Miss F’s birth story

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When I was pregnant with Miss F, I loved reading other women’s birth stories. It was helpful for me to learn that no two births are alike, and no birth is better than another. The goal of a birth is a healthy baby and mother, and I read about that happening so many different ways, each just as beautiful as the others. If you decide to read this, my hope is that you can find it educational and inspiring, but that in no way you compare it to your birth story.

P.S. If you are interested in my birth preferences (what I prefer to call my birth plan), you can find them here.

On a Wednesday in December 2019, I was 6 days overdue and SO ready to meet our daughter (and not be pregnant any more!). I had an induction scheduled for Friday, as my doctor and I decided that the risks of going longer past 41 weeks outweighed the risks of induction. Of course, I was doing everything I could to get this baby to come out, but I wasn’t even having many Braxton Hicks and had pretty much resigned myself to the induction later that week.

That morning I had an appointment with my doctor, and I was 1.5cm dilated—not enough to do a membrane sweep. My doctor knew I wanted to avoid an induction, but he also knew I had been overworking myself with walking and exercise to try to coax our baby out. He advised me to back off the physical activity and just rest so that my body could have energy for labor.

My husband was working late that night, and I decided to cook myself whatever I was craving, which was all the carbs. I made a heavy walnut cream pasta and focaccia bread, and ate SO much—I literally felt like a bottomless pit! I was sitting on my yoga ball to eat, and suddenly it hit me that my back was getting more and more uncomfortable. I excitedly thought that perhaps it was a contraction, but I laid down on the couch and it went away, so I figured my back was just tired from carrying around my huge stomach all day.

After my husband came home and we’d been in bed a couple hours, I started feeling uncomfortable again. I tried shifting into all different positions in bed and just couldn’t get comfortable. I still was convinced it wasn’t contractions, though, because there didn’t seem to be a start or stop to them, just general discomfort. My husband woke up at 1:00am because I was so restless, and I told him I might be in labor but it was definitely super early and based on how things felt I guessed it could take days. Just in case, though, I put on an adult diaper (these are a lifesaver for labor! Highly recommend) and tried to settle back into bed to rest as much as I could.

Thank goodness for the diaper, because at 3:30am, my water broke VERY dramatically. I rushed to the bathroom and noticed that the fluid was tinged brown, a sign of meconium in the fluid. I had hoped to labor at home for a while, but because of the meconium we decided to head to the hospital to make sure Miss F’s vitals were ok. We called our families, I changed into my labor gown (I loved this one because it is designed to be super practical, but I still felt feminine and pretty), Dan loaded up our hospital bags and all my labor snacks in the car, and we headed out. Dan was so excited, he almost crashed my car backing out of the garage!

By the time we got to the hospital at about 4:30am, my contractions were strong enough I had to focus on breathing through them. We got checked in and taken back to triage, where they checked me and confirmed I was still at 1.5cm. I was a little disappointed because I was sure that with the contractions would have made more progress by this point, but I also had read from so many sources that every woman’s body progresses differently, and that dilation really doesn’t provide much insight into the remaining duration of labor.

At this point I started feeling really nauseous and ended up throwing up; the pain wasn’t that intense at this point, so I think it was just my body trying to rid itself of anything that could get in the way—our bodies are so cool!

Unfortunately, the doctor on call wasn’t even from my practice; she was filling in from another city so I had no information about her. She wanted to “induce” me with Cytotec since my water had broken and I wasn’t very dilated, even though I was having steady contractions. Thankfully the triage nurse advocated for me and convinced her to give me two hours to walk around to see if my body would progress on its own.

I was admitted at 7:00am since my water had broken and slowly made my way back to our room, where I met our labor and delivery nurse, Kirsten. She was amazing! After looking over my birth preferences she decided to switch my care from the OB to the midwife on call, because she knew she’d be more supportive of my goals. She sent Dan and I out to walk the halls, ordered me food, made sure there was hot water in my shower, and left me to labor however I felt best.

For several hours, I alternated between walking and standing in the shower. Around 12:30pm, I was getting really tired from the progressively-intensifying contractions, and the midwife, Sarah, stopped in to check on me. I had dilated to 5cm on my own, without any medication. This was a huge confirmation to me that while medical interventions can be life-saving, I was so glad I gave my body a chance to figure things out on its own. Sarah and Kirsten got me hooked up to a wireless fetal monitor (I wanted this so Miss F could be continually monitored but I could still be mobile), and left me to continue laboring. Dan was so attentive and tried to help me get as comfortable as possible. He’d prepared so much to help me through labor because we’d decided not to hire a doula, but I ended up basically “going internal” and didn’t want him to touch me. He was relegated to standing quietly by the contraction monitor and just verbally encouraging me through the peak of every contraction. I don’t think he even opened the labor cheat sheet we made together, although I definitely think I was less stressed knowing it was in his back pocket if needed.

