Della’s Birth Story

Della was born at 6:20 pm on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, six days after her estimated due date. I absolutely love talking about pregnancy and birth, both mine and other people’s. This labor and delivery was also vastly different that my first, so I just had to add it to the blog.

I don’t have any regrets about how Calvin’s birth went. It was wonderful and beautiful and I love going over the post I wrote to cover it and the pictures that I had taken of the whole thing. (By the way, I highly recommend a birth photographer if you have interest in that sort of thing. I treasure those photos). But I did have different goals and an entirely unique experience with my second delivery.

GOING OVERDUE (AGAIN)

Della was due on Wednesday, November 24, 2021. That was the date my midwife gave me when I had my eight week growth ultrasound and it was the day before Thanksgiving in the U.S. However, after going over a week overdue with Calvin, I wasn’t married to that date at all. In fact, I would have been shocked and caught entirely off guard if I had gone into labor before my due date.

Every week (starting at 36 weeks) I would go to my check-up with my midwife. The clinic would check my weight, vital signs, and urine protein levels. My midwife would ask me about how I was feeling, measure the fundal height of my uterus, and listen to the baby’s heart with a fetal doppler. I had the option to have my cervix checked each week, but I chose to decline until after my due date. Being checked each week during my first pregnancy and not making any progress was intensely disappointing and I didn’t want that baggage this time around.

So, as each week passed, I just continued my normal life. I kept up with Calvin as best I could, we went for walks when that appealed to me, I continued to go to the chiropractor weekly to be adjusted, and I just waited for labor. I didn’t do anything particular to try and bring it on (like bouncing on an exercise ball, eating spicy foods, walking miles a day, etc.), but just waited. I had made the decision to trust my body to do what it needed to in order to give birth, even if that meant waiting a little longer for my baby.

MY GOALS AND BIRTH PLAN

When I found out that I was expecting another baby, I knew that I wanted to take more control of both my pregnancy and my labor and delivery.

For pregnancy, this included documenting the whole thing better through pictures, journaling, and this blog, finding a prenatal that I actually liked, taking good care of my skin, going to see a chiropractor throughout my third trimester to address my back pain, and making sure that I was staying very well hydrated every day. I’m so glad that I documented better this time. I have consistent weekly bump pictures and lots of journal entries filled with details I could never remember otherwise. I also noticed that between the hydration and the chiropractic care, I was able to actually keep up with my toddler and most of my normal activities. Assuming I took my afternoon nap, of course.

For my labor and delivery, I knew that this time I wanted to have spontaneous labor with an unmedicated vaginal delivery if at all possible. These were the same wants that I had last time I gave birth, but I did absolutely no preparation for going overdue or for coping with labor in order to go without pain medication. So I ended up nearly being induced and getting an epidural when I was at the end of my labor with Calvin.

The first thing that I did to prepare for the labor and delivery I wanted was to throw my due date out the window. I fully planned on carrying my baby to 41 weeks and constantly telling myself that I may have to carry to 42 weeks. This really helped me to relax and wait patiently for my baby, rather than feel like my pregnancy was dragging on and on and that I needed to wear myself out trying to induce at home. I also decided to decline cervical examinations until my 41 week check-up. I wasn’t obsessing over how dilated or effaced I was or what that meant about going into labor. Both of those things kept me much happier and more relaxed as I neared and then passed my due date, yet again.

To prepare for an unmedicated labor, I read the book, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way: Revised Edition by Susan McCutcheon. I took everything I read with a grain of salt, because I prefer a blend of Western medicine and holistic care in my life. I also already had a midwife that I really like and feel comfortable with, so I ignored the information about choosing a provider. I found the information on the process of labor and birth and the relaxation techniques taught in the book to be the key to coping with contractions and delivering my baby without an epidural or other pain medication. I highly recommend reading through the whole thing if you want to deliver unmedicated, whether in a hospital, birth center, or at home. I’ll probably also have Colter read sections of it before we have our next child.

My last piece of preparation was to write out a detailed birth plan with everything I wanted for Colter to reference. This was huge. Even though a lot of it went right out the window with actual labor, Colter knew everything that I wanted and had all of my affirmations and coping strategies in advance.

