Five years ago I became a mommy when I gave birth to my son Nykki.
To read about last years birthday party click
hereIn honor of him, here's his birth story:
It was Friday the 13th. I was hoping for the baby to be born on this day but something told me I had to wait just a little while longer. I was nearly 4 weeks overdue at this point.
At 11 pm that evening I began having some rushes but since I had cramping and rushes for over a month I decided not to get too excited about it. The rushes were no longer then 10 minutes apart and so intense that I couldn’t sleep. I decided to wait until 2 am to make a decision as to whether or not I was in labor. At 1:37 am I had a rush so intense that I felt hot and light headed. I woke Fred (my first husband) up and told him that I thought the baby was coming.
He was skeptical, I could tell, we had waited so long it was hard to believe it was happening. Something felt different though and I knew this was it. I called Kaye, the midwife, and told her what was going on. She told me to take a long soak in the tub and call her back in 45 minutes. After the soak the rushes were coming every 3-7 minutes but because they weren’t lasting long we were all reluctant to believe that it was going to come anytime soon.
Within an hour the rushes felt back to back. I could sometimes not manage to get my breath. Kaye was at another birth so she sent another midwife named Jill over to check on me. Jill proclaimed me to be 3 cm dilated which depressed me a little. The most important thing for me to do was get some sleep but I couldn’t because the rushes were so close together. Kaye agreed with Jill that I needed to relax as much as possible, letting my body go limp during the rushes so that my natural instincts could take over and let the labor even out a bit.
Kaye suggested to Jill that I have a glass of wine to calm myself and try to sleep. We didn’t have any wine in the house so I had a little beer. It didn’t work however because by this point the rushes were causing me to throw up (Word of Wisdom at work I now believe). Jill told me to settle in and rest as much as possible, and then she left.
As the sun came up I had Fred call Kaye again because the rushes were increasingly intense and closer and closer, I knew something was going to happen soon but still the rushes weren’t lasting very long so everyone else thought I had some waiting to do and that I would probably have the baby in the late afternoon or early evening.
Kaye told Fred to have me come to her office. She said it would be good for me to get up and out. I knew I couldn’t do it. I could barely stand, so I called Kaye back and told her myself exactly how I was feeling. She told me she would come over after her first prenatal that morning. She checked me when she arrived and I was about 5 cm. I felt terrible because I knew I still had a long way to go. I was so tired and all I wanted to do was get a little sleep.
Soon after Kaye’s arrival however I began to feel the urge to push with the contractions, then it went from an urge to an involuntary action of pushing. I told Kaye and she set up the birthing chair. I was only in the chair a short while when things really started to rip. I felt like a puppet, some unknown force was pulling the strings, I had no control. My body was pushing and pushing, it was all happening so fast. The quickness of it began to stress the baby and Kaye became concerned (but I knew he was fine).
She had me lie on the floor so she could closely monitor the baby’s heartbeat (wrong! wrong! wrong! I wish I had the guts to tell her to leave). Nykki's heartrate was dropping during the intensity of the rushes but it was rebounding fine so I was not concerned. Kaye, as the midwife, had a judgment call to make. She knew me, and she knew my body. She knew that the best thing I could do was to push out the baby and quick. Pushing felt a lot better but I couldn’t feel myself making any progress so it was a little discouraging. I pushed hard as Kaye couched me and Fred held my hand.
I had never worked so hard in my life and I was so tired. The baby was coming and coming quickly and soon I could feel the head at the end of the birth canal. This was the hardest part. As the head pushed against me to come out I was terrified of tearing. I didn’t want to rip myself apart and it felt like that’s what would happen if I pushed any harder. The water still hadn’t broken so in an effort to speed things up Kaye broke my water at this point. Kaye told me I had to get the baby out and fast and that I had to push through it.
