This episode begins a 2-parter, and you’re in for an EPIC birth warrior story that goes in all kinds of unexpected directions told by Sarah and Chris. Sarah & Chris share their story of a very long, planned home birth that eventually transfers to the hospital and after DAYS of labor (literally, days) ultimately, Sarah gives birth via c-section after her waters have been ruptured for 90+hours. Get ready for a taste of how unknowable and unpredictable birth can be, and listen to the amazingly positive attitude this couple has through it and on the other side of it. These episodes provide a poignant lesson in how important mindset and flexibility are, keeping in mind it’s your baby’s birth, not yours, choosing a great birth team that hears you and gives you choices, among many other valuable lessons. Sarah & Chris share strategies for averting feelings of trauma and for, instead, still feeling good about the birth when it doesn’t go at all “as planned".
Episode Topics:
Their 20-month-old son’s personality
Water breaks around 12:30 Halloween night (11/1)
Explanation of how they chose to give birth at home, how they picked their midwives and doula
Labor at home for around 2 days with lots of back labor and non-textbook contraction patterns
Decision to transfer to the hospital after 2 days of laboring at home
Pack bag last minute (great tip for home birth families to at least have 2 packing lists: 1 short one for emergency transfer, 1 longer one for non-emergency transfer)
Arrival at Woodhull Hospital, administration of IV antibiotics for GBS, Cervidil to induce, narcotics via IV to get some sleep
They try Pitocin, but it actually has the opposite of the desired effect
Getting epidural to get some sleep and relax her body
Nurse on new shift comes in and tells her she’s 1cm after being told hours before she was 3
Resources:
BirthMattersnyc.com/resources (lots of resources, including doulas and lactation consultants)
The Root Therapy NYC (support groups for new & expectant parents)
Midwifery Care NYC (homebirth midwives)
Maris James (doula)
Oak Point Acupuncture (Astoria, NY)
Cesarean Rates by Year in U.S. (Birth by the Numbers)
Cesarean Information (Childbirth Connection)
Creating Your Cesarean Birth Plan (Lamaze)
Safe Prevention of the Primary Cesarean (American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 2014)
Toolkit for a Healthy Cesarean (by my local colleague over at Mindful Birth NY)
Transcript
Lisa: 0:00 You're listening to the Birth Matters Podcast Episode 37.
Sarah: 0:04 My mental state was I was going to be a birthing warrior, and I believed that I could get through anything. I believed my body knew what it was doing and I could get through anything. So that was my mind set. When I would start to falter, I would be like, "I am a birthing warrior. I'm gonna do this. I am getting the baby out. He is coming out." Like, and I kept thinking to myself, like, "I want to see my baby. I want to see my baby." And every team that would—because we had seen so many teams pass through at that point, like...and they would say, "Oh, Sarah, you're gonna have—I'm gonna come back tomorrow and...
Chris: 0:38 "The next time you see me, you're baby's gonna be out.
Sarah: 0:39 "You're gonna have your baby."
Chris: 0:40 And the first time, that's encouraging. And the third time, I'm gonna kill someone.
Lisa: 0:54 Hey there! And welcome to the Birth Matters Show. I'm your host, Lisa Greaves Taylor, founder of Birth Matters NYC Childbirth Education and Labor Support. This show is here to lessen your overwhelm on the journey into parenthood by equipping and encouraging you with current best evidence info and soulful interviews with parents and birth pros. Please keep in mind the information on this show is not intended as medical advice or to diagnose or treat any medical conditions. Have you subscribed to the show yet? Please be sure to do that wherever you're listening to this or over at birthmattersshow.com so you don't miss out on anything.
Lisa: 1:33 Hi, everyone. If you're listening around the time that this goes live, I hope you're hanging in there and staying safe and healthy at home. In these uncertain times, I want to make sure you're aware that through this pandemic, Birth Matters has a page on our website with constantly updated COVID-19 resources for expectant parents. Read more details, tips and stress management strategies over at our website at birthmattersnyc.com/covid-19 and know that we're constantly updating it any time there are new resources that we think might be helpful for you. Also, Birth Matters has partnered with The Root Therapy NYC to provide an ongoing weekly support group for expectant parents. The Root Therapy is also offering a new parent support group as well as other group options. For more information, email contact @theroottherapynyc.com.
Lisa: 2:29 Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Birth Matters is offering a huge discount on our online on-demand course, because it's more important than ever to get equipped for the best birth possible. Our heart goes out to the families whose hospitals have canceled birth classes across the country or who are experiencing severe financial hits right now, and we don't want costs to be a barrier. You can find the promo code and sign up over at birthmattersnyc.com. Also, our regularly scheduled live group classes that are normally in person are temporarily being held on Zoom, and we're also doing virtual private sessions. So please know that you can prep for birth and parenthood in whatever format works best for you, and wherever you are. Again, you can register for any of these class formats over at birthmattersnyc.com. This episode begins a two-parter and you're in for an epic birth warrior story that goes in all kinds of unexpected directions told by Sarah and Chris. Quite honestly, this story feels like several birth stories wrapped into one. Sarah and Chris share their story of a very long planned home birth that eventually transfers to the hospital and after days of labor, literally days, ultimately, Sarah gives birth via C-section after her waters have been ruptured for 90 plus hours. Get ready for a taste of how unknowable and unpredictable birth can be, and listen to the amazingly positive attitude this couple has through it and on the other side of it. These episodes provide poignant lessons in a number of things, including how important mindset and flexibility are; choosing a great birth team that hears you and gives you choices; and the perspective of keeping in mind it's your baby's birth, not yours. Even if birth doesn't go as planned, which it hardly ever does—but this one goes off plan in almost every possible way—Sarah and Chris share strategies for averting feelings of trauma, and for instead still feeling good about the birth. Okay, let's get started.
Sarah: 4:33 My name is Sarah Ittner.
Chris: 4:35 And I'm Chris Triebel.
Sarah: 4:37 And we are, um, we have a 20 month old, so we are in...
Chris: 4:43 A little over a year and a half at this point.
Sarah: 4:44 Yeah, Yeah. The toddler stage...
Lisa: 4:48 Lookout!
Chris: 0:00 Yeah.
Sarah: 4:50 Emerson is our son, Emerson. He is direct, I would say in his needs and what he wants. Um, I try not to use the word "stubborn," because I feel like all kids, at some point in their development, have that tendency to be stubborn. And so I don't want it to be like kind of like a negative thing. I think that he is very, just always, and has been always, since he was born, very direct in his needs. But now that he is getting to the point of communicating those needs a little more effectively, um, he is just very...
Chris: 0:00 Assertive.
Sarah: 5:35 Yeah,
Chris: 5:36 Yeah, that's, these are all very democratically put words.
Lisa: 5:40 Well-chosen words.
Chris: 5:43 Yeah, he's definitely very assertive, and very clear and direct on what he wants. He doesn't quite—I mean he has, like, one or two words, roughly, but he's so clear in every other way of communicating, I think words, he's like, "That's just taking the longer route. Let's just grab you by the hand and pull you over to what exactly I want. Why am I bothering to speak when I can literally just point you in the right direction to do my bidding for the next 15 to 5 hours." So, yeah, he’s definitely very communicative. That's for sure.
Sarah: 6:22 I was going to say, all of our baby sitters that we've hired have said, "You know, he doesn't talk very much, but he's like, he communicates really well.
Chris: 6:30 I tell everybody he's now at the age that he can run around and break all of my stuff, but he can't tell me why he's breaking all of my stuff, which is really frustrating. He walks up to me with just some broken thing. And I'm like, "Why? Why, buddy? Why" And he just [sounds]...just drops it, walks off.
Lisa: 6:51 It just happened.
Chris: 6:52 "I had a reason for this. All right, I'm off. I'll see you later."
Lisa: 6:56 As you're sharing this, I don't know why this came to mind necessarily, but do you, would you like to share what you guys both do for a living? I think that's sometimes interesting for listeners to know, just because some of that can play into, obviously just, um, you know, different aspects of our parenting journeys and our birth stories.
Chris: 7:20 So we're both actors by trade. And so that's really...
