Bellies to
BirthCast
| Week of December 1 |
Episode 4 |
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Choosing
Homebirth After Emergency C-Section
Heidi Sylvester joins the Bellies
to
BirthCast to discuss her decision to have a homebirth at
age 39 with her first child.
A full
transcript of the interview appears below:
CATHERINE:
Thank
you so much for being here, it's a
pleasure to have you with us.
HEIDI:
Well, you're very welcome.
CATHERINE:
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your first birth
experience?
HEIDI:
Well, I was a relatively young mother and I was pretty naïve, although
I didn't realize quite at the time how naïve I was. I had
witnessed a few births of relatives at hospitals, and had seen very
much the standard host of obstetric interventions with those births;
all the way up, not including C-sections. So they had been
vaginal births, but they had had a lot of interventions. That
to me was normal, and that was what I expected pretty much, was to have
the doctor and the hospital take care of it. I didn't really
own my birth so much with my first baby. I just didn't look
at it that way, and I planned to have an epidural; that's entirely the
norm here in Utah, where I live. They have extremely high rates. 95% of
births are with an epidural. I really had no concept of doing
it any other way. I was a little concerned about being able
to push my baby out or having an episiotomy; didn't want an
induction. And those were things I'd gathered a little bit
about with my reading, but, I didn't read a lot of things, and I read
very main stream type of book; what to expect type of stuff. And, I
didn't take any birthing classes with that first baby. Yes, I
went into that just sort of expecting it to go like all of the other
births that I had seen. It didn't go like that at all. So, it
threw me for a loop.
CATHERINE:
Can you tell us a little bit more about the actual birth?
HEIDI:
Yes, it was pretty fast after sort of all that going, I slept through
early labor probably and woke up to some contractions; and then before
ten minutes had passed I'd been awake that my water broke with a big
gush. It was “okay, very clearly you're going to have a baby
today.” It was a few days before my due date, and my doctor
was not around. He was out climbing a mountain, so I was
going to have his on call doctor. So that was kind of drill
and kinks right off the bat. I was not too worried but I
figured whoever I go was going to be fine, and it really turned out to
not matter at all. I went right in the hospital, because I
had the group B strep positive, and I was told to go right in and get
antibiotics. By the time I got there, I was having contractions three
or four minutes apart. I probably would have wanted to go in
anyway. I was four centimeters when I arrived, and they did all the
very normal things that they do to women. Take off your
clothes and put on this gown; and put an IV in; get on the monitors and
lay in bed. I did all that. My husband was just
right there with me. I was having really good strong active labor and I
didn't have any idea what to really do. But they told me I needed to
get a bag of IV fluids run in before I was going to be able to get an
epidural. It was kind of like “okay you're all hooked up to
everything and here you go. We'll just wait.” They
left us alone. Labor was steaming right ahead. I
was miserable in the bed and that was pretty bad suffering time for
me. I eventually got to the point where I was kind of
vomiting and sick, and I was entering transition. But I didn't know
enough to realize that, and nobody was with me except my husband who
knew less than I did. Finally after about an hour of being at
the hospital and being alone in the room, it was nine thirty in the
morning and my water broke at seven thirty. Not too long a time had
passed before they came back into the room. My bag had
finished straining so I had received enough fluids that they felt
comfortable giving me the epidural. I'm sure that it was just the time
of the morning that the anesthesiologist got there and started doing
rounds; and so he came in to give me my epidural. For the first time in
the room with me was the nurse and she was like, “wow you know you're
really laboring. I thought you were going to be like a first
time mom and just barely be getting going here. In this hour
I've left you alone you seem like you made a lot of
progress.” She noticed that I was leaning over the tray while
they gave me the epidural and so right after, she said “we should
probably check you and see where you're at because you're, you seem
like you're really far.” And so she did check me and I was
eight centimeters then, so I was going into transition. At her exam,
she couldn't feel the head anymore and she wasn't really quite sure
what she was feeling. So she called in I guess maybe the
charge nurse, a different nurse, and she also checked, and she thought
that it was a foot. She was pretty sure it was a
foot. So they started kind of preparing us. “Okay, your baby
is breach. We're going to have to do a C-section.” So they
brought in the clothes for my husband to put on and kind of started
prepping me. I think they might have done the shave; I'm not
sure; because it all was happening fast. It was like, okay,
we're going to have a c section now. We're going for it. But
before we could really get too far gone, the heart rate started to go
down too. So, then it was rolling me on to my side.
