This is part 2 of a 2-part 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. 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 & Chris share strategies for averting feelings of trauma and for, instead, still feeling good about the birth.
Episode Topics:
Nurse on new shift comes in and tells her she’s 1cm after being told hours before she was 3
Sarah asks anesthesiologist to redo epidural and they face pushback
Epidural takes fairly well, doula gets a sandwich for partner
Sarah drinking lots of coconut water
Baby’s heart beat causes concern, so they move to internal monitoring
“Donald Sutherland”-type OB comes in and tells them 2 options -- laboring longer or moving to a cesarean
Internal exam discovers Sarah’s cervix is 5cm dilated; they consult with their midwife by phone, discuss as a couple and decide to wait a few hours
Laboring in the bed in lots of positions, including standing in the bed and knee-chest position
Seeing meconium in a gush of amniotic fluid is the turning point for Sarah to decide that she thinks moving to a cesarean is the thing to do
The numbing medication doesn’t work fully, anesthesiologist adjusts and augments with morphine
Baby cries immediately, and when Sarah & Chris speak to him, he goes quiet
Holding Emerson in recovery, who grabs her heart monitor wires and won’t let go
Initial breastfeeding
Talking about not being sad about the way things went, staying positive
Other reflections from both of them on how everything went
Wisdom on being more focused on the baby than the birth plan in order to avoid trauma
Recommendation to assemble a great birth team and hire a doula
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: You're listening to the Birth Matters Podcast, Episode 38.
Sarah: It was like 10:31 AM and our, you know, son came into the world. Louder than anybody.
Chris: Yeah, he came out. 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. Good job"
Sarah: "It's your birthday today." Like, "Good job, Buddy. You did so good." And he stopped crying.
Lisa: 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. If you enjoy this show, we'd be incredibly grateful if you'd share it with a friend.
Lisa: You can follow and share our posts on social media @BirthMattersNYC, or simply tell them to search for Birth Matters wherever they listen to podcasts. Hey there, friends. If you're listening around the time this goes live, I hope you're continuing to hang in there and staying safe and healthy at home in these challenging times. I just wanted to remind you that throughout this pandemic, Birth Matters has created a COVID-19 resources page on our website for expectant parents. Read about the latest research as it relates to pregnant people and babies, tips for giving birth in this time, stress management strategies and other resources over at our website at birthmattersnyc.com/COVID-19.
Lisa: 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. 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.
Lisa: 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.
Lisa: Again, you can register for any of these class formats over at BirthMattersNYC.com. This is the last week in our series of Cesarean birth stories in observation of Cesarean Awareness Month. Be sure to follow us over on Instagram or Facebook, both @BirthMattersNYC for some educational content on this topic. Today's episode is part two of an epic birth warrior story that goes in all kinds of unexpected directions. So if you didn't hear part one, be sure to back up and give part one a listen before listening to this one.
Lisa: Now let's jump back in.
Sarah: 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, I was like, "Excuse me?" And she's like, "Yeah, you're at one centimeter. Like, you've got a long way to go." "Cool, thanks." So I was like, "Awesome." So...
Lisa: "Can I get another nurse, please?"
Sarah: And I will 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." And that's crazy, since I've been here forever. So then all of a sudden my contractions are back and I'm like, "Okay." So I called the nurses and I'm like, I have, they are completely back and I'm going through the hardest contractions at this point. And so I'm not talking through them, and I have small snippets of time to talk to them.
Sarah: And at that point they're like, "Okay, well we can call the um, the anesthesiologist. We are going to tell you he's going to give you two options. One, to redo it completely, which he is not going to want to do, or two, he's going to just push more anesthesia."
Chris: He wants to do a "top off"
Sarah: They call it a "top off." And in my head, I went, "That makes no sense if it's not working to push more. That doesn't make sense." Yeah. So this guy comes in and let me tell you, this was the one person that we ran into—like, the one nurse who said I was at one centimeter dilated, I was like "Okay, whatever. I can, like, disregard you."
Lisa: Not as big of a deal.
Sarah: Yeah. But this guy, he was not a very nice person at all. He insisted on topping off. He wasn't going to redo it. I'm, and at that point, like, the nurses were all, everybody was very quiet and I was the only one going through contractions, and I just turned to them and I said, "You are going to redo it. It's not working." Oh. And he said to me, this is, this is where it got good, because he said, "I'm sorry ma'am, but an epidural is not going to last forever. And I just want to let you know, you know labor is painful, right?" Right.
Sarah: And I was like, "Uh-huh. I'm well aware."
Lisa: Wow. "Can I just punch you right now?"
Chris: I've never met anyone in my life with a bigger need of a kick in the balls than this man. Ever. I almost had to be physically restrained, because what would happen is he would be talking, and at this point Sarah's contractions would be like, again, like a minute apart, if that, maybe 30 seconds.
Sarah: And they would go.
Chris: And they were strong. And they were pretty consistent, like, big strong contraction, 30 second break to big strong contraction like pretty patterned out, and this guy would continuously just talk through. Yes. Because he would just kind of ramble from point to point, to whatever was coming out of his dumb mouth.
Lisa: Someone needs to move him into a different department.
Chris: Yes. I almost yelled at this man, like, to tell him, you know, "You have a minute. Think it through, form your thought, put it out, and then you have another minute to get the next thought ready."
Sarah: Which, at that point I could see Chris was gonna blow a gasket, and so I was like, "Listen, listen you are going to redo it. This is where we're at. You're going to redo it. You're going to come in and you're going to redo it because it’s not working. And you're not going to push more. You're just going to redo it because that's what you're going to do." And he was like, "Okay, well, just so you know, you'll probably go through like 5 to 10 really hard contractions while I'm doing it and you have to remain completely still or else it will just mess the whole thing up." And I was like, "Cool. Sure." And then, so, they made everybody leave.
Sarah: They re-did it. It didn't, the second time it worked. He, like, did it, it didn't take that long. I did have to go through a couple of hard contractions and he was very, very—his bedside manner was terrible. Like, he, at one point was, like, pushing my shoulders and I was like, "Okay, I got this. Okay, God, you're going to help me out with this one because I need to just, like, be calm. And let me say before he walked in to redo it, because he had to, like, go do something, go get something or whatever.
Sarah: Once he left, the nurses said to us, "We a hundred percent agree with you. The reason we did not speak up is because we need him to come back later. And so we kinda need to be nice to him because he's the only one here that can do this." So, so I, like, kind of understood that. I was like, "Okay." Even though I was like, "Ugh. Okay, okay, whatever. I can disregard you too, now, man, sir, or whatever."
Sarah: So he re-does the epidural. It works the second time. I do remember feeling the first time more relief than the second time. The second time I could still feel pressure. Um, the first time I had no feeling whatsoever. Like, no feeling at all. I could, like, watch the monitor of my body going through contractions, but I couldn't feel them. The second time it was done, I had relief but I could feel pressure. And so I was like...but, I could feel relief. And it was pressure enough that I could, I felt I could sleep through it.
Sarah: So it was, like, cool. And we waited, like, an hour or whatever. Our doula was there. She stayed with us until we felt comfortable. She also at some point went and got Chris food.
Chris: She bought me a sandwich.
Lisa: Yay. Good. Partners need to eat, too.
