Kerrie's Birth Stories

It took me about a year to be able to share Olin's birth story without getting teary-eyed. Holy Cow, birth can be traumatic. I was a week past my due date and still wobbling around on the trails in Seattle. We had a birth plan, and it was romantic! I was going to soak in a tub, listening to our carefully selected playlist, with candles all around. We would have this baby within a few hours and would be celebrating with a glass of wine.

On July 22nd I had to excuse myself from the table because “I had cramps.” Our guests laughed at me and said, “No dear, you're having a baby!” They anxiously waited in the kitchen playing trivia as my contractions became more and more painful. I was happy to have the distraction, yelling answers from my bedroom. I texted my midwife and doula to let them know I was in the early stages. Over the next few hours our doula sent me texts about how terrible and trying her day had been and that she'd do her best to make it to the birth center. A little annoyed, I wished she wouldn't make it. I was having contractions damnit, I didn't want to know about her problems!

As the contractions became stronger and closer together over the next few hours, I called my midwife. She suggested we meet at the birth center around 11pm. The birth center in Seattle is like the cleanest, swankiest hotel room I've never stayed in. I wasn't too far dilated, so our midwife suggested we get some rest before things progressed. After an hour or two, I couldn't lay down anymore. Our midwife came in the room to let us know that our doula had shown up and was asleep in the next room. For what seemed like forever, I did laps around the birth center, climbed up and down the stairs, and lunged up and down the stairs. While the contractions were strong, I was not progressing. Then the vomiting and diarrhea started.

Our doula finally graced us with her presence and while I was glued to the toilet she asked if I “wanted a touch.” I wanted to punch her, but instead said no thank you and that I needed privacy in the bathroom. When I was finally able to make it out of the bathroom she sat across from me eating banana chips, crunching so loudly I thought it might be my breaking point. My husband asked her to go get us some coconut waters. I had already gone through two IV bags of fluids and still felt so dehydrated. She left and my midwife asked if I'd prefer her to not return. ::Hell yes, G! Get her out of here!::

It had been over ten hours at the birth center by this point, so G suggested we break my water to try to speed things along. There was meconium in my water, G soon suggested we transfer to a hospital, and that taking our cars would be fastest. It was late afternoon and pouring rain. My father pulled his rental car up to the door, and I hooked my fluid bag to the coat hanger. It seemed like we hit every pot hole over the 10 mile drive! G had already notified the hospital that we were on our way. When we arrived, they rushed me to the maternity ward in a wheel chair, straight to our own room. G helped my husband with the paperwork.

I couldn't talk, I couldn't walk, I couldn't think! “I can't talk to anyone until I have an epidural!” G agreed, saying I'd need all the rest I could get if we were still going to have a vaginal birth. They made my husband turn away as they administered the epidural. Sweet Jesus, was that the most painful thing I've ever felt! But then there was immediate relief and I held the anesthesiologist's hand, who I had only minutes ago barked at. After the most heartfelt thank you, he laughed and told me I was doing just fine. I slept for what felt like a day, but really it was no more than two hours.

They started me on pitocin and over the next few hours I sat loopy, not feeling a thing but exhaustion and hunger and occasional contractions and definitely not progressing. After a while a doctor came in the room to explain that we could try for an assisted birth using a vacuum, which could end up in an emergency c-section, or we could just go for the c-section. We were already so far from our birth plan, but the last thing I wanted was a c-section, so we agreed to try for an assisted birth.

The doctor left the room and within minutes returned with what seemed like an army of doctors in face masks and rubber gloves. She looked like she was wearing a welder's mask and I couldn't help but think, “this is definitely not what we signed up for!” Now it was time to push! They were yelling at me, but I couldn't feel a thing. It had been 37 hours, but Olin arrived after only a few minutes of pushing. The room erupted in laughter, I just gave birth to a 10.7 lb baby! They immediately laid him across my belly and I couldn't believe how big he was! He could just about hold up his head and looked to be 2 months old already! They then cut the cord and took him to clear his passageways. When they brought him back to me, I handed him to my husband and demanded someone give me the box of Cheez-its on the counter that had been taunting me for hours. I may have passed out holding that box of Cheez-its.

