MY second birth story

if you read my birth story with fran, you may recall that there were some good elements and i was super proud of my body’s ability of going through labor and delivery but overall the experience with the on-shift L&D providers left me feeling a bit disregarded and unheard, as well as a visit with an in-hospital lactation consultant sending me into a panic spiral about feeding.

the birth story of my second is quite a bit different; the labor and delivery was quite positive but i did have some complications after delivery that was a bit traumatic so read on at your own desire, as i know some are sensitive about traumatic birth stories. i will add a note before mentions of the complications before if you want to read until that point!

my providers

because i had such a bad experience with a few of the L&D providers and nurses at Fran’s birth, i decided i wanted to try something different for my second pregnancy. so I ended up working with a midwife team at a different hospital in hopes that would be a better fit.

this particular midwife group had nine midwives, and their goal was to rotate you through all of them during the course of your prenatal care. i met with a few and thought they were fine, not necessarily amazing but not terrible. although i was bummed that one of them mentioned to me that i shouldn’t gain more than 11 pounds during my pregnancy due to my starting BMI. i had never been told that with my first pregnancy, so i was a little taken aback because it seemed a little arbitrary and outdated. most of their advice and instructions seemed pretty arbitrary and by the book and they didn’t seem super interested in getting to know me or my medical history in a more wholistic way.

about halfway through my pregnancy, i ended up feeling the pull to switch away from the midwife group. i didn’t love having to meet so many new providers and none of which i was super in love with. so i ended up scheduling a visit with my old clinic. i am sure i could have found a midwife/group that was a better fit but honestly did not feel the energy to try more new providers out.

my old clinic pairs you with two doctors and so one of mine was the same from my first pregnancy and the second was different since my other doctor was no longer there. i ended up meeting with the new doctor and left that first visit feeling so seen and understood - she really took the time to get to know me and my history. in the second visit, i brought up some of the things i was unhappy with during my first birth thanks to some encouragement from my therapist, and my doctor was so validating and reassuring. i was extremely impressed with her responses and they made me feel so at ease going back to my first hospital. and i knew the chances of encountering those same providers at the hospital were slim to none, and my doctor reassured me that i could request not to see them if they did happen to be on-shift!

labor

as a lot of you know, i ended up having gestational diabetes this time and so because of that, my doctors were more inclined to have me induced early even though my blood sugar numbers were great and i was diet controlled (not on insulin). we ended up compromising about not going past 41 weeks, so i ended up scheduling an induction during week 40 but was hoping i would go into labor before that.

i did all the things - walked the mt tabor stairs, curb walked, ate spicy food, drank raspberry leaf tea, and nothing really worked ha. i was having some contractions on and off the days prior to my induction date, but they would always taper off within an hour. so alas, i ended up going in for an induction.

i was super nervous to go this route, but i felt better having talked it through with my doula and knowing she would be there to help me through it.

when i arrived at L&D, i was 3cm and 50% effaced and having some mild contractions, so they told me it didn’t make sense to do the foley balloon which typically just dilates you to a 3 or 4cm max. so my induction started with a cervix softener, which did pick up my contractions a bit, however they were still pretty mild. after 4 hours, i ended up opting to get started on pitocin.

i was super nervous for pitocin since i’ve heard it can cause super painful contractions right away, and i knew i wanted to labor naturally for a while and not be constrained to the bed the whole time. however, the nurse and providers were amazing and started me at a super low dose (a 2? not sure on the units). they increased my pitocin slowly, every couple of hours. i think this approach was great for me and helped my body ease into labor.

my doula also arrived right when they were starting pitocin and instantly started doing some circuits with me to help baby get in an optimal position, which was amazing. my doula was truly incredible this whole journey - she did not let me sit down (which was hard and i didn’t really want to do the movements in the moment because i was in pain with each contraction, but also i know it was so great for me and baby 😂).

also shoutout to my overnight nurse, around this time she brought in a basket full of led candles and string lights and lit up my ENTIRE room, including the bathroom to the point where i didn’t need any of the room lights on. it was so magical feeling, it felt like christmas. i had my wedding reception playlist on our bluetooth speaker, and it was such a peaceful vibe.

after laboring for quite a while, things started to get really intense and painful, so i ended up opting for the epidural. again, i had them start me on the lowest dose because i wanted to be able to move my legs still even though id be restricted to staying in the bed from that point (due to fall risk once getting the epidural). thankfully the epidural placement and dosage was perfect because i never lost control of my legs, which was nice because my doula continued to have me run through different positions in the bed, like being on hands and knees, side lying with the peanut ball, etc.

she also was incredible and kept giving me warm compresses on my perineum, which i think helped so much and just generally felt comforting and nice!

finally i felt some pressure super low down (and what felt like in my butt!! IYKYK) and mentioned that to my doula and nurse. sure enough by my next cervical check, i was 10cm and ready to push!

also important to mention! my water had not yet broke and they asked if i wanted them to break it, but i opted not to and to just see what happens with pushing.

one of my doctors actually had been working the evening prior on another floor and ended up sleeping at the hospital so that she could make sure to be there for my birth 😭 she missed fran’s birth because she was out of town and so she really wanted to be there this time around and i still cannot get over how sweet that was of her to do that. so someone went to wake her up and she ended up being there super quickly lolll. what a champ!!