Chris: If you're interviewing doulas out there, just ask, "Are you willing to buy me a sandwich?" Make that part of the interview process. And if they say yes, hire that person.
Sarah: Um, I also—probably not the smartest thing I did, but we were, I was drinking coconut water the entire time. So even though I was on, like, a drip and stuff like that, like, our doula had brought coconut water and we had brought coconut water that we somehow got into our room. Um, and so I was drinking coconut water, like, my entire labor. So maybe that was, like, the miracle juice that was, like, helping me with all of this. But, um, I just remember thinking, like, "I feel like somebody is going to yell at me, but, like, I'm going to still drink out of this whole container." And so, I get the epidural, and at this point it's, like, close to...it was like 10 or 11 o'clock at night, and so we were like, "Okay, we're finally gonna get the chance to sleep."
Chris: And I was so excited.
Sarah: And so we, like, turned out the lights, laid down, and all of a sudden I started hearing Emerson's heartbeat drop. Because the monitors were on. So I could hear, like...
Chris: His beeping.
Sarah: His beeping. And I knew what it was, because I'd asked, like, days before, "What the hell is all of this beeping?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, that's his heart monitor." And so his, every time I would have a contraction, his heart monitor would, it would just stop. So now, all of a sudden, I'm in a panic, I'm in panic mode, and nobody's coming into my room and I'm freaking out. And Chris is trying to sleep, and he's like, "But if you're not sleeping, then I am not sleeping."
Sarah: So he ended up in the dark, standing next to the bed, holding my hand as we are going through this. And finally, I was like, "Okay, I think I can sleep. Like, nobody's coming in. Like, it must be fine. Right? Like, they would be coming in if there was an issue." That's, that was my feeling. So it was like, "Okay, maybe this is completely normal." I think we might've called a nurse in and she was like, "Oh yeah, don't worry about it. Like, he's fine."
Chris: At one point, we called the nurse or the nurse came in and we're like, "Hey, his heart keeps dropping out." And they're like, "Oh, you know, that's, that's normal." We're like, "Hmm, that's probably something you should make us aware of, that a heart just stops in the middle of labor."
Lisa: So we're not freaking out.
Sarah: They're like, "We see that. We are monitoring everything. So, like, don't worry about it." So, great.
Chris: "Just, hey, heads up, his heart's going to go out. FYI."
Sarah: This is what happened. My heart rate started to speed up. And they saw that...
Chris: Yeah, that's right. Because his heart was stopping! Sorry...
Sarah: So that's why they came in. So I was like, "Wait, there was a reason why, because we weren't going out there, because we were like, 'Nobody's coming in.'" Um, so my heart started to race and they came in, they were like, "Are you okay? What's going on?" And that's when I told them, and they were like, "Oh, no, don't worry about it. Just try and sleep." And I'm like, "Great, with this giant monitor on that's, like, super bright and the beeping that's the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life." Like, but I guess in their eyes I had been there for so long and not slept. They're probably like, "Oh, you can sleep through anything."
Chris: I remember we also were like, "It's a little hard for her to sleep with, like, all this stuff." And they went, "Oh yeah, we can turn this off and this off and this off." And again, I'm like, "Why are you waiting for us to ask that? You know we need to sleep. Just click it off! If you don't need it, just click it off."
Lisa: Right. Yeah.
Sarah: And like half an hour into that, all of a sudden a door opens and a nurse comes rushing in. "We need to put a monitor on Emerson, or on the baby, because right now we can't distinguish between your heartbeat and his heartbeat." I could be wrong with what they, the way they said it.
Chris: Something like that.
Sarah: "They're on top of each other right now. And so we need to go to the internal monitor." And I was like, "Okay, all right, let's do this. Why not just add another thing to the list?" So I do remember thinking at that point while they're putting this on me, I was like, "I went from a home birth with no monitor, no wires to, like, the bionic woman."
Lisa: As many as possible.
Chris: You name a spot, there was a wire there.
Sarah: So then he put the monitor on, "Okay, go back to sleep," which I'm like, "There's like 12 wires coming out of me. It's so uncomfortable. I have to lay on my back. Like, this is so weird. And so, just, like, every monitor. Is there anything I can take off?" "No." "Cool, let's try to sleep." And then all of a sudden the pushing started, and my body started to push. And so in my eyes—I got this wave of nausea, that I thought I was going to throw up. And then the pushing started, and in my eyes, I'm like, "We're there.
Sarah: We're there.
Sarah: We're pushing right now. This worked. This is so great. And we call in the nurse. And she was like, "Oh no, you're still at..." I don't even know what they said—dilated. "You're still at a four," or no, maybe they didn't even check me. I don't know. But she was like, "No, this is not time to push."
Chris: They just said, "Do not push."
Sarah: "You need to pant. You need to lay over the back of the bed and pant." So I went from getting an epidural to sleep to now being on the back of the bed, hunched over the top. They had—like, the hospital bed—and I'm over the top panting to try and get the pushing to stop, which, no matter what I did, it just did not work.
Lisa: It's so bizarre because they're always saying, "If you have a premature urge to push, don't do it." You're not going to accident—I know what the concern is, but you're never going to accidentally push the baby out before its time, you know, and there's some controversy about it...
Chris: "Oh, this isn't supposed to be out yet." And then they just put it back in.
Lisa: A symptom of the premature pushing—urge to push—is one of the symptoms, possibly, of a baby with their back against the mom's back, the posterior position. That was one of the several things that made me, when I read your story, wonder about his position. But, go ahead.
Sarah: Um, so at that point I'm panting and panting and panting. And now, in my head I'm like, "This isn't working. So let's see if I can"—in my crazy pregnant, you know, laboring brain—I was like, "If I shake and scream, maybe I will push the energy other—somewhere else. Right. So I'm going to shake this bed and I'm going to scream and maybe it will stop me from pushing down. Right. Because I'm forcing the energy into somewhere else. Which it did not do. I'm just, like, sitting there, like, shaking and screaming, not from pain, because at this point it's just pushing, you know, like it's just the urge to push.
Sarah: And now I'm feeling the contractions, the pressure of the contractions and the urge to push. And I'm starting to really actually feel the contractions again, but not as, they're not as strong, but they are strong, like, I can see the strength of them. And so at this point, I just turned to Chris and I'm like, "Oh, we need to call in the doctor and this, I just don't, I don't know what's going on.
Sarah: I don't know where we're at, but we just need, I need somebody to talk to me and tell me, like, what's going on." So we called in the doctor and it's like....
Chris: It's like five...
Sarah: Five in the morning at this point.
Chris: It's five in the morning and the doctor comes in, and first of all, you are never going to believe me when I say this, and I say it to everybody, but the doctor walked in, and I swear to you, the doctor was the actor Donald Sutherland. I swear to God
Sarah: He sounded very much like Donald Sutherland.
Chris: I swear this is true. this is the guy from the Hunger Games. He looks like him. He sounds like him. I swear to you, it's true. And so he sat down and he was amazing and he looked at us and he went, "Okay, here's the deal. We have two options here. Number one, the way that this center works is that you are allowed to labor for as long as you want. As long as mommy is OK and baby's OK, we will not force you into anything.
Chris: You can labor for as long as you want."
Lisa: That's a very rare statement.
