Felicity Anne's Birth Story

Our planned natural birth turned C-Section: A story of love

A SHORT PREFACE

I preface this by saying read at your own risk. I’m not going to sugarcoat anything in this story because if I did, it would be as follows: I wanted a natural birth but we ended up having a c-section. The end! And that’s not at all the story I want to tell. I’m not trying to scare anyone here. The reality is that, casting aside what I wanted my birth to be like and looking at the big picture, birth is safe in this day and age. My baby got stuck, but we have wonderful technologies that can lead to a safe birth and a happy baby and Mama. My body didn't fail me. My birth team didn't fail me. My husband didn't fail me. The hospital staff didn't fail me. The entire way, I felt empowered, loved, and comforted. Everyone stayed focused on getting my baby here in the best way possible while still keeping me informed of all my options. We tried EVERYthing before making the decision to have a c-section and I know in my heart that it was the best decision we could have made. Even though it was my only choice, I never felt pressured to make it. My midwives and the doctors gave me time to make an informed decision and that is such a precious gift to have in the midst of a traumatic birth experience. So, don’t read this thinking “oh my gosh what if this happens to me” because the chances are, if it happens to you, it will be okay. It will take a lot of time to process, but eventually you will find healing and joy in the little one you’ve brought into the world.

That being said, right now, I type this at 6 days postpartum and I do not feel healed. I feel exhausted, happy, sad, lost, loved, and heartbroken.

PREGNANCY

This birth requires some backstory. My pregnancy was pretty textbook. Baby was completely healthy and everything was normal. The only abnormality was that I had mild anemia throughout my entire pregnancy, which turned out to be a greater battle than we thought at first. We had planned for an out-of hospital birth at a wonderful birth center. I loved my midwives and the prenatal care was amazing. As we neared the due date, it became more of a concern that my hemoglobin levels would cause difficulty recovering if I ended up having any major hemorrhaging after birth. I struggled so much trying to pull up those levels the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Nothing I seemed to try helped (And I tried everything!). Finally, my midwife sent me to an OB for a risk assessment, just to see what they would say. We were given the great news that we were clear. My levels were low, but not dangerous, so it was really up to my midwife. The birth team discussed everything and decided that they were 100% comfortable delivering at the birth center, as long as I was okay with having an IV lock in and ready, as well as heading to the hospital at any red flags following birth. I was so happy with that arrangement and finally felt comfortable doing all the things to try to induce labor. For the last excruciating week before that appointment, I had been trying not to induce labor in case it gave us time to correct the hemoglobin level, but now I was finally ready to have this baby. I was drinking red raspberry leaf tea, doing spinning babies exercises, working through the Miles circuit, and hoping the end of my pregnancy was near. On December 13th, we decided to have sex, which is the only scientifically proven way to induce labor. We thought it might get things going, but neither of us really thought it would work as well as it did. However, it was worth a try since we were nearing the due date. I expected to go about a week past my due date, so I felt pretty relaxed about everything. So long to all those things I thought I was going to get done last minute before baby came. Not long after our labor-inducing efforts, I started feeling some cramping, which I ignored because it felt exactly like all of the Braxton hicks contractions I had been having.

DECEMBER 14TH, 2022

2:15 A.M.