BABY TIME

I went to my last check-up with my midwife when I was 40 weeks and 6 days pregnant. All of my vital signs looked great and I decided to have my cervix examined and have a membrane stretch and sweep to hopefully jumpstart spontaneous labor. While my midwife was performing the exam, she told me that I was 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. She also discovered that the umbilical cord was laying between my baby’s head and the opening of the cervix.

This was a potentially very dangerous issue. If I had regular contractions that dilated the cervix and moved the baby farther down, the umbilical cord would be pushed out of the way without being pinched or trapped and there wouldn’t be an issue. However, if my water broke before the head had displaced the cord, it could become trapped between the head and my cervix, cutting off blood and oxygen to the baby and requiring an emergency C-section.

So my options were go home and hope that my labor started with regular contractions without my water breaking or to walk over the labor and delivery department and be induced. Colter and I decided that we would go with the lower-risk option and go to L&D.

We called my mom (who was watching Calvin during my appointment) and let her know what was going on. She wished us luck and assured us that Cal would be fine. I was really emotional. Both because I was sad and disappointed at being induced rather than getting the spontaneous labor I had been praying for and because I was thinking and worrying about my little boy at home.

BEING INDUCED

We walked over to the admissions desk for L&D to get things started. My midwife had already called over so I just had to sign a couple of forms and they walked me up. Once in my room, Colter went down to the car to get our hospital bags (to see what I packed, check out this post). I got changed into the delivery gown that I had packed and the nurse came in to start my IV. It took five pokes in five different locations over the course of an hour before they finally got a good line. The IV ended up in the back of my right hand, then I had two bands around my belly for the fetal monitor (one to measure my contractions and one to track baby’s heartbeat), and a blood pressure cuff on my left arm.

This was the second wrench thrown into my birth plan (the first being the induction itself). I had planned on being able to move unrestricted and to get into whatever positions were comfortable during my labor. However, with all of the cords and tubes, I felt pretty much stuck in the bed. When I had to use the bathroom, Colter had to help me manage all of my equipment to and from the toilet. It wasn’t great, but I told myself that I would make the best of it.

They started me on 4 units of pitocin at 10:30 am on November 30, 2021. We plugged in our Roku stick to the TV in the room and settled in to watch Netflix as my contractions started. They increased my pitocin drip by 4 units per minute every 45 minutes. Around noon (12 units/minute of pitocin so far), Colter went down to the cafeteria to grab himself some lunch. I also had him grab me a greek yogurt parfait because I had only eaten a banana that morning before my appointment. I ate it when there was no one in the room to tell me not to.

My midwife, Heather, came to check on me around 12:30 pm. She said everything looked good and told me that she would just be next door at her clinic while I continued to labor. She also let me know that they weren’t going to check my cervix for another couple of hours, because they didn’t want to risk breaking my water and trapping the cord before it had been moved back.

My contractions were all in my belly and very low (near my pelvis). For the first four hours or so, I was able to relax fairly easily. I really focused on closing my eyes, relaxing all of my body, and taking deep breaths into my belly. I think that the belly breathing was key to feeling relaxed and in control, even though nothing was going how I had pictured.

They continued to increase my pitocin every 45 minutes until I hit 20 units/minute around 1:30 pm. After about an hour, my contractions were coming really close together, so they decreased my drip rate to 10 units. Another hour at that rate, and my contractions were once again quite close together, so I dropped down to 6 units of pitocin around 3:30 pm. At 4:00, we called my aunt (birth photographer) to start heading to the hospital since she lives about an hour away.

At this point, my contractions felt very intense. And I was feeling them in my belly and in my back. I spent one more hour having contractions on my bed and then Colter and I decided to get a birthing ball so I could sit on it and lean on the bed. About two minutes after I got situated on the ball, Heather came in to check my progress. She wanted to do a cervical exam, so I made my way back onto the bed between contractions. It was about 5:00 pm and I had progressed to 6.5 cm and was 80% effaced. She told the nurse to stop the pitocin drip because she thought that my body would continue to contract and progress on its own (which it thankfully did). I was able to get disconnected from the IV, the fetal monitor, and the blood pressure cuff which was amazing.