Chris: It's very rare. And he said, "Mommy's okay and baby is okay so you can keep going if you want."
Sarah: "You guys are doing great."
Chris: And he said, "Option two is what we usually call the 'throw in the towel' method, which is a C-section." But he immediately followed that with, "But let me be clear. You guys are not throwing in the towel."
Sarah: Because he said, he said to me, "I can see how long you've been doing this, and your water has been broken for—" I can't remember at that point how long. How long? 72 hours? Um, and so he was like, "You have every right to at this point say, 'You know what, I can't do this any longer.' And also, if this is going to be traumatic for you, then we need to go in and get him out.
Sarah: Because I don't want you to feel traumatized by this experience. But we don't normally do this. And we're not," he's like, "We're not, um, like, trigger happy on C-sections." I was like, "OK." And he said, "I can even give you time to think about it," because he was like, "But let me check you first. Just let see where you're at." Because nobody had checked me at this point like for a while, for a while since the last lady who said I was at one centimeter dilated, and I'm like, "Nobody else is checking me.
Sarah: I don't care. Like, I don't want to hear it."
Chris: "I don't want to know."
Sarah: "I don't want to know, and my body is just going to do what's it's going to do." So he checked me and he was like, "You're at five centimeters dilated." And I'm like, "Five centimeters dilated. Cool. What does that mean? Like, I know what it means, but like, nothing has been textbook. My contractions are insane. So at what point do we say, like...
Chris: Enough's enough.
Sarah: ...enough's enough?" And he was like, "I mean, I can't tell you a time, then." And that's how I wanted it at that point. I wanted, like, somebody else to make that decision for me, because I didn't want to have to make that decision. Like, no, no, no. I have been laboring forever. I'm doing what I'm supposed to. Somebody else needs to say, like, "Okay, you're done." But, like, that's not what you're saying to me. Now you're telling me I have to ask for a C-section?
Sarah: Well, that's not happening. So at this point I just turned to Chris and I—or, no, so he said, um, "I can give you a few minutes." So we had him leave.
Chris: He goes, "Let me know..."
Sarah: Or, no, we asked for the minutes. We asked to be given some time.
Chris: He said, "Listen." He said, "You're at five centimeters, so you could be getting ready to go, like, at any moment here."
Sarah: Could be a few hours.
Chris: "...And that'll be it." He goes, "But if you want a C section, we have the room ready."
Sarah: "It's prepped right now."
Chris: "It's prepped right now for you guys. You can go right in if you want." And we were like, "Are you going to be the one to do it?" And he said, "If you say, if you want to do it right now, it'll be me. But the shift change happens..."
Sarah: But he said specifically, "Do not let that be the reason."
Chris: Yeah, "But don't let that be the reason that you do it."
Sarah: "Don't let that be the reason." Because we were really comfortable with him and let him know. We were like, "Thank you so much." And at that point we had um, we were like, "Okay, we need a few minutes to talk it over." Um, and he also, every contraction I had, he would stop talking and be like, "Okay..."
Chris: He would just wait.
Lisa: Bless him.
Sarah: And then he would start back in, "Okay, you feel good? Great, so..." And then my next contraction would happen, like, super quickly. They were on top of each other. So he didn't have very much time. So we, like, sat there with him for, like, 15 minutes while he was talking, for, like, the smallest speech ever. Um, so then we asked him to leave and he said, "Great, I'll give you guys 10 minutes." Uh, we decided to call the midwife, because I was like, "I can't, I'm not in the right state of mind to think about this." When we called our midwife, she said, "Well, five is really good, Sarah, like, do you feel like you could go a little longer?
Sarah: Because, like, five is that hump. Like, you just want to get there. And then, like, you should be able to get over it. And you've got the epidural. So, like, if you can give it a few hours, maybe your body can get to where you want it to be." And I was like, "Okay," because at that point, again, I was just tired. I just wanted somebody to be like, "Okay, Sarah, you have a great job. Like, we are going in." Um, or I didn't know what I wanted. I just didn't want—I wanted more answers than I was getting. Right? And so I finally turned to Chris and I was like, "You have to make this decision, because I can't.
Sarah: I can't make this, this decision. Um, I can't, I can't ask for a C-section. It goes against everything in me to ever do that. But if you think that, like, this is what we need to do, then, like, let's ask for it."
Lisa: No pressure.
Chris: Which was the question or the conversation that I had been dreading from moment one.
Sarah: "In which case," he said, "I can't. I can't."
Chris: So she said, "You gotta make this call." And I was like, "I cannot make this call." I was like, "Here's the deal." And we were crying at this point.
Sarah: We were both crying.
Chris: And I said, "Here's the thing. I cannot make this call. Because what's going to happen is, if I make this call and I say to do a C-section, you are going to come out of this and you're going to go, "What if we had waited one more hour? What if we had waited one more hour? What if we had waited more hour?" And I was like, "I can't, I can't be the one—you've wanted this your whole life.
Chris: And this is the, I know it's now nothing like it was..."
Sarah: A vaginal birth is what he's talking about. At this point, even just a vaginal birth. Like we are just holding onto the one last thread of the thing that you wanted. Um, and I had, I mean, when we were back in our home and Shar looked at us and said, "I think it's time for a transfer," I lost it. I mean, I just started weeping uncontrollably. Um, because all I knew was that my wife had wanted something and she can't have it.
Sarah: Every time we went through a transition where, like, I had to do something that I didn't want—you know, I wanted no medication, no epidural, at home. Anytime we transferred Chris was a mess. And I was just like, "Okay, let's move on. Okay. Alright."
Chris: Just lost it like a tiny school girl. Not pretty.
Sarah: "We're good. I'm okay, let's move on. Like, okay, we're going to the next step." And then, like, the epidural happened and he also lost it, and I was like, "It's okay, we're going to the next step." And then, like, at this point we're both crying...
Chris: We were both crying and I was like, "I can't. I was like, let's just give it a little more time." And that was my way of, like, I knew if, like, I had a feeling, like, if I said something like, "Let's just give it a little more time," then we'll probably forget about it in some sorta—like, not forget, forget. But, like, I can now push this off a little longer, and maybe we will get over that hump, or something is going to happen that's going to make the call for us.
Lisa: Yeah.
Sarah: So we called him back in, um, and we said...we had talked during that point where we were both, like, crying and we were both just like, "We feel really comfortable with him. When is his change? We would rather, like, him—if we are going to do a C-section, he made us feel so comfortable, like, let's have him do it." And when he came back in and we asked him when his shift change was, because we were like, "Okay, we're going to wait, but, like, we are going to give it a few more hours and see where I'm at and then like, and then move from that point.
Sarah: Um, because I'm not traumatized right now. I don't think that I will be. So like, let's just keep going." And he was like, "OK." And that's when he said, "Do not make me a factor in this. Because the girl that's coming in, the woman that, the doctor that is coming in after, she's young and she's amazing. And she is probably better than me." He's like, "So don't make that a factor. All of our doctors our good, but she's amazing. You will have a great doctor no matter who does it.
Sarah: So let's just get you through what you've got to get through." And it was like, "Okay, okay."