THE BEGINNING

I began having my first contractions around 2 a.m. They didn’t feel like much, but I started noticing a bit of a pattern. I tried not to get excited, since I knew that if it was labor I would need all the sleep I could get. Fighting the knot in my stomach, I forced myself to rest and sleep in between the cramps. Finally, around 4, after some restless sleep, I realized that I was still having contractions and I could not sleep through them. I kept going to hands and knees on the bed, making little moaning noises, and trying not to completely wake up my drowsy husband, knowing I would need him later. In between, I would lie back down and hold my belly, only able to doze a little. I eventually pulled my phone out and started keeping track, just in case. I woke Greg up around 7 a.m. and said “I think we’re in labor.” He checked the timer and confirmed that they were indeed consistent. We were both so excited and it made me so chatty. I remember talking Greg’s ear off as he slowly woke up and we started our day as normally as possible. We were sure we were in labor by 10 a.m. and Greg texted work to tell them he would not be going in. The day was spent timing contractions, which were all about 6-10 minutes apart and lasting 1 ½ minutes. We went on a walk in the afternoon and I had to stop moving and hold onto Greg, leaning into his shoulder, to have contractions. It was happening! When the contractions let up a bit, I got really discouraged, wondering if we had called a false alarm. I decided to try to take a nap instead of worrying about it. After that, around 7, my midwife Kassidy suggested that we try doing the 3 Balances exercises to see if it would allow my pelvis to open so baby could move down. Those really helped. Contractions became more frequent and got so much stronger. I started grabbing onto Greg’s neck and hanging from him, moaning low and loudly. I couldn’t get through them without him. I told him he better make sure everything was ready to go, which was hard for him to do since every time a contraction began, I started yelling for him. He made sure Kassidy knew that the contractions were getting more intense. I had stopped walking and talking through contractions and I could barely hold myself up at the peak of the surges. I tried to switch positions several times, but the only one I really wanted to be in was standing, swaying and holding onto Gregory with all of my strength. Any time that he could, he stretched out flat to try to relieve his back of all the pressure I was putting it through, which helped him a lot. I wasn’t quite feeling like myself in between contractions at this point. Before these, I would snap right back and be like my normal self. I tried to breathe and focus instead of allowing myself to panic and tell myself I couldn’t do this, which is exactly what I wanted to do. We wanted to try to stay home for as long as possible during labor because that is where I would feel the most comfortable, which meant baby was more likely to move down quicker. So from 8-9 p.m. we did the strong contractions while swaying and Greg finally texted Kassidy to say I was feeling angsty. (In those exact words..thanks love :P) I was saying I didn’t think we could stay home anymore. Baby was coming and I wanted to go in NOW.

HEADED TO THE BIRTH CENTER

At 9:11, Greg packed the bags in the car (Huge tip from the birth class we took, get the bags in the car before the laboring woman so she’s not sitting in the car screaming for you to go faster. I was so grateful that everything was done before he got me in the car.) At 9:46, we pulled into the birth center. The car ride felt like the longest of my life. Little did I know there was an even longer one in my near future. Greg ran one stop sign, because it’s existence is stupid in the first place and I was begging him to run it all the way down that street. Once we were there, Kassidy met us outside and led me in through the back door, letting me know that I could take as long as I needed to get to the birth suite and that we could stop as many times as we needed to. I however, was determined to make it as quickly as possible to the bed, so I pushed through the contractions. It took me a minute to get comfortable, especially since Greg was still bringing our things in. Finally, he was there next to me, whispering that it would be okay and that I was capable of having this baby. I remember internalizing that and at the same time really hoping we hadn’t come into the birth center too early. If I wasn’t very dilated, I was going to be so disappointed. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be checked, just in case I was at a 3 or something ridiculous. But when Kassidy asked if she could check me, I agreed and laid my contracting body down on the bed. After a quick check, she told me I was at an 8! I was so happy we were already in transition. The birth team was so quiet and worked so diligently, I hardly noticed them around me as I labored. They suggested that I lay on my side with the peanut ball in between my legs to see if we could get things even stronger. I said so many times, “I’m scared” while Greg was helping me change positions. It was terrifying to push through so much pain and pressure while trying to make it worse so that the baby would engage and move down. I kept telling myself that it was productive, that every contraction was bringing me closer to meeting our little one. We changed positions on the bed a few times, during which they tried to place an IV. I tried not to be annoyed as I was lying there attempting to be still for the needle through contractions. Kassidy poked me twice and it seemed like it was going to work, but every time, the needle didn’t quite hit the vein. The blood wasn’t drawing back into the tube and she had to pull it out. So she got Diane, a nurse they had on call for my labor, to try to get the IV in. She tried once and it didn't work either. They told me my skin was being weird and elastic, which wasn’t allowing the tube to slide properly into the veins, which were also rolling. I was annoyed. I wanted the IV to be placed so I could focus again.