I told Heather about the back pain I was having with contractions, and she recommended that I labor on my hands and knees for a little while. We put the birthing ball on the bed and I knelt and leaned on the ball. It really helped to rock forward, backward, and side to side during contractions. I also started to moan and having Colter put a lot of pressure on my low back during contractions was heavenly. After 30 minutes or so, I started feeling a lot of pressure in my bum and Heather checked to see how I was progressing. I had moved to 8 cm and the baby was moving down, hence the pressure. I stayed in that hands and knees position for about 45 minutes before my knees started to ache.

I moved to a left side-lying position and Heather performed another cervical exam. It was about 6:00 pm. I was dilated to 9 cm and my water broke. Just as we’d hoped, the regular contractions of labor had shifted the cord out of the way and there was nothing but baby’s head meeting the cervix. Once my water broke, the contractions somehow got even more intense and I had the urge to push with each one.

This was something I didn’t experience with Calvin’s birth, because I had the epidural through transition (dilating from 8-10 cm) and for his delivery. But that pushing urge is one of the most intense things I have ever felt in my life. Unfortunately for me, I got the urge a little early, as I wasn’t fully dilated yet. With each contraction I would start begging to push and my midwife kept telling me to wait because I still wasn’t to 10 cm and I could tear my cervix if I started pushing too soon. I was yelling pretty loud with each contraction too, but I had Colter right there telling me to breathe and promising me that I could push soon.

THE BIRTH

I finally reached 10 cm and got the okay to push and it felt amazing. With one push the baby was crowning. The ring of fire is no joke. I had to pause while she was crowning to prevent tearing by allowing things to stretch. That hurt. Colter got suited up to in a gown and sterile gloves so that he could assist in delivering the baby once the head was out.

I’m a little fuzzy on how everything else happened because it was all very fast and very loud in my head. It was like all I could hear was the contractions and the pain of having a baby on its way out of my body. All of the voices of the people in the room were very far away. Anyway, my midwife discovered that baby’s left shoulder had gotten wedged up behind my pelvis and was too stuck to turn in the normal way for delivery. (This is called shoulder dystocia). They laid me back flat on my back, but the shoulder was still stuck. Then a nurse started putting pressure on my lower abdomen and pelvic bone to try and dislodge her. All throughout this, they were telling me to push constantly and as hard as I could (whether I was having a contraction or not). That was crazy hard. I finally felt her head deliver, but I didn’t hear her cry. Heather removed one loop of umbilical cord from around her neck (this is called a nuchal cord), and then she and Colter delivered her body and Colter turned to me and said “It’s a girl! We have a girl!” It was 6:20 pm on Tuesday, November 30, 2021.

She was dusky blue/purple and not crying yet. Heather told me that they needed to get her over to the warmer, so we needed to cut the cord immediately, rather than delay until it stopped pulsating. She was placed on my stomach long enough for Colter to cut the cord and then they rushed her over to the warmer to get her breathing. After what felt like an eternity, I heard her start to cry. They called in respiratory to have her checked over and make sure that she was going to stay pink and breathing before they gave her the all clear to come back over to me. They also palpated her left shoulder and collarbone for breaks and didn’t find any (they also x-rayed her later and found no fractures).

I delivered the placenta without issue and had a very small vaginal tear that required one stitch. I lost a bit more blood than average, but they attributed that to the somewhat traumatic delivery. I’ll be on an iron supplement for the next several weeks to address the subsequent anemia.

Finally, after about forty minutes of being worked on in the warmer, they finally deemed her healthy and stable enough to come back over to me. I got to hold my daughter for the first time at 7:01 pm. She immediately started rooting and latched on to feed with almost no help from me.

Della May Merrell weighed 8 lbs 5 oz and measured 21 inches long. She was born vaginally, without an epidural, after 8 hours of labor. She ended up being admitted to the NICU for a couple of days due to aspiration and respiratory concerns, but she is now home, healthy, and thriving!

If you have any questions about her birth and having a pitocin induced vaginal delivery without pain medication, please get in touch!