I'm talking about Livy's birth story, my birth story, and that really is the start of it. In my mind, her birth was not just the time when she emerged into the world; it was the time when I would emerge into a new role as a mother and a grown up woman. It was a rite of passage, not just a medical event, and when it went wrong, somehow I didn't get what I needed, though Livy ended up okay.
It has been so long that I forgotten a lot of the details. The things I remember are probably the most important for the telling anyway.
I had planned a homebirth. This was the easiest choice in the world. I was working as an apprentice midwife when I got pregnant, and though I stopped attending births, I was really passionate and committed to the idea that homebirth was best for uncomplicated pregnancies. I still am.
My pregnancy was really uncomplicated. In fact, I have never felt better in my life. My blood pressure was perfect; I slept 10 hours every night until Livy was born; and I didn't have aches and pains or morning-sickness. The only thing was, Livy was really late. When we got to 43 weeks, the midwives started to worry a little. I know that the chances for complications rises at 42 weeks, and I can understand their concern.
They offered me a chance to go to the doctor and get a stress test ultrasound to see that everything was alright and the placenta was still functioning well. The other option was to use herbs (blue and black cohosh) and castor oil to try to induce labor. I should have done the stress test. Once Livy was born, we found that her placenta and the amount of vernix on her skin showed that she was devoloped like a 40 week old baby. Why didn't I do the stress test? I was just so sick of being 43 weeks pregnant in GA in September. I should have done the stress test.
Instead, I took the herbs (but not the castor oil) and walked and walked and walked. I walked too much. Even though I knew intellectually how much energy it takes to birth a baby, I was so focused on getting her to come, I didn't rest enough.
The herbs and walking worked, and I went into labor. The midwives came when the contractions got closer, and labor was good. Truly, it was. It didn't hurt too much, and I was in that fog where I didn't feel the passage of time. I remember this part of the birth as a happy, difficult, and right kind of time.
After about 30 ours, my labor kind of halted. I got in the fishy pool and soaked in the warm water, and the contractions started to come less frequently. Why didn't I let it be? Why didn't I just relax in the pool and remember that babies are born when they are born? But I didn't. The midwives got me walking again, and I just wanted Livy to get born. I was sick of waiting. Once it started, I just wanted it to finish and to have my baby with me.
By 36 hours, I was worn out. I wasn't able to eat or lie down between contractions. I could only walk and walk and walk and kneel and squat and walk and walk and walk. I was so tired, and I felt harried by the contractions like I couldn't find a place or a time to sit and rest. I wondered if I was in transition, and that gave me hope. I wasn't in transition I learned later.
Finally, when I was too tired to keep going and I just stood in the shower and cried, the midwives suggested we transport to the hospital. They assured me that it wasn't an emergency, but they thought that I needed an epidural and a nap and that they baby would come after that.
I was devastated and terribly afraid. But I was SO tired and so weak from lack of food. We drove to the hospital in our own car, and my ex made calls to work to say he would be out a few days while on the inside I was breaking apart. I remember that when a contraction hit, I wanted the car to explode so that I could only be free of it. I remember eating pineapple, and I have hated it ever since. It tastes like disappointment and misery.
At the hospital, they wanted me to fill out forms and to sign things, and I wanted to scream and rip the throats out of everyone. How could they talk to me like this was a normal thing, when I was seeing all my plans and dreams from Livy's birth shattering in front of me?
The doctor gave me a rough vaginal exam that I was not ready for and joked that "this one may have to come out of the sunroof." He knew I was a homebirth mom; he worked with homebirth moms. There was no excuse for his levity. If I saw him now and recognized him, I would gladly hit him in the face. I would be happy to watch his nose bleed and know that I had paid him back in some small way for his joke when I was terrified and vulnerable. Nothing so invasive or insensitive has ever been said to me in my whole life.
The midwives came with me to the hospital, and because of them, I didn't have a c-section. They talked with the doctor and encouraged him to try an epidural and pitocin first. After I got the epidural, I slept for 4 hours, the pitocin working on me the whole time. After that my labor really picked up.
I don't remember much from the hospital. I remember that the doctor put his hand on my perineum while I was pushing to prevent tearing, and I wasn't sure if his hand was in my vagina, my anus, or outside of me. It was like I was right side out and inside out at once, and I couldn't tell what was inside and what was outside. I saw Livy's dark hair in the mirror when she crowned, and I cried.
When she was born, there was meconium on her. It was clearly old meconium, even I could see that, but they insisted that there was danger from aspiration. They suctioned her throat and wiped her off before I could hold her. I was rabid with desire to hold her and fear for what was happening to her. The 6 feet between us was like a mile of pain.
She didn't have to be without us, though. She stayed in the same room, and David and I never had to take our eyes off of her. I delivered the placenta, while they washed her. I insisted they not soap her, and though the nurse clearly thought I was an idiot, they didn't. I had signed waivers refusing vaccines and eye drops and Vit K, and I had to say it again, but she didn't get any of those things.
They wouldn't let me hold the placenta. It may seem strange, but I am crying harder as I write that. What right had they to deny me? It was mine. I insisted that they let me look at it, and they did. It was red and healthy and completely free of calcifications. It was a young placenta. All this had been for nothing. She was not overdue; she took a long time to cook. I didn't get to take it home. I didn't get to plant it in my garden or trace with my hands the blood vessels that had connected us for so long.
The hospital staff woke us up all the time. We would get to sleep, and they would wake us to take my blood pressure. They would move her to a crib, away from my arms. When David fell asleep with her on his chest, they woke them and moved her. We couldn't leave the hospital for two days because I hadn't had a strep test. I guess they were afraid if she got strep, I was too stupid to feel a fever or look for the other signs.
They gave us formula and formula coupons, but I threw them all in the trash. Lactation consultants came, and Livy latched on. We would not understand the breastfeeding problems that would come for a week or two still. I often wonder (and so did the lactation consultants) whether it was the suctioning that made her refuse to take the nipple far into her mouth for so long.
I feel guilty. It's my fault that the birth went this way. I knew better; I knew that babies come very late sometimes and that I should let things take their course. I wasn't patient and I didn't stand up for myself and for Livy and that's why I still hurt after all these years.
I feel guilty for feeling guilty. My friend who had an emergency c-section and whose baby had a NICU stay doesn't feel like this. Other moms have babies that die. Some women can't get pregnant at all or have babies with major health problems. What right do I have to ache and to rip apart when Livy is fine and we are happy together?
How can I ever let this go? I will never have another baby, never have another birth. How can I accept that this one, this horrible twisting of my hopes, is the one birth I will have in my entire life. How can I forgive myself for causing all this pain, for (maybe) causing the breastfeeding troubles that blackened our first 14 months together, for causing, or at least contributing to, the miserable post-partum depression that I lived through? Will I ever read Mothering Magazine again without pulling back from my own thoughts in fear? How can I make this dragging regret a part of the past instead of a part of the present?
I want to share something with you, in the spirit of full disclosure.
This picture symbolizes for me how sterile and cold her birth was. She is lying on a table, not held, not warm, just lying there. She is being touched, not by human skin, but by latex gloves, and they are worn by a stranger. It makes me feel nauseated to look at it. She should have been on my chest, still bloody but warm and loved. More desired than clean. Resting her head on my breast, smelling colostrum. My hands should have been on her, not empty, not balled up with the fingernails digging into the palms with the restraint it took not to rip her from these gloved hands. This picture should have been different.