While I was laboring on my side on the bed, the birth team filled up the bathtub. Finally, after what felt like forever, Kassidy said I could get in if I felt like that would be a good thing. It would probably help to relieve some of the pain I was feeling and soften everything for when baby came out. I agreed and moved to the tub. (It’s worth mentioning that at this point, modesty went out the window and I lost every thought that said I needed to cover up. It was pretty much the case for the rest of my labor and when I did have to put clothes on later it made me so annoyed.) Every time I had to change positions, I felt paralyzed by fear that I would have a contraction in the middle of transitioning to the next position. It was inevitable that I would at this point since the contractions were so close together. I was getting tiny little breaks in between, but it never felt like enough. Once I got in the tub, Diane tried one last time to place the IV and it worked this time! I felt so happy that I didn’t have to endure the needle pokes anymore and having it in gave me some peace about labor in general since they now had the ability to hydrate me if they needed to. Once I had been in the tub for a little while, everything got stronger and I started feeling so much pressure in my pelvic floor. Kassidy asked if she could check me again and found that I had progressed slowly to a 9, but that I had a lovely thing called a cervical lip. That stupid last bit of cervix was holding my baby in and it wouldn’t thin no matter how many contractions I had. I started feeling the urge to push and Kassidy told me it was a little early and she asked that I try not to push if I could help it. If I pushed too early with a cervical lip, I could cause something to tear if baby’s head came ripping through everything suddenly. So I turned my deep groans into horse lips as I tried not to push. I directed every ounce of my energy into the noise I was making and into my breath instead of down into my pelvis. I kept on this way for about an hour in the water, which felt so good. I remember thinking to myself how glad I was that I was getting the peaceful birth that I wanted, in a birth center, surrounded by a great birth team, with Gregory holding my hand over the edge of the tub. By this time, I maxed out on time I could spend in the water. They keep time in the tub to two hours before emptying it and filling it again with clean water. I got to 9 ½ centimeters dilated and Kassidy said I could try pushing now to get rid of the rest of the cervical lip. We moved to the bed, where I labored on my back again. It ended up just being the best position for me to push in. I was a little sad because I had wanted to use gravity and hands and knees to push this baby out, but none of that felt right. I gave it all that I had, bearing down into my pelvis. I pushed for about an hour and that’s when I started feeling absolutely exhausted. Gregory was wiping up the sweat dripping down my face and forehead literally every few seconds. It was almost more annoying than pushing to have drips of sweat running across my skin and I told him to keep wiping it whenever he could because it was incredibly distracting.

Kassidy checked me again and asked if I would be willing to let her use her fingers to hold the cervical lip back while I pushed at the same time to see if we could get baby’s head to help thin it out. I hesitantly agreed, again feeling the sadness of needing intervention in order to progress in labor. It. Hurt. There’s no other way to put the feeling of someone’s fingers stuck up there, hauling on the incredibly sensitive cervical lip while I was pushing as hard as I could. I started losing my focus and she used her other hand to show me where to push down to, encouraging me the entire time. All those sensations started to blur together as my energy waned. They started IV fluids as I became more and more dehydrated. I could barely drink a sip or two of water when Gregory brought the straw to my lips and every tiny thing took all of my energy. I started sinking back onto the bed in between contractions, my head rolling to one side. I couldn’t keep anything up and my eyes wouldn’t stay open. I think it was around 4 a.m. at this point. I had capped out completely, but kept rousing myself for one more push, desperately hoping it would push baby’s head down and out. I was checked again and my tired eyes met those of my birth team over and over as I tried to figure out what they were thinking at this point. I had been going on for hours and I felt like I had made so little progress. I could tell that everyone else was also exhausted, which made me incredibly worried for what was going to happen if I continued to make little to no progress. I didn’t want to ask where we were at because I could tell by the looks on their faces that it wasn’t great news. I kept making eye contact and they would change their worried expressions to be encouraging and hopeful. I could tell we had been going forever because Gregory looked like he was about to drop. I remember him asking at some point if he could pause for two seconds to eat something and I shook my head and gripped his hand as tight as possible to keep him from leaving me. Kassidy told me that the cervical lip was gone, but now it seemed that baby was stuck just behind my pubic bone and we just needed to push past that. If we could do that, she would be born!

