Taylor's Natural Birth Story

Before I get into the actual details of my birth story, I wanted to share my reasoning behind wanting to have a labor and birth with less unnecessary interventions. That sure takes longer to say than “natural childbirth,” but I try to avoid that term because I don’t want to make anyone who chose (or was forced to choose) inductions, epidurals, cesareans, ect. feel like their birth should be viewed as unnatural or less-than. I absolutely do not think that. No matter the path for getting baby here, mama still grew a human body with her body and then brought that baby into the world. Its incredible!

I get asked all the time some variation of the question, “Why wouldn’t you want an epidural? You wouldn’t turn down lidocaine to get a root canal done, would you?” And my response to that is that those two situations are completely different. Unlike the root canal, I don’t view childbirth as a problem to be fixed or a medical emergency. It is a natural event with intense, new sensations that may feel like an emergency if you’re not prepared with knowledge and good coping strategies. I’m also not a masochist, or just trying to seem tough. Nor am I in the camp of people that believe that since God said “in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,” that He wants labor to be painful and we better not evade that with medication. That camp actually exists y’all. I just wanna run to them and tell them that the Hebrew word for “sorrow” is perhaps more accurately translated to toil or work or labor... Which makes sense! Having a baby is tiresome work but I don’t think it has to be scary or painful.

I think much of the fear women have surrounding childbirth (which is taught in part through over-dramaticized TV shows and movies and through sharing each others birthing horror stories) contributes to the pain they feel. There is a real physiological response to fear, including but not limited to increased muscular tension, activation of the sympathetic nervous system AKA the fight or flight response, stalling of labor, and increased perception of pain. I decided to get over that feeling of fear surrounding childbirth by learning all I could about the amazing things my body would automatically know how to do to get my baby here, and by practicing deep relaxation/imagery and breathing techniques (I used the Hypnobirthing method, which I highly recommend). Other reasons I had for not wanting an epidural or pitocin included wanting to be as connected to the experience as possible and to feel it all, and not wanting to be immobile during labor. There is also good research that suggests that saying no to the epidural (and the often ensuing cascade of interventions-- go watch The Business of Being Born on Netflix if you want to learn more about that!) can lead to a more positive view of one’s birth experience, shorter labor, less complications, and faster recovery.

Now that that's all been said, let's get to the actual story. I started having frequent Braxton Hicks contractions at about 20 weeks. They were unsettling at first and for a few weeks I was paranoid that he was going to come really early. But luckily he didn’t, he came a week late instead! Due to the way my school schedule worked out, I was hoping he would come as late as possible. At 38 weeks I found out I was strep B positive, much to my dismay. That meant that if my water broke, I would have to be admitted at the hospital, even if I wasn’t having contractions yet, to get antibiotics and most likely get labor started with pitocin. Only about 10-20% of women experience their water breaking before labor starts, so I thought I probably wouldn’t have to worry too much about it happening. I thought wrong!

I woke up on Tuesday October 25th and noticed I was leaking a little clear fluid. I put on a pad, tried to put it out of my mind, and headed to my 8:00 AM lecture. During class I felt sort of uncomfortable and crampy, but nothing major. I called my midwife after class at at around 11:00 and I was told I should head to the hospital, even though my water was just leaking and hadn’t fully broken. I took my sweet time leaving-- I took a long shower, packed my bag, ate some food, and received a Priesthood blessing of comfort from my sweet husband.

Up until this point I was just ignoring the cramps I was feeling because they weren’t bad, but on our way to the hospital I started to time them just for fun. I wasn’t overly stressed about it though. They were on average about 7 minutes apart, lasting 45 seconds. I got into triage at about 1:00, where I was strapped to the fetal monitor for a while, and the skeptical nurse did three different tests (the pH test, nitrazine test, and a more in depth microscopic one) to determine if my water had actually broken. She kept insinuating that she wanted to send me home because I was only 2 centimeters dilated, my contractions were looking really mild on the monitor, and it didn’t really seem like my water had truly broken. All three tests came back positive though, so I was finally admitted at about 3:00.

We were brought to our nice corner room with lots of windows, an IV was started, and a dose of antibiotics was given. My midwife came around to say hi and that she would check my cervix at 7:00 PM to see how I had progressed, and if I hadn’t dilated much at that point, that she would strongly recommend starting some pitocin. I really didn’t want that, because pitocin can make the contractions more intense and closer together, which is harder on both mom and baby. My husband and I got comfortable in the hospital bed and two and a half episodes of Chopped later, my contractions were starting to get to the point where I had to focus on breathing through them. I would have two in a row with about 15 seconds in between them, about every 3 to 4 minutes.They weren’t painful, just starting to grow in intensity. We turned off the TV and listened to music for a bit, while I bounced on the birthing ball and Lucas did counterpressure on my knees. I also labored on the toilet for a while during these couple of hours, because it was surprisingly comfortable.

Sidenote on nurses: Due to shift change and other switches I had like 4 different nurses in the first few hours, but they were all great. One of them kindly fixed my IV that was causing some discomfort and phlebitis, and I was lucky that they all let me do intermittent EFM (electronic fetal monitoring). I just had to hold the monitors on my belly for just one contraction every half hour. I was happy about that because I didn’t have to stay tied down, and also because there is no evidence that continuous EFM is more beneficial than intermittent EFM or intermittent auscultation, and some research suggests that it may lead to unnecessary cesareans and forcep/vacuum assisted births. Anyway, a wonderful nurse named Kimmy came on at around 6 and she was around for the rest of my labor and birth. She had had three babies without epidurals so she was a good support and advocate for me. Also, she reassured me that I didn’t have to say yes to pitocin, but that if I did agree to it that it would just be a little to get things going. She also expressed confidence in me saying she knew I would be able to get through it without departing from my plan and having to get an epidural. Having a nurse who respected my wishes and defended my birth plan was much appreciated. Plus she let me eat! The no eating rule is the silliest thing… Giving birth is like running a marathon and somehow we expect moms to do that without any food for energy? I digress-- I just had to put in a plug for good nurses since I’m in nursing school!

