It might just be because I’m a mom now, but everyone loves a good birth story – right? Well anyway, I do! I figure this is also a good way for you to get to know me and my vibes a little bit as I start off. And so, in the grand tradition of a new mom with a blog, I present to you: The Story Of EJ’s birth! (Warning: if you haven’t noticed, this blog is fairly unfiltered. So there may be a few things talked about here that could make you squeamish if you’re not into this type of stuff).
Let’s rewind for a moment, start from the beginning, and talk about some serious stuff. I have always feared childbirth, mostly because I have immense an fear of the unknown. I don’t like feeling out of control of my body, especially due to my thyroid issues. The thought of either dealing with immense pain or needle in my spine made me incredibly anxious. I also hate taking new medications (don’t ask why, it’s a weird fear).
In addition, it is no secret that Black women have a significantly higher mortality rate during childbirth than other races. Our new administration has proclaimed April 11th through April 17th as Black Maternal Health Week in order to raise awareness and encourage real, lasting solutions. I was tempted to include links to a few sites at the bottom of this post, but if you don’t already know this information, I encourage you to look into it for yourself and learn a bit more about racial disparities in medical care. It’s really no joke. And it is chilling to think that I felt some relief going into childbirth with a white husband, because I knew there was no room for implicit bias with him. So now that you get a little bit more of why I was scared, let’s move forward.
The Birth Plan
After getting over the initial fears of pregnancy and labor, I embraced the experience as best I could and did everything possible to empower myself to have a great birthing experience. I hired a doula, and amazing woman named Efe Osaren. Hiring a doula was a non-negotiable for me. With so many horror stories of women, and in particular Black women, feeling steamrolled and/or ignored by medical staff, I needed a professional by my side just for me. In the months leading up to the birth, she supplied us with tons of evidence based literature and knowledge surrounding this sacred time. Books, websites, seminars – we did it all. Our powerful team of three went over every different possibility and variable, and discussed how we would approach each one. I had my ideal birth plan all laid out, and it went a little something like this:
- Go into spontaneous labor
- Labor at home with Efe and Larry using all of our natural pain relief techniques
- Head to the hospital when things get unbearable
- Possibly get an epidural, but prefer not to
- Push baby out
- Immediate skin to skin, all medical stuff delayed until after we’d had the first latch.
Doesn’t that all sound so picture perfect? Well, to me it does! And I knew that things probably wouldn’t end up this way, but a girl can dream.
Fast forward to 39 weeks pregnant. Little man was showing zero interest in budging. At 16 weeks, my cervix had begun shortening prematurely, and I started progesterone to keep him safely tucked inside. After stopping the medication at 36 weeks, I was sure that my cervix would just open up like some large sinkhole and a baby would shoot out. This was not the case. At this appointment, my doctor stripped my membranes and suggested we schedule an induction date. I declined. That was not part of the birth plan, ma’am.
So I went home, and did all of the labor inducing things. After nearly 10 months of trying so desperately to keep him in, it was kind of fun to do the exact opposite! My due date came and went, and EJ was still chilling. I called my doula. She encouraged me to wait another week, but my doctor’s office said the induction schedule was filling up, and they didn’t want me going past 41 weeks. And although these things need to be taken with a grain of salt, EJ was measuring really large and I was terrified of him getting stuck. As much as I didn’t want to, I went forward with an induction date that landed on 40 weeks and 5 days.
The Induction
Right away, the first part of my birth plan was shot to shit. However, I was so over being pregnant at this point, it honestly didn’t matter. The day of my induction, I was relieved and excited. We arrived to Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at 8am, and I was in my room shortly after. Since inductions can sometimes take two or three days, Efe was in contact via phone and text and said she would wait until I was all settled in before heading over.
Step one was a Foley balloon. I was offered an epidural right away, but since I had fears of an epidural slowing down labor and causing a cascade of medical interventions, I passed. I also passed on Cytotec, a medication that’s supposed to help your cervix move along. Try as I might, I was still holding on to doing this in the most “natural” way possible. Making these sorts of decisions during my labor kept me feeling calm and in control. And by the way, having a Foley balloon put in while barely dilatated, with no form of pain relief, is basically a form of torture. I swore I’d never have children again after this.