After countless more contractions and so much pressure and pushing, the birth team stepped outside of the birth suite to discuss options while Gregory and I kept working through the contractions. I was confused at this point about whether or not I was supposed to be pushing or not pushing since we had been doing so much of both. We tried so many different positions throughout the course of labor. The midwives had a few more tricks up their sleeves. The last few, very unpleasant things, we tried were the absolute worst. With each one, I felt entirely drained and I could tell I was reaching a breaking point. They tried an in and out catheter, just to see if emptying my bladder would give baby more room. That was excruciating from start to finish and it didn’t seem to help at all. We tried a birth stool, which is just a low curved stool that helps with positioning near the ground so that gravity could help me out a little. I was struck at this point with how grateful I was for Kassidy because she was sitting in front of me on the hard floor, touching my knee and speaking encouragement the entire time. “Push through that pressure. Push past it. That’s it!” We moved back to the bed and did more manual stretching with her finger to try to open things up. It was at this time that she made a face and said she could feel baby’s head right there. She asked if I wanted to reach down and feel it too. It took me a couple of contractions to build up the courage. I was so afraid to feel my baby that close to the end when I knew I wasn’t making progress. I reached down and sure enough, about an inch inside, I could feel my baby’s head hovering, squishy and malleable. Panic was building in my chest and I kept crying throughout everything because I wasn’t sure we were going to complete this birth without extra help. With each push, I could feel her head coming down and every time a contraction ended, I could feel her sliding backwards. We tried doing tug of war, where I pushed on my back while holding the end of a knotted sheet that Mabry (a student midwife), pulled the other end of with all of her strength. It felt like that might be working! At the same time, Kassidy kept constantly pulling at my cervix, trying to keep things open. We pushed like that for what felt like hours, but baby stayed stuck.

As my strength drained, I knew I needed to ask Kassidy where she thought we were at. She looked worried and tired. I wasn’t sure what that meant and I wanted to stop trying to read into it so I finally asked if we were almost there. She let me know that we were making progress, but that it was really slow. Gently, she broke the news that the other midwife was coming in early to see if she had any ideas for things we could try, but that we were looking at a hospital transfer. I was too tired to keep going and baby was definitely stuck, unless we tried something and it worked really well suddenly. They wanted to give me every single chance to have a vaginal delivery outside of the hospital. She asked if I wanted to try sitting backwards on the toilet. This really helps strengthen contractions for most women, since the toilet is somewhere we naturally push anyway. Hope swelled in me as I labored on the toilet, my sweaty head plastered to the towel laid across the back. I couldn’t keep it upright anymore. However, it felt like these pushes were stronger and I could feel her head pushing against my pubic bone. I wanted to give it everything I had, but I had nothing. My hands were empty. I kept starting the Hail Mary and never ended up finishing it. Kendall, the other midwife, arrived and I heard her come up behind me. They were all telling me how proud they were of me for pushing for so long without giving up on myself. She said I was doing such a good job and that my pushes were perfect. And she asked if, once again, she could take a look and try to pull my vagina open for baby while I pushed. I sobbed out a yes and said I needed to have another contraction before I could get off the toilet. I waited for it to surge, pushed as hard as I could with no luck and then Greg helped me get to the bed one last time. Kendall checked me and tried to think of anything else that could possibly help me naturally deliver my baby. Nothing came to mind. I had been pushing for hours.