Lisa: 7:26 When you said the very assertive, and especially the communicative, that was what actually brought it to mind. I was like, I knew that Sarah was an actor and I was thinking that you are as well, Chris. Yeah.
Chris: 7:36 We just actually had this conversation the other day where we were talking about him and his ability to communicate and kind of, because you always, when you're a parent, like, as much as you don't want to, you end up comparing to other kids, like where they are at in their journey and that type of thing. And I turned to Sarah the other day and I was like, "I mean, everybody says he's slightly behind because he doesn't have as many words, but he's got, like, three or four bits that are, like, killer bits. Like, they're really funny. He's got them down pat. He's really tight on his timing." Of course that's the first thing I would think of, is like, "Yeah, but he's got this really good closer. It's fantastic."
Lisa: 8:18 That's great.
Sarah: 8:19 He also can hum songs...
Chris: 8:21 Yeah, very odd.
Sarah: 8:23 So what he's asking for. He has, like, a few songs that he like, really loves, and he'll just home the beginnings to tell us what he's asking for.
Lisa: 8:32 I love that so much, coming from a musical background. I just want to come babysit for you right now. Can I do that?
Lisa: 8:41 Yeah. So it's just one of those things where we're like, he can't...He doesn't use a lot of words, but, like, I mean, I don't know another 20-month-old that hums a song.
Lisa: 8:52 That is so cool.
Sarah: 8:55 We're like, I guess my musical theater background, that I never really use around him, is like...
Lisa: 9:03 It's innate.
Sarah: 9:03 And Chris's comedy side is in him, so that we're like, "Oh, I guess he is like a perfect marriage of the two of us."
Chris: 9:12 I think it transfers through the breast milk. I think they've found that.
Lisa: 9:16 There you go. Awesome. Well, do you want to go into his origin story?
Sarah: 9:25 Well played. So...
Chris: 9:29 You start it off.
Sarah: 9:29 I'll start it off. So I guess I'll just start from the beginning of, um, on October 31st I was sitting in our house just hanging out, actually watching my stomach. I have a video of him, like moving, like, a ton. He was just, like, moving a lot. And I felt so good that night. I was like, "There's no way he's coming." Now he was due on the, he was due on October 29th. Yes, he was due on October 29th. And I was, at that point expecting to have, like, you know, a first time mom—my mom was over, um, two weeks for, um, no. Three weeks for my brother. Two weeks for my sister. I was the only one that came, I think, a week late. So, like, I was expecting that I was gonna go over, because it's in the family, right? That's my, you know, where my head was at. And I felt amazing. Like, I felt so great. I was still carrying, like, all of my groceries, up four flights of stairs. So I thought I was good, right? Taking videos of my stomach, and Chris that night had been working and had come home late, and...
Chris: 10:53 I had been bartending, and then—because I'm an actor, so I don't actually work as an actor. So I was bartending and I got home.
Lisa: 10:59 It's called the survival job, right?
Chris: 11:04 Exactly. Um, and so I had gotten home and she was about to go to bed and basically for the last couple of days, we'd just been like, "Hey, baby? No? Okay." And then, so she was about to go to bed and I was like, "You know, I'm gonna grab something to eat. I'm just gonna, like, decompress for maybe 30 minutes. I'll be in in a little bit." And we're like, "Well, it's looking like no Halloween baby for us." And so she goes to bed...
Sarah: 11:31 October 31st.
Sarah: 11:32 October 31st, and then we're like, crossing over into midnight into November 1st. And she goes, she goes into the bedroom and I sit down and I'm about to eat. I turn on a movie or something, And, um, at 12:35 she goes, "I think my water just broke."
Sarah: 11:50 So I was in bed. I, like, as any, you know, pregnant women who's a few days over, you're like, just trying to get comfortable and it takes a while. It's not like you just, like, you know, climb into bed and like, you're good. You have to, like, I had, like, a routine of, like, pillows that were like, "Okay, this pillow goes here. This pillow goes here. OK. Am I feeling good? Great. Did I pee? I did pee, so I'm good." And all of a sudden I felt this, like, pop. And I don't know how I did it, but I, like, jumped out of bed faster than I've ever jumped out of bed before, hugely pregnant, and ran to the bathroom just as my water, like, broke. So somehow—I don't know how. So, in my head, I'm like, "Did I just wet the bed or did my water break?" Because I held it to the bathroom from the bedroom. But, like, and then obviously a gush of water just kept coming and coming. And I was like, "Oh!" So that's when I, like, called in Chris and was like, "I think my water broke." At that point, we called our midwives. And we were a home birth at that point. That was what our plan was.
Lisa: 13:12 Sure, sure. And can you back up just a little bit? No, it's OK. I just wanted, was curious, and I think people, I think it's an interesting—a lot of people are curious about how, what the journey was like in choosing home birth, and why you chose that route.
Sarah: 13:30 So I had always wanted a home birth since I was, I don't even know, 12. And I used to watch TLC's "A Baby Story." And they would do these water births, and they were always at home. And I thought that was the coolest thing ever, to have your baby at home. And so that was when I was 12. And through the years, I had always just sad like, "Oh, having a home birth would be great. But, like, I don't even know how that works." I was also—I'm also not really good in hospitals. Um, I had sinus surgery and a foot surgery, and I just don't do well under anesthesia, with medication, like, it's always, like, an issue. And I just don't like being there. I like being in my bed. And I thought for something like labor, where sometimes it can be so mental, I needed to be where I was comfortable. And so I'm more comfortable in my own bed, with my own pillows, specifically in my own bed with my own pillows, and if I have to labor somewhere, I want to be in my space, you know, with my essential oils, with my, like, everything that I, you know, I want. So that was kind of our—that was my start to our journey. Now Chris was on the opposite end of that.
Lisa: 14:55 I was gonna ask. That was my next question.
Chris: 14:56 So you have to understand that my mother is a wretch is registered nurse practitioner who works in prenatal care. So for my entire life...
Sarah: 15:10 She was also in delivery.
Chris: 15:11 When she first started her nursing career, she was in labor and delivery. So she basically started, like, when the baby is born and then worked her way back. And for pretty much my entire life, she had been working with pregnant people. And so I had been very exposed to that world from a very, very early age. Maybe too soon. But that's more for my therapist. So when she was like, when Sarah was like, "I want a home birth," my first instinct was, "No, no, no, you have, you have a baby in a hospital like everybody else. That's insane." Because that was the environment and that was the culture that I was very much brought up in. Um and also I think I had an impression of what a home birth was, that I think a lot of people assume what a home birth is without kind of researching it. Everybody, I think, makes a slight assumption on what a home birth is, where you're just surrounded by hippies in a field, dancing around a bonfire, which is not at all what it is. Plus, our insurance doesn't cover the hippies. But once we, once we met—and she said, "Listen, if you're really, really against this, will continue to discuss it. But can we at least meet with..."
Sarah: 16:34 Before that, before that...sorry, I watched The Business of Being Born. So when we talk about I was talking about home birth, I'm talking before Chris and I were even engaged. Like, I let him know pretty early on, like...
Lisa: 16:48 Wow. "This is a prerequisite to marrying me."
Sarah: 16:51 Kind of. I was like, "Hey, do you want kids? Oh, you do? Great." This is, like, our second date. I was like, "I want a home birth. You should get comfortable with this. This is gonna continue."
Lisa: 17:01 There's that directness.
Lisa: 17:03 I was like, "If this isn't gonna work out, if you're not comfortable with the home birth or even, like, just thinking about it...um, you don't want kids, then we should just end this. Second date." But, like, obviously, we got married, engaged and married, and then we were pregnant. And when we got pregnant immediately, I had started, um, or before that, sorry. So, while we were still engaged, I watched The Business of Being Born by Ricki Lake. And it just, like, woke up everything in me that wanted a home birth. And I was like, "Wow, this is possible. Like, this is really possible." And then we got a friend of ours involved in watching this documentary, and that friend actually had a home birth and hired the same midwives, and passed those midwives along to me. And so...
Lisa: 17:54 Is that Nora?
Sarah: 17:56 Yes.
Lisa: 17:56 We're supposed to have another conversation as well.