Chris: So we labored more
Sarah: So we labored more, until...at that point it was, like, probably six o'clock in the morning. Um, we knew the shift change was at nine, and that at nine o'clock she was going to come and check me. So for three more hours we, like, labored, um, still with the urge to push that whole time, which was just, like, crazy. Like, and nurses were coming in trying to help. At one point they were like, they were trying to put me in different positions and I just remember having to climb over...
Chris: Climb over wires.
Sarah: So I'm standing on the bed at this point. I'm standing on the bed, which is hilarious, because, like, once you get an epidural they won't let you get out of the bed. But you can totally stand up in the bed.
Lisa: Technicalities.
Sarah: So, like, there's two nurses and a midwife helping me, like, climb over all of my wires to get into a new position. Anytime I had to, like, switch a position, I had like 70 wires to climb over.
Lisa: A bit of an obstacle course.
Sarah: Because they wanted me to, like, do another position that we had already been in where, like, I had, like, my bottom up in the air, and I was, like, laying on my chest, even though I had done it, like, several times. They were like, "Let's try it again."
Lisa: Knee-chest position. Yeah, that's usually what we do to try to turn a posterior baby. So I almost wonder...
Sarah: I did it a lot and I did it a lot in, like, in the hospital. I don't remember doing it. I just remember my midwife and like the nurses being like, "Oh no, no, no, we tried." Because I was like, "Maybe if I had just tried that one position..." and they're like, "Oh, no. We tried that, Sarah, several times."
Sarah: Um, and so I do remember being in that position that morning and then them trying to get... I was like, "No, no this isn't it. It doesn't feel right." And so then they had me, like, climb back over my wires, and it was again leaning over to the back of my bed and the nurses were shift changing. Um, and the nurse—I, like, went through a really strong contraction, and I pushed and all of a sudden there was just a gush of water that just, like, fell, like, into the bed, and it was like, "Oh my gosh," again, like, "More water? More fluid?" and they were, like, cleaning up and I was like, "Oh, it's green."
Sarah: And they're like, "Oh, don't worry about that." And I'm like, "That doesn't...like, green to me means infection. So, like, that, to me...it has not been that color. So what is that?" And she was like, "Oh it was just a little meconium. Like, it's not a big deal." And I was like—and I at that point turned to Chris and I'm like, "We're done. I'm done."
Chris: Again, that was what I was saying with the epidural, where, like, all of a sudden my wife was back. She had been gone. And as soon as somebody said the word "meconium"...I've never seen a recovery like this before. She went, "C-section. We're doing it." Like, literally, I swear, she did this motion, she did it the little, like, "wrap it up" motion. "C-section, let's do it."
Sarah: "Get him in here. We're done."
Lisa: There's your clarity.
Sarah: That was it for me. I was like, because to me, the one thing that I've always, I'd always known it, and the one thing that my mom had talked about—because my sister had pooped and had meconium come out, and, um, my sister was in the NICU. Um, so my mom had always talked about she had gone home without a baby and it was hardest thing she ever had to do. And I'm like, "I'm done. Finished. Like, this is it." And they're like, "Oh no, like it's okay, Sarah, don't worry.
Sarah: Like, it's not a big deal. You guys are still doing good. Like, there's no heart rate issues." And the nurse turned to me and she was just like, she said, "Sarah, they are going to come in here and check you.
Sarah: And please, if they say that you can go longer, please, please try." Because she was like, "I know that you've been here and I've seen what you've done, but I really know how much you want that vaginal birth, and if you can just hold on, if they tell you can hold on, please just try." I just looked at her and I was like, "Okay," like in my head going, "Okay. Like, I mean, obviously if they tell me I can continue, like, I'm not the type to give up.
Sarah: And this whole time, if you've known anything through this story it's that, like, if you tell me that I can go for longer, I will go longer. Um, and so I just remember at that point we're waiting for the shift change, and I looked, I just like looked out the window, because I just thought this was like, again, I had this, like, moment of clarity of going like, "This is my...this is where we're at." Like, I just laughed. Because I was like, I am...My birth plan was to be at my house in my bed, having our child, like, or on our toilet, whatever.
Sarah: Like, in our element, going to be this beautiful experience with no wires attached to me. And here I am, the bionic woman attached to as many wires as, like, I can't even turn over by myself right now. And I'm like, "All I can do is sit here, and like stare at the wall or look out the window." And I remember looking out the window and there was the most beautiful sunrise ever. Um, and one good thing about our midwife—she came in immediately and was like, "You will have these windows open. You will look out at the sky, you are going to look out and see that there's other life.
Sarah: There are just not just these walls. You are, this is what you're going to, you know, like this is what you're gonna remember, Sarah, like, this is what you're going to see." Um, and so we had every morning, like, pulled open, like, we opened it up. We even sometimes left it open at night so that we could see the city lights. Yeah. Because we were like, "We are not, this is not where we're at! And this beautiful sunrise now. Um, and I just remember being like, "Okay, it's a beautiful sunrise today, and I am at some point going to have this baby.
Sarah: So if this is the day, I want to remember this, this is like, you know, like, laughing to myself about, like, where I'm at, and being okay with it, and looking at it, at this beautiful sunrise and seeing that, but somebody bring this doctor in." Um, and so finally at 9:30, the doctor came in and she checked me and she said, "Sarah you are at five and a half. And at this point your water has been broken for 91 hours." Because we had, um, the final—or 91 and a half or something like that, because the final total was 92 hours. It was 92 hours. She was like, "It's 91 hours in, where I don't feel comfortable letting you go any longer." So...
Lisa: And by the way, most hospitals only allow like 24 to 36 hours before they're, like, done. And so that was very generous. I'm happy to hear that they gave you that long. Because in the absence of signs of an infection, there's really no reason to do a C-section at 24 to 36 hours.
Sarah: Right. Right. And so by the time, like at that point, she was like, "Okay," and at that point our midwife showed up.
Chris: Because we had called her at 6:00 AM and she was like, "Well, I will be there in a little bit. Let me get everything ready and I'm going to come over."
Sarah: And she was like, "I'm gonna be there with you guys."
Chris: I think that was one of the reasons she was like, "If you can hold out, hold out, because I'm going to come, and I'm going to try and get there around eight o'clock or so." Um, and she rolled in, I think she rolled in at like, nine.
Sarah: Yes. She came in a nine right before, right at the shift change.
Chris: And it was just, actually, I remember her walking in just as we—just after the moment you had decided to have a C-section.
Sarah: Yeah, after the meconium happened, she walked in, and at the sight of her, like Chris and I both just started crying. There was some sort of comfort in, like, our midwife, you know what I mean? Our head when we couldn't be a head and she was there to, like, help us through when we felt we couldn't go any further. Um, and so she was like this white light shining. It was like, "Oh, thank God."
Lisa: Yeah. Was this is Carol or Shar?
Sarah: It was Shar.
Lisa: I just love both of them so much.
Sarah: And so she came in and we just started crying. And we told her, you know, what it was, and she was like, "OK." And, like, when the doctors said "C-section," and she was like, "OK." And then, um, I just remember saying at that point— the doctor was like, "We're gonna do a C-section." And I turned to her and I said, through, I was, like, still having contractions because she had to check me, and I'm still having contractions through that. And I remember I had a huge contraction and then I turned to her and I was like, "I just want to let you know I want to have a v-bac after this.