After that, everything became a blur. The contractions had gotten very intense by that point, and it took every ounce of concentration to try to relax instead of tense up during them. I had always envisioned myself staying really active during labor—walking, bouncing on a yoga ball, squatting with a squat bar—but I just wanted to lay in bed so I could rest between contractions. At one point Dan got me a popsicle (I really liked these Outshine ones), because that’s all I could stomach and he knew I needed the energy. Sarah checked in on me frequently to help me continue laboring effectively; she had me switch which side I laid on, stand up and sway for a few contractions, and sit on the toilet for a few contractions (side note: many women find this last one very comfortable and effective, but for me it was torturous! In hindsight that probably meant it was actually working the best to get Miss F to position herself correctly, but I could hardly bear it at the time).

Some point later, probably around 2:30 or 3:00pm, I started feeling a slight urge to push during contractions, which I hoped meant I was fully dilated. When Kristen checked me, I was 8cm; I’d made great progress over the past two hours, but that was the most discouraged I was all labor because I was SO tired and realized I was just getting to transition, the most intense part of labor. Sarah suspected that Miss F was in the occiput posterior (OP) position (face-up), so she brought in an L&D nurse who was trained in Spinning Babies techniques. She had me kneel on the bed and wrapped a rebozo band around my belly, and she aggressively pulled my belly back and forth during each contraction.

For most women, contractions during the transition stage of labor are very long and intense with very little break in between them. While my contractions were very intense at this point, their pattern didn’t change much, so I actually had a little bit of time to rest between each one. I actually felt like I fell asleep during each 45-60 seconds between them, which I think allowed my body to recharge for the next one.

At 3:30pm, I was REALLY feeling the urge to push, so I asked Sarah to check me again. Sure enough, I was nearly fully dilated! The only thing in the way was a slight lip of my cervix, which was swollen from pressure from Miss F’s head and likely wouldn’t dilate on its own. The single most painful point of labor was when Sarah had to manually move the lip to the side while I pushed during a contraction. But then Miss F had a clear path down the birth canal. 

Before labor, I had always imagined that pushing would be the most terrible and painful part, but for me it was the best. After having to be so “passive” to my contractions for 12 hours, I was ready to be productive. I also didn’t find pushing to be too painful; think about if you stub your toe or cut your finger, you immediately put pressure on it to make it feel better. For me, pushing was the same—using pushing to apply pressure to the birth canal disguised the worst part of the pain.

I had always envisioned pushing standing up or on my hands and knees, but my body was so physically exhausted that I just wanted to lay on my back in the bed. I knew that this is the least productive position for pushing, but I couldn’t muster up the strength for anything else. Initially, Miss F descended really quickly. While I don’t remember much from this stage, I do remember Sarah frantically putting on scrubs, and Kirsten telling me, “Sarah’s getting scrubbed up! That’s a really good sign!” I focused on my breathing and fitting in three pushes per contraction. Within a couple contractions, Dan exclaimed that he could see our baby’s head!

But then Miss F just seemed to get stuck. It seemed like nothing I did could make her come out. While I didn’t realize it at the time, her heart rate dipped a bit but our incredible team saw it right away and put an oxygen mask on me for a few contractions. Thankfully her heart rate stabilized quickly and I didn’t need the oxygen long. Sarah and Kirsten stayed with me the whole time, encouraging me, getting a cool cloth for my head, and making sure I had all the support I needed. Dan was right next to me encouraging me the whole time too. Finally after 1.5 hours of pushing, I managed to push her head out in one push, and the rest of her body in the next. I immediately heard her scream and laid back with relief as they handed her to me—my perfect, precious baby girl. Much to everyone’s surprise, she was still face-up, which was probably why she got stuck for so long.

While it’s difficult to describe, I bet any mom will smile to herself when she thinks back on the incredible flood of emotions you feel in that moment, looking at your precious baby for the first time. I held her on my chest while we waited a few minutes for the cord to be clamped and cut, and the medical team was so supportive of our wishes by doing her APGAR score and measurements from my chest. Dan got to cut the cord when it was time, and she latched right away to breastfeed.

Early in labor I had discussed with Sarah that I’d rather avoid Pitocin to pass the placenta but was comfortable with it if she felt it was necessary to prevent risk of hemorrhage. I ended up getting an injection of it and uneventfully passed the placenta. I did have a second degree tear that Sarah quickly stitched up, and I still think that unmedicated stitches are worse than labor!

Within a few minutes, after some snuggles and our first nursing session, I was walking around our room and eating dinner, and about an hour after that we moved to our recovery room. I felt very tired, like I had just run a marathon, but overall I felt relatively normal. While women from every type of birth recover completely uniquely, I do think that I bounced back extremely quickly because my body was not having to process any sort of pain medication.

We spent that night at the hospital and got to go home the next evening to begin our new adventure with Miss F—our best adventure yet.