Sarah: 22:06 That's so funny. I hope she actually tells the story that her and Michael were out on a date when they called us up, and they were like, "Hey, we're by your apartment." And I was like, "Oh, I'm watching this documentary called "The Business of Being Born." And they came over and we talked about it. And then they ended up, like, seeing it, doing a home birth. And then they gave us our midwives. So anyway, when we found out we were pregnant, I was with an OB GYN, and she was awesome. We had had a miscarriage about two months before we got pregnant with Emerson. And so because of that happening, I had to see, you know, an OP and I'm O negative. So I had to have RhoGAM, and I didn't know about that before, and so she really, like, helped us into that. But the thing about her was, you know, I'd always wanted to do this home birth.
Sarah: 22:06 But we were still kind of on the fence about it, because if Chris wasn't comfortable with it, then, you know, it wasn't gonna happen. Like, we both were, we're both part of the birth story. Even though I'm the one that you know, is housing baby, I'm the, you know, I'm the one walking around as incubator, but we both have to be involved, like I need him to be on board. I can't have him worried. We both had be on the same page. So we're walking this fence and we're at this OB, and she was great, but she never answered my questions fully, um, and she would always push some of my things aside. Like, when I first got pregnant. you know, we had just had a miscarriage. We got pregnant, like the month after, like two months after we had a miscarriage. So I had a lot of questions, you know? And, um, in the beginning, um I had some spotting going on and so on. And there was, like, this tiny blood clot, I forget what they call it, that was, like, right next to where Emerson was sitting. And so she was like, “Just so you know, that can cause, you know, other problems. It can cause miscarriage." So we were on very strict, like I couldn't exercise in the beginning because she was like, you know...
Sarah: 22:06 But anyway, she would never fully answer my questions. And when I was, you know, talking to her about what our plans were—because they ask you, you know, like, "What's your birth plan or what are you thinking?" And I was like, "Oh, I just want to let you know, like, we're thinking about doing a home birth." And she immediately, like, stopped us, and was, like, trying to talk us out of it. You know, "Home births are not for first time mothers." And because of that, I had such a—but she was so great in the beginning of us getting pregnant and helping us through that. And the care I received from her was great. But like, like I said, she never really answered, fully answered my questions, or she would push off my questions. Like, "Don't worry about that yet. Don't worry about that yet." And I'm like, "I'm a first time mom. Like, I'm worried about everything. Or trying not to be." But, you know, um and so that's...
Lisa: 22:06 Getting those questions answered would help you not worry, hopefully, right? I would think that was the aim.
Sarah: 22:06 Yeah, plus, I was just like, "OK, so that's weird." So, um, I ended up setting up an appointment with Midwifery Care NYC, right? And I immediately got on the phone with one of the midwives. So the two midwives are Carol and Shar, and Carol talked to me and she was like, "Great, we'll set up a meeting." We ended up meeting with them, I was like, 7 weeks pregnant? Super, super early. I knew early on. Like, "Let's get this ball rolling. Let's figure out what we're gonna do, have a plan." And so I set up that meeting. And I had contacted a couple other midwives. They just hadn't gotten back to me yet. And so they set up a meeting with us. We ended up meeting with them, I think, like, 3, 4 days later, something like that. Um, and we met them at, like, a, what was it?
Chris: 22:07 Le Pain Quotidien.
Sarah: 22:08 Yeah, Le Pain and, um, like, had a great conversation. I had all of these questions. They answered everything, stayed with us until we were comfortable, you know, with the answers. Did I have anything else? If I needed anything else, they gave me a text message, like I could text them and we could text them our answer if we were gonna use them or whatever. And I remember we walked downstairs and sat at a table because we were gonna eat. We had gotten there late, I think. And so...
Chris: 22:37 Sounds right for us. I can't remember, but it sounds probable that we were late.
Sarah: 22:41 Yeah, and then I, like, launched into questions. So I didn't eat and I was just starting to get morning sickness. And so we ended up sitting downstairs eating and right there decided that they were the ones. ,
Chris: 22:55 Yeah, so kind of right back to right where that meeting started. At the time, I had been kind of, you know, on the fence on whether or not I was comfortable with a home birth, because, again, because of my background and everything, Um, and after having the meeting with the midwives and having them answer the questions, I felt much more comfortable. I felt—once I knew that these were obviously people—and again, I went into this with a lot of ignorance—but once I knew that these people were, you know, real professionals and medical professionals, I came to the realization, and this is, I think, the really important part, is that I came to the realization that the reason that I was against the home birth wasn't for any philosophical reason or anything. I was nervous. I was nervous. This is the woman that I love, this is my entire life and my world. And I'd heard from my mother's work, you know, obviously she comes home most days and everything had gone fine. But there are days where she came home and it was a rough one because there was a complication and the baby was lost or the mother was lost or something like that, because that can happen. And so I was nervous. And what I realized is that I was going to be nervous, no matter what. I was going to be nervous whether we were in our home, and I was gonna be nervous even if we were in a hospital. And so at that point, basically what I was thinking about almost becomes null and void because it's the same across the board. And this is something that's very important to her. And I'm gonna feel the same way, no matter what the decision is. So really, it makes no sense to enforce something that I want—because I don't actually really want it—a hospital birth, and take away something that she has always wanted, which was a home birth. When either way, I'm gonna be feeling the exact same way. And so that was one of the, that was kind of the big factor for me. The big realization that I had, is that if this is, you know, there's kind of a rule that we've been given by our pastor of, when it comes to a disagreement in the relationship, it's not just black and white. You have to weigh it out. Is this—whatever you're fighting about—who is it more important to? Is it a 10 for her and five for me? If it's a 10 for her and I'm disagreeing with her at a five, well, then she wins. That's it. Doesn't matter after that. This was like a 100 for her, and this was like a four for me. So she wins.
Lisa: 25:41 And Sarah is falling in love with her husband all over again, I have a feeling, hearing him say all this.
Lisa: 25:49 Yeah. I mean, it was a huge win for me, and our relationship. Like, you know, because I was not...I think I knew in my heart of hearts that if he really was uncomfortable with it, then I was like, "Okay, let's then look at, like, a birthing center, because I did look into that, too. Which I still was, like, kind of not comfortable with, because I was like, "You have to go through triage, and if they tell you that it's not gonna happen, or if there's no room at the birthing center, like, then I'm stuck, you know, with a hospital birth that I don't want." Funny. Funny that I say that now.
Chris: 26:26 That's called foreshadowing.
Lisa: 26:31 Right.
Sarah: 26:33 So we got our home birth. My pregnancy, I felt great the entire time, but we had everything that could potentially—I guess not potentially go wrong, because there's a lot more things that could go wrong. But I had more spotting at 24 weeks and ended up in the hospital in the emergency room.
Chris: 26:54 How many ultrasounds?
Sarah: 26:56 I can't even tell you how many. Emerson was really small. He was on the smaller side, which is really funny, because in my head I was like, "Woo-hoo!" Like, I'm not—you can't see me, but I'm super tiny. Um, and so to me, like all of the babies in my family are huge. I was my mom's smallest at 9.2 and my brother was 11 pounds. So to me, when they're like, "Oh, he's actually measuring at 13th percentile." I was like, "Woo-hoo!"
Chris: 27:26 This kid'll pop right out. It'll be great! Wonderful! He's got room to spare.
Sarah: 27:32 Because of that, we had to, like, then go back four weeks later, and then after that ultrasound, we had to go back. And so that was the 20-week ultrasound, just the gender ultrasound. And then we continued to have to go back and go back and go back and go back. Um, plus, because I had that blood clot in the beginning, we had to go back at 13 weeks to see if it had gone away, and then it hadn't. So then they're like, “So, like, yes, no sex and no exercise, and don't carry anything larger than a gallon of milk." And you're like, "Do you know where we live?"
Lisa: 28:08 Right.
