I am now 36 weeks pregnant. I have 23 days until my due date. And three days ago, I started thinking about delivery for the first time. I'd talked about how I would aim for a VBAC but I just sort of assumed that Baby Boy wouldn't go into position or something would happen that would take the decision out of my hands. I didn't want to be disappointed, so I didn't set my heart to it.
It seems impossible to prepare for a new birth without revisiting your previous life experiences. I had a rather traumatic pregnancy with my daughter. I'd always assumed that when I had a baby, I'd have an unmedicated, natural birth like my mother had for both my sister and me. But something far different was in store for us.
Timeline:
9/08- Positive pregnancy test. I call to make my first appointment to find out that the doctor I've been seeing for years (and adored) has left practice to pursue research. I take my appointment with whoever, pick up a couple books, and innocently and trustingly enter into the world of maternity care.
12/08- First ultrasound. Provider sends me to general radiology. First scan is with a sonographer who is used to scanning tumors, not babies. Even though I'm certain of my LMP, my due date is pushed back two weeks.
Following the next appointment, I get a call from my provider saying, direct quote, "Your baby tested positive for Downs syndrome." Devastation. Of course it took me about four hours to figure out that it was the biggest overstatement of all time, but worry sets in. We opt out of an amnio.
1/09- Next ultrasound at the perinatologist. No markers for Downs detected. We leave knowing we will have a baby girl. She measures two weeks behind the re-adjusted due date, putting her growth approximately one month behind my LMP.
2/09-4/09- I switch my care to The Birth Center in Wilmington, DE, hoping for more compassionate care. I meet with wonderful midwives and feel truly cared for and embraced. But, I am small for dates and the baby is transverse, a position incompatible with vaginal birth.
5/09- At 30 weeks, my midwife sends me to get an ultrasound. I opt to not return to the practice I was in before transferring to the birth center and instead go to a more prominent OB ward in Philly.
My daughter is diagnosed with Inter Uterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) and the doctor notes that she "doesn't have a nasal bone," a marker for Downs.
I make an appointment for an amnio. We are terrified at the sudden, unexpected prospect of having both a sick baby and a baby with big issues. Goodbye joy. Hello fear.
The perinatologist talks me out of the amnio while I'm sitting on the table with my stomach prepared, needle in hand. He tells me that if the amnio causes preterm labor, I will DEFINITELY have a sick baby. He says, "The unknown is far, far worse than the known." This becomes my mantra as I cope with the uncertainty over the next two months.
5/09-6/09. At 34 weeks, The Birth Center declares that I'm officially too risky and sends me off. I enter the hospital practice. They send me for non-stress tests twice a week and biophysical profiles once a week.
They encourage me to schedule induction for 36 weeks. But Molly was still transverse, and I want to try to get her to turn. They allow me two weeks, provided that the NSTs are perfect. And they are.
I get acupuncture and Molly turns.
6/22/09- I arrive at the hospital at 9:00. An ultrasound shows that she turned back transverse over the weekend. They book an OR.
11:21 am, my beautiful, perfect, healthy, 6 pound 1 oz baby is torn from my body with such violence that the OB broke her collar bone. We have no trouble with breastfeeding, a gift after all we went through.
Newborn days are very difficult. She cries for 6+ hours a day. I am convinced something is wrong with her. For months, years, we worry about her size. She gets the Failure to Thrive stamp. But here we are, 2 years, seven months later, and I have a perfectly healthy, petite, thriving, sassy, smart, beautiful little girl.
My birth story with Molly is less a story about the birth and more about the events that surrounded it. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could have done differently to make her entrance into this world more graceful. What if I stuck with my original providers? What if I ate better? Taken more iron supplements? How could it be that it was all one grand false alarm? There must be something wrong with me.
Sometimes I feel completely okay with what happened, and then someone will say something that implies the reason for high c-section rates is a mother's lack of education, and I'm furious and defensive.
I haven't really thought much about Molly's entrance into this world over the past nine months, hoping to let go and let whatever happens happen.
When I became pregnant this time, I called an OB and midwifery practice that came highly recommended. Since I'd had a 15-week pregnancy loss and a previous IUGR baby, they assigned me to the OB team, who are very pro-VBAC. After a very early spotting scare, an ultrasound tech dubs me with a possible bicornuate uterus. I brace myself for another pregnancy from hell.
But it has not materialized. Every test comes back clean. The perinatologist says I may have a BU, but it's not clinically significant. Baby Boy gets into position. We are ready to go. I realize it's time to explore those childbirth books I never cracked last time after the reign of terror set in.
I was expecting Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth to be a primer on everything I did wrong. But you know what? She gave me a great gift:
Page 207. "There are legitimate medical reasons for induction. These include cancer, hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease, a small for dates baby..."
WHAT? Even the crunchiest midwife in all the land would have booted me from her midwifery practice? I've read elsewhere that the position Molly was in was incompatible with birth. So these two things together... It really was not my fault. It really wasn't my choice in doctor or anything in my control or anyone else's. It was programmed into my baby's genetic code. There was nothing I could have done differently for any other outcome.
So now, it's time to start looking forward. To look at this birth as a new experience. Not as a chance to do it right, but to give this child the most dignified entrance into this world that I can.
The one lesson that I will take from my experience with Molly is that no matter what happens, it's probably not going to be perfect. It doesn't mean that a peaceful, unmediated birth isn't worth trying for, but there is nothing wrong with me as a woman if that doesn't happen.
Not getting the birth you envisioned doesn't necessarily mean that you are a victim of the system either. Sometimes, it's just the way things go. That may be the hardest thing I've had to accept. Why that is, I'm not so sure.
To the future.
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