I reached down deep to a place inside myself that I didn’t know existed. I found the strength somewhere and I pushed. It felt like a really intense Indian burn and then “pop” out the head came. I took a brief break and some deep breaths. I could no longer feel the baby as he rested half in and half out of my body. Kaye suctioned him out and told me she wanted me to get the body out in one push. The body wasn’t actually hard to get out. I pushed and then “slip, slip, bump” He was here. I felt so selfishly great at that moment. It was over, the labor had ended and I felt like I could get up and dance.
Kaye checked the baby. She kept saying he was fine he just needed a little help. I couldn’t see him yet; in fact I didn’t know it was a him. I looked to Fred who had dutifully held my hand the whole time even though I almost broke his wrist.
Soon enough Kaye placed him on my chest. He didn’t look at all like I had pictured. He had big brown eyes but his hair was so light it was almost blond! Blond hair, where on earth did he get that? He wasn’t quite as chubby as we expected but boy was he long. I knew he had to be from the way he had laid in my womb.
He had large feet and hands and we knew we had a future tall, skinny man. I was so glad he was here. I felt this sudden rush of energy. Again I felt as though I could get up and dance. Compared to labor the minor discomforts of the present moment seemed like nothing. I couldn’t believe how great I felt. Nykki joined our world at exactly 11 am on June 14th, 2003, making him a Gemini with a Virgo rising and an Aries moon.
Somewhere in Southern Utah a man named Seth, who probably could have been found at chess club that fine Saturday morn, had just become a papa - and he had no idea!
Happy Birthday Nykki!!!
If you're interested in how I came to feel about the birth later, read on....
This was published in Birth Love magazine in 2003
Coming to Terms With My Midwife Assisted Birth
By Ayla Serenmoon
I studied to be a midwife for several years, so I really believed in woman-empowered birth. I had read I Can Do This! By Hygeia Halfmoon and I seriously contemplated unassisted birth. I was nervous though, it was my first birth and I was fighting the opinions of friends, family and society just to have a homebirth in the first place. My own sister didn't talk to me until a month after my son was born because she was convinced I was going to "kill my baby" by having him at home.
Still I thought that maybe if I meditated and prayed on it, I could just say I didn't realize how far along labor was and the midwife didn't get there in time (wink, wink). Every night before I went to sleep I dreamed of catching my own baby.
I loved my midwife though, I truly did. She was, and still is, a wonderful woman who was doing all she could to keep birth for women sacred. Unfortunately my midwife had insurance risks and legal issues to deal with. She was use to women handing over power to her, just like they would a doctor and so she assumed control out of habit.
When I went for my prenatals I rarely had a question. I found that as long as I meditated and looked within I would find the answers to all my questions myself. I spent the time with my midwife mostly being comforted by her as I complained about my unsupportive family. She was a terrific at that and I am still very grateful for the emotional support.
The first thing that made me lose my nerve about an unassisted birth was the fact that my son was a month overdue when I went into labor. I was unfamiliar with 10-month pregnancies and my midwife had me checked out by a doctor to make sure "Everything was OK." My family called and badgered me daily, I eventually turned the ringer on my phone off. I felt awful, I felt out of control, and I especially felt like my body had failed me. By the time I felt my first intense contraction at 1:37 AM on June 14th I had lost all faith in my body's ability to do anything correctly by itself
I had my husband call the midwife. She told me to get in a warm bath and time the contractions. I did, but the tub made me feel awful, I just wasn't a water labor type of person, but at her request I stayed put in the water for 45 minutes. The contractions where intense and I felt like I was swiftly coming along. My midwife was unconvinced since the contractions weren't lasting any longer then 30 seconds.
I labored on and because my midwife was at another birth she sent over a fellow midwife to check me at about 3:30 AM. This midwife was kind and rubbed my back. She checked my dilation and I was only 3 cm. I felt saddened because I was convinced things were progressing faster the midwife told me I would have my baby by that evening. This midwife called my midwife and they both agreed that I needed to try and sleep, so she gave me some beer to help slow my contractions.
I didn't want them to slow, I wanted to get it over with and have my baby. I think the bath and the beer was my midwife's effort to slow my labor so the baby wouldn't come before she could get there. I threw the beer up anyway so it didn't make a difference. The first midwife went home.