Sarah: So do what you have to do to make that possible." She's like, "Great. I can do that." And so she left, um, and Shar was like, "Great, I'm going to help get your stuff together." And she said, "Sarah, you have essential oils with you, right?" And I said, "Yes." And she goes, "What do you want to be smelling when your son comes into the world?" And I think I was like, "Lavender." So, um, she gave me, like, a Kleenex with, she, like, doused it in lavender and put it in my hand. And they wheeled me out.
Chris: And I was with Shar. And I began to cry again. Unbelievable crying.
Sarah: And then they wheeled me into, um, and to the operating room. And I remember looking at everybody and I was just like, "Hey guys, thank you so much for being here today. We're going to have a baby!"
Lisa: Still being the warrior.
Sarah: And they were like, "You were a home birth transfer?" And I was like, "Yep!" And they were like, "I've never...this is a first. Like, we've never seen somebody—like, usually women at this point are, like, bawling." They were like, "I've never witnessed this before." And I just remember looking around my room and it was all women, every nurse that was in my room—except for Chris. Chris was the only man. Well, and then Emerson, I guess—but I just remember feeling super empowered by that, like, my team of, like, strong women who are going to take and help me get through this next stage that we didn't think we were going to have to go through, but, like, here we are. So, anyway. Then the anesthesiologist, female anesthesiologist just comes in and she was like, she was like, "Okay, you can, I'm gonna put this, whatever, medicine in, and I want you to, I'm going to put a piece of ice on you. And I want you to tell me if you feel it, like, if it's cold." And I'm like, "Well, I can feel it. Yeah, it's cold." She was like, "Yeah, but it's not really cold. It's just like you can feel it, like, it feels a little cold, like, like wet but not, like, cold." And I'm, like "Nah, it feels cold." She just kept saying it over and over again and I'm like "Nah, it feels cold.
Sarah: Like it feels cold." And she was like, "Okay, but not super cold." And I'm like, "No, I'm not super cold, but it feels cold." And she was like, "Cool, thank you." So then, like, as they are doing work, which—a C-section, I mean, I don't know what other women feel. Like, I could feel, like, they were, like, pulling me around. Like I could feel all of the pulling and pushing.
Lisa: The pulling. Yeah. Usually you can feel that.
Sarah: At one point I was like, um, "Am I, like, shaking this whole...? Like, this is crazy." Like, I couldn't focus on, like, the birth of my child. What you're hoping to hear is, like, the cry, like, I wanted to really be focused and I wanted to, like, cry when he came into the world. And Chris is holding my hand. And I'm like, "Like, this is so weird. Like, I can feel so much." And then the feeling started to come back in my toes. And then I was, I turned to the anesthesiologist. I just turned my head and I was like, "So, I can feel my feet."
Chris: She goes, "I can feel my toes."
Sarah: And she goes, "No, you can't."
Lisa: What? Listen to the woman!
Sarah: I could feel, like, the feeling started to come back in my legs and then I could feel my knees.
Chris: She's like, "I can feel..."
Sarah: "I can feel fingers inside of me."
Chris: She goes, I remember, she goes, "Wiggle your toes." And she looks over the curtain and she doesn't say anything. She just went, "Wiggle your toes....All right, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to push more, uh..."
Sarah: "I'm going to push morphine. It's a lot, but, like, I think this is going to be ok."
Chris: She's like, "I don't normally do this, but I think we will do it for you guys." We're like, "Thanks. Thanks for the hookup. Thank you. Thank you very much."
Sarah: But anyway, so, like, that happens and then I started to feel like I was gonna fall asleep and I was like, "No, I will not be asleep when this happens. Like, I've waited days just to hear this cry." And so they did end up like, you know, finally you could hear him come out, and all of a sudden it was like this cry, and it was like 10, 10:31 AM and our, you know, son came into the world. Louder than anybody.
Chris: Yeah, he came out. 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. Good job"
Sarah: "It's your birthday today." Like, "Good job, Buddy. You did so good." And he stopped crying.
Lisa: Oh, of course. I love that. He knows your voice!
Chris: Yeah. And then they brought them over and they did, you know, what they do, the footprint and the...
Sarah: And they showed him to us.
Chris: And cleaned him off.
Sarah: So, like, I just remember, I just remember looking at him and being like, "Huh. That's what you look like!" For some reason, like, in the whole of my pregnancy I had never like thought about what he was really going to look like. You don't—like, that never crossed my mind. And then all of a sudden, like, it was like, "You have really dark hair! You have a lot of hair!"
Chris: It was an interesting moment because I remember they handed him to us, or they showed him to us, and I remember looking at him for the first time, and this is, it is going to sound like a really weird reaction, but I looked at him and I went, "That's not him." Because for nine months you spend, you spend your time, like, imagining what this kid is going to look like. And what he is going to be like, and everything. And then the reality is he's not going to conform to what you imagined him to be. He is going to be his own person. And they showed him to me, and it wasn't the person that was in my mind, it was the person that actually came out.
Sarah: And we were like, "Oh my gosh!"
Chris: And it wasn't a bad thing. It was just such an interesting thing, where they always—kinda like when you say, like, how labor is not like it is in movies, and it's not, like, rushed and not a lot of panting, things like that. The same thing with those first moments of when you meet your child. Like I said, it's not this, like, perfect thing of, like, it's your, it's the child you've imagined for nine months and everything. They hand you this child and you go, "This is a complete stranger."
Lisa: Totally, yeah.
Chris: Complete stranger. But that's kind of amazing that instantly you have this realization of, like, "Oh, this is a person. This is their own person." They are who they are, and nothing you can do or will do is going to really change that. You're just going to have to kind of go along with it. Um, but yeah, that was, I remember that being my first reaction.
Sarah: And then for us, like, kind of what we said is like, it's his story. Like, it's Emerson's story. Emerson came in to the world his own way. On his own terms, um, like, strong little human being that he was. Like, I just remember they kept saying, like, "'I've never seen an infant do that." Like they laid him on my chest immediately. Like, they clean you up and when you're ready to go, and I don't even know what they—is that recovery? And they, like, put him on my chest and he immediately grabbed my heart monitor wires.
Sarah: Um, and like nuzzled in, grabbed my heart monitor wires, and they were just like, "Okay, that's cool." And then they, like, when they rolled me in and they'd tried to, like, take him off so that they could take off some of the, like, the monitors and wiring that I didn't need anymore, he wouldn't let go of me. He, like, wouldn't let go of those wires. And they were like, they couldn't get his hands open, and they were, like, "He's, like, super strong and we have," and they just kept saying like, "We've never seen a baby do that, like an infant do that." They, you know, they try and help you breastfeed right away. Right. So they're like, they had a lactation consultant in there and she was like, "OK, and this is how the hold goes." And I'm like, "Cool." And then, like, she was like, "Okay, now I'm going to try and help him latch." And, like, she couldn't get his mouth open. She was like, "He is resisting me so hard. I've never had an infant do this."
Chris: She couldn't open his jaw.