I had a really hard time healing with the episiotomy. In retrospect, I definitely had postpartum depression, and it didn't help that Olin was colic for the first three months. My milk supply was too much and they definitely did not emphasize how painful breastfeeding is in the course we took. All these feelings of depression and exhaustion mixed with awe and thankfulness that although his birth did not go according to plan, Olin was a super healthy baby.

We moved East when Olin was only a month old. We tried for another a few years later and mourned the loss of a pregnancy at 8 weeks, which happened to be our first anniversary. After three months along in our third pregnancy, we decided to leave Maine and move to Montana. We were super impressed with the birth center, attached to a small hospital here in Whitefish. The Women's Center was just across the parking lot and we lived 5 minutes away. On October 16th a friend suggested I go to the birth center to make sure my water hadn't broken, after confiding in her that I had been leaking for two days.

Our doctor said to head over for a quick test and to check my cervix. I was having contractions, but they weren't intense and were far apart. A nurse said I was 5 cm dilated (I was not), but my water had not broken. It was a slow night, all of the rooms were empty. We could stay there and wait to progress or we could go home and return later. We had a friend in town so we met him for dinner. He ended up staying at our apartment with our 3 year old so we could both go back to the birth center that evening. When we returned, my contractions stopped completely. My doctor suggested we start pitocin and said she'd return in the morning to break my water if nothing happened.

We both agreed I was going to have another large baby and it would be better to get him out sooner than later. Over the next few hours, three different mamas came, screamed, and fell silent. Needless to say, I was awake the entire time and jealous because I was about to have another stubborn, giant baby. My doctor returned around 7 am to break my water. At this point she checks my cervix and I'm really only about 4 cm. She breaks my water anyway and says she'd return. My contractions begin to get stronger and closer together, but I got this!

All I wanted was a water birth with my first, they look so painless and relaxing in all of those YouTube videos! After only a minute in the tub, I realize it is not for me! My contractions became so intense I couldn't move during them. I told my nurse I wanted an epidural. I was not about to be in pain for another 20 hours or so, again. The nurse called for the anesthesiologist. I told her I needed to get out of the tub. She looked at me and asked if I felt like I needed to poop. Bashfully, I said yes and that I was pretty sure I could make it to the toilet. She laughed and told me the baby was on his way so she called my doctor who happened to be across the parking lot.

The anesthesiologist arrived and directed me to roll over on my side. As I rolled over I knew little Waylon's head was coming out, and he was coming fast. My doctor heard screaming and came running, the anesthesiologist was too late to help with pain, but he was definitely there to lend his hands and a pediatrician who happened to be there came running in to help.

Waylon was stuck under my pelvic bone with the cord around his neck and he was not breathing. Everyone was yelling at me to push and I was screaming and pushing as hard and as fast and as long as I could! Someone in the room suggested I turn onto my hands and knees. I saw the look on my doctor's face and knew that as impossible as that seemed to me at the moment, I needed to turn as fast as I could. He came out but was not breathing. They quickly put him in an incubator and fully resuscitated him. He was not breathing for three minutes and I kept asking if he was alright without any response. My husband took my hand and told me everything would be okay, that he would be okay. He started breathing again and they rushed him for an X-Ray and to keep him on oxygen.

They couldn't see any damage on the X-Ray, but he definitely couldn't move his arm. After they monitored him for 6 hours in the nursery, he was able to return to my room, where they continued to monitor him every hour. He was 9.7 pounds and otherwise healthy. We could take him home after 24 hours. His arm quickly regained mobility. The hospital director later came to sit with us and explained what happened was what she called a key hole effect. Because Olin was so large, my body was set up for his delivery and turning on my side gave Waylon a perfect exit route. Nothing that happened prior to me rolling on my side had any effect in how things turned out.

My recovery was so much easier this go around. He is now the happiest baby who laughs and smiles all day long. We have two happy healthy boys and our family is complete, no more scary birth stories for us!