My midwife came in around 7:00 and checked me again, and I was at 4 centimeters. However, she could see that the contractions were very close together and that he was descending nicely so she said there would be no need for pitocin. She also said that if she released my water the rest of the way that things would probably progress really quickly. Although I wanted as little intervention as possible, this was one I was okay with. I was starting to get tired and the fact that I had only progressed 2 centimeters in 5 hours was a bit frustrating. Also it just felt right to me when she offered, so I said yes. As soon as she did it, things suddenly got much more intense. Between 7:30 and 10:30 I progressed from a 4 to a 10. For most of that time I continued laboring while sitting on the ball, leaning forward onto the end of the bed while Lucas did counterpressure on my lower back and hips. As far as what these contractions felt like, I have to echo what Erica said in her birth story. They were like huge, overwhelming waves of extreme tightening and pressure and they were scary because the sensation felt bigger than me and out of my control. I hesitate to use the word pain because it was different than pain-- it was just something totally different than what I had ever felt before. Super intense tightening and stretching and opening and pressure all at once.

With each contraction my body automatically made these deep guttural pushing noises, even though I wasn’t trying to push and I knew it wasn’t time to push! I was pretty loud but it was totally involuntary. I also instinctively buzzed my lips to keep my face relaxed, and my midwife rubbed my forehead in between my eyebrows to keep my face relaxed. I was surprised by how much that helped. When the waves started to feel too big for me and my vocalizations started to get higher and sound panicky, she would remind me to keep it low, I would focus on keeping my face relaxed, and I would put my attention on my breathing and the counterpressure. The two worst parts of the whole thing were having to get back up onto the bed every so often to monitor a contraction and check my cervix, and the huge wave of nausea I got at around 8 or 9 centimeters. At that point I remember thinking, “I really don’t want to be doing this anymore” and “there is literally no break now in between contractions,” and “man I can see why people get epidurals.” But I got through that rough spot and that’s when she checked me again and I was at a 10!! I was so excited. We put the bed into a sort of chair position and got ready for pushing. As soon as I started pushing I couldn’t feel the intensity of the contractions anymore, I just felt an uncontrollable urge to push. My midwife kept telling me to slow down but 1. It felt out of my control, it was kinda just happening, and 2. With the end being in sight I got this huge rush of energy and just wanted to be done! In total it was 30 minutes of pushing but it felt like 5.

Remember how earlier I mentioned the two worst parts? I forgot, this was the other worst part. At the end of one push about 20 minutes in, I felt and heard a cracking noise in my lower back, and suddenly I had a lot of pain there. I told them my back hurt and they helped reposition me so I was still sitting up, but shifted more onto one side. No one inquired further about this pain in my back because suddenly Louis was crowning! Seeing my husband's excited face at this amazing sight gave me another rush of energy and in a couple more pushes, he was out! He was born at 10:58, just about 14 hours after the beginning of labor. I remember feeling a huge wave of happiness and relief and a sudden disappearance of any pain or discomfort (thanks, endorphins!), and apparently I exclaimed happily, “it’s over!!” but I don’t remember that. I just remember seeing my squirmy, squishy little baby and reaching out to hold him and look at his face. The happiness and relief and love I felt in that moment is indescribable! I get weepy just thinking about it. I got to hold him on my chest while my midwife stitched up a 2nd degree tear and administered some local pitocin, because after I delivered the placenta (which was super easy and didn’t feel like anything, by the way) my uterus wasn’t contracting as quickly as it was supposed to and I was bleeding a lot. The post-delivery pitocin was something I wasn’t even aware of, and only weeks later did I look it up and see that it often causes continued cramping and pain for days after birth, and that some argue against its routine use in uncomplicated births. However I trust that my midwife made the right decision and that it was necessary for me in my situation.

After a few minutes of skin to skin time and waiting for the cord to stop pulsing, they clamped and cut it and took him over to the table to measure him and do an assessment. He was 8 pounds 14 ounces and 20.5 inches. In the assessment they noticed he was breathing pretty lazily and sounding kind of gurgly, so they decided to take him down to the nursery and put him on the CPAP for an hour. My husband went with him and I somehow felt peaceful about it. In hindsight I’m surprised I wasn’t worrying like crazy, because it was only about 5 or 10 minutes that we got to spend together, and then he was gone and I had no way of knowing if he was okay.  During this time after they left I ate a sandwich, shivered and shook like a leaf, walked over to the bathroom and got cleaned up, and during all this it started to sink in that I had just done the coolest thing in my life so far. I felt so empowered and strong. I also had the thought “man I’m not doing that again for a while” because it was so intense and so exhausting, but now with the passage of some time I know I’d do it again.

I truly feel that because I chose to avoid unnecessary interventions, I was able to own the experience and feel more connected-- like I was actually doing it and it wasn't just happening to me. I also think that it helped my labor time and overall recovery to be shorter (however there was one part of the recovery that wasn’t great... That cracking noise I mentioned turned out to be my tailbone breaking, and it took around 3 months for that to feel back to normal. It didn’t interfere with my life, and I was still able to walk 15 minutes up to class a couple times a week, it was just annoying and hurt especially bad when sitting, walking up stairs, and getting in or out of the car. Next time I will try to slow down in the pushing phase and try to breathe baby out more gently so hopefully it doesn’t happen again). If you are considering this path for bringing your child into the world, or even if you are totally on the fence about what to do, I would suggest learning all you can. Read lots of books and good research studies and more positive birth stories! You can do it!