Sarah: And I just remember, like, looking down at him and he wouldn't open for her. And he insisted on—like, even seconds old, right? He was like an hour old at this point or something, whatever. And he would not, he would not latch. Whatever way they wanted him to do, he would not. He would not open his mouth for them. He was like, he found it himself. He latched on. And when they were like, "Well maybe try this latch, or, like, maybe—I don't think he's, like, fully on properly." They'd, like, try and help him back off and, like, at that point I was like, "Let me try,"
Sarah: like, maybe since I'm mom he'll, like, let me. He started to, like, let them kind of latch, or he would like, and I'd like hold, you know, and you're trying to, like, get him on, and he latched for a second, and then he would pull off and go right back to where he was. And he just kept doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it until I gave up. I was like, "Okay. He's got this." I'm not going to help. He's got this. I'm not going to worry about it because this is..."—again, it just, like, reaffirmed in me everything that I had been thinking, which was, he is very direct and I guess this is the way he wanted to come out.
Sarah: And he was like, "I am not going through that tiny hole. Like, I'm not doing it."
Chris: "I need a grand entrance."
Sarah: It's going to be, you know, um, "I'm going to be the" what is it, "late for the..."
Chris: Fashionably late.
Sarah: Fashionably late. Like, he was like, "Hey, mom, you are always fashionably late for everything."
Lisa: You know what song just popped into my head? It's from "Hamilton." "Wait for It, Wait for It." That could be his theme song, is "Wait for It." He made you wait for it.
Sarah: And I do remember at that point, um, I was just like, so like I was just so astonished by like everything that had happened to us. Um, and I just remember turning to the doctor and being like, "Okay, now, when can I stand up? And when can I shower?" I was like, okay, this is like, "I'm awesome." Like, how long do I have?
Sarah: And when can I get out of this bed? And how long—when can I stand up? And when I can take a shower. And how long do I have to stay?" Um, and she was like, "If you're feeling up to it, Sarah, I'll let you get up today. And if you can walk to the bathroom, then I'll have them put something over your C-section opening so that you can shower tonight if you want. I'll make sure that I go in and talk to them about that." She talked, she ended up sitting and talking to us for this. The doctor that had done my C-section, she talked to us for an hour and a half while I waited in recovery. And for my birth story, and for as long as I was in labor, for as many people as I came into contact with, and for all of what I went through, and my big thing for our birth story is that like, I don't ever want somebody to be like, "Oh, but you were a home birth transfer. Like, do you ever feel, like, bad about that?"
Sarah: And I'm like, "No, I don't. I don't feel bad about everything that I had to go through." And I don't...like, I'm not traumatized by it and I'm not going to let myself be traumatized. Because, like, someday Emerson may come to me and say, like, "Mom, how did I come into this world? Or maybe every year I'll tell him how he came in to this world. Maybe that will be, like, a tradition that we start once he can start remembering things.
Chris: Should make for some very awkward Christmas dinners, but...
Sarah: Like, I want him to know that, like, I'm okay with what happened. Like, I'm OK. And in some ways I, I hope that our story reaches out to somebody who maybe, you know, didn't have the birth story that they expected or didn't have the experience that they wanted. And I hope they latch onto, like, some of my positivity, or can take away something that—like, you know, when we had our midwives, our midwives came in after, and I went through a couple of different—like, I wasn't always positive, you know, because I continued to say, like, "Maybe if I did this, like, you know, guys, maybe if I was in this position,"
Sarah: And they were like, "No, Sarah you were in that position."
Lisa: You tried everything under the sun.
Chris: You don't remember it, but...
Lisa: The sun and the stars.
Sarah: I just hope somebody just takes away, like, that you can have a plan and be okay with that. But, like, I really, like, I know there are stories that are worse than mine, but—rejoice in your birth story, no matter what it is. Because believe me, this—a C-section was the last thing, it was something I was terrified of. Mostly because I was going back to work a week after Emerson was due. And granted, I have, like, a pretty cushy...
Chris: Our employer was very understanding.
Sarah: Pretty cushy job, where I could take Emerson with me for that first, like, month, my first month of work. And so I knew going into that, like, I had a finite amount of time to recover. And so I was like, "Well, I can't have a C-section. That will totally throw...
Chris: The whole time table...
Sarah: My whole time table off. And I can't do that because I've got to be at work. You know, like, we have a schedule to keep." Like I said, I just want people to know that, like, it's OK.
Sarah: And rejoice in the way that your child comes into this world, because it is their story, and you have your own birth story. Like mine is the way I came in to this world, and I could tell it to you a million times over, because my mom has talked to me about it, and I asked. And that's my story. And this is his story. And so I just, like I said, I very specifically, I remember the sunrise that was on the day that he was born, and all of the many people that I came into contact with, and our care was so amazing, and my doula was awesome, and Chris was amazing and I think that's...
Chris: I was fine. I was fine.
Sarah: I hope that somebody hears this and maybe had a similar story as mine and can take away from that, you know, the joy of what your child's story is.
Lisa: Hmm. Hmm. Absolutely. Oh, thank you. That's beautiful. Yeah. And I just think that's such a beautiful attitude of selflessness. Yeah. Chris do you have anything you'd like to also share?
Chris: Yeah, I mean. I think for anyone, listen, for any men that are listening out there that are getting ready to go through this, one, I will say this is going to, again, I'm going to share just some blunt thoughts that I had. You will feel probably the most useless you've ever felt in your entire life, because, I mean, you can do, you want to help in every way, shape or form, but you will very much be aware that you are not doing anything as far as, like, actually pushing the baby out.
Chris: So like, you will feel completely useless. Like, if you could settle into that, and just go, "She's got this and I'm going to just try and help out as much as humanly possible, but I am just, like, a passenger right now." Then you'll be okay. The other thing I will tell everyone, the one place where men have it harder for labor is that every woman I keep talking to, after it gets done, she goes, "You know, I could have another kid. I mean labor is...I barely remember any of it."
Chris: As a man, you will remember every graphic detail. Like, you will have lived and breathed with every minute of this. And every time she goes, like, "And then I think this happened, but I can't quite remember...." You'll remember it, all right? You were there and it's just seared in your mind. But yeah, so that's the one part where I'm like—because she'll go, "Yeah, if we had tried this position..." I'm like, "I know for fact we tried that, like, four times."
Lisa: "Don't talk to me about that."
Chris: "I remember it specifically." So there's that. But other than that, I mean it is just a, you know, you're just going to be there as much as you can, and that's it. Just be, you have to just be present. This is not a time for you, I feel like, again, this is gonna sound backwards. I don't think it's a time for you to take initiative, because you need to be in the moment, because it can change on a dime.
Chris: Um, and what she needs will change on a dime. And if you're trying to anticipate, you are over here trying to get something ready, she's not going to want it. If you're, if you think that she wants a water birth and you're filling up a pool, that's going to be the moment she doesn't want the water birth and you've been filling up a pool for 15 minutes and you haven't been present, and she needs you to be doing something else, and so in that moment, it's, like, the one time when you don't want to be trying to think ahead, you want to be right there in that second.
Chris: Don't be behind, don't be ahead. Be right in that very second that you're in. Stay there for as long as possible.
Lisa: I always just want to ask partners, when it's been a challenging, you know, a road that has been different than they thought and everybody expected or hoped for, I just always want to mention, for people who are listening, and, you know, however things go for them, that partners sometimes have some trauma that they've gone through, because, you know, because you just pointed out that you remember everything.
Chris: Yeah.