TRANSFER TO THE HOSPITAL

It is important to say that medically, my baby was not in danger the entire time I was laboring at the birth center. Neither was I, other than being exhausted. They let me keep laboring as long as they could. It was 6 in the morning and the sun was dimly lighting the sky outside. The team discussed everything one last time and we decided to transfer to the hospital. Kendall leaned over me and said the most beautiful prayer of protection. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I remember feeling so at peace while she was praying, even though I was still enduring horrible contractions and the inescapable urge to push. I remember thinking it was a really beautiful, crisp morning in between the door of the birth center and the car. That drive was so so painful. I had multiple contractions in the middle of mid-morning traffic on I-35 as we headed for the hospital. Because it wasn’t an emergency situation, we had decided to take my car instead of calling an ambulance. I also wanted to avoid making the transfer dramatic, keeping myself as calm as possible and I knew an ambulance would really throw me off. Unfortunately, that meant idiot drivers cutting us off to get over five lanes while I tried with all my might not to push a baby out in the front seat of the car. We finally made it to the hospital, going in the wrong door. The person at the front desk called Labor and Delivery and I remember hearing her say, “You’ve got a patient here. She’s in labor. YES, she’s in labor; she’s pushing.” I was like..yeah no kidding can we go please? Now that we were here, I just wanted relief. I didn’t care if they pulled the baby out of me or if they made me completely numb, I just wanted to stop pushing with no results. Kassidy had come with us in the car and she took care of all the logistics involved in hospital intake. I was so grateful that I didn’t have to think at all about anything. I was so terrified of the hospital, the nurses, what was going to happen and I didn’t want to be there. It was my midwife and the angel nurses that made me feel comfortable even though they knew this isn’t what I wanted. The L&D nurse who tended to me, Hope, was so amazing. She made sure that I knew that she knew that what I wanted was a natural vaginal delivery. The OB decided that the best thing to do was to give me an epidural and see if I could then push the baby down and out if I wasn’t in excruciating pain. All of the decisions and intake took forever and I realized somewhere in there that I was a special case because when the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural, he had to confirm verbally that he was okay with giving it to me even though not all the paperwork was entirely complete. They asked me if I consented and he placed the epidural so fast, I hardly even knew what had happened. That Doctor was so sweet and calm. The fact that he was the same person who ended up handling anesthetics for the surgery really helped my anxiety not skyrocket. He made sure I was okay and that everything was working properly. Shortly after, it kicked in. Everything was numb from my chest down, including my fingertips. Hope then helped me try some more positions to push in. The hope was that I would be able to push harder to get baby past the pubic bone now that I was in less pain.

Through several different positions, I tried focusing on getting baby out. I could tell pretty early that it wasn’t working. Since I was doing okay pushing on my own now that it was more about focusing really hard on where to bear down, I told Gregory to get a little sleep. I knew that if I ended up getting surgery, he was going to need his energy to be there with me. After two hours of pushing in the hospital, the OB came back to let me know that she thought a C-section was the best idea. I was calmer than I ever thought I could be at that news. I discussed it privately with Kassidy and Gregory and then I called my Mom to ask what she thought. I really didn’t have any choice at this point. So, I confirmed my decision to go through with the C-section with the OB, pressed the button to up the epidural dose a few times, and took a short nap. It was the best nap I have ever taken in my life. I woke up drooling I slept so hard.

After my nap, we tried to contact a priest to get him to hear my confession and give me anointing of the sick. I remember the nurse laughing because she had come in to prep me for surgery and then the priest arrived and she was like, "Let's wait a second. I'm guessing a priest seeing this much of you isn't on your bucket list!" I was so grateful that a priest was able to come. I had been planning on going to confession the night that I went into labor and had been really sad that I couldn't go. It was a wonderful experience to receive these two sacraments in the midst of what felt like chaos. It gave me peace about the surgery that was to come.

The OB was eventually ready for us and after 7 hours of pushing (Active pushing, not just labor mind you), I was prepped for surgery to get my baby out. I was excited for this ordeal to be over so I could hold my child, but the idea of a c-section scared me. There were a lot of layers to cut through. The main thing that terrified me wasn’t actually the surgery itself, but how different recovery from birth was going to look like now that there was going to be a massive incision in my abdomen.

Three Days Postpartum

C-SECTION

From here on, everything gets a little fuzzy in my memory. They wheeled me to the OR and on the way, I stopped them suddenly, saying I needed my glasses. “I won’t be able to see my baby.” I told them, feeling a little panicky at the thought. Turns out, being heavily drugged makes it really hard to see your baby too. They planted me on the table and started bustling around, getting things ready, putting up the barrier between my head and my stomach, and the anesthesiologist started flooding my body with more bupivacaine and fentanyl through the epidural. It felt like a cold sheet of water was running down my back. Gregory had been getting ready back in the L&D room and didn’t end up coming with us initially so the whole time they were getting me ready, I kept watching the door for him. Every time someone walked through, I tried to see if it was him. Turns out, someone was supposed to go get him and they waited until the last possible second. I had a moment of severe panic because as I sank deeper and deeper into the medication, I realized that they were going to start without my husband there to comfort me. I could feel the OB trying to figure out where to cut. WHY could I feel that?, you ask in horror. Oh, just because I had a hot spot right where they wanted to start the incision on my left side. I could feel everything. The scalpel was cold as it touched my skin and I made a face, which prompted the anesthesiologist to look at me and ask, “Okay sweetheart, why are you making a face?” with a lot of concern. I quickly grimaced and told him that I could 100% feel everything in that one little spot. He immediately gave me more medication and I started to feel really bad. I remember the blue barrier spinning in my vision and I said, “I think I’m gonna pass out.” The scalpel cut into me. I wanted to run away and hide, to decide not to do this, and I wanted Greg to be here NOW. Finally, they brought him in, just after they had begun the surgery. He sat to my right and I was able to hold his hand off and on throughout the entire surgery.

