Jadon fell asleep on the way home from the non-stress test
at the Dr. W’s office. Jon decided to stay in the car and read until Jadon woke
up so that he could get a good nap in that day. While they camped out in the
car, I went inside to give castor oil a second chance.
When I tried ingesting castor oil the previous day, I threw
it up. I think I had been too full from breakfast when I ate the entire castor
oil smoothie in one sitting. So for my second attempt, after a small snack, I
prepared the recommended four ounces of castor oil with just two ounces of
orange juice.
I gulped it down at 3:15.
Around 4:00, I took my first trip to the toilet. The digestive effects of the castor oil
seemed to be working. I was so thankful that the castor oil wasn’t making me feel
sick. The next few hours of toilet stops just seemed to be clearing out my
system (which I really didn’t mind, hoping that a baby would be the only thing
I’d be pushing out in that birth tub later!).
By 4:30, I started experiencing mild contractions. They began
just as they had the previous day: five or six minutes apart, about 30-60
seconds long, and very, very easy. I texted
Pam, my midwife, with the update, and then decided to lie down and rest. I
would need to save my energy if this was the beginning of real labor.
The contractions continued as steady, easy, and unchanging
as ever…for hours. When Jon came in with a groggy Jadon, he was thrilled to
hear that contractions had started on their own. I texted Alison, my doula,
with an update. She was excited to hear about the contractions, too, and hoped
that things would really take off so that she could justify pausing her
family’s vacation plans. If active labor began soon, she could come to assist
me, and even then she’d be running on little sleep the next day en route to
California.
Around 6:30, Pam stopped by to see how things were
progressing. I was still resting in bed, so she checked to see how dilated I
was. She determined that I was about four centimeters dilated. Then, she wanted
me to get up and walk around to see if the contractions changed in any way.
Sitting, standing, and pacing seemed to have no effect at
all on the intensity or frequency of the contractions. They were so easy and
effortless that I showed no outward signs of their occurrence. In fact, Pam and
Jon asked me many times if I was still experiencing contractions.
By this time, it was about 8:00 pm. Since things seemed to
be going very slowly, Pam decided to leave and let me labor on my own. She said
that she would make sure to stay in the area because she believed that contractions
could really ramp up at any time. She wanted me to call immediately if my water
broke or if my contractions started coming less than three minutes apart.
Alison called me shortly after Pam left. She asked if labor
seemed to be picking up. When I told her that there was virtually no change,
she admitted that she was at the point of no return regarding her family’s
vacation. Her voice choked with emotion as she apologized over and over for not
being able to be there. I cried silent tears on the other end of the line, but
reassured her that nothing was her fault. After all, no one thought this baby
would take so long to come out. She promised that she’d be praying for us all
night, as she wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.
After we hung up, I let Alison’s absence sink in. Then, I
made another phone call.
“Hello, Maria? It’s Alison… yeah, I tried the castor oil
again this afternoon and contractions started up on their own within a couple
hours…listen, are you available if I need you later tonight? My friend Alison
won’t be able to make it because her family is traveling to a wedding in
California…oh, thank you! Things aren’t moving that fast yet. Contractions are
actually are totally easy and not changing at all…yeah, I’m willing to try
acupuncture again…maybe I will…well, I’ll call if I think I need you. Thank you
so much, Maria…yup, I’ll text you my address…Bye.”
Peace washed over me, knowing Maria was willing to assist me
with so little advanced notice. She had even offered to do another acupuncture
session in order to help things along.
For the next two hours, I paced the apartment, trying to speed
contractions up with the movement. I continued to time them, and waited for any
sign of change. Occasionally, it felt like they were be getting more intense,
but it was hard to tell if my mind was playing tricks on me. Eventually, they
started coming about every three minutes, but remained incredibly easy to work
through.
Around 11:00, Pam returned. We started filling up the birth
tub since you have to empty your water heater several times before the tub is
full. I still was waiting for contractions to become “real.”
Then, I decided to call Maria again. Since things were
moving so slowly, I wanted to try acupuncture to push my body over the edge.
Maria arrived at our apartment around 1:00 am. After some
quick introductions, Maria and I headed into the bedroom to start an
acupuncture session. I reclined on my side and propped up several pillows to support
myself while she prepared the tiny needles for specific pressure points that
would (hopefully!) stimulate my labor.
First, she put two small needles in my hand. Then, she added
one to my ear. The next needles were placed into my calves and ankles. Finally,
she inserted the last needle on the outside edge of my right pinky toe, a
uterine point. Immediately after the needle pricked my toe, I felt a gush of
water.
“Uh, Maria…my water just broke!”
“Oh, well that was fast…do you want me to continue?”
“I think you better go tell Pam.”
Before Maria could return with Pam I experienced my next
contraction – a real contraction. It
took considerable effort to keep myself from tensing up. I knew in that moment
that we had crossed a threshold; this baby was really on the way now!
Pam entered the room with a Doppler fetal monitor to check
on the baby’s heartbeat. Jon looked on with beaming eyes. I think he understood
that things would really be moving now.
My water had broken around 1:30, and we decided to let me
lie on the bed with the needles still inserted as long as I could continue to
remain still. It grew harder and harder to remain motionless with every passing
contraction. Eventually, I called Maria back in to remove the needles; I simply
had to get up and walk around.
Within a few minutes, I was pacing in the living room,
leaning over the couch as contractions came. They were getting so hard to deal
with on my own! Maria was great at jumping in to apply pressure on my hips and
give me an encouraging word.
A little later, I decided to try sitting on the exercise
ball that Alison had let me borrow. I tried sitting on the ball, bracing myself
against the couch for several contractions. Pam, Jon, and Heather, Pam’s newly
arrived assistant, looked on while Maria continued to apply pressure on my hips
to help with the pain.