Lisa: 28:11 Yeah. "I can't carry my groceries? No, I can't? Okay." So 20 weeks happened and they're like, "He's small," and then we had a really—we had, like, some really crazy lab tests. Yeah, we won't get into that, but, like, so then we had ultrasound after ultrasound after ultrasound, he was still small, he was still small. He was still growing, but he was still in the same percentile, same percentile, same percentile. And then we hit, like, I don't even know. What were we at, 30 weeks, 35 weeks. 36 weeks? When they finally were like, "Oh, he's 21. You're good. We'll never see you again." And you're like "Oh!" So in the lab tech industry, like, when they tell you to wait, that the doctor is going to come in—they don't always do that. That's only if they have to tell you something. Because once he was—which they told us over and over again, "Oh, no, this is the protocol." But then once he was 21% they were like, "Okay, bye." "Really? Oh. Ok. Awesome." So then, sorry, the birth story.
Chris: 29:22 We were at the water breaking.
Lisa: 29:23 So your water broke and you called your midwives. That's when I interrupted. No, so thank you so much for sharing all of that along the journey. It was helpful to know.
Sarah: 29:34 Sorry the story is so long, and two actors, this is going to take forever.
Lisa: 29:37 The epic story.
Sarah: 29:45 So is there anything else that we ...Oh, I did, like, 27 doula interviews.
Lisa: 29:55 wow.
Sarah: 29:57 So I also was, like, very specific about my team. Because I was like, I need to be, you know, in tune with the person. I need the people who are going to be at our house for our home birth, I need to be, you know, feel comfortable with. So we did like, yeah, well, I did, like, 26 interviews.
Lisa: 30:18 For real? I thought maybe you were just, like, half joking with the number.
Chris: 30:22 No, it was a lot of, you know, it was a lot of interviews. We had a list of questions of like, I think about 20 questions. Yeah, we were pretty thorough on things.
Lisa: 30:35 I do encourage people to interview more than one. Maybe not 20 something. But, I mean, whatever you need to do to feel comfortable with a person.
Sarah: 30:43 Well, and then I kept getting names. So first I used doulamatch, and I used some of the other doula websites that I just found online. And then I got names of people. And then I just kept interviewing, because I was like, "Oh, what if somebody is better than somebody else?" Which is not true, they're all great. But for some reason—and then we did like, did we do second interviews?
Chris: 31:06 We did, that's one of the reasons we did so many interviews.
Sarah: 31:08 So we did a second interview with our top three. And then Chris picked his top, like he put his in order. And then I put mine in order and then we picked whoever was the similar person.
Chris: 31:21 I think we hit pretty quick, actually. I think Maris, our doula, was our top, like, for both of us.
Sarah: 31:27 Our doula Maris James. Amazing. And she came back several days. So another foreshadowing for our story. Um...
Chris: 31:35 So her water broke it 12:45. So we call up our midwife. And basically, she's like, "First of all, are you sure this actually happened?" Sarah's like, "This definitely happened." She goes, "Okay. Well, um, you probably have a little while. So what you want to do now is try your best to get some sleep, because, one, if you sleep a full eight hours, then you're eight hours later into labor. So you've like, slept through part of labor."
Lisa: 32:08 Yeah, ignoring it. Easiest to ignore it if you're sleeping.
Lisa: 32:09 "Yeah, and you're going to wake up, and it's gonna be eight hours later of labor, so you're gonna have kind of breezed through that; and two, you're gonna wake up and you're gonna have a lot of, you know, stamina and energy, because you're about to have a baby. So you're gonna wanna have that." She's like, "I'm not gonna come over or anything like that. We're gonna wait."
Sarah: 32:32 "Go to sleep."
Chris: 32:32 Just go to sleep. So I was like, "What did the midwife say?" She said, "Go to sleep." And I was like, "All right, well, then I'm gonna..." I basically was— we were, at this point, like, playing house, because we were like, "Well, I guess we'll try and go to sleep." So I, like, ate, finished a movie, and then went to sleep. Because I'm a very attentive husband. And so we tried to sleep as best we could,
Sarah: 32:56 I was gonna say, and, like, at that point, I was not expecting to have gone into labor. Like I said, I felt amazing. So, and I was, you know, over 40 weeks pregnant and still up at midnight. Like, uh, yeah.
Lisa: 33:14 Most people are a little more tired at that point in pregnancy.
Sarah: 33:17 Right. Yeah, that's what I mean. So I ended up just, like, trying to go back to sleep. But in your head—and your adrenaline's up, because you're like "Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna see my baby, like soon!" Which is hilarious now, looking back. And so I tried to go to sleep. I didn't sleep very well at all. And I woke up, like, three times that night with huge contractions. But then they would peter out and just be like, little, and I could go back to sleep through them. So then we woke up the next day. We had actually had a midwife appointment scheduled. And so she—our midwife came at 9 a.m. She gave me some homeopathic herbs to, like, take if I felt the need to take them. She totally gave it, you know, put the ball in my court. And I had actually scheduled acupuncture for that day. Just thinking that maybe we would need it.
Lisa: 34:13 You had emailed me the day before, on the 30th, you emailed me asking for acupuncturist recommendations. Do you remember who you worked with?
Sarah: 34:21 I worked with, um...
Chris: 34:24 It's right around the corner from us, too.
Sarah: 34:26 What is it? Oak?
Lisa: 34:29 Oh, yeah. Um, I'll be sure to include them in the show notes. I'm forgetting the name, too. Oak Point?
Sarah: 34:34 Yeah. I'm terrible. But it was the wife, there's a husband and wife team who own it. And so it was the wife who did my acupuncture, and it was great. And I got it done at noon. And then we walked home from the acupuncture place, and as we were walking home, I could feel like contractions starting to, like, get a little stronger. And they were coming a little bit more closer together. But I was like, "OK, I don't know if these are, you know, still Braxton Hicks, or like, what we're working with at this point," because they weren't that strong. I was like, "Whoa," and I remember saying to myself once we got home and I was sitting on the bed and I was gonna try and take a nap, I was like, "I mean, if this is—because obviously my water had broken a while ago—like if this is, you know, the beginning, like these are a breeze! Like, maybe I'm not gonna have a really hard time!"
Sarah: 35:37 And my mom always said, like, they weren't that bad, my mom's contractions. She was like, "Yeah, I mean, I had period cramps were worse." And I had always had really bad cramping when I had periods. So I was like, "Maybe I'm just gonna be able to breeze through these."
Lisa: 35:55 Or maybe our mothers have amnesia, because my mom said the same thing.
Sarah: 35:59 You're probably more right on that.
Lisa: 36:01 I don't know.
Lisa: 36:02 Yeah. Um, so contractions didn't really—kind of, like, went in and out. And I was also, I will say, GBS positive. I had found out I was GBS positive. So you only have a certain time period before you have to start antibiotics. So our midwife knew she had to come back to start antibiotics if my labor, well, even if my labor had started up, but...So she came at, like, six, and did the first round of the antibiotics. At that point, my labor still hadn't really kicked in.
Lisa: 36:33 And how many hours after your water broke is this? To get clarity.
Chris: 36:36 Uh, 12 plus six is what, like about 18?
Sarah: 36:44 And I had already taken, I had decided at 6:30 to take castor oil, because we needed stuff to start kicking in, and so I wasn't—I was like, "Okay, let's go ahead and do that." So—which is funny, because we used Norah's castor oil.
Lisa: 37:04 It's nice to have things be passed on to you, right?
Sarah: 37:07 Well, we had to go get it that day, because, like I said, I was expecting to have another week to prep. So I didn't have anything prepared. The emergency bag for the hospital, not packed. Shower curtain or cover on our bed so that—not on our bed. Nothing was done. We didn't have food prepped in the house, because I was like, "I've got another week." No, like, things that would, like, you know, games or anything to like, help pass the time, because I had another week.
Chris: 37:39 We were going to sit there and play Parcheesi while we wait for the baby.