my other doctor was also alerted and was on her way/20 minutes away and she ended up getting there right when i was about to start pushing. so both my doctors ended up making it which meant the world to me to have familiar faces there with me.

delivery

so with both my doctors there, i was ready to start pushing! thankfully with the low dose of epidural, it took the pain away from the contractions but i could still feel the pressure of them and therefore could follow my own body about when to push versus going off of the monitors.

in my first birth, i pushed for an hour and a half and it was very difficult, and afterward dealt with a lot of shoulder and neck pain from pushing and straining those muscles so much. i wasn’t sure what to expect the second time around but i was hoping it would go a bit faster.

the first time i pushed, it did not feel super productive. my doula told me to imagine tilting my pelvis more toward the ceiling/like im trying to push the baby up to the ceiling, and the second push felt much better. then on the third push, i hear “he’s out!” and i was stunned because it had been all of five minutes and felt so easy!! but there he was, born still in his sac, which quickly broke after he was delivered, but still! an en caul baby !! so so cool, pretty rare and so some of the people in the room were geeking out. they put him on my chest with little bits of his sac still on him and his cord still attached.

i was crying. cassidy cut the cord. it was a beautiful moment after such a fast, amazing, and peaceful delivery.

the aftermath

what felt like just a few minutes later, i remember hearing my doctor say “she is losing a lot of blood”. after that, a lot of numbers were being yelled out and i wasn’t quite sure what was happening but i could feel the room get more tense and serious. and before i knew it, we went from about three people in the room to about 15. and i officially had a postpartum hemorrhage.

things get a little fuzzy for me in this part and it’s hard to remember what order things occurred in, but i just remember having a of things happening at once.

my baby was still on my chest, cassidy on one side of me and my doula on my other side. a nurse quickly explaining to me that she needs to set up a second iv spot to check my blood levels and maybe give me a blood transfusion. another nurse giving me a shot in my leg to help stop bleeding. one of my doctors had her arms elbow deep in my uterus trying to clear out clots and help my uterus clamp down and stop bleeding (thank god i still had the epidural placed). another couple of OBs i hadn’t met before brought in an ultrasound machine to try to see if there were any pieces of amniotic sac left in my uterus. my other doctor keeping eye contact with me and explaining everything that was happening and also remaining relatively calm and reassuring by telling me things like “you’re exactly where you need to be.” “you’re safe here.” “we are all working together and you’re doing amazing.”

i was pretty much in shock and trying not to think of the worst, but unfortunately i know enough about postpartum hemorrhages to know how serious (and deadly) they can be and i just kept thinking about my babies and trying to stay awake for them. i think this was the closest id been to dying and im still trying to work through those feelings, but thankfully i felt so taken care of by my medical team and nurses that day. there wasn’t a single person in that room that i didn’t trust and they all communicated so well with each other and did a phenomenal job keeping me in the loop. i later found out one of my nurses had been an ER nurse for a long time and i could definitely tell - her ability to be calm but serious and fast was so impressive. i still get emotional thinking about how well everyone did in taking care of me that day.

i lost over a liter and a half of blood in total. at one point my doctor told me they may move me over to the OR just in case, but thankfully they were able to get a handle on things without me leaving the room.

i remember trying to latch my baby at one point while this was all happening still and quickly my body said HELL NO and i immediately asked someone to take him from my chest and proceeded to throw up all over the side of me. a while later, they brought him back to me and i wanted to try again but immediately started to have things go grey and fuzzy and could feel myself close to passing out and the nurses telling me my blood pressure was dipping super low, so i knew my body just wasn’t ready to latch my baby which was really hard for me. i know how important those hours immediately after birth are but i knew it was also important to listen to my body.

finally things were starting to calm down - they placed a Jada and i was given a blood transfusion. but they told me i’d be staying on the L&D floor for quite some time to monitor things.

from there things continued to calm down a little, although i was very weak and fatigued. i took an hour long nap, ate some food, and felt quite a bit better but it was still quite a journey to feeling 100%. my blood pressure remained pretty low while at the hospital, but they said as long as i was feeling okay they weren’t too concerned. and i was able to latch that evening but also pumped a bit to make sure to get my milk going.

and they did want me to stay 48 hours for monitoring, but i really wanted to get home to fran and so they let us leave after just one night which i was so grateful for. my nurses and doctors were great but i just find the hospital stay to be so not relaxing with everyone coming in what feels like every hour.

so fran came to meet us at the hospital while discharging and then we got to go home as a family of four and enjoyed some really sweet days together while i continued to prioritize resting and recovery :’) and that’s about it!

it’s hard to know why the hemorrhage happened - it could have been from the pitocin used, it could have just been random. i didn’t have any preexisting risk factors, but it’s also a fairly common complication that can happen to anyone. all in all it was a mixed bag, but im thankful me and my baby made it out okay and am grateful everyone was there that day.

while this birth was a bit more dangerous in terms of my physical safety, i felt like it was much less mentally/emotionally traumatic than my first birth just because the providers and everyone did such an amazing job this time making me feel seen and practicing informed consent and really making me feel like i had a say in my labor and birth.