Our Birth Story

Our Birth Story

Told by Rawley

On Sunday April 15, Julia started to feel “menstrual cramps” around 10am and we decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood to see what would happen. On our walk, the cramps were becoming stronger and we decided to call our doula for advice. Julia didn’t want to alarm the midwife and hospital until we really knew this was the real deal. When we returned home from the walk, Julia went to use the restroom and had a small gush of what we had to assume was her water breaking or leaking. At this point, we contacted the midwife since Julia was GBS positive and knew that she would want to see Julia sooner than later for antibiotics.

Our midwife said to continue to labor at home and we would meet at the hospital later that day. I spent the rest of the afternoon timing contractions, packing last minute items in the hospital bags and fulfilling my Bradley coach duties while Julia tried to stay relaxed and welcome each contraction. At one point, we sat on the back deck and enjoyed the sunshine while Julia continued to labor with her feet kicked up on a chaise lounger.

Around 5:30pm we headed to the hospital as Julia’s contractions were about 3 minutes apart and 50 seconds long. They were definitely getting stronger but were manageable. When we arrived in labor and delivery, they immediately set Julia up on the EFM to see how the baby was doing while Julia received the GBS antibiotics. Baby’s heart rate was staying consistently between 170 and 180 beats per minute. Due to this, we decided to keep the EFM on to continue to monitor baby closely.  The baby was also experiencing several decels after contractions. Most of them would recover pretty quickly but a few stayed down for several minutes.

At 7pm Julia spiked a fever and was given Tylenol and a different type of antibiotics. The doctors started to fear that perhaps she had an infection and that might be the reason why baby’s heart rate was so high. Our midwife wanted to identify where the umbilical cord was at because she thought that could be the reason why we were having decels. An ultrasound machine was brought in and it was found that the cord was not the issue. We also asked the midwife to perform a vaginal check at this time and learned that Julia was 3cm dilated, 100 % effaced and the head was engaged in the pelvis.

Before long we realized that the baby was handling labor the best in only one position, therefore Julia had to stay laying on her side for the majority of the labor. This made her contractions more painful because she wasn’t able to move around and at this point, water birth was also out of the question. Our labor was now considered “high risk”. Julia had to use her deep breathing techniques that she learned in Bradley class to help her through despite her uncomfortable position.

The decels continued and we had many difficult conversations about the risks and possible outcomes. We were still trying for the natural birth and our midwife was really supportive, but we knew that cesarean was a high possibility for us at this point. We definitely didn’t want to have an emergency surgery where Julia would be put to sleep and miss the experience of our daughter being born, so we asked the anesthesiologist to place the epidural in case our situation changed quickly.  The epidural placement began around 10 pm.  We were really still praying that the labor would turn around and baby would be born vaginally, so we asked for another check around 11 pm and Julia was found to be 5cm at this time.

Around midnight, the baby had a pretty major decel that lasted for over 5 minutes. The heart rate had dropped down to the 60s and was not recovering quickly. Our midwife looked at Julia and said that she believed it was time to get the baby out. That was when we really knew that this was the right thing to do. We really trusted our midwife and knew she would only suggest the C-section if it was truly our only safe option at that point.

The surgical team was very accommodating and wanted to help us experience our daughter’s birth as positively as possible. They made an exception to allow our doula to be present in the operating room which was a huge blessing. They also let us bring in our ipod player and dimmed the lights. The agreed to let the cord pulse for 1 minute before clamping and brought the baby to Julia minutes after delivery for skin to skin contact.

Julia’s placenta was beginning to calcify, which may have attributed to the stress on the baby’s heart. The OHSU team also determined that Julia had developed an infection during labor that was putting stress on the baby. Despite the turn of events and possible risks that developed during labor, our baby Kadence was born perfectly healthy. We felt very positive about our choice as we knew that not having the intervention could have resulted in a much different outcome. We felt extremely knowledgeable and in control of the process despite all the scares along the way. We really are able to look back and remember our birth experience in a very positive way, especially every time we look down at our beautiful daughter’s face and see that she is healthy.