Lisa: And especially when you are—this is your beloved, and you're seeing them go through something, and, you know, that sometimes we might need some counseling or therapy. And I'm not saying that I think you do, but I just want to put that out there for listeners, that it's just something that gets kind of put by the wayside, I think, a lot, is just that, "Oh, partners should just, like, buck up and be fine for everybody," but sometimes...
Chris: It was very hard, and it was really hard, you know, the, the actual birth process and the story that we told you, for me it wasn't traumatic, but there was a—the days after, like, once I was able to kind of get a little breathing room from it and kind of process everything that I had gone through, there was a little bit of, like, settling in and going in and, like, I feel like I did absolutely...because for three and a half days straight, four days, I watched the person I love go through a tremendous amount of pain.
Chris: And that's really hard to do. And I think, not to kind of lump all men into one basket, but I think instinctually we are, on the whole, we are fixers. That's what our instinct tells us to do. But you can't. There's, I mean, it's not a matter of, like, not being able to figure it out. You literally can't, you can't fix any of this. You're on a ride and it's going to end where it's gonna end. And you really have no say in the matter. I mean, for goodness sakes, if this story has taught anyone anything, not even she has a say in the matter, really.
Chris: And so we are once removed from that. And so that's the way that is something that can be extremely traumatic, and the ability to go, to not be able to go to your person and fix this for them, and fix this problem. But it's, it is a mindset of just going, "I can't fix this and I don't wanna fix this, because this is, you know, her journey, and her process, and his process too.
Chris: And so you want to, again, that just goes back to, like, if you're in the present in that second, you are not trying to fix it. You're not trying to make it better, in the way that you're going to solve it. You're just going to be there in whatever way that she needs you to be. Then if—you're not resisting against it, you're going with it. Um, because otherwise, yeah, if you're trying to fix it constantly, you are in for a world of hurt, because there's no fixing this. This is not—it's a necessary pain.
Chris: It's a necessary pain. It's one of the few times in life when it's a necessary pain. Yeah.
Sarah: I think it also helps that I wasn't traumatized.
Chris: Yeah.
Lisa: Absolutely. That's huge. I keep coming back to that. As Chris was talking, I think you said the word "mindset" and that brought me back to thinking, Sarah's mindset was so beautiful and really a saving grace that you just were rolling with the punches, and keeping positive. And also that you had chosen a birth team that treated you with care and compassion and non-urgency.
Chris: We kept saying, "At the end of this we are going to have our baby." And so, like, as positive as—and, again, we're telling this story now 20 months out, so, you know, we kinda like summarize it, and we say how positive we were. And for the most part we were. But there were times when we were, it was really tough, and we did not know how we were going to get through this. And it wasn't like—you know, that positivity was there, but it did ebb and flow.
Lisa: How could it not? I still don't know how you guys did what you did.
Chris: Whenever we hit that ebb, we would go, "Alright, at the end of this, we are going to have our baby." And that's the thing, you keep your eye on that.
Sarah: We had our eye on the prize. And also, it's funny, because I came out, after the whole thing, I'm sitting there in recovery, Emerson is sleeping in the like, little whatever, whatever they call that plastic box they put them in.
Lisa: Bassinet.
Chris: Sure, to use that term loosely.
Sarah: Like, the plastic sort of lucite container that is literally the hardest thing ever.
Chris: The milk jug they put your child in.
Sarah: He lived in a water bed and now you want to put him on a flat hard surface and you think he's gonna sleep through the night? Cool. Yeah, I don't know where you're living, but that's not going to happen. He was sleeping, poor thing was, like, recovering himself, and Chris was sleeping, and I was wide awake and I was just thinking to myself, like, "I've been through a lot, but what did I ask?"
Sarah: Like I had, you know, like, whatever your belief system is, that's cool. But mine was like, I had talked to God and I had asked, I had been like, "God, please let my water break on its own."
Sarah: Did. "And God, let me just be a birthing warrior." And I was. And so I was like, "Maybe next time when this happens..."
Lisa: Say a different prayer.
Sarah: I'm gonna very specific about my birth. Let me be a birthing warrior in—let's cut the time in half. Let me have him vaginally." Like, I'm going to ask for specifics. Like, that's what got me through. Like, we continually said, "At the end of this we are going to have our baby. So whatever we have to do to get there is what we have to do and that's okay." And I just kept thinking to myself, like, "I have this in me.
Sarah: I am a birthing warrior. That is what I'm going to do. That is who I am. That is how I'm going to get through this." And I just knew that, like, I have to be positive, like, I have to be positive because, in the light of this—and I did let myself cry, and I did have those moments where I was like, "I don't know if I can do this."
Sarah: Or, like, thinking, like, "What if I just, like, go through all of this and then, like, I start to push and I can't because I'm so tired?"
Sarah: And what I really learned about myself is that everything they tell you about, like, the last adrenaline rush is a hundred percent true. Because after who knows how much anesthesia and who knows how much morphine, I ended up staying up the entire day, I did not sleep until that night, and I think I got like two hours of sleep before Emerson woke up and needed to nurse, and then the doctor, the nurse came in and checked my blood pressure and all that stuff. So, like, you really do, like, have it in you to go a really long time when you believe you can't do it, there will be extra strength.
Sarah: God will send you more. It's just, like, insane.
Chris: If your birth plan is your goal, then when something goes wrong, you're going to be disappointed. If your goal is to have a child, then no matter what happens, it's not going to be—I'm not going to say it's not going to be traumatic, but at the end of this, you're going to come out feeling better than if your goal is the birth plan.
Lisa: Yeah. Flexibility and surrender.
Chris: We have, we've talked to people who are traumatized by their, by their birthing experience, because it was hard...
Sarah: Years and years afterwards.
Chris: Years afterwards, and I keep looking at this person, the people, and I'm going, you know, "You have your kid." And that's not me trying to discount any horrible thing that has happened, but the end result was what you wanted. It is actually what you wanted it to be. You wanted to have a baby, and you had a baby, and they're here now and they are in the world. And if, and that's what I mean. If your goal for this is whatever your birth plan is, when that goes awry, you are going to hold on to that forever.
Chris: You go, "I didn't achieve my goal." But, again, like, if you just keep going, "Well, at the end of the day, no matter what happens, Emerson is the same baby that he would've been if we had him at home than he was when we had him in a hospital through epidurals, through narcotics, with a C-section." He's the exact same kid that was in there. It didn't matter. No matter where he had him, we were having our baby.
Chris: We were having the baby we were meant to have.
Sarah: And the one thing that has brought us some comfort is, like, we made every call. We, you know, we made, we were very strong in making the calls that we made. We knew what we wanted. We probably should've paid a little bit more attention about getting to the hospital than we did in birth class. We were like, "Oh, we don't need to listen to this part. I can go to the bathroom." But, like, we made every call. So at the end of the day when we were, you know, sitting there with our child, like, that stuff goes out of the window.
Sarah: "Okay, whatever." Didn't want a C-section. But I had one. Recovery wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be."
Chris: No one came in and said, "You have to do this." Everything was, "Okay, let's do this. We have a right and a left. And we are saying, let's go left."
Sarah: Yep. Here's your options. Pick." And we were able to, like—or they'd be like, "This is what we're thinking." And we'd be like, "Great," or "No."