Sarah: 37:46 Crossword puzzles. Anyway, um, so...take castor oil. At 8 p.m. my contractions started to kick in, and they were pretty strong, So I decided to try and labor in the shower because I was like, "Well, they just kicked in. And so, like, I'm just gonna let the hot water, like, hit my back. I'm gonna take a shower and just kind of relax." And at that point, like I think it was, like, 8:30, I had to get on my hands and knees because they were really—they had, like, became really, really strong. And so I was, like, on my hands and knees. I had decided—I really wanted a water birth. But I decided, like, I was just gonna use the bathtub instead. And so I had a yoga mat on the floor so that my knees didn't hurt. I would not suggest...If you want a water birth, I would suggest, like, getting the pool and doing the whole thing. So I was on my hands and knees on my yoga mat, like, doing some breathing exercises. And that's when Chris was like, "OK, we've gotta call...like, this is, yeah, this is—like, my contractions were like, on top of each other, just on top of each other, coming and coming and coming and coming and coming. And so we called. At that point, we called the midwives and our doula. Actually, we had contacted her once my water broke, but like she knew the whole deal, so she was like, "Okay, well, let me know when you actually need, you know, when you really need me, or when you feel like you need me, I'll come. Even if you're not even that far, I'll be there." And so...
Chris: 39:26 Yeah, when her contractions kicked in, like, really kicked in around 8:30, it felt like—I mean, this is from my perspective, it seemed like just there was kind of, it was okay, and then all of a sudden, it really kicked it. And, um...
Lisa: 39:44 Did it seem to be the castor oil?
Sarah: 39:46 Maybe. I mean, it was—we had taken the castor oil at, like, six. And by, I mean, I guess 8:30...so, maybe the castor oil? Maybe it worked.
Lisa: 39:58 Hard to know. I wasn't sure how, like the proximity, if it seemed like that really was suddenly what did it.
Sarah: 40:06 We're gonna guess that it was. But we had done, like, a ton of stuff. I'd, like, taken homeopathic stuff. I was like bouncing on a ball, like whatever. Everything trying to get a baby out of that.
Lisa: 40:19 Sorry, Chris. I think I think I interrupted. You were in the middle of something.
Chris: 40:22 No, you're fine. No, I was just saying at 8:30 when Sarah said that her contractions really started to kick in, from my perspective, it felt like it went from 0 to 100. Like it, it felt like she was doing fine, and we were talking and everything, and 8:30 hit, and that first contraction really kicked in. And from there, like, my wife disappeared, and was replaced by—and I don't mean this in a mean way, but, like—just basically an instinctual animal...
Lisa: 40:53 Primal.
Chris: 40:54 Yeah, very primal. And so we labored for a few hours. We labored until about, like, I want to say, like, 11, 11:30 on our own. And by about 11 or 11:30 we had been in the shower. We'd been out of the shower. We'd been in the shower. We had done all these different things. I, you know, obviously, like, taking your course and talking with our doula, like, I'd been shown a couple of different things to help out, everything like that. But by about 11, 11:30, in my mind, I remember going, "I'm out of tricks. I'm just—I have no idea what to do, I am way out of my league on this, and nothing is helping my wife. We need to call people now. Like, this is now when we call our team."
Sarah: 41:39 "This is it." Like, and my contractions were on top of each other near. I never had, like, a really strong one and then I had a couple of minutes. My contractions were super, just, very intense and just crazy. I want to say irregular, but I don't really know what regular feels like, but just not textbook. So anyway, I would go, like, two contractions right on top of each other, and then I would go, like, two minutes, and then I would have another one. And then, like, I'd maybe have, like, a minute. And then there'd be another one. And like it just
Chris: 42:21 There wasn't a pattern.
Sarah: 42:22 There was not a pattern. There was not a time limit, like... we stopped tracking them, obviously, like by eight o'clock, we'd stopped. Like, during the day I had tracked them, and it would be like, dun dun dun dun, and then they'd be, like, five minutes apart, five minutes apart, five minutes apart, 30 minutes apart, 45 minutes apart. Then once they hit, it just was like, they hit. So then we labored through the night.
Chris: 42:48 So after I called, maybe about an hour or so later, pretty much our team had shown up, the midwife and the doula. And we labored basically through the entire night. So we've now at least passed 24 hours and going into, like, a day and a half at this point, because we labored through the night without really any sleep. At some point, somebody made me sleep. I don't remember who, I don't remember how long, but it wasn't very long. But labored through the night into the day. Shar would have checked you that morning.
Sarah: 43:20 Yeah, well, they were trying not to check me as much as possible because of the GBS positive. So they were trying not to, like affect. And they were, they were going basically, on my contractions. Super consistent, and super on top of each other. So they were like, "Yeah, Sarah, you've got to be really close."
Chris: 43:37 By all signs everything was gonna happen pretty quickly. "When it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen real fast."
Sarah: 43:43 So that morning, that early morning, it was like nine or 10 o'clock in the morning, I just remember I would have a contraction and fall asleep, and then wake up and have another contraction and fall asleep, and wake up and have another contraction. And like, I thought I was sleeping for, like, longer periods than like, a minute. So I would fall asleep for, like, a minute, and then have another contraction. And I just remember waking up and, like, our midwife was sitting on the floor on her computer, and, like, I would have a contraction and she would help me through, because I assume Chris was sleeping, and...
Chris: 44:18 Actually, if you're thinking of that, what happened was–I remember this–both of us were lying on our bed–and her contractions at that point were, like, about a minute apart from each other. And so our midwife would be on the floor next to our bed. And she and I would fall asleep for about a minute. She'd wake up. We would both wake up together during the contraction and then lie back down, and go to sleep
Lisa: You had to.
Chris: We were like one organism. We were, like, completely sympatico.
Sarah: 44:57 I had a lot of back labor. So that was–I just needed my hips to be, like, squeezed. And also, because my water had broken, every time I had a contraction fluid would come out. Which–they never tell you that part. I never had ever heard of that, but, like, it always makes me laugh now when I see a movie where somebody's water breaks and then they're wearing pants to, like, go to the hospital. You can't wear pants.
Lisa: It's something I've started mentioning a lot more recently in recent classes, because people are mentioning it so much when they're sharing their birth stories about how surprised they are at the trickling throughout labor.
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, I was sitting on my birthing ball with a towel on it and, like, laying on my bed and then they would, like, go into, you know, it was whatever. And we were trying every single position to try and, like, help with like, you know, stamina, and help with, like, the pressure. And so by four o'clock the next, so yeah,
Chris: 46:02 Four o'clock, November 1st...
Sarah: 46:04 November 1st, um, our midwife checked me and I was one centimeter dilated.
Lisa: Oh, my gosh. You've got to be kidding.
Chris: That's funny, that's exactly what we said.
Sarah: And at that point, I was exhausted, and I was just like, "I just want to know, like, I have to be close, right? I'm have a contraction every minute. Like, I'm not, you know, and they're, you know, pretty intense. So, like, we have to be close, right?" And so my doula was like, "You should, you should ask. You should ask the tech because that's what you need right now. That's what you need for yourself." So at that point I got checked. One centimeter dilated. And our midwife said, "I think it's time to transfer."
Lisa: This is after, what, almost 48 hours? How long? I've lost track of it
Chris: 46:58 Yeah, we'll do it, too. It's a day, it's...
Sarah: 47:04 From my water breaking?
Lisa: Almost two days?
Sarah: 47:11 This is November 2nd.
Lisa: That's what I thought. Yeah. Two days later.
Sarah: Yeah.
Lisa: Almost 48 hours?
Chris: 47:19 We're closer to 48 hours than we are to 24, let's put it that way.
Sarah: 47:23 Close to 48. And she said we had time. We didn't have to make the call yet. But she was like, "I think that we need a little more help. And I said, "OK, like. All right." So she was like, "Obviously, take your time." And at that point for some–by the grace of God, my contractions had started to slow down. And so I was able to pack, take a shower. She was like, "Take a shower, eat something. Pack. We don't have to go right now, but I think it's probably a good idea to transfer." And at that point, I was like, "OK," like, I knew that this was a possibility, and I had set myself up for, like, "This is what I want." But in my eyes there is a higher power working. And also, this story doesn't really belong to me. Like, this is Emerson's birth story, and I have all the plans I want, but, like, he is going to come into this world the way he wants. Or that's my thought process on it.
Sarah: So I was like, "Cool, we're transferring. Great. Let's get our things." And since I hadn't packed the bag, I like threw stuff–like, I'd been laboring for days and I'm just like throwing stuff in. I hadn't even made a list of things I wanted, so anybody out there who's doing a home birth, just have a list. Like, the emergency transfer list, which has got to be small, or have the emergency transfer bag, and then have the list of what you need in a non-emergency transfer. Because that's not–I never thought of that. I did grab my pillow, but I would have taken towels. I would have taken my birth ball. I just, for some reason, assumed that they would have one where we were going and then they didn't.