At 6-ish my midwife told my husband to drive me down to her office and she would check me there. Was she insane? I didn't want to go anywhere I could barely move, I just wanted to lay on my bed and release every muscle in my body and let my body do it's thing. My husband thought the midwife knew what she was doing and he tried to convince me to follow her directions but finally I called her back myself and said there was no way I could make it.
I was in serious labor. She probably thought I was just being weak since it was my first time. The first midwife had told me I needed to move around more to get things going and my midwife agreed. I didn't feel like moving around, things were going just fine by themselves. I didn't need to get up and out, I needed to birth my baby. When the midwife finally showed up she was so exhausted from the birth she had just attended that she checked me (only 4-5 cm now) and then she fell asleep on my bed.
After an hour or so she set up her birthing chair and I couldn't wait to get in it. She told me to go to the bathroom and then I could sit in the chair. While in the bathroom however my body started pushing on its own, I wasn't doing a thing consciously, my body was just taking over. I told the midwife and she told me to sit in the chair. I really felt like squatting.
She checked the baby's heart rate and said I had to get on the floor because she didn't like the heart rate; it was falling during the contractions and not recovering as much as she would like. After a few more contractions on my back (which is such an uncomfortable position to labor) she asked my husband to call 911 and tell them we needed a transport for a woman in labor. This was when I decided to take some of my power back. I said no! The midwife trusted me and said I needed to get the baby out fast but she had to monitor his heart rate so I had to push on my back. I pushed and pushed and pushed against gravity, trying to get the baby out fast. (It seems to me the fastest way would have been to squat.)
Finally the head was out and then the body. It was 11 AM I asked if the baby was OK and the midwife insisted he was fine and that he just needed a little help. It was several minutes before I saw the baby and by that time the midwife had rubbed him and he was cleaned up (which was against my birth plan) It kills me that the first face he saw wasn't mine.
At first I only had a few complaints about my birth. I was tired because it had gone all night, I had throne up and I had to lie on my back and push. As time went by I began to lose faith in my midwife. She confessed to me that she had almost used her contraband vacuum extractor. My son had a bump on his head form crashing against my pelvis as he tried to come out fast. I found out that my midwife routinely gave oxygen to all moms in labor, and that she transported to the hospital often. I started thinking that the next time I would look for another midwife. Come to think about it she had been concerned about my protein intake because I was a vegan (which is a uninformed position).
I know that if my labor had just progressed normally, if I had been allowed to squat and my son was allowed to come as fast as he had wanted, if I had had faith in my body, if I hadn't been given beer, if I been allowed to sit and go with the contractions, then my son's heart rate wouldn't have been a concern in the first place.
After the birth when the midwife came back she gave me the Rh- shot, which she hadn't discussed with me before hand. She knew I was anti vax and anti PKU, so I felt as though I had been taken advantage of in a weak moment so that I wouldn't object to the shot, which also cost $250! (Which is on top of the $1,200, my midwife's standard fee, $120 for blood tests, $60 for the birth kit, $500 for the ultrasound and doctor visit when Nykki was over due. None of which my insurance would cover.)
Don't get me wrong; I don't think my midwife is a bad person, quite the opposite. I think she has been conditioned by 25 years plus of women giving her all their power, of treating her like a doctor. She started acting like a doctor out of habit. She simply assumed I was like those other woman who wanted to be told what to do at every turn. She didn't want to end up like those other midwives who had been taken to court for the slightest "misstep" in the eyes of the law.
I think for some women midwives are the only choice they feel they can make for first time labor. Most women have to use all their courage just to have a homebirth in our society at all, let alone have any courage to birth alone. My experience taught me that simply having a home birth was not enough for me, and that I have to fight harder to educate other women as well as myself. Next time, I will be catching my own baby thanks to all those UC pioneers out there, and hopefully I can become privileged enough to join their ranks and spread the word!
PS I did just that in 2007!