Lisa: That's huge, what you just said. Because what I keep hearing from people is when—like, a key factor in a positive birth experience overall is having felt like you were heard, you know, and you had choices along the way, that things weren't being done to you.
Chris: Yeah. And that's definitely a very important part. And it's one of those—probably the number one thing that's easy to lose sight of in the moment. Because whether you're in labor for five minutes or five hours or five days, you're going to be exhausted and distracted and not being able to focus. I mean, that's one of the things that a good partner will do, will take over, but also that's why we wanted a doula. Because a doula, that's what they're there for, is to be that voice when you don't have the energy or the focus to be able to be that voice, of reassuring you that you have a choice in all of this.
Chris: It may be two choices that you don't really love, but you can choose which one you love the least, you know? Um, and that was really important to us, being able to have voice and going, "If this is not going to go according to our plan, we're still going to choose every path that we go down, because we're able to do that." Um, but I think you're right. I think that's, like, the first thing that people lose sight of. But it's important to remember.
Sarah: Also, Woodhull is really good about that. Like, I know a lot of people have scoffed at me when I've said I delivered at Woodhull.
Lisa: Among doulas it has a pretty good reputation. In the birth community.
Chris: Fantastic. There's, like, one anesthesiologist, I would steer clear of.
Lisa: Yeah. You think?
Sarah: But yeah, I would say, like, they were fantastic. At some points, in my brain when I was mad that, like, "Things aren't going my way," you know, like when I was one centimeter dilated, and I was just like, "What?" Like, going through four contractions and just being like, "What are you saying? Please don't talk to me." Like, they were like, they were so good at just leaving us alone, you know, like nobody was, like, on top of me and nobody was, like, in my face about anything.
Sarah: And I can't speak more highly of them. We had some weird nurses that, like, weren't going to let Chris shower at some point, but, like, that's another hospital story that we could totally go into about after giving birth. Because that's a whole, another story, but, like, um, like, you know, everybody was fantastic. And we had great care, and we got to make decisions, and nobody was on top of us, and nobody was, like, screaming "C-section"
Sarah: in my ear. Even though everybody I've talked to is like, "What? How long? They let you go that long? That should be against the law." And I'm like, "Well, I'm not traumatized by it, so that's okay. That's okay. I'm fine. I'm still going to have another baby, probably. Like, don't worry, we're good." But yeah, we made the decisions. We felt good. We still feel good. I will say, um, the one thing that I will just point out, it was, like, our midwives, when they came back and talked to us, um, and I was, you know, I was like, I'm having a really hard time saying, like, "I gave birth," because it's hard for me to just—like, giving birth to me is, like, pushing a baby out. Right? That's, like, "I gave birth to my son." Like I had a hard...I had a really, really hard time saying that, because in my eyes, I was like, "But he was just cut out of me." And they were like, "Sarah, you had everybody's birth."
Lisa: You did. You gave birth like five times.
Chris: And people are like, "Oh, but you didn't get the home birth."
Chris: I'm like, "We did! We were there for day and a half. That's the home birth. We had a home birth, we had a hospital birth, and we had a C-section. Unmedicated and medicated. We had everything."
Lisa: Absolutely.
Sarah: She did say, like, after talking to me and me being like, "Oh, you know, it's Emerson's birth story. Like, we love it. It's Emerson's story, it's great." She was like, "We don't like to say that, like, we're happy that somebody transfers, or that we're happy that you had a C-section, but in your case, like, you are the perfect candidate, because you're not upset about it. You know, like, you have"—I have lovely, like, memories of my birth story, even though it was crazy. Like, my midwife sitting on the floor, like, waking up in between a contraction and just, like, looking over at my midwife, or, like, watching my, you know, like, looking over at my doula who's, like, holding my hand, or, like, the beautiful sunrises, or, like, all of the lovely, like, midwives that we came into contact with, or, like, the wonderful Donald Sutherland doctor that we dealt with, or the doctor that—I still don't remember her name—who did my C-section, who talked to me after for, like, an hour and a half and sat down and, like, chatted it up with me when I was like, "So what's, what are—like, how long do I have to be here?
Sarah: When can we, can you sign me out early? Can I go home tonight? Um, how long can I have before I can start running? Walking? Getting up the stairs, exercising, any of those things? And she, like, sat with me the entire time and talked me through it. So we just had such a lovely experience at Woodhull, and I can't talk highly enough about—and, also, I don't care what your birth plan is, unless it's, like, a scheduled C-section, hire a doula, just do yourself a favor. The best money we ever spent
Chris: Was on a doula.
Sarah: Was on our doula. She was amazing. And I mean, granted, like, we had a really interesting story where we were in labor for a couple of days, and she showed up whenever we needed her to. And was like, "I'll come back tomorrow. You need me in an hour, call me."
Chris: She was a champion.
Sarah: Yeah, she was a champion. We were like, "We need to pay you more. We need to double your pay. You went through, like, three births."
Lisa: I was thinking about that.
Sarah: She came back after and talked to us about our birth story and, um, just like, you know, making sure that I was OK. And luckily I recovered super easily, went back to work a week later. Um, and you know, there were other things that could have happened. I could have had postpartum depression and then I could have had, like—Emerson had, you know, like, we had a little bit of a hard time breastfeeding in some ways, but like, I was able to breastfeed really easily. My milk came in pretty quickly, even with all of the, you know, all of the stuff that was in me and how long I labored and all of that kind of trauma on the body, like, my milk came in pretty quickly, and I was able to sustain it to the point that we're still breastfeeding at almost two.
Sarah: So we had some really good, like, we had some things that didn't go our way, but we had some really great things that didn't go our way.
Lisa: Well, thank you so, so much for sharing Emerson's birth story.
Chris: Thank you.
Sarah: Thank you.
Lisa: Alright. Have a good one. Take care. Bye
Chris: Bye.
Lisa: Wasn't that an amazing story? As we close out our month of Cesarean stories, I just want to point your attention to the information we've linked on our show notes for each of the Cesarean episodes. If you go over to BirthMattersshow.com and look up episode 32, or 36, 37, or 38, you'll find a number of excellent links to resources on Cesarean birth to learn more. And remember to follow us over on Instagram or Facebook @BirthMattersNYC for more educational content. Alright, so next week will be the last birth story for our first season before we go on hiatus for the summer.
Lisa: We'll continue recording birth stories for season two over the summer. So please do reach out to us if you're interested in sharing your birth story. Here's a sneak peek of what's up next week. We have two home birth stories in one episode shared by Sarah's and Chris's dear friends, Nora and Michael.
Nora
You know, I love being pregnant. I love having babies, but it is incredibly powerful. And I think I'm, I feel really grateful that we were provided the information and the support so that I could feel that way. And, and I, and I want, I hope our story inspires other people to look into all of their options. Because I want everyone to feel the way I felt after having a baby, that empowerment. And, no matter how your birth story turns out, and I think, you know, going back to my dear friends who put us on this path, you know, I think it's about having the support around you so that you have decisions that you feel like you're making those decisions no matter what happens in all of those.
Lisa: This week, I want you to ponder the idea that you are a birthing warrior. Thanks so much for listening to the Birth Matters Podcast. We'll see you next week.---END---