“Oh, I just want it to be over! Pam, am I almost done? When
is this going to be over?” I sighed after coming out of a difficult
contraction.
“Honey, if I knew when a labor would be over, I would be a
millionaire,” she gently replied with a smile.
I glanced at the clock. 2:30. How long would I have to
continue?
“I need someone to tell me that this is going to be over at
3:30!” I stammered after another contraction.
“Honey,” said Jon, “this will all be over at 3:30.”
“You don’t know that!” I moaned back, irritated that his
words couldn’t be true.
Contractions were really getting hard to manage at that
point. Pam suggested that I try getting into the birth tub, since many moms say
that the water helps them deal with the pain. I debated whether or not to get
in. I knew that I wanted to save the tub until I knew labor was approaching the
pushing stage. I didn’t want to labor in the tub for hours and hours.
However, after the next contraction, I announced that I was
getting in the tub. These contractions were horrible. It was 2:50.
As I slipped into the warm water in the birth tub, I felt my
body relax. The water felt so good. However, that sense of tension release left
as soon as the next contraction came on. I don’t know what I expected the water
to do to the intensity of the contractions, but it didn’t seem to do anything!
The water was great for moving around, though; the new sensation
of weightlessness allowed me to try several different laboring positions
without much effort. I tried a few contractions on my hands and knees. I tried
a few more with my legs outstretched and my arms draped over the edge of the
tub. At one point, I remember practically doing laps around the perimeter of the
birth tub, moaning, “I don’t know what I’m doing! I don’t know what position my
body needs!” Pam reassured me that whatever I was doing was exactly what my
body needed to get that baby in position for his or her entrance into the
world.
Then, I started feeling the urge to push. I found out later
that it was 3:10. Had I really only been in the water for twenty minutes before
I started pushing?
As a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After C-Section) mom, this part of
the labor was new to me; it was like I experienced another first labor. I never
knew how hard a woman really has to push in order to get a baby out! I was
pushing with everything I had. Pam encouraged me to push only when I felt a contraction;
it would be like waiting to catch a wave as you are swimming back to shore. But
it was actually hard to tell when I was feeling a contraction! How could a
contraction, so unmistakably unbearable just minutes before, now be so hard to
discern?
At this point, time seemed to disappear for me. I continued to
ask when this would all be over, although I was speaking to God more than
anyone in the room. Everyone else knew that I was near the end, but I felt like
the pushing and waiting would never end.
Somehow, I had enough mental capacity to remember something
I had read in several birth stories. Some women instinctually reach down to
feel for their baby’s head during labor. Upon feeling it, they often report getting
a surge of energy, knowing that their labor is not in vain. I remember
consciously thinking, I am getting
discouraged…maybe I should to reach for the head to get the boost that I need.
“Pam, can I reach for the head?”
“Absolutely. See if you can feel your baby.”
I reached my hand down and felt a head! Not only did I feel
the head, but I felt hair. I was
shocked to feel hair; it actually distracted me for a bit. I had assumed that
Baby #2 would be as bald as Jadon.
I continued to push, but now I kept my fingertips on the
baby’s head. I was practically addicted to the touch of my little one; it
really did give me the encouragement I needed. Looking back, it was an
incredible experience to actually feel the baby slowly descend the birth canal
with every effort I gave.
At one point, as I stopped pushing, I felt the baby retreat
up the birth canal quite a bit.
“The baby went backwards!” I lamented.
“Two steps forward, and one step back, Alison. Two steps
forward, and one step back,” reassured Pam.
After just a few more contractions, I felt the head emerge.
I paused, following Pam’s guidance. She positioned Jon’s hands to catch the
baby. With the next push, the baby slipped into my husband’s hands. Pam told
him to keep the baby under the water while she freed a tiny foot from an umbilical
cord tangle. The baby was under the water for a total of about ten seconds. As
long as the water is warmer than the mother’s body temperature, the baby will
not experience the reflex to take a breath.
Then Pam helped guide Jon’s hands to hand the baby to me. A
few seconds after lifting the head above the water line, the baby let out a
cry.
I realized that no one had checked the baby’s sex yet. With
my baby draped across my chest, I lifted one of the legs to discover that we
had a daughter.
“It’s a girl!” I announced. “Hello, Eden! It’s your mama!”
“Look at all that hair,” Jon remarked. I smiled to myself,
knowing that I discovered the hair before anyone else.
Our little girl arrived at 3:34, ironically close to the
3:30 cut-off time I had demanded earlier in my labor. Jon and I gazed at our
amazing creation while Pam, Heather, and Maria got to work preparing the bed,
towels, sterilizing equipment, and more. I found myself muttering phrases like,
“She’s finally here,” and “I can’t believe it’s finished,” over and over again.
The aftermath of our home birth was a welcome change from
our hospital stay after Jadon’s c-section. I was immediately offered food and
drink from my own kitchen. I rested in my own bed, wrapped in my own soft
towels and blankets. My toddler was still asleep, just a room away, unaware
that he was now a big brother. Best of all, I knew that I would soon be able to
sleep without hourly interruptions from hospital staff performing required checkups
throughout the night.
As I reflect on Eden’s birth, I can clearly see God’s provision
for all the little details. I’m grateful that the castor oil actually worked without
making me sick so that I could avoid a hospital induction. I’m amazed at His
plan in having Maria be present in Alison’s place; I credit her acupuncture
expertise for pushing my body into active labor! I’m relieved that the labor
happened overnight so that we didn’t have to send Jadon away with friends or
family; I liked knowing that he was safe and nearby. I am thrilled that God granted
me a successful home birth VBAC with no complications or scary surprises. Above
all, I’m smitten with my darling little girl, whom I have the privilege to
raise and cherish in the years to come.