On our way! Delivery room views Settled in with the balloon
A few hours and some minor contractions later, the balloon fell out, and I had dilatated to about three centimeters. We were on the move! My hope was that my body would continue with the labor by itself. But a full day of funny movies, facetimes, walking the halls, bouncing on my ball, and multiple contractions later, I was only 4 centimeters dilatated. It was nearly midnight. It had been 16 hours since my induction started, the pain was getting pretty bad, and I was completely wiped out. Efe was on her way to get me through the next half of labor, but I didn’t know if I had it in me to keep going sans epidural. I was lucky that my doctor (I’ll call her Dr. G from now on) had been on call that day, and she stopped by to see how things were going. Dr. G said if it was her, she would get an epidural, and get some much needed sleep. It wasn’t my ideal scenario, but I couldn’t have agreed more.
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Wanting to keep in line with some semblance of my birth plan, I talked with the nurse about starting slow with Pitocin and the anesthesiologist about keeping the epidural dosage low. I still wanted to feel some contractions in order to stay in tune with my body, especially when it came time to push. Once again, it was important to me to voice my desires clearly and stay in control of my own birthing process. It is incredible empowering when the situation may feel like it’s out of your control. I am beyond thankful that everyone respected my wishes, as I know this isn’t always the case.
Efe arrived around 1am, and we all tried to get a little rest. Unfortunately, my blood pressure kept dropping due to the epidural and the machines would go haywire. I was still faintly feeling the contractions, which I wanted, but was therefore unable to really sleep! In the middle of the night, I asked for a re-up, wherein they injected more meds directly into my spine. It was heavenly. I still barely slept, but the night went by fast. Somewhere in there, my water was broken for me.
They Don’t Call it Labor for Nothing
Around 7am, I bid goodbye to the sweet nurse who had been with me most of my time, as well as Dr. G. I was closing in on 10 centimeters, but not ready to push, and my doctor had been on call for over 24 hours. She personally introduced us to the next doctor on call, a woman whom she couldn’t recommend highly enough, as she had delivered Dr. G’s baby and Dr. G had delivered hers (side note: how cool is it to be friends that deliver each other’s’ babies?!). The new nurse was decidedly not as sweet as the first and instantly rubbed me the wrong way. This is exactly why I was thankful to have my doula. In situation filled with the unknown, it was a relief to have someone help with labor that was 100% just for me.
Not even an hour later, it was go time. Within the first few pushes, the doctor remarked on how great I was doing and said EJ would probably be out within 20 minutes. Woohoo, I thought. Let’s do this! At least the pushing part was going well, right? And then just like that, it wasn’t. EJ was face up, aka, sunny side up. That means that while he was head down, he was facing my belly vs. my back, which can lead to more difficultly and pain while pushing.
So every time I got out a really good push, he would move back up a little. Kind of like two steps forward, one step back. This went on for hours. I tried pushing from all different positions and angles. At one point, the doctor was literally elbow deep inside, trying to physically turn EJ around. Exhaustion doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. I was literally dozing off between contractions, barely able to keep my eyes open after mustering up every bit of energy I had left in order to push.
Still smiling after 12 hours in labor Oxygen and pushing..eeek!
The Home Stretch
We were just over two hours in when EJ started to not do so well. Poor thing had been stuck in my birth canal forever, probably exhausted himself, and his heart rate began to drop. I was given oxygen to help pump more of it through my body, down to him. The nurse called in a team of pediatricians who were now standing by in the delivery room, awkwardly staring at my gaping vagina, waiting to whisk the baby away in case of emergency.
I felt the last little bits of my birth plan – vaginal delivery and immediate skin to skin – slowly slipping away. Deep breaths. I told myself that no matter what, it was all going to be ok. I tried to send good vibes down to my baby and let him know we couldn’t wait to meet him.
As I approached the three hour pushing mark, something must have taken a turn for the worse with EJ. I wasn’t told exactly what that was, but I remember the doctor looked me right in the eyes and said sternly: “You’re almost there, but we need to get the baby out now.” We all knew that this was it. In one more contraction and one more huge, long push, EJ suddenly flipped over and his head popped out. Everyone looked up at me in shock. Side note: I’m pretty sure this was the moment that I sustained my 2nd degree tear. One more big push, and baby boy was earth side!
EJ’s immediate cries washed a wave of relief over the whole room. The pediatrician team left. EJ was on my chest. And all was right with the world. We made it.