Then rolling me on to my hand and knees and trying different things to
see if they could get the baby's heart rate to go back up.
Nothing was working. It was down to like 80; so pretty low.
CATHERINE: In that danger zone.
HEIDI:
Yes, definitely in the danger zone. Not gone, but not okay
obviously; so then they're really moving quickly. A doctor came in, and
he checked me. Now there was definitely a foot protruding and a
cord. So, somehow the cord had slipped through or she kicked
it through or who knows. It was coming now. Then it was stat;
we're going down the hall. We're doing it right now and …
CATHERINE:
A true emergency.
HEIDI:
Yes, like we're I'm not really sure because it happened so fast. He
even ever took his hand out. It just kind of seemed like my
bum in the air flying down the hallway.
CATHERINE:
That would be pretty typical of that duration. Yes, to keep the cord
in.
HEIDI:
Yes, exactly. It was just rushing down the hall. Very
fortunately, I just rolled into the operating room in place of a woman
who was about to have a C-section. Her doctor was standing there
scrubbed in. He was an OB, and I had been cared for by the family the
practice doctors; and so they were more than happy to say “go ahead and
do the C-section. You're all ready to go and you can do it
faster than I can anyway.” So it was probably three minutes
after I was in the OR when he was checking for numbness. This had all
happened so rapidly that I hadn't gotten any pain relief from the
epidural or not nearly enough obviously for surgery. He
pinched me and I yelled and they said “we're sorry you're going to have
to go to sleep.” So I was, asleep and my husband was told
that he had to stay out because they incubate and do all that, where
they won't let the husband see you in surgery. She was born
pretty rapidly, within ten minutes of the cord prolapse being
discovered. So that was like amazingly fast record time
response. And I was very fortunate. I didn't even
have time to get scared really, before I was already asleep.
My husband got a lot more scared and kind of had to wait and see; and
they brought the baby out to him. He was able to go with her
to the nursery and get her bath. Eventually I woke up and had to ask
the nurse “what was my baby?” Because, we hadn't found out
the sex; we were waiting for that surprise. So it was kind of like
“what did I have?” In a groggy way; and I remember kind of
smiling about that and going back to sleep, and being really in and out
of it for the next probably hour and a half. And then they
took me to my room, and I guess they waited for me to get awake for
awhile, and they left the baby in the nursery. My husband was
in the room with me, with my mother in-law. I woke up at some point and
asked them, where was she. They told me how beautiful she
was, and I fell back to sleep. Then eventually they brought
her to me, and I sort of remember getting to hold her, and not being
able to breast feed because I was just super out of it. Yes, that's
pretty much the end of that story.
CATHERINE:
You had one of the rare true complications of births. A cord
prolapse can be definitely frightening and…
HEIDI: Sure.
CATHERINE:
Being an emergency, what was your reaction? You said that
while this was happening you didn't even have time to react, it was
just too fast. Looking back, what's your reaction to that
experience with your first child?
HEIDI:
Well, it was pretty devastating for awhile, emotionally. I kind of
didn't feel - for a little while I was in a numb state. But
then it was creeping in more and more and I had some pretty severe post
partum depression. I had a lot of confusion about it. Like,
not understanding really what had happened, and not really
understanding why it had happened too. I kind of reacted to
that; and maybe it's because I'm just the kind of a studious person. By
going to the internet and to books, and trying to read every birth
story I could get my hands on. Trying to understand, first of
all if it ever happened to anyone else; which of course women have
experienced emergency C-section. There was a lot of that I
could identify with there. But, also why does a baby turn breach right
at the very last second like that? Had she been breach all
along? Why did her cord come out? What could I have
done about it? Was there something wrong with me? I
had a sense that maybe my uterus was shaped funny or you know what I
mean. Back then I didn't know anything about uteruses, but I
had been told at some gynecological appointments somewhere along the
line that maybe my uterus was a little heart shaped or that it was
tilted. Now I know that everybody's uterus is tilted one way
or the other. But, at the time I thought well “maybe mine's
tilted funny where my babies will always do that; and I shouldn't even
try to have another vaginal baby, because I'll just need a C- section
again. I should just plan this and be in control of it, because at
least I could be awake.” That was kind of the direction at
first. I have to learn everything about this, because I don't
understand what happened to me, and I'm sad.
