Brought Closer Together: Luke’s Birth Story

Thank you to this blog reader for sharing Luke’s birth story with us.  I appreciate that her birth experience strengthened her marriage.  I love supportive husbands like hers who really embrace the experience. And what a great reminder that relaxation for childbirth can be helpful after the baby comes too. –Robyn

When I was expecting my first son, I was finishing up my nursing degree at BYU, working 12 hour shifts on the labor and delivery floor at a local hospital.  I loved being part of the births, but I was disturbed at how medicalized the births were. There was a culture in the hospital with some negative ideas about unmedicated deliveries, birth plans, and the autonomy of the mother.  Despite that, I was planning for an unmedicated birth with a certified nurse midwife and practicing hypnobirthing techniques.   To make a long story short, I ended up being induced because of preeclampsia, getting an epidural, continuous monitoring, a crazy episiotomy, and a forceps delivery and some other things that made me feel at first like my birth had been a failure.  I had a painful recovery, and I was traumatized about the way that I had been pressured into having a medical birth at the very same hospital where I had done my final internship.

When I was pregnant with my second son, Luke, I waited until I was about 35 weeks or so to really start preparing for the birth because of the fear and anxiety I had as a result of my first birth experience.  What got me motivated to start preparing was an email from a dear friend which I am sure was inspired.  She sent me two links in the email; one to a birth story on a new blog she had recently come across on the Gift of Giving Life blog and the another to a hypnobabies blog that published positive birth stories.  I started reading as much as I could, every day, to fill my mind with positive, uplifting stories.   What an amazing difference that made for me!   I also borrowed the hypnobabies CDs from a friend (it was too late to take the class) and listened to those on a regular basis, and after a little while, I could tell my attitude was changing. I felt like I was emotionally prepared to try an unmedicated birth again.

The night before my due date I started having regular contractions that were lasting a minute each.  Because I was Strep B positive, we headed to the hospital a couple hours later.  I checked in, and after my first dose of antibiotics, I had my IV hep-locked and my doctor told the nurse that I could be on intermittent monitoring so I could walk and move around – and walk I did.  I walked those halls for hours, but my labor didn’t progress.  In fact, it stopped.  On the morning of my due date, my doctor offered to either break my water, or let me go home for a while (which in retrospect, I wish I would have done) but because I had family members going out of town the next day, and family members flying in from out of state in a few days, I opted to have my water broken, with the understanding that I was now committed and would have to have pitocin if my labor didn’t start up again.  I felt strongly that I wanted to have this baby now, and a feeling of reassurance that pitocin wouldn’t be necessary.

My doctor gave me two hours for my labor to pick up, and as the end of that time was approaching, with no sign of labor, my husband, BJ, and I decided to use some of our hypnosis techniques- not so much for relaxation, but to tell my body to get going!  He suggested that my body was ready to have the baby, it knew what to do, and to allow the contractions to come and do their work.  He was just ad-libbing whatever he could think of to help me.  It worked. The contractions started coming steadily.  I was doing my best to remain relaxed through each one, so he actually didn’t know it was working until the nurse came in to reposition the monitor.  At that point, BJ realized that maybe we should work on relaxation too, because I was starting to have to focus a lot more to stay relaxed.

BJ was very supportive, and talked me through each contraction, reminding me to relax specific areas, or to breathe deeply.  Early in the afternoon I was considering getting an epidural as things were pretty intense, and I was only 5 or 6 centimeters but BJ reminded me that I could do this for a while longer, and to just face one contraction at a time.  He did some counter pressure on my back and hips which helped a bit and at one point he just had to laugh at the irony of the situation because I was saying “Push!  Push!” to get him to push harder on my hips during contractions.  I think I was praying the whole time.  We were also using all the relaxation and hypnosis cues that we had practiced, and some of them really helped.  When I felt like I was getting too tense, and I needed some sort of outlet to help me stay relaxed, I would take a big breath and slowly say “Peace…..” and that helped me for a long time.  Eventually I felt like I was shouting “peace!” at the top of my lungs, but afterwards BJ and my nurse assured me that I wasn’t.

At 3:00pm I was at 7+ centimeters and I was thinking that if I kept progressing at this rate, it would be several more hours, and I just didn’t think I could do it anymore.  I also started feeling “pushy.”   Eventually it was impossible not to push, and when the nurse checked me again, all that was left was an anterior rim.  My doctor and nurse quickly took apart the bed and helped me find a position that was comfortable-ish to me.  I was given the go ahead to start pushing, and I was a bit shocked because that last part happened so quickly.  I thought, “It’s finally time to push?  I guess that means it’s too late for an epidural… well, I don’t think I need one anyway!”

I started pushing around 3:30pm, and my doctor and nurse allowed me to direct my own pushing.  I pushed away for a few minutes, and then they started noticing that the baby’s heart rate was going much lower than mine.  They gave me oxygen and started coaching me a little on pushing to try to get the baby out faster.  The doctor ended up cutting a small episiotomy to help bring the baby out sooner since we were not getting the baby’s heart rate up with the oxygen.

I pushed with all my might for a few pushes, and about when I felt like I had no more energy left, at 3:42pm, my baby was born!  All I could say was “I did it!” and was too exhausted to say much else.  That sweet baby ended up being 9lb.!  My doctor said that she didn’t think I could have pushed that baby out on my own if I had gotten an epidural (I am 5’0″).  They put the baby up on my tummy for a moment, and let me touch him, but then they whisked him away to give him some oxygen, and also let my doctor stitch me up.  That was far more painful than pushing the baby out!  I was glad that I ended up having the baby in the hospital this time because my little boy ended up needing quite a bit of help breathing in the NICU, and I needed some help to stop my bleeding.

As I was recovering in the delivery room, I was having a really hard time relaxing after being so tense to push the baby out.  The nurse wrapped warm blankets all over me, even around my head, and I listened to my hypnobabies tracks again.  That really helped me feel more comfortable.  Finally, I was able to get up and get in a wheelchair, and my wonderful nurse wheeled me to the NICU so I could see my baby.  BJ and I sat there in front of him and looked at each other and both said “Luke it is”- we had been waiting to actually see the baby since we couldn’t settle on a name before he was born, but once he was with us, we knew his name was Luke.

I really felt like going through this childbirth together, with BJ as my support, brought us closer together and bonded us together in a way that we hadn’t experienced before.  I think we were both filled with more love and admiration for each other afterwards.  I could not have done it without him.  When our sweet baby finally came out of the NICU I helped take some video of his first bath, and then we walked him back with us to our room.  It was pretty late by then, and we had him all to ourselves for a while.  He latched right on to nurse, which I was relieved about since it had been about 8 hours since he was born, and he was kind of sleepy.  It was a sweet feeling to finally hold him and look at him, and cuddle him and realize “We did it! Luke is finally here!”

Now, looking back two and a half years later, there are things I would have done differently, and things I wish had happened differently, but I know there were things I needed to learn, and most of all I needed to realize that Heavenly Father had created my body with the divine ability to give birth.  I felt like my experience with giving birth the second time helped heal me from the trauma of the first birth.  I was on a spiritual and emotional high for quite a while after giving birth, and my recovery afterwards was so much easier than what I had experienced before.  Because of this experience, I no longer dread the next time I give birth – I look forward to it!