birth story

So, I really did attend a birth about three weeks ago. It was a really wonderful birth. First time parents who I met back in August. They interviewed me and hired me a few days later.

At the last prenatal meeting, my client was convinced that she would never make it to her due date, which was October 1st. She was very sure that she would go early. I am always dubious when women say this, because more often than not they go over their due date. Needless to say I was surprised when my phone rang at 7am just 2 days after I went on call.

S (the dad) called me at 7am to tell me that K (the mom)'s water had broken. I asked if she was having any contractions yet and he said no. I asked if the water had any color to it and he said not really, just light yellow. I told him that it was really early yet, but that today would be a baby day!

I next heard from my clients around 9:15am. They had called the hospital and triage suggested that they come in. I asked if they wanted me to come in and join them yet and they said not yet, they would call me when they felt like they needed help.

My clients called me to the hospital around 1:30. When I arrived a short time later I found K contracting and doing very well. She was still dressed in her own clothes and dealing very well with her contractions. When she would have a contraction, her husband, S would say a number between 1 and 4. K would then breathe that many times and then S would say another number. It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were doing, but it seemed to be a very effective distraction technique. They were doing great. Whenever a couple is working well together, I always hang back and observe for a while. I have the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude to labor. If things are working and the mom is handling things well, there isn’t much for me to contribute.

After about 40 or 45 minutes, the doctor came in and asked K if she would like to be checked. She agreed, and she was found to be 4cm and 75% effaced. She was definitely in an active labor stage. After she was checked, she became much less chatty in between contractions and the real serious work of labor started. After about an hour of labor on her side with S still using his distraction technique, I asked if K would like to get into the tub. She said yes, and I started to fill the tub, it was now around 4pm. It took a little convincing to get her into the tub, but once she was there, she really liked being in the water. S was with her and was helping her while she was in the tub. After about 30 minutes in the tub, the Dr. called down and asked that she get out of the tub and put back on the monitor. Back to the bed we go!

Around 5:15 pm K began to vocalize with her contractions. This seemed to help her handle each contraction. When she was not contracting she slept and rested in between. To look at her in that state you would never have known she was in labor! She looked like a sleeping peaceful woman! Things were picking up at this point and the contractions were coming every 2-3 minutes. Around 6pm the resident came back and wanted to check her again. This time she was found to be 7cm. When they asked what her pain was on a scale of 1-10, she said 7. I found it really interesting that both times when she was asked this question, her answer correlated to her dilation!

Not long after she was checked I leaned down and told K that this was now transition and that meant that she would soon be meeting her baby. I reminded her that this is where everyone wants to quit, but that just meant that she was almost done. She seemed to hear me and understand, and continued on beautifully with her labor. After about another hour of lying on her side, I encouraged K to get up and go to the bathroom. She hadn’t gone for about 4 hours and I didn’t want her to have a full bladder while pushing and stall out and have to have a catheter. She got up and went to the bathroom. When she came back, we plugged the monitor back in. But due to her being vertical and moving around, the baby shifted down and the monitor was having difficulty picking up the baby’s heartbeat. Not long after she got back to the bed, the resident and med student came down and there were a few tense minutes while they were trying to find the baby’s heartbeat. They still were having trouble picking it up with the external monitor, so they inserted an internal fetal monitor. Things calmed down once they could get a solid reading on the monitor. K dealt well with this confusion and went right back to handling each contraction one by one.

About 20 minutes later K said she was starting to have pressure with each contraction. We called the nurse back down and K was found to be nearly complete with just a small lip of cervix left. The staff said she could probably push past that lip and be complete. A couple of contractions later, she was complete and started to push. It took her just a couple of contractions to get the hang of it, and she started to push effectively. I always love watching the transition from laboring to pushing. After hours of moms being totally checked out into “labor land” when pushing begins, they come back and check back in and are present. K was no different. We encouraged her and could see progress with each push. At one point toward the end, she was asked if she wanted to touch the baby’s head, she did and that seemed to motivate her even more. At 8:54pm an 8lb 12 oz. baby boy was born.

I told both parents that they had such a wonderful birth. There were a few tense moments when the staff was having trouble finding the baby's heartbeat, but they handled it well. During out prenatal discussions, K was unsure how long she would labor without medication. She commented later that her pain never really got to the point where she couldn't take it. She told me that when I talked to her about the fact that she was in transition, she told herself that she was almost done and that she knew she could continue on. Both parents were very happy with their experiences. If I could clone their birth for all of my clients, I would.