Lisa: That's a really good tip.
Sarah: So we threw stuff in. I threw stuff in for Emerson that never would have fit him. Like, I don't know, I was, like, apparently, I was packing for a three month old.
Lisa: Because big babies run in your family, right?
Sarah: Right, right. So, that's a whole other story, because Chris ended up having to go home and get like, a random outfit so that, he could go home in...you know, anyway, so we ended up transferring.
Lisa: Can I pause right there for just one second and just ask you a question? When you were interviewing home birth midwives, or when you interviewed Carol and Shar, do you remember, did you ask, "What is your transfer rate?" or "How frequently do you have to transfer? " Do you happen to remember that?
Chris: 50:04 We did ask about transferring. I think we did ask something around, like, "How often have you transferred?" or–we definitely asked about, you know, their policy. What do they do when they have to transfer–things like that.
Lisa: And "Which hospital is it?" You knew the hospital?
Sarah: Yeah we knew the hospital for the emergency transfer would be Elmhurst because it was closest.
Lisa: Elmhurst. Okay.
Sarah: And we knew that the hospital in case of a non-emergency, we had decided on Woodhull, because it's run by midwives. And they're pretty home birth transfer-friendly. And so we felt comfortable with that. I don't think I asked the rate of transfer for them.
Lisa: I was just wondering if Chris would have wanted to ask that.
Chris: 50:51 I don't remember asking the rate of transfer. I know we'd asked, "Have you ever had to transfer?" And then we kind of got more into what they do, which was more my concern. I wasn't–I mean, also, I was, again, woefully inept as far as knowing what happens during a home birth. So, and, you know, you don't always know the questions to ask. So I didn't ask the rate of transfer. I know they offered it. I don't remember what it is now, but I know in that line of questioning, they ended up offering it.
Sarah: 51:24 I think we were just–like, I'm just such, like, a kind of crunchy person that I was like, "Oh, I feel comfortable with them. So I don't care about anything else."
Lisa: Yeah, sure, sure.
Sarah: You know, my body was going to do what my body's going to do, and the baby's going to do what the baby's going to do. And so, like, if we were going to transfer, it was just gonna be, like, whatever happened, happened. Like, we did everything we could. We were at this point transferring. And I was like, "Okay, moving on. Transfer. All right."
Lisa: Before you move on, I just want to mention for listeners that usually when home births do need to transfer to a hospital, that it's almost never an emergency. It's much more commonly that this birth, this labor has gone on for days, and that she needs some sleep, and she needs to get an epidural, or she's not going to have energy to push this baby out. I just always like to point that out, because I think that's a lesser known fact. Everybody has this vision of like, "Oh, no, the transfer! It's, like, life or death." And it's like, "How fast can you get there? And is it fast enough?" And that's almost never the case. And that was one thing that really reassured me when I chose to have a home birth with my second baby after having a hospital birth with my first. So anyway, so proceed. You were transferring to a hospital, so it must have been Woodhull, since it was not an emergency.
Sarah: So we were transferring to Woodhull. She had already sent my records to them. She had them on her computer and she had sent them, so, like, they had, they already knew we were coming. She had called ahead, so they were completely prepared when we walked in. So the car ride over, I somehow willed my contractions–I only had, like, three contractions, and they weren't that bad in the car, because I was like, "Ugh!" That's like, after going days of just on top of each other, contraction, contraction, contraction, I was like, "Now I'm gonna get in a car that's gonna bump around and I'm gonna be, 'Ugh!'" So I was like, "OK, like, whatever. This is our life. And I finally put on some pants. And brought some towels [for] underneath me, or something, because I was like, "Great." So I only had, like, three contractions in the car.
Sarah: We got there pretty quickly, sat down before triage, and as I'm sitting there, all of a sudden my contractions started up again, and they just continued. They checked me. At Woodhull everything's private from triage through. Super-duper nice because, like...
Lisa: And unusual in New York City.
Sarah: Right. And at Elmhurst, I had been in triage Labor and Delivery because of the spotting at 24 weeks. So I was like, "Wow, I have my own room! Like, nobody's here. I'm all by myself." And so we like, got through triage. They put me in a room, and at that point my midwife was still with me, and our doula had gone home, had finally gone home for her family, but she said to us, "Hey, when you need me, I will show up. So please don't think that this isn't part of it because we're transferring. Call me if you need me." We got into our room in Labor and Delivery and they–so my contractions started up again. But at that point they became in and they were like, "So, what we're thinking to do is Cervidil, which is exactly what I wanted. I, like, I had known going in that that was what I wanted to do first, was Cervidil.
Lisa: And your rationale was...
Sarah: For that, um, I felt like my, um, my cervix needed to be softened.
Lisa: And it's a synthetic prostaglandin, for those who don't know what Cervidil is.
Sarah: Right. I knew it was the better option. I forget the other option because I had, like, left it. I was like, "No, I want this. I want Cervidil if it's offered." And it was. They were like, we have Cervidil," and I was like, "Great! Like, awesome!" They were like, "Fantastic." So they did Cervidil. I'm also allergic to latex, or I have some sort of–it's not like anaphylactic allergy, but I, like, itch, and so we knew that we could–probably couldn't do the Foley balloon. That was another option that I was even considering. I was like, "Maybe...I know I'm allergic to latex. Like, let's just cut the band off that says I'm allergic to latex and we'll just try it." "No, that's not how it works, Sarah."
Lisa: We'll pretend it's not latex.
Sarah: "We're just gonna try it, because I feel like it's gonna help."
Chris: 56:10 "I can think my way through an allergy. I could do that."
Sarah: 56:14 "I have so many. Like, we'll just pass it along." So, they did Cervidil. And they're like, "OK, so we're gonna wait 12 hours." So that's when they're like, "We're just gonna put it in and you're gonna go to sleep." Which is hilarious, with the beeping and the noises, the lights from the monitors and his heartbeat. Now I have a heart monitor on, also.
Chris: But they did give you a narcotic, or something.
Sarah: They also said, "So, you need to sleep." And at that point, my contractions had all kicked in again, and they were really very intense, where I was on the side of the bed trying to manage through them, and so they were like, "We need you to sleep. We don't think an epidural is a good idea for you at this point because of how far you still have left to go," and the fact that they said an epidural can only be given for so long. Based on where I was at, they were like, "Giving it too soon could be problematic." So I was like that. I didn't want an epidural anyway. But I knew I needed to sleep. But I was like, you know, like, I'm the warrior birthing mama that thinks, like, "I've been through a couple of days of this, I can get through another." And Chris was like, "No, you need to sleep." And our midwife was like, "Nope. You need to sleep. Like, Sarah. I need I need you to sleep, because you need to get through this. And Emerson needs you to sleep, too."
Chris: 57:38 Also, when I suggested–full disclosure–in my mind, even though I said, "You need to sleep," what I was thinking was "I can't get sleep unless you sleep so please..."
Sarah: 57:52 At that point they gave us a narcotic. I don't know. I don't remember.
Lisa: Yeah, there's several different ones used locally.
Sarah: And they were like, "It should give you a good six hours of sleep."
Lisa: Do you remember if it was through an IV or a shot?
Sarah: It was through–so, because I was GBS positive, I had to immediately start antibiotics because I was in a hospital. So you're just on an antibiotic drip. So it was through an IV. They just, like, shot it through. And I fell asleep for three hours. Woke up to a huge contraction. And all I remember Is Chris like running, running out the door. Light coming in. And then he was, like, yelling...
Chris: 58:44 "This is not working. That thing ? Not working." They were like, "Oh, no, it'll be fine." I was like, "It's 100% not okay right now. Get in here."
Sarah: 58:55 Yeah, "She needs something else."
Chris: 58:57 "Fix it. Just fix it."