I only remember a few things. I am still grieving over the fact that even though I was technically “awake” during the c-section, I don’t remember much of anything. I didn't get to hold my baby on my chest for her first moments of life. I didn’t get to see her for more than two seconds when they held her up over the barrier in front of my face before taking her away. I didn’t feel comforted by Greg for more than a few seconds because by the time he got there, I was in a very confused, swirling world of being so high on the drugs they were giving me to try to fix the hot spot situation so that I didn’t flinch on the table. It was terrifying and I felt so lost. The disconnection to it all was something I will never be able to put into words.

I remember three things: 1. the moment I caught a blurry glimpse of a baby being shoved over the barrier to meet me before they rushed her away to be evaluated by the NICU team. 2. Gregory’s eyes, as I met them several times trying to be focused on something while so out of it. 3. Hearing myself in the very far distance saying, “We have a Felicity.” When I realized it was a girl. Everything sounded very muffled and I kept passing out at different points and saying “ow”. During the c-section, they pulled the baby out with a ton of force (apparently she was stuck really good in my pelvis, so much so that the doctor had to pull and strain to get her out) and they showed Gregory the baby briefly, but everyone kind of forgot to tell him what the gender of the baby was so he was trying to figure that out. One of the nurses eventually said it was a girl! Felicity had a huge bruise on her head that they were very concerned about. This meant that all of the things I really wanted to happen directly after they pulled her out were completely nixed. No delayed cord clamping, no skin to skin (even with Dad), and little to no vernix left on baby. They pulled the NICU team in to check it just to be sure the bruise wasn’t a hematoma, but they decided that she was okay, which is such a relief. It would have been hellish after that experience to wake up without a baby on my chest. Gregory then got to meet his daughter and to hold her after they got her weight. She was exactly 9 pounds and they said that only big babies had arm rolls. I apparently didn’t look at all like I was carrying a 9 pound baby because they kept saying how surprised they were that she had fit in there. They were all impressed with Dad’s carrying abilities. He held her in one hand while running around the OR trying to respond to the team as they told him to bring the baby here and to come comfort me over there.

Gregory said that the anesthesiologist kept him updated on everything and was good at letting him know that I was okay and that surgery was going well. He told me later that when the OB started cutting into me, I did flinch and she asked what the heck was wrong and the anesthesiologist said he was working on fixing the hot spot as fast as he could. But really all he could do was keep giving me more medication and hope that eventually I couldn’t feel anything. Unfortunately, that meant that after what felt like hours, I woke up incredibly drowsy in recovery with people trying to get my baby to breastfeed because I was not present enough to help with that. Thankfully, she had a good strong latch and was able to eat without me. I spent the next couple of hours drifting in and out as I came off the epidural, and finally finally woke up enough to actually see my baby lying there on my chest. It was a euphoric moment. All of that and she was here, safe and sleeping.

THE END

I’m not sure how to conclude such a whirlwind of a birth story. I could go on about recovery and how difficult that has been. I could try to describe how I’m feeling after losing everything I wanted in an unmedicated, hospital free, no-intervention birth, but I can’t even begin to scratch the surface to explain how much pain and loss I’m feeling. I managed not to cry over it too much the entire time I was in the hospital, but now that we’re home, I cry multiple times a day. Every time I see the incision site, it breaks my heart and I lose it all over again. It’s a huge thing to have to process. I can both enjoy my new baby and wish she had gotten here a different way. I understand that we’re both safe and that’s a great thing, but we still went through it. Felicity didn’t have it easy either, what with her head getting shoved against bone for 7 hours before she was ripped into the world. We both need a lot of rest and a lot of time to process everything. I will never be the same. And our lives are forever changed by our Felicity Anne. Welcome, beautiful girl.