CATHERINE:
Right. Do you feel, looking back and having educated yourself
more and what have you, do you feel that there was any way that maybe
the breach hadn't been detected and she'd been breach all along?
HEIDI:
Well, I, that's a hard call. Because, it's hard to say what, if someone
missed something in exams. I know that very experienced
people can sometimes feel a bottom and think that it's a head, and
that's not the first time that's ever happened before. But,
obviously, she wasn't a footling to start with. Somehow she
had converted to having the foot out first. I'm still not
quite sure how she managed that, with broken waters and a contracting
uterus and all the things that were going on. A strange part
of me just feels like it was just the universe coming in there and
zapping this thing to happen, so that my life would be different,
because I would never have done my second birth the way I did it if the
first birth hadn't gone that way. But then, part of me also
says a doula or a midwife presence would have been all the difference
in the world, because they would never have laid me in that bed
reclining, and in such a completely unfavorable position for getting
your baby to come down through your pelvis. Anybody who was
doing natural labor support would get you upright and get you
symmetrical upright, not just lounging in the bed, which is just the
absolute worse position that you could pretty much be in. So,
I wonder if I had been able to follow my instincts to get up an walk
around the room, which is what most women do is walk and move their
hips and things like that, if she would have come down into the pelvis
and not been able to make that big spin.
CATHERINE:
So, do you feel that some of the interventions you had in the hospital
may have contributed to your prolapse?
HEIDI: Well, the big thing to me is the laying
in the bed. But, I also wonder about the position that I was
in for the epidural. It was - they got you bent over…
CATHERINE: Hunched over…
HEIDI: Yes, with your back sticking out, which
is not really a position that women choose to labor in, normally?
CATHERINE:
Not the most comfortable…
HEIDI:
No, not really. From what we can tell, she wasn't in distress until
after that. So, you kind of have to wonder if that bending
over and leaning had somehow contributed to her wanting to make that
spin or flip. It's pretty hard to say, but, it certainly
didn't help to be lying down in the bed where gravity wasn't getting
her down.
CATHERINE:
Right, but it definitely sounds like now you have questions.
Questions I want to have, is it one of those things; or…
HEIDI:
It's really hard to say because strange things do happen sometimes even
under the best of circumstances. With gravity pulling a
baby's head down into the pelvis, it seems like it would have been a
lot harder for a baby to do a somersault than laying down in bed where
the angle is going to drive her head just basically into my pubic bone
instead of down through the pubic bone.
CATHERINE:
Right, absolutely. Now given your first birth experience,
you'd initially said that you thought to plan it. Have that scheduled
C-section so that you could be awake, so you wouldn't have the
emergency conditions. But ultimately, you chose a home birth. Ban you
tell us a little bit about how that came to be?
HEIDI:
Well, a lot, a lot of education. A whole lot of reading and
changing my level of knowledge about what is good for babies and what
is good for moms, and what risk levels there are. I had to
really read and understand how rare it is in fact for a cord to
prolapse, and how rare, even more rare, for a baby to convert from
vertex to breach; and then also on the other side of the coin, learn
the statistics about how cesarean birth affects the baby for the rest
of its life. The increased risks of asthma, immune system
problems, and then that weighed against the very, very small risk of
something going wrong. I became very much aware of what the
risks of rupture were, and what sort of things contributed to that.