Whitney's Birth Story

Sunday, April 6

8AM - I wake up, start walking to toward the shower to get ready for church and my first contraction hits. I had not felt a contraction my entire pregnancy but in that moment I knew exactly what it was because it felt like an intense menstrual cramp. Hello! As I continued getting ready they kept hitting me about every ten minutes. I tell my husband (N), and we mutually flail. Baby's coming! Baby's coming! And the weird thing is that I had spent the day before crying in bed, depressed, more exhausted to the bone than I'd felt the whole pregnancy, feeling like I'd never have the baby (even though it was still three days till my due date) and N said, "That probably means you're going to have it really soon." And I was all, "Whatever, man, I have no symptoms of labor, blah blah blah" but of course N's intuition was right as usual for the following morning there we were flailing andshopping to and fro in between contractions. This may be it! We decide to go to church because I predict it'll probably take at least another ten or twenty hours before I give birth. And idly waiting would make it worse. So off we went.

9AM - In Sunday School, staying in the book discussion and hoping they don't notice my face flushing bright red every time a contraction hits. 

10AM - Contractions still coming at a steady rate. Crying through hymns because everything seems to be about impending motherhood and the joy to come. N raising his eyebrows at me from choir and me nodding in return to let him know I'm alright, water hasn't broken yet, etc. 

11AM - Shopping for labor snacks at Whole Foods after church! So giddy. So excited. 

12 - 3PM - We take a long walk to help labor along. We are almost hysterically excited. I am feeling brave and strong. At one point N teases me and I punch him hard, so hard that I think my water broke. But it did not. Did you know contractions can cause loss of bladder control? Well. *cough*

3 - 8PM - Pace around the apartment half watching The Office and half counting contractions on my iPhone app. They are getting increasingly horrible and closer together, which is good, but scary. I'm starting to gasp and swear and feel breathless when they hit. And they're getting longer. Oh, much longer. And then around 8PM they're coming a minute apart, and our doula, who I've been texting with, says we should probably consider heading over to the hospital. So we do, though I wanted to wait a few more hours. N felt pretty strongly we'd be stupid not to go then, and the contractions were amping up rapidly, so we did. 

8PM - 3AM - Twelve hours into labor. We arrive at the hospital after the misery of being in labor while hitting the many potholes on our two-mile drive to the hospital. My beloved doctor is waiting for us on the maternity floor - it was her night to be stationed there, so good timing and whatnot. She checked my cervix (ow ow ow) and it was dilated a measly one inch. Usually dilation goes at an average of one centimeter per hour, so that would indicate I'd have at least another nine hours of pain to go, and probably more since twelve hours of labor had only dilated me one centimeter. I was pretty discouraged but hoped that since the contractions were speeding up so would the dilation. 

They hooked me up to the fetal monitor and found that my contractions were causing the baby's heart rate to drop, nothing horribly alarming, but something they wanted to keep an eye on for an hour or so. Then they did an ultrasound and found that the baby was turned posterior, or sunnyside up, which means he was facing my belly button instead of my spine, as most babies do, which meant that the labor would be especially difficult because he'd be working against gravity and the shape of the birth canal. The nurse compared it to trying to crawl through a tunnel by lying on your back and scraping yourself against the ceiling rather than crawling on your belly. The sunnyside up position would cause the dreaded back labor, which is generally considered about twice as horrible as regular labor. So, N started texting with our doula to get ideas for trying to turn the baby around. My favorite was doing figure eights on the birth ball, because it was the only thing that helped make the pain endurable, so I spent the next four hours on the birth ball breathing and doing figure eights and staying calm and centered. Then around 11PM the contractions got even worse, slamming my back with the most excruciating pain I'd ever experienced and making it almost impossible to breathe. I'd always known the pain would be rough but I'd planned to used the time in between contractions to breathe and relax before the next one hit. But suddenly there was no time in between. Even after the contraction subsided (and there's a definite wave quality to them... a little pain, more, more, zenith, slowly residing) I'd still be writhing in pain and gasping for air. 