Sarah: 58:59 I don't even know what time it was at that point. 3 a.m.? And so they ended up giving me something else. And it gave me another hour and a half of sleep. And I just remember waking up from that to another huge contraction. I'm thinking to myself, "I have to pee," and I remember them telling me, "Sarah, on these drugs, like, you can't get out of bed." We're gonna have to give you a bed pan. And in my head I said "Cool," but I got out of bed. So I took everything off. And I went to the restroom. I was like, "I am fully okay. I'm a little groggy, but I'm not gonna fall over and I need to pee. And I'm not gonna sit on a pan. I'm not." And I just, like, grabbed my, like, wire that I had, I, like, took my IV thing off and I just, like, went to the bathroom. Like seven people like ran in like, "Oh, my gosh! What's going on?" because all the monitors were off at this point because I, like, pulled everything off. I had a nurse banging on the door who was like, "Are you OK? What are you doing? You're not supposed to be up!" I was like, "I feel fine."
Lisa: They are so scared for your safety. Because some people, you know, might not get around very well under those drugs, but you know. You knew yourself.
Sarah: Yeah. I knew I was gonna be okay. And I knew for damn sure I was never sitting on a bed pan. So then...
Chris: 1:0:22 Only my wife during childbirth can still try and remain a proper lady.
Sarah: 1:0:27 I was, like, having contractions on the toilet. I was like, "This is fine, I got this." So then the next day–we finally just got up at that point, because there was no way we were going back to sleep. And there was no way I was getting anymore of anything. So we just, like, started in again.
Chris: 1:0:48 So now we're in day three. This is also when the Cervidil fell out.
Sarah: 1:0:54 So at 6 a.m. the Cervidil fell out. Sorry, it was 7 a.m. because I had, like, gone in again to go to the bathroom. Cervidil fell out.
Lisa: So it was administered vaginally. I forgot to clarify that. Sometimes they do oral, but most of the time it's vaginal.
Sarah: I think they actually asked me what I wanted. And I was just like, it made more sense to me for it to be vaginally, because it was like, that's where it needs...
Chris: 1:1:20 Closer to the source.
Sarah: 1:1:20 Yeah.
Lisa: Sometimes they make you stay in the bed with vaginally, so I've started recommending, you know, if you have an option, you might want to try orally. Because if you're at a hospital where they otherwise will make you stay in the bed, for just that reason...
Sarah: I don't know if–nobody ever told us–except, you'll find out later. I ended up having to stay in the bed. But, um, so, um yeah, nobody...I was pretty insistent that–there were like, these leg things they wanted me to wear for circulation. And I was like, "Absolutely not. I'm not wearing that."
Chris: 1:1:53 Actually our midwife took them off as soon as we walked in.
Sarah: 1:1:58 Because I was like, "I can't labor like this."
Chris: 1:1:59 They put them on and then they all–and then all the nurses, everybody left. And the midwife looked at these things, and she's like, "Get these damn things off."
Sarah: 1:2:07 No, no, no. Because I said, "I can't labor like this."
Chris: She's like, "You don't like them? You don't need them." Just rips them off.
Sarah: I don't have an epidural, I can get out of this bed, I'm not gonna labor sitting down. Like, that does not work for me. I'm getting up. So these have to go. Like, I'm not wearing them.
Chris: 1:2:22 So yeah, so she'd gone to pee, and she came out, and I remember you turned to me, and you're like, "The Cervidil fell out." She was, like, really worried, and I was like, "That's not...that's not good, right?" And she's like, "I don't think that is good."
Lisa: It is good.
Chris: So they come in, and she was like, "The Cervidil just fell out," and they're like, "Oh, great! That's awesome!"
Sarah: "Go take a shower!"
Chris: 1:2:45 And I was like, I remember in my head going, "That's not the thing that we want to fall out of there, that's not..."
Lisa: 1:2:50 "We want the son!"
Chris: 1:2:55 "We're getting ahead of ourselves on this," but they're really like "That's really good." And then you showered, I think...
Sarah: 1:3:02 Yeah, then I showered. I started laboring in the shower, because I was like, I asked, and they were like, "Yeah, if you feel you can shower, go ahead." So, I, like, hooked on my little bag on the side, of my, like, antibiotic drip, and I just, like, I labored in the shower for a while until I felt like it wasn't really doing anything and I needed more help. Which now, looking back, maybe I could have just had everybody come into the shower and kind of labored in there, but like in my non-sleep...
Chris: 1:3:29 It's not a clear logic. We labored for a while.
Sarah: 1:3:35 Yeah, we labored until, like, three that day, and finally we called our doula again. And had her come.
Chris: 1:3:42 So we had labored–after she got out of the shower, we labored pretty much like we had done at home, in the hospital room. And it was a thing where I remember we would labor for a while. We'd be doing a certain thing for, you know, sometimes 15 minutes, maybe an hour. It's just dependent on how it worked. And I'd be constantly communicating with her. Like, "What do you need? Is this working" And it would get to point where I remember we'd be doing something and it would work really well. And then over time it would stop. It would lose its effect. And just when we got to the point of like, "I'm gonna call the doula now, we'd try, I'd go, "Let's try one more thing," or she would say, "Let's try this." And we'd switch something up and we hit like a second wind or 3rd wind or 4th wind. Yeah, and then she would be like, "No, this feels really good." So we kept doing that.
Sarah: 1:4:34 Because it would get to a point where I was like, "Man, I just don't know. I just don't know if I can do this anymore," and then I'd be like, "Nope, I can do this. I'm gonna get through it. Like, we're gonna like..."
Lisa: Mental fortitude.
Chris: 1:4:46 Again, just like the first night or the second night–I can't keep track anymore. But at this point, it kinda came the same way it did when we were at home, where I went, "I'm completely out of tricks again, and I need help." So I called our doula and she came. She showed up and she was with us for a good portion of the evening.
Sarah: 1:5:12 It was, like, four. She was like, she was really close, since she lives in Brooklyn. So she was, like, there from, like, 4:30 till...
Chris: Later.
Sarah: No, no. I think was earlier, actually, because it was five o'clock when we decided that it was time for the ep....5:30?
Chris: 1:5:31 She stayed through all of it.
Sarah: 1:5:32 Yeah, but she was earlier than that because she stayed...
Chris: 1:5:36 Talk amongst yourselves, while we figure out...
Sarah: Sorry.
Lisa: You're fine.
Sarah: 1:5:40 She showed up. She was with us for a few hours. And then at that point, she, like, it was getting close to evening, and some of the nurses came in. Oh, the nurse came in to check me, because they were gonna be doing the crossover. So there was a new team coming in. And she was like, "Well, let me check you before..."
Chris: 1:5:58 Before the new team comes on.
Sarah: 1:6:01 And I think... I want to say that was the first time they checked me since the Cervidil.
Chris: 1:6:10 Oh, yes.
Sarah: 1:6:11 Like, nobody was, like, really in there.
Chris: 1:6:13 We didn't tell how–what they said with the Cervidil, when they checked you with the Cervidil...
Sarah: 1:6:18 I don't even...
Chris: 1:6:19 Wasn't that the one where she was like,
Sarah: 1:6:21 Oh, yeah, she's like, "You're at two, but I can stretch you to three."
Chris: 1:6:28 So when the Cervidil fell out in the morning, she said "Two, but I can stretch you to three."
Sarah: 1:6:32 But at that point, I was 88% effaced. So, that part was always good. It was like, "Now you're 100% effaced, but you're only four centimeters dilated." So then...
Lisa: I just wanted to ask, did anybody ever pay attention to, or try to figure out, what nuanced position he was in? Because some of the things I'm hearing and some of the things I read when you shared your birth story with me in writing, I kept wondering, I'm like, "He sounds like he was in posterior position, maybe. But I just wanted to ask you that.
Sarah: I don't even know if they...
Chris: 1:7:14 They didn't say. I don't remember them saying anything about his position.
Sarah: 1:7:18 No, no. Nobody ever checked his position. For sure. Nobody ever did. And I don't...I mean, the only thing I can think is my contractions were just insane, um, they were constantly on top of each other. And once they hooked me up to the monitor, I would have, like, three in a row that would just wave on top of each other. They would get, and I could feel them coming down, and then all of a sudden they would surge back up, and then I could feel it coming down. And then it would surge backup. It looked like a mountain where it just would go "bloop, bloop, bloop." And I could...and I started watching it, because I was like, "Well, like, this is what I'm feeling. But, like, what does it look like?" Um, and so that's what it looked like to me, is I just would have these, like, I would feel, like, the relief of going, "It's coming down from that contraction," I was like, "Ok, I have got a chance to breathe." And then I could feel the surge and I would look and it would just be going back up. Um, and so at that point, so we're at close to five o'clock, and I don't even know day it was.