Pitocen and augmentation and those sorts of things that I really wanted
to avoid. Obviously, cesareans aren't fun, they are really
painful to recover from and I didn't really want to do that again. As
much as I wanted to be able to control the experience. That's
a pretty big thing to do to your body just for the sake of being able
to control it. I just changed everything about the way I
thought about birth. I didn't want my child to be born that
way. I didn't want to be separated from my child when it was
born. I wanted it to be in my arms. It became a very big deal
to experience the whole thing. I felt so gypped by my first
experience, like I'd missed out on everything. And so I kind
of had a passion to really, really experience it, the second time
around. And we were only going to have two children. It
wasn't going to be like something I'd get to try over and over again
until I got it right. It was sort of learning, “this is the
way I really want it to be, and I really, really want to experience
this.” And when I start to add all the pieces of the puzzle
together, for me, the ideal way, the best way for this child to be born
was at home with no intervention. So as far as, and as long
as that was possible, to do that, that's what I wanted. Fortunately
everything was healthy. My pregnancy was normal. There was no
reason why I shouldn't be able to give birth at home. And I
did.
CATHERINE:
Was VBAC an option in your area? And, was that something you
were considering as well?
HEIDI:
Well, it wasn't an option. I didn't know as much about who
would have been able to give me that VBAC at the time. So I
felt very limited in my options. I didn't know any nurse
midwives who would be able to attend me in the hospital. I've
since learned of them and that they do exist. But, at the
time I didn't know that they did. I would have liked to have
given birth in our local birth center, because those were midwives that
I knew from other experiences, and I was very comfortable with them,
but because they have a regulation policy, whatever that they can't
take VBACS. That wasn't an option for me. So I felt
like I wouldn't have been able to give birth in the hospital that I
wanted to. I didn't feel like I would get midwifery care, and I also
knew that I was going to be on a monitor the whole time, and that there
was no way out of that. I really wasn't comfortable, because
I knew that definitely increased my odds of just having a C-section
that was truly unnecessary just because the monitor gives false
positives so often. I also just didn't feel comfortable with
the fear that is in hospitals about VBACS. I didn't want to
be treated like an emergency waiting to happen.
CATHERINE:
Absolutely. I definitely agree there's a big misperception
that a VBAC is a scary risky thing. When we look at the
research, very few complications typically happen from VBAC.
Most women can be successful but, you're right in a hospital, it is
much more often viewed as an emergency waiting to happen.
HEIDI:
Yes, There are some good doctors out there who do a great job of
attending VBACS, and I'm really grateful that they do that. I
didn't know them at the time, and I really didn't feel like there was
someone out there who would truly support me and leave me to VBAC
without all that fear.
CATHERINE:
Were there any other reasons that you chose a home birth for your
second child?
HEIDI: Well,
probably top on the list would be the protection of the mother and
newborn's bond after the birth is over. The really, really,
really leave the baby in your arms at home for as long as you want that
baby to be there. And as much as humanly possible, they don't
mess with you and they don't bother your baby, and they just let you
bond; and start breast feeding and just do what just comes naturally,
and there's not that rushed feeling. That was important to me, to make
sure that my baby wasn't taken out of my arms for any reason that
wasn't a really, really good reason. So, I had a lot more
trust in that happening for me at home. Another part of that
was the ability to labor in the water and to have the kind of freedom
of movement and comfort that I wanted to have, I didn't feel real
confident in my ability to give birth without medications if I didn't
have the birth tub and things like that. And also, I'm a
really big believer in the hormones and the emotional aspect,
psychological aspects of birth. I think that women need to feel safe,
and they need to feel comfortable; and so when I would think about
giving birth in the hospital and I would feel those panicky feelings
take over me, that for whatever reason, it just freaked me out to go
there. I felt the adrenalin rush. I knew that that
would not be helpful to my laboring to have that kind of fear. I needed
to have only comfort and peace around me during that laboring time,
just to make sure that those hormones worked the best, the way that
they could. Those would probably be my top three reasons for
staying at home.
CATHERINE:
What role did your husband play in this decision? Was he
immediately supportive? Or did he have some reservations
about birthing at home?
HEIDI:
He definitely had some reservations about birthing at home. I
still wish that he could have been able to be more comfortable with the
birthing experience. He had trauma from the first
experience. A certain amount of fear that wasn't going to be
able to be overcome. It was scary for him.