This was when the panic started to set in. We asked our doula to come, and soon she was there trying tricks with my rebozo, which is a special scarf used to try to shift the baby into proper position. I lay on my back and she and N tried sifting me back and forth from under my back... ARGH!!!! The pain was unbelievable. Then we tried sifting during a series of side-lunges, and then pulling my belly up from below while I screamed during contractions. We did this for about an hour. I wanted to collapse, but kept trying even though the pain was so much worse, because I hoped that it would eventually turn the baby and be worth it. 

Alas, it was not to be. The baby did not turn, pain kept ratcheting up, and I was shaking uncontrollably, constantly, and the pain never went away. I felt like I was suffocating in pain. Breathing was so hard. I don't know how to explain it. I always thought it was a little weird how childbirth classes are so into breathing, but when I was in labor I understood. When you're in blinding pain it's hard to relax your body enough to squeeze a breath in. And of course the lack of oxygen makes it worse. 

So there I was, moaning and shaking and whimpering and trying in vain to find a position that didn't make me want to scream (and oh, I tried them all... squatting, lying on my side, on the birth ball, standing, leaning against N, letting my doula press against my back in an attempt to ease the pain with counter-pressure) and around 3AM my doctor came in and suggested I go home and try to sleep and come back, since I didn't seem to be making a lot of progress (though I had lost my freaking mucus plug...) and I begged her to check my cervix again, surely all this pain had accomplished something. So she did, and found I was dilated to... 1.5 centimeters. The past seven hours of hell had only dilated me half a centimeter. 

It was then that I began to beg for drugs, all of the drugs, my natural childbirth plan be damned. It's funny, because I'd assumed they'd be foisting drugs on me and I'd have to keep asserting that no, I was all about birthing my child free of potentially harmful medical meddling, than you very much. But instead, I was pleading for anything that would kill the pain dead, and they were like, no, no, you go home and sleep and come back with you're really ready to have this baby. My doctor (who I normally love) kept making me feel frantic by saying, "Well, you know, early labor can last a long time..." and I wanted to scream, "No! I had early labor for eight hours. I could handle that at home just fine. THIS IS NOT EARLY LABOR. THIS IS SHEER NONSTOP UNBEARABLE TORTURE." But of course I couldn't say any of that because all my energy was used to breathe and not die. I used to watch childbirth videos where the attending nurses and doctors were total assholes and always wondered why the poor women giving birth did not tear them limb from limb. Now I know. It is because the pain is just too all-consuming. So my doctor kept saying, "I can give you a prescription for Ambien and you can go home and sleep." She kept saying it was a good "option." And N, speaking on my behalf, kept saying, "No, look at her, she's in agony, she's losing her mind, no way in hell do we want to go home." And finally it became clear that the "option" wasn't really an "option." We *had* to leave. Hospital policy required that women not progressing at a certain rate had to be sent home. It was at that point I started vomiting violently into the trashcan. But it didn't matter. We were being kicked out. 

So N went to get Ambien at a 24 hour pharmacy and I got into the shower and cried and cried and moaned and moaned and the hot water helped a little but still, my God, the pain. I felt like I sat under the water for hours, but I think it was really only an hour, before Nathan came back and our doula followed us home over the horrible potholes and made sure I got into bed and then she left and said to call if we needed anything, but she seemed to think rest would help me though I knew it was bullshit because how the hell do you rest when you're vomiting and your body is constantly racked with pain? I took an Ambien and crouched on the bed, moaning and screaming and shaking for another hour. Then I took a second Ambien, which likewise did nothing to the pain. If it did anything, it just made me slightly more insane. Somehow, the pain kept getting more severe and I was soon screaming at the top of my lungs, "God, NO!!!! God, make it stop!!!! Please, God, somebody, make it stop!!! NOOOOO!!!!!!" And N was freaking out, punching the wall and saying he was going to burn the damn hospital to the ground for sending me home when I was in such pain, for not trusting us when we said we needed to stay. And he kept bringing me a cold washcloth every few minutes, which I would plaster against my face till it was soon burning hot from my face. After about two hours of this I tried getting into the shower and blood, so much blood, was running down my legs from my vagina and I was still in agony and we finally said, to hell with this, we're going to go back and beg them to let us back in (there was a lot of begging that night). 