Chris: We're on the 3rd.
Sarah: We're on the 3rd. So, about five o'clock on November 3rd and a new midwife comes in to check. So that midwife, um, said she could start, she goes in, she's like, "You're three centimeters dilated. now" And I'm like, "Woo-hoo! Three! Like, that's better than what I was a couple hours ago. So we're good, like still progressing."
Lisa: I love how optimistic you are. Three days later.
Sarah: Yeah, birthing warrior. My mental state was I was going to be a birthing warrior and I believed that I could get through anything. I believed my body knew what it was doing and I could get through anything. So that was my mind set. When I would start to falter, I would be like, "I am a birthing warrior. I'm gonna do this. I am getting this baby out. He is coming out!" And I kept thinking to myself, like, "I want to see my baby. I want to see my baby." And every team that would—because we had seen so many teams pass through at that point, like...and they would say, "Oh, Sarah, you're gonna have—I'm gonna come back tomorrow and...
Chris: "The next time you see me, you're baby's gonna be out."
Sarah: "You're gonna have your baby."
Chris: And the first time, that's encouraging. And the third time, I'm gonna kill someone.
Lisa: 1:9:38 "You're lying to me!"
Sarah: Yeah, so I was like, "Please don't talk to me about seeing my baby, like, let's just–what's our next method? Where are we at?" Like, that and that's what I kept asking, just, like, "Okay, what's our next move?"
Chris: 1:9:54 So at five o'clock they checked her and they were like, "You're about three centimeters." And that was–I think this is when they encouraged...
Sarah: 1:10:04 Yes, this is when the team was like, "Sarah, you need to sleep. And maybe if you get an epidural, your body will relax, because you've been through a lot for a couple of days, and we need your body to relax at this point. Also, I will tell you, they tried doing Pitocin at one point, but Pitocin slowed my contractions down.
Lisa: Yeah, that was bizarre.
Chris: Yeah.
Sarah: It slowed my contractions down. And when they would take me off of Pitocin, my contractions would go crazy.
Lisa: What was that? Your body is like, "No, don't suppress my natural oxytocin. I don't like that." I guess? I don't know
Chris: 1:10:47 It was like she had had a build up from being on Pitocin and then had to get it out.
Sarah: 1:10:51 Yeah, so they stopped with Pitocin altogether because they were like, "This isn't working for you at all." And they did tell me when I first came into the hospital, they were like, "There's not a ton that we can do for you. Because at this point, most women don't have contractions like yours. And yours are off the charts. So, we don't...we're going to try everything we can to let you just naturally do this , and we're going to try and help you and see what we can do." But I think that's why they started trying Pitocin, because they're like, "Maybe it will level out your contractions," but it just slowed mine down. So then they were like, "Let's give you an epidural and give you one good night of sleep."
Chris: 1:11:33 Because at this point, we had done Cervidil. We'd done Pitocin, like, we'd tried everything.
Sarah: 1:11:37 Yeah, they're like, "You have contractions. They're great, but they're just not working for you. So let's do an epidural."
Chris: 1:11:44 "Let's do an epidural and maybe it'll relax itself into just kind of letting this kid come out. "
Sarah: 1:11:47 So I was like, "Great, sure, let's do this."
Chris: 1:11:51 And then they said, "If you want to do this, we need to do this right now because the shift change is coming, and there are two of them, and the good one is on right now and is about to leave. So if you want this, let's do it right now." So we were like, "Let's do it."
Lisa: 1:12:10 Good, good.
Sarah: So, which, I was, like, at this point, I had labored for days without it. So I was like, "Okay, let's try something. Like, I'm willing to try whatever. Like, you tell me what to do, and I'll do it. Because I just want to see my child at this point." And none of us are in distress, like, yet, miraculously. So the guy comes in. It's like the quickest thing that's ever happened to me. Like, I think I'm–he did it in between contractions, which at that point was like, they were ridiculous.
Lisa: Chris, were you there for this or not?
Chris: 1:12:49 No, they made me leave.
Lisa: They asked you to leave.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Sarah: 1:12:50 So they do it. Feels great. And...
Chris: 1:12:58 Yeah, by the way, I will note: so I had mentioned how, like, I felt like my wife disappeared when her contractions... This was the first–it was like, it's like when they describe the eye of a hurricane, that it's an intense storm, and then the eye hits and there's this beautiful calm to it. I remember, um, leaving the room and, uh, for the epidural. And when I came back, my wife was there. It was so beautiful. I was so happy. I was like, "How are you doing?"
Lisa: "I missed you!"
Chris: We had a conversation and it felt so good. And it was like, "OK, maybe this is gonna be OK." You tell...
Sarah: 1:13:43 And then all of a sudden, about an hour in, I was like, "Huh. I'm starting to feel, like, little contractions." And then by 15 minutes after that hour, and hour and fifteen, I had full on contractions back that we're just epic. And what they had done, which I didn't know then, but I found out later, is that once they put me on, once they did the epidural, they pushed Pitocin and they would take it off and push it and take it off to try and, like, get my body to go through the biggest parts of the contractions to see if that would, my relaxed body would like, you know, my cervix would open and everything would happen rapidly. But so now the shift change has happened. We have completely new nurses, and the woman comes, the one nurse comes in to check me, and she's like, "You're at one centimeter dilated. I don't know who told you three."
Lisa: “Thank you for that. Thanks so much.”
Sarah: So I was like, "Excuse me?" And she was, like, "Yeah, you're at one centimeter. Like, you've got a long way to go." "Cool. Thanks." So I was like, "Awesome!"
Lisa: "Can I get another nurse, please?"
Sarah: I want to say, like, that team of nurses, they were just very blunt and straightforward. They were super lovely by the end of the next day. But that's where we were at. I was like, "You are new. I've never seen you. That's crazy since I've been here forever."
Lisa: 1:15:20 So that's where we'll stop today and you'll get to hear the rest of this epic story next week. Just one thing I wanted to comment on before we wrap things up today. You might think that cervical dilation is measured with a very scientifically exact measuring tool. But nope, the way they measure is simply with two fingers. So it's far from an exact science, and I would encourage you to take it with a big grain of salt if you're hearing the numbers. Did you hear how discouraging it was for Sarah to be told her dilation went backwards? This could just be a difference between the way one person's fingers measured versus another. So another thing to take with a grain of salt is what you saw here, where there's a shift change, and now someone new is doing the exam. It's very common for our cervix to not dilate on a clock like the hospital staff often expects it to, and yet it can really play mind games with us if we're told we're five centimeters at, say, noon, and then you're told you're still five centimeters at 4 p.m. Meanwhile, those four hours might have been the most intense and maybe painful four hours of your life, and hearing that can make you feel done. And yet you can't be done, because you haven't met your baby yet. It doesn't mean progress didn't happen in other ways, because there's a lot more to progress and giving birth than cervical dilation alone. Given these factors, I would recommend considering asking your doctor, nurse, or midwife who are working with you as part of your birth plan to please not tell you the number whenever they do internal exams. Instead, you may prefer to ask them to give you insights on how to proceed strategically to promote progress. For example, if they're not seeing much progress, they could encourage you to get out of the bed and move around, which can speed things up.
Lisa: Okay, here's a sneak peek of next week's second half of Emerson's birth story.
Sarah: 1:17:09 It was like 10, 10:31 AM, and our, you know, son came into the world. Louder than anybody.
Chris: 1:17:18 And he cried and the whole room just stops. Like it just stops on a dime. And he's crying. And we started just going, "Hey, Buddy! You're OK."
Sarah: “You did such a good job. It's your birthday today.” Like, “Good job. Buddy, you did so good!” And he stopped crying.
Lisa: 1:17:37 Thanks so much for listening to the Birth matters Podcast. We'll see you next week. And please remember this. You can do hard things. Be well. ---END---