CATHERINE:
I
can't even imagine.
HEIDI:
Yes, it was really scary. Unfortunately, both births ended up being
scary for him. Because it was so imprinted from the first birth that
even the second birth, where it was very peaceful and nothing urgent,
and all of those things no one else felt, he still felt
scared. But, he was a trooper and I gave him lots of reading
assignments, and I said “here's this study and here is that
study.” I made my case for him, I guess. Enough that he said
“you have to give birth. It's your body that has to do this
and I'm not real comfortable with it. It is still kind of
scary for me, but I trust you enough to know you've done your research
enough to believe this is an okay thing to do.” We talked to
midwives. It helped him a little bit too… kind of as her
questions and knows “what would you do if this happened? And
how would we handle that?” Midwifes know how to answer those
questions, and they can help you feel a lot better. That did
help some, and he was still scared going into it, and he white knuckled
it through. But, he made it. He made it. He was a
good support. He ended up being right there with me the whole
time.
CATHERINE:
But in retrospect, when he looks back, has his perception changed at
all?
HEIDI: I
think that he appreciates how much it meant to me. I think
that he sees the difference with just the way that our relationship
was; me and my son, that it was a much less traumatic experience for
me. For that part he is very grateful about. It's obviously
nice to have a wife that doesn't have post partum depression, and is
feeling empowered and happy about her experience instead of devastated
and emotionally distraught.
CATHERINE:
Right, especially when there are two kids to take care of instead of
just the one. What types of challenges did you face as you started
preparing for your home birth? Were there any obstacles you
had to work through like insurance or laws, restrictions in your area”
Is there anything of that nature?
HEIDI:
Well I mean I did my research a long time before I was pregnant to kind
of search out the midwives who would help me out with the insurance. I
was fortunate, I guess, at that time just to have been on a plan that
had actually semi-decent coverage for out of network. I knew
that I couldn't go to the birth center, and that was kind of a
disappointment. It was probably the one legal restriction
that affected mainly, because I think the birth center might have been
a little bit of a half way ground that would have made my husband feel
a little bit better. That wasn't an option, so I just
researched midwives locally and found one that I was very comfortable
with that had a lot of education and a lot of experience; the
certification that I wanted her to have as far as knowing that she was
a well qualified midwife. It's not too bad around Utah to
have a home birth, because we have a long tradition of home births.
It's kind of never gone away here like it has in some
places.
CATHERINE:
So in some ways you might have had more options than had you been in a
different area…
HEIDI:
Yes, I think there's a few more practicing midwives here than maybe in
some other areas. I don't live out in the boonies. I live basically the
urban areas of Salt Lake. So that helps too.
CATHERINE: Now,
given your history, did you encounter any resistance from friends or
other family members to your decision to home birth?
HEIDI:
Oh yes, sure. Everybody says you're crazy when you tell them
that. My husband got even more earfuls from the guys at
work. “How could you even think of letting your wife do that?
Why would you ever do that?” Actually one of my biggest
opponents was my grandmother who's given birth at home herself in rural
Utah. She just had changed to that mindset that the hospital was the
safest thing and thought I should do that. She wasn't in
charge. It was just kind of like “I'm sorry that you feel
that way but this is what we're doing.” The few people that
were very close to me like my parents and my sisters; they all had been
somewhat educated as I was going through this path of
learning. I read about this thing last week and can you
believe that? So they had been hearing this stuff for
awhile. Information was kind of getting presented.
But then when it came down to it, I'm definitely having a home
birth. It made my parents nervous more so than other births,
that their children had had and other grandchildren been born and they
were more concerned and so I did a few things to kind of accommodate
them and make them feel a little bit better about it. I met
with a midwife that my mom knew; just to make her feel
better. I talked it over with her even though it didn't
really change what I ended up doing. I tried to humor them
some. But in the end they kind of know that I'm a stubborn
person and that when I make up my mind to do things my way, that
they're not going to change my mind.