April 7

6AM - So we drove back over the wretched, wretched potholes to the hospital and had to check back in through the ER and there was a new check-in girl and she took forever to figure out how to check us in, meanwhile I'm literally crashing into the walls and moaning and look like hell with my hair wet and matted from multiple showers without any brushing afterwards and my body was still dripping wet because I was in too much pain to use a towel and some guy saw us and said to N, "Oh, you're having a baby! Congratulations!" And N yelled, "Nothing is good about this situation!" Which is exactly how I felt. Neither of us were thinking about the baby at all at this point. We both just wanted the freaking pain to stop. I really felt like it was going to kill me at that point. I staggered into the bathroom while N was still dealing with the slow ER girl and I was crouching over the toilet hoping to somehow get relief that way and thinking I just wanted it to stop, even for five minutes, I was so exhausted. I kept thinking, there's no way anyone would have a baby if they knew it was like this. 

Eventually we got through and I realized I couldn't walk. I can only compare it to if you're incredibly constipated with the biggest poop known to mankind and it's trying to push it's way out. Could you walk then? No, you could not. So they wheeled me up to the maternity floor and I remember they pushed me into a gown and I had wanted to keep the dress I had on but was in too much pain to care. So on came the hospital gown and I pulled myself onto the bed on my side and gripped the siderail bars and shook them like a gorilla and roared. The nurse said something about how each pain would bring me closer to my baby and I wanted to claw her throat out but of course was too pain-riddled to even look at her. So I shook the siderail and roared and my doctor (who had been there all night) checked my cervix and I was five centimeters dilated now, which was good but still only halfway there. But! It was far enough along to permit an epidural, which I now pleaded for with all my heart, much as I hate needles and numbness, anything was preferable to what I was feeling, and I really felt I was about to die from the pain/exhaustion. So the doctor went off to see if the epidural was available and meanwhile I felt like a terrified animal, out of my mind, screaming, "THIS IS GOING TO KILL ME!!!!! SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!! FUCK!!!!!" N was with me the whole time but I remember nothing about his presence at this point, all I see are a blur of nurses faces and a whirl of violent colors. And the nurses kept saying, "You're fine, you're OK, you're doing great," and I kept moaning that no, I WAS GOING TO DIE. And I hated them for not understanding how horrible it all was. They kept telling me I had a long way to go. This turned out not to be true, thank God!

7AM - 8AM - So I'm screaming and sure my body is going to burst apart and suddenly a huge rush of pressure goes through me and I feel an explosion of liquid come out of me and splatter the nurses. Sure enough, my water has broke! I feel my body tighten around the middle so hard I feel like I'm going to die if I don't push, so I push. And the nurses start yelling at me, "Stop! Stop! Don't push! You'll hurt yourself. You only just got here. You were only five centimeters." But I kept roaring and pushing because I HAD to, there was no NOT pushing, and N heard one of the medical students ask the midwife who was there, "Is this NORMAL???" and the midwife said, "She's in transition." Transition is, notoriously, the worst part of labor, the part right before you push the baby out. I did not know I was in transition, however. For all I knew the pain would continue like this for hours. I was sure that now, finally, it would kill me. And where the hell was my epidural? No matter. It was too late. I had to keep pushing, and the pushing would kill me, though not pushing would kill me... in a worse way. Somehow. That was the situation. 

