The Second Hard Birth

Ok, ok, I've had at least one request that I get on with the job of blogging, so I'm hauling my lazy self out of browsing other people's blogs, and getting on with the job at hand.



The last blog told about the first of three first time moms giving birth in one week. I will now continue the mini-saga.



I had gotten over birth number one. I want that to be a fact. I had rested from birth number one. It usually takes me two nights to recover from a birth. Usually. Sometimes I recover sooner, sometimes later. And since I've been taking Melaleuca brand vitamins, I recover quicker. That's a good thing.



Anyway, #1 had been born at 4:57 a.m. on July 31. Sam* called me at 7 a.m. on August 5. See, I had plenty of time to rest! Daisy* had started having bloody show and seeing her mucus plug the day before. So Sam called the next morning to tell me how she was handling her contractions. It sounded to me like she was doing fine for a first-time mom. Of course, she was fit as a fiddle. She loves to climb mountains (not here in central Texas, of course!), and ride her bicycle, etc. So she was doing well. I called back at 8, and Sam then told me that her water had broken at 2:45 a.m! What! You're supposed to call me immediately when that happens! So I hurry my rear end over to their house, and sure enough, things are very calm. Baby Birch is doing fine, and so is Daisy.



I take vitals on everyone and then settle in. Her contractions are coming regularly. At 1o:30 a.m, she hits a pause on the recliner and gets in a mini-nap. Yay! Even 20 minutes are very welcome, and then her contractions start back in at every 3 to 5 minutes. She's drinking and moving, and generally staying very relaxed with the contractions. She's rented my birth pool, and it's filled and ready to go. So she gets in around noon and relaxes in the warm water. She stays in the water about 2 and 1/2 hours, and gets out around 3 p.m.



I'm observing her, and when she gets out of the tub, her contractions are every 3-4 minutes. When she gets out, they begin to space apart. That can be a sign of complete dilation. So I ask to check her. She's complete. Dilated to a 10. So I watch for signs of an urge to push. I watch and I wait. Hmmm. No urge to push. I'm a pretty patient midwife, but after an hour and a half of watching and waiting, I realize that we need to do something. I check her again to make sure that the baby's position is good, and that she really is complete. Baby is perfect and she really is complete.



So I give her instructions on how to push. Still no urge to push. She begins pushing at a little before 5 p.m. We use different positions to see if one is a better position for making faster progress, and we settle on the McRoberts position -- flat on the back with two people on either side pulling up the legs to get the bottom off the bed. It sounds terrible, but it really works! After an hour of pushing, we start to see Birch's dark, abundant long hair. Her head starts to show between pushing, not just during the big pushing, and that is always so encouraging to me. Birch is big. And she's the first baby that Daisy has ever pushed out. She works so hard with every push. And when I'm seeing a good-sized wedge of head, she declares, "Oh, there's an urge to push!" That's the only urge to push that she ever has during the birth. Anyway, at this point, I ask, "Are you feeling a burn?" When the perineum is being stretched like that, it burns. Kind of like taking your index fingers and putting them in the corners of your mouth and pulling. So when she feels the burn, I ask her to slow down on the pushing. It helps the tissues to s-t-r-e-t-c-h instead of tearing. And she does admirably. Slowly, slowly, Birch is being born.



I ask Ashlea, my assistant, to trade places with Sam so that he can help catch Birch. So Ashlea takes over lifting Daisy's left leg during pushing. And Sam gets himself ready for his baby girl. Oh, what a moment! I call out "full crown!" when the biggest part of the head is out. This is the forehead right before the eyebrows. The head is then born seconds later. I ask Daisy to pause while I check for cord. None. And Sam gets ready to grasp the shoulders as they emerge. Oh. Wait. Birch has a hand up. Hang onto the baby, Sam, while I ease her hand out. Ok, catch the baby! Oh, look at her! And put her onto Daisy's waiting belly. She starts breathing even before she's born. She starts looking around even before she's fully born. And Daisy starts to bleed.



Oh boy. Bleeding is my least favorite complication to handle. I quickly order Ashlea to give her Angelica tincture that will bring the placenta. The bleeding slows. We deliver the placenta as soon as it detaches, and then more bleeding. So we give her two droppersful of Shepherd's Purse and sweep out the blood and any clots that may be filling up the uterus. Thankfully, she stops bleeding after the Shepherd's Purse.



But she's tired and the bleeding really drains her. About 45 minutes after Birch is born and Daisy is nursing her, Daisy faints. We quickly get her lying down and she comes to in probably 5 seconds. Then we give her oxygen until my big tank is empty, and start giving her straight chlorophyll out of the bottle. (It usually tastes terrible, but she's so needy of it that it tastes good to her and she drains 8 oz. readily.) So she doesn't get an herb bath. I don't want her up at all, much less in a warm tub. The herbs are all ready, so we instruct family on how to make up the bath for the next day, when Daisy will feel better.



Birch is born at 6:54 p.m. When I check for tears, I find one. I haven't had to stitch a client in so long that Ashlea doesn't remember where I keep the suturing materials. I have to smile at that. I love what I do, and I'm glad that I can do a good job at keeping women intact. In this case, I blame the little baby's hand. Or something like that. So since Daisy has to lie flat, I go ahead and suture her. She's nearly sleeping while I work. She's so tired.



I leave at about 11 p.m. It's been a long birth. The pushing without an urge is nearly a first for me. I have only had one other birth in which that happened, and it turned out the baby was in a bad position, and we had to go to the hospital to finish the birth. I am very grateful that this one did not turn out that way. I go home, very satisfied with the birth and the beautiful little baby girl that has just made her arrival. Oh, she's not so little; she weighs 9 pounds, 2 ounces!



One thing that happened at this birth is so funny! The UPS man brought a package during the labor, and Sam must have told him that Daisy was having the baby. Sometime in the middle of pushing, the doorbell rang. Sam's mom went to the door. When she came back, she said it was the UPS man wanting to know if the baby had been born! I guess he's into all kinds of deliveries! I've never had that happen before. We laughed a lot.



One more thing. The next morning, as I'm heading to Lynet's temporary home, I get a call. It's raining cats and dogs, and my cell reception is sketchy at best. It's Sam, and I wonder what's going on. He says they're having to evacuate. The rain from Hurricane Edouard has just circled and circled their house, almost stationary. It's not letting up, and they have water in the house. So Sam gathers up all his girls and takes them to his mom's house, which is about an hour's drive away. Talk about a rough postpartum!



Daisy actually gets her herb bath at her mother-in-law's house! They actually remember to take the herbs with them as they're evacuating!



I get a little sleep that night. Emily comes in from Colorado that night at 3:30 a.m., and it wakes me up. I have only gotten two hours' sleep by that point. And then I can't go back to sleep until around 5 a.m. Then Lynet calls me at 8 a.m. telling me that she thinks she's in labor. There's no way that I'm rested. It's about this time that I begin to be grateful that Sam and Daisy didn't call me when her water broke...(to be continued)

*Names have been changed, of course.