CATHERINE:
They definitely saw the effort you put into this decision, that it
wasn't a just “well we're going to have home births.” You put
in the hours and the homework…
HEIDI:
Yes, they learned about it as I did and got to read some of the things
I brought them. You know, the studies and the books. They didn't, they
weren't completely without information, and they weren't seeing what I
was basing this information on. I even brought my doula in
and we watched a birth video together with my family. So that
they could see what a home birth would look like. Because I was using a
self hypnosis technique for pain management, I wanted them to see what
that looks like, and talk to my doula, about how you have to be when a
woman is trying to be in a self hypnosis state. We did lots of things
to make them aware and educated, because in the end they were coming.
My mom desperately wanted to be there. She loves birth and
loves to be on the “business” end as she puts it. She really
wanted to be there, but we tried to quell some of those fears
beforehand.
She said later that she expected to be nervous. Then, when it came
right down to it, because the midwife was so calm, because I was so
calm, because my doula was calm, she was calm and, she said, never felt
afraid.
CATHERINE:
You talked a little bit earlier about that you didn't want to be
surrounded in the fear of a hospital, and fear breeds fear. Whereas
you're not expected to be afraid, but that comfort and reassurance
spreads that, she didn't need to be afraid because she was surrounded
in an environment that was supportive and accepting of births.
HEIDI:
Exactly. And my doula was aware enough, if anybody had been afraid, she
would have asked them to leave. But they weren't. It was
really peaceful. They all had a good experience with the
birth. They were just really amazed by it. That was
cool to be able to share that with them.
CATHERINE:
Tell
us a little bit about your emergency plan. What steps had you
taken to prepare in the event that some type of an emergency did arise?
HEIDI:
I had looked into the hospital that was the closest to my home as far
as, how exactly do you get there and how exactly do you get into it?
And, I had their numbers all posted by the phone and would talk to the
midwife about it. If this becomes an emergency situation,
this is what we're going to do; and we'd gone over those sorts of
things a lot. A lot of that was just because I was still sort
of afraid that I would have a cord prolapse. It was hard to
completely not be afraid of that, because it was the only thing I
knew. But, I timed the drive to the hospital a number of
times, and had the numbers by the phone. I know the plan was
there and the net was there, but after like a certain point I didn't
even worry about it. I just sort of had a piece of heart that
it was all going to go according to plan.
CATHERINE:
And it really felt like you took the time to do the ‘what ifs', asked a
lot of questions. Your first birth you hadn't considered that
a cesarean would be necessary. In this case you were
able to…
HEIDI:
Yes, if I get plan “B” outlined, and here are the steps, then I can
just know that's then and set it aside, then go back to just focusing
on what the ideal will be. But it's all done I don't have to
worry about it.
CATHERINE:
Now tell us about your actual birth.
HEIDI:
It was lovely. It was beautiful…
CATHERINE:
In a word: "lovely"…
HEIDI:
It was, it was a pretty typical birth, I guess. He went a few days over
his due date. I was ready for him by then, and labor kind of
was the same as it was with my first. I wasn't really super aware that
I was in early labor. I probably should have been, but I was
in denial. “If I don't think about this, then it either will
turn into the real thing and I won't be focused on it worrying about
whether it is.” I just kind of went about my usual business
on that morning, even though I was having some signs of early
labor. My sister came out who was planning to attend the
birth, one of my best friends and she came and brought me lunch just
thinking, “you're over due and sick and tired of everything and have to
cook,” she brought her little girl to play with my little girl so we
could relax and have lunch. I was standing at the counter
trying to eat this lunch with her, and telling her “I've been having
some contractions and some of them are kind of serious.” She
was kind of noticing me having to stop and breathe through them, and I
said “yes these are pretty good, but I'm not going to get too
excited…” Before I could really get those words out my water
broke; so it was like well except that we'll get excited now.