So the nurses are screaming at me to stop pushing and I kept pushing and they'd say, "Breathe, don't push," and I'd try, but I couldn't for long, and they frantically got my doctor to come in and she checked my cervix and lo and behold! I had dilated five centimeters in thirty minutes, which is INSANE. SO FAST. And the baby was already crowning! Thus my uncontrollable need to push. So my doctor, she says to me, you're all set to push! Not that I was going to stop. And I remember feeling so glad I was in the pushing stage, that it would all soon be over, but also I wanted so desperately to just have FIVE MINUTES to rest from the 24 hours of labor I'd been going through. But now I had to use all the strength I had to push, which beyond all belief made the pain even worse, and felt as though I was going to tear my vagina to shreds and break my pelvis and do other unspeakable things to my body. It felt WRONG, it felt HARMFUL, but it had to be, I had to keep pushing and feeling like I was destroying my body because it was my only chance to stop the pain that had no end. I honestly was not thinking happy thoughts about meeting my baby at that point. All I wanted was to stop the pain. So I pushed like a fiend and roared like a madwoman (because of the pain and pressure every push came with a roar) and they said, "Oh, Whitney your baby has hair! Do you want to feel its head?" And I only roared and shook my head because I had energy and concentration only for getting 'em out. I remember screaming at my doctor, "PULL IT OUT!!!! JUST PULL IT OUT!!!!" And she said, in her awesome way, "Nah, you got this," but it was so hard, feeling the head come out and then recede back into my body after each push. My doctor was pulling on my vagina the whole time, stretching it out as much as she could between pushes to keep the tearing to a minimum. And then, after forty minutes of pushing (which my doctor said was quite impressive for a first baby... she said I was a really strong pusher, and no wonder with such pain for a motivator) out came the body and a sweet, I mean really sweet, strong cry with it, and then N said, "It's a boy!" and Baby L was on my chest and I was holding him and kissing him while they sewed up my tears (which were small) and pushed out the placenta and N cut the cord. And he was so strangely beautiful, not red and wrinkled like other newborns I've seen but with full, plump cheeks and porcelain skin and the most glorious silvery-golden hair and huge curious eyes and such gentle little sounds coming out of his mouth and dear God, the newborn smell! There is nothing more heavenly than the newborn smell. And I felt like I had just done the most difficult thing that could be asked of a human being, and I was so full of love for L, so protective of his well-being, and I felt strong and proud and I-am-woman-hear-me-roar though, frankly, I also felt traumatized. It's like walking back from death's door. I still think about this day often, to understand it. I probably always will.

When Labor Just. Won't. Start.

Full disclosure: this will not be a blog post about DIY induction methods. This will not be a post about the pros and cons of a hospital induction. This WILL be a post about what it feels like when your body just won't go into labor. I have had two babies, two labors, and two experiences of feeling like my body was failing me, or tricking me with false starts.

When we hear birth stories, we rarely hear the parts where the cervadil and pitocin aren't creating productive contractions. We rarely hear the parts where labor starts naturally, but fizzles out as soon as we arrive at the hospital. But these things happen all the time! And they are as much a part of the birth story as the rest. 

My first labor began at 41w4d with an induction at the hospital. Though my birth fantasy involved walking in the woods and having an unmedicated, uncomplicated labor, my birth reality involved cervadil, morphine, pitocin, sterile water injections, more morphine, more pitocin, AROM, an intrathecal, 5 hours of pushing, and finally, a baby. For a long time I was plagued by the idea that my body wouldn't and couldn't labor on its own. My baby came out beautiful and healthy at 8lb11oz, without an ounce of vernix. His skin was peeling. He was ready to be born, so why wouldn't my body just do it? There are so many (so many!) potential answers to that question, but the truth is that I'll never know. Maybe if I'd pushed back the induction one more day. Maybe if the lights had been lower, maybe if I'd been calmer, maybe if I'd gotten acupuncture, maybe, maybe, maybe...

3.5 years later, pressure mounted as my due date with my second baby came and went. Contractions began the evening of 40w6d. They were manageable and mild, but I couldn't relax. I was worried about arranging care for my older child and I was excited to be experiencing the onset of labor in my home, a totally new experience for me. I decided that we should go to the hospital, and as we drove there I sat stiffly in the front seat feeling (knowing) more and more that this wasn't the "real deal." We spent the night in the hospital, only to go home first thing in the morning because the contractions had stopped completely. We made sheepish phone calls to our parents and doula. How to explain? "No baby?" they asked, "Labor can just... stop like that?" 

