Birth story - Rae and baby Zeiah

*Trigger warning* - heartbeat deceleration/infant distress.

First of all, giving birth is such a strange thing. You have this shatteringly powerful and overwhelmingly visceral experience completely unlike anything else. One that’s initiatory and wild in ways that defy description – and then everyone (myself included) understandably moves on to baby and the adventures ahead.

So it feels really good to take time to tell and process the story of what happened, what it felt like, and what it meant.

So for context: my hope for this birth was an unmedicated vaginal birth with as few interventions as possible. To prepare and build toward that outcome, I did a lot of reading, took different classes, hired a doula, worked with a chiropractor, and did what I could to keep things low-risk + healthy. I also chose to give birth in a hospital under the care of a midwife team, as I wanted easy access to any care and interventions that might be needed and would only be available in that setting.

So here’s what happened:

The night of the 21st, I started experiencing contractions lasting about 30-45 seconds, 2-3 minutes apart. I was sure it was happening and that I’d have a baby soon, but after going all night for 12 hours, everything stopped. The same thing happened the next night. So on Monday the 23rd on the advice of our doula, we tried some different exercises from the Miles circuit, did some walking, and got in with my chiropractor to try to get things moving. Thankfully, it worked, and we set off for the hospital, arriving around 8 p.m.

(Honestly, this was probably the hardest part: going into the real thing not having slept for 2 nights.)

In triage, the heartbeat monitor picked up some decelerations, so the team put me on continuous monitoring for a time + IV fluids right away. After an hour, things looked better, so we went to intermittent monitoring.

I got to 10 cm in 7 hours or so, and by 8 cm, I was really feeling it.

Describing labor as painful isn’t untrue, but for me, that’s not really the best word.

It was more an experience of being dragged to a place beyond any sense, control, or relief. For a lot of labor, my preparations worked or at least helped: the breathing techniques, the anchor words and affirmations, squeezing my comb, but at a certain point, they didn’t, and it was just me and the primal power of what was happening in and through me, alone in the room.

(None of this was negative, just super intense + powerful).

But it’s also true I wasn’t alone, and that support was everything.

My partner gave me counterpressure with each contraction, pushing + leaning into my back with all his strength, which meant he was having his own physically demanding experience.

And my doula was an angel and ally beyond description. She coached me through the whole thing, suggesting positions based on where I was in the process and where baby was stationed. The most effective positions often feel especially hard, but I did it all, everything she told me. Without her support and coaching, I think there is a very real possibility my labor would have progressed more slowly, resulting in a different outcome.

But even more than this practical support, she had the most nurturing energy, and I felt the presence of all the mothers and grandmothers through her presence and support. Having someone with me in this experience who knew this space (I was her 74th birth) and was a mother herself was deep and potent medicine.

As things became more and more intense, I never felt panicked, but I did have a very real question of: hmmm, how am I going to get through this? I mean, I knew the answer: stay here and be in this moment, whatever it requires – but I honestly couldn’t see what that would look like. I knew it would take something that I was about to discover for the first time in the moment.

So I tried to lean in and not fight. All my affirmations were reduced to simply saying yes -- to the moment, the feeling, what I’d chosen. And all my efforts were focused on relaxing my jaw + keeping my vocalizations low.

After I got to 10, and my body started to push, I was trying out different positions - standing, hands/knees, sitting - but then the heart rate decelerations began to pick up and become more of a concern. They got me on my back, called in my midwife and the OB on call, and explained to me that I needed a vacuum extraction to get baby out right away and an emergency c-section if that didn’t work. At one point (I don’t really remember this - my partner told me later), there were over a dozen people in the room ready for all kinds of different scenarios.

After coaching me on how to effectively push on my back, however, they decided it was safe enough and that my pushing was effective enough to likely get baby out without intervention.

I am immensely grateful for this – and so happy to do whatever was needed to keep baby safe – but it was also disappointing. One of the reasons I wanted an unmedicated birth was to avoid this type of delivery. I was really hoping to deliver another way (not on my back) using gravity and breathing baby out. But instead, my delivery was the stereotypical movie scene – me on my back, bearing down and pushing with everything I had – with my midwife and two nurses at the foot of the bed, helping me hold the position and guide baby’s head – and my partner and doula holding each hand, wiping away my pouring sweat between contractions.

It kind of had the energy of an athletic competition too (which I could roll with!) – lots of high intensity encouragement to keep going and push just like that again, etc. It was going okay, but everyone was still looking closely at the monitor, and it was clear that the sooner we got baby out, the better.

With each contraction, I could get 3 big pushes in. The first push was just me, but I was able to kick into my body’s involuntary pushing reflex with the next two (which felt similar to that violent, out-of-control expulsion that happens when we throw up). These pushes were obviously the most effective, so I just tried to keep up and lean in.

This went on for 90-minutes or so. I don’t remember it being painful really, just really intense and exhausting, and by the end, I wondered how I’d find the strength to do it all again (and then again after that). Eventually, I could tell by the intensity of the burning that we were getting close — and then the midwife pulled him out (such a wild, slippery sensation - like she was pulling out one of my organs), and then he was right there on my tummy.

There was a brief moment of shock. Obviously, I knew this was all ending in a baby, but because labor requires being so firmly planted in the present moment, there was no space to imagine him until he was right there.

He had the cord wrapped twice around his neck when he came out - which isn’t necessarily a problem in and of itself - but something about that was creating a compression, which is why we had the decelerations.

But he was fine. They took him away briefly to do more suctioning under the lamp, as he had lots of fluid he was having trouble getting out. And after that, we had a magical golden hour, looking at each other for the first time and breastfeeding and just being close.

The placenta came out just fine (I did opt for the post-delivery pitocin on the advice of my midwife, since I had such a long labor), and I received a few stitches for a second degree tear (which I didn’t even notice at the time and has healed just fine).

So there were some hard and scary moments, but lots of beautiful and powerful ones too. I feel proud of the decisions I made and how I prepared and how I navigated the experience. I’m grateful I was able to mostly have the experience I wanted. And I know that – between all the goodness and wildness and beauty of being Zeiah’s mother and growing into that identity and experience – I’ll also continue to ponder and process the places I went and the power I touched and the person I became in the process of birthing him into the world.