That was my water. She took care of my little girl and I went
on up to got dried. Just like the last time, once my water
breaks the contractions start up in earnest; so I called people and
they started to come. My husband came home from work and set
up the tub and got that running; and my doula came and helped me to do
some relaxation scripts and get into a little bit deeper self
hypnosis. Mostly I walked around my house and used my
furniture to lean over the dresser, or to sit on the birth ball and
lean on the bed, sat on the toilet. Just labor. You do what
you do. And it's all just so easy, because people just show
up and you don't have to do anything else, just pack your bags or worry
about it's time to go. So I just labored in a very straight
forward way; midwife came and set up, and after a time. I thought well
maybe I should get into the tub now that might feel really
good. It's full, and I wanted her to check me because I
didn't want to get in too soon. So she said I was at a six,
and that was at maybe twelve o'clock. My water broke at
eleven thirty. I guess it would have been like twelve
thirty. So, I got into the tub, and just labored.
In there, it made all the difference in the world to have that warmth
and relaxation. So I just hung out in there for a long time,
and then started to feel the urge to push a little bit, and so I told
them that. She said “do you want me to check you again?” And
I think I labored a couple more contractions and then said I would like
her to check me. So she found that I just had a little lip of
cervix. The next contraction I pushed, and she kind of helped reduce
that so that I could really push, because I was feeling the urge pretty
strong. So then I just let my body guide me into the
different positions, and I used quite a few just in the tub.
On the hands and knees for awhile, squatting, just sitting; and I would
just reach up and feel for myself, the baby's there; and when I would
push I could feel the baby was coming down. I got a sense for what
positions and what pushing was helping. So I just basically
guided the head down through that whole part for like the next two
hours, pushing. And then I think I told them that the head was staying
down now. It wasn't rocking back up under the bone. The
midwife felt a little bit, and I said “I think I would really like some
lubrication.” Because I just kind of felt like I was nothing
but skin in there. They helped me get out of the tub onto the
birth stool that was right next to the tub, and my doula sat on one
side, and I put my foot up on her thigh and my mom sat on the other
side and I put my foot up on her thigh so that I was in kind of a squat
with my pelvis nice and open on the stool. My husband was
behind me, and then the midwife got a mirror and showed me. I was like
“wow, okay, I can do this, because I'm really close.” It made
all the difference to be able to see it, like I hadn't been able to see
it in the tub.
CATHERINE:
It made it so real.
HEIDI:
Yes, and also just not a million miles away. It felt like
there was inches and inches worth of skin that I was never going to get
past. But then when I could see it, it was like “oh he's
right there I can see his hair!!!” So I was just pushing
really hard and holding my husband's hands, for a few more pushes on
the stool that way, and he finally came through. His head
kind of popped through, and he just slid right out. He had
had his little hand by his head, and that was why it took me quite
awhile to push him through. He made it out and the midwife
said “take your baby.” And I took my baby and I said “Oh my
God I did it!!! I did it!!! I did it!!!” My husband put his
arms around me. I think I bawled some and I think he was in
shock. Everybody was just like there. My sisters
were at the door. My little sister, who was in charge of my daughter,
brought her up so that she could see the baby be born. She
came over to the bed for just a minute and said hi to her brother, she
was like “I'm going back down to play.” And went back
downstairs to play with her cousin some more. My other sister was
there; my sister-in-law, my parents. So we had kind of a room
full of people, but it was completely silent except for the very few
words that I spoke. He was in my arms, and he didn't leave
them for a very long time. And everybody thought I was mean
because I wouldn't share him. That was something that he and
I weren't sharing.
CATHERINE:
Now, during your labor, during your pregnancy at any point did you
question your decision to have a home birth?
HEIDI:
No. Uh, uh, no, after the last couple of weeks, I think,
because I had been doing so much of the script listening, self-hypnosis
script that guided me through visualizing the birth, and then all of
these affirmations that “I know that I can give birth
naturally. My body was made to do this.” It really
sunk in. So I really didn't feel any worry about it after
that. There were still a certain amount of families that were
concerned but, it was just like “well this is what we're doing
so…” I definitely never felt even a moment of concern during
the birth itself. I just was in the zone of being in labor,
and I never felt even remotely like anything but just “I'm having a
baby. I'm just having a baby now and it's
great.”
CATHERINE:
That's wonderful. In retrospect, what were the foremost
benefits of birthing at home in your situation?
HEIDI:
The family togetherness, just the bonding that we