cm without knowing it, better slow and manageable than fast and overwhelming with my waters broken.

Looking back, I think that I had hoped to have a faster labor because I think I equated faster with better and, as a sign that I was doing labor better than last time. But I don’t do most physical things faster, I love to walk long distances slowly. And had to remember that labor is not a contest to see who can be more relaxed and have the least amount of pain in the shortest amount of time as a badge of who is the most awesome crunchy mom. My labor story could be good and unique, without having to be better than last time, or be unusually fast or easy. I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone, including (and perhaps most especially) to myself.

 

 

From that check on, it started to get pretty intense. I’m not sure of the timing, but those last few hours were most assuredly work. I wasn’t worried about taking up people’s time, or being slow, or being “better” at birth, or anything but making it through the next breath. I was all in on just staying afloat, and soon I needed to get back into the shower to manage, taking probably longest shower of my life.

With Jackson, I needed a lot of verbal encouragement and physical touch during transition, but this time Candace and Evan were just quietly hanging out in the bathroom with me, and with the curtain drawn to keep the bathroom from flooding, it was remarkably more private. I got into a rhythm of hip tilts and vocalizing, holding on to the safety railings, and then going to the back of the shower between contractions for some cooler air. Nicole and Cathy checked in on me, and everyone was pleased that it was getting intense.

I started to feel like I was going to be stuck in the deep, hard contractions forever, that I didn’t know if I could make it. Just when I thought that the heat of the shower was going to make me nauseous, I got out to let Cathy monitor me. After a few more contractions, I tried to lay down, but couldn’t work through the contractions there. So I sort of thrashed about, clambering up onto all fours, which allowed me just enough control to breathe through the hardest part of the contraction.

And then, all of a sudden, my water broke and in the next second I was pushing. And not like last time with Jackson where I was sort of pushing, sort of not pushing. This time I was pushing, hard and fast, and without any conscious thought. I was pushing nothing and everything and something far, far too big to possibly come out of me.

I remember thinking I had frankly misremembered pushing Jackson out, that this was all kinds of horrible, and none of the relief I had remembered with Jackson’s initial pushing. (Looking back, it was because Lily ended up coming out so much faster than Jackson.) Pushing Lily out seemed so violent and impossible, like I was tearing my insides apart for her.

I wasn’t sure that I was dilated enough to be pushing at all, but soon Nicole came and confirmed I was a complete 10 cm. People started to gear up, a nurse was called in for Lily, Candace got me cold wash cloths, and Nicole coached me through pushing with lots of encouragement and expertise.

Then suddenly Nicole shouted for me to stop and switch to little pushes. This was to try and ease Lily out without the tearing that had happened last time. And while I did the little pushes, and they were much easier than the big ones, I still tore.

Lily and Jackson actually came out almost exactly the same way: me on hands and knees, them with the cords wrapped around neck and body, compounded hand by their faces, a bit blue with a head full of black hair, and me with a 2nd degree tear. Except this time, I pushed for 15 minutes and last time I pushed for 90 minutes. Evan said she was bluer than Jackson, but I didn’t turn over and get a peek at her until she made her first cry.

Everyone was encouraging her to breathe, and those seconds felt like an eternity until the music of her sweet cry filled the room.

 

 

And then they passed me my daughter. She looked so much like Jackson, like me as a baby, like my baby. And right then it seemed that she just nestled herself into our family, into our hearts, that the love I had for Jackson was some how love enough for both of them, and yet somehow more than enough for both of them.

 

 

Her cord was so long that she did a breast crawl into my neck, and we had to re-position her down. She nursed right away, and she’s pretty much been that content and easy going ever since.

 

 

As the business of birthing the placenta (quick and easy this time), sewing me back up (considerably more painful this time around), and monitoring our vitals went on, it was just about shift change. Cathy came over to say goodbye, and I told her that I had prayed for a really great nurse, and I got one. And she told me that she had been praying for me, and that she thought my birth was really beautiful and powerful. And I agreed, it was a good, good birth.

 

 

 

And these weeks have continued to be good and helped me remember those big themes of my birth: when things don’t go according to my schedule, I can choose to be grumpy or enjoy the people I’m with, and it’s the people that God has given me—my mother and mother-in-law who came into town to help, my wonderful church family bringing meals, and of course my newly expanded little family–that make this such a sweet, wild, and wonderful time of becoming a mom to two.