The answer is yes, it can! Prodromal labor can last for days or even (gasp!) weeks, starting and the same time each day and calming down several hours later. Sometimes the "shock" of arriving at the hospital can cause even early labor to stall; the bright lights, the new smells, the feeling of being "watched," and the monitoring equipment can create an anxiety or alertness in your body and mind that is not conducive to laboring.

There are things you can try when labor is petering out; ask to be left alone, dim the lights in your room, walk, rest, bounce on a ball, turn on music. But you know what? Those things might not work either. You're not doing anything wrong, you are just creating a very interesting first chapter of your birth story.

The stars appear each night in the sky. All is well.

A Partner's Perspective: how a doula made labor a magical experience

By Alex Birdsall

It's hard to tell the story of my second child's birth without telling the story of our first.

We hoped for a natural birth with our first son and got almost everything else. We knew not to be starry-eyed about the process of labor and delivery; that nothing is a given and everything can change in an instant. At nearly 42 weeks, we were induced and, with the help of midwives, nurses and a doula, over 48 hours of labor and 5 hours of pushing, delivered a healthy baby boy.

As our second son’s birth approached we hoped again for a natural labor and delivery. As his due date came and went, we began making our peace with the prospect of another induction until contractions started one night. They were strong enough for us to get excited, but it took another day before early labor had begun in earnest.

Grandparents picked up our elder son and our doula came to our house. We turned lights down, built a fire in the woodstove and put James Taylor on the stereo. We walked and rocked and talked between contractions. It was just as we had imagined it. This early labor was unremarkable and we were grateful for it, even as my wife toiled through each contraction. When those contractions were about 5 minutes apart we made our way to the hospital to find our midwives.

The tub room where we had given birth to our first son was occupied by another birthing mother so we settled into an adjacent room. The midwife and nursing staff had their hands full next door, leaving the three of us to pick up where we left off: working together through each breath of each contraction, resting between and repeating the cycle again. In spite of the increasing intensity of the labor and the approaching transition to pushing and delivery, we recreated the peaceful calm of our living room at home there in the birthing room.

My wife delivered our son shortly after daybreak the next morning without the aid of medication or pain relief. He weighed more than 10 pounds, to the surprise of all present. Reflecting on that labor and birth over a year later, the magic we felt hasn’t faded at all. We attribute much of  it to having had a doula. As the partner, I was able to rest when I needed it, to stay fed, focused and positive. It was a straightforward labor, but without our doula it would have been an entirely different, and less magical experience.

My Baby's Breech—Now What?

One of the best lessons pregnancy and birth can teach us about parenting is that there is so much we can't control. If you just found out that your baby is breech, and you are in the final weeks of your pregnancy, you may be feeling frustrated, angry, disappointed, relieved, or wondering if something is wrong with your body or how you've handled your pregnancy. These feelings are valid. You need to know that you haven't done anything wrong, and this is one of the first of many times in your journey through parenthood that practicing acceptance and self-forgiveness will serve you well.

All this being said, there are things you can try that help to create an optimal environment for baby to turn, and many babies turn on their own without "help," before or during labor. Aside from a version (when a trained provider, usually an OB, manually turns the baby from the outside), the techniques and resources listed do not actually turn the baby, but may help to create space and relaxation in your body for the baby to turn him or herself. 

• Acupuncture plus moxibustion
• Chiropractic
• Hypnotherapy
• Versions
• Spinning Babies

The final piece of the puzzle: work toward accepting the idea that you may need to have a cesarean delivery. If it feels right to take measures to get the baby to turn, then by all means, do it. But all the while, consider with seriousness that these things may not work. Talk to your caregiver about options for a gentle cesarean, and ask them questions such as:

• Who can be with me during the birth?
• Will I be able to have immediate skin-to-skin contact with the baby?
• Is there flexibility for delayed cord clamping?
• Can there be music playing?
• How soon can I initiate breastfeeding?
• Can you explain the procedure from start to finish?

If you are able to make peace with a cesarean birth before it happens, you will likely feel more fulfilled by your experience, and be less at risk for postpartum depression.

The stars appear each night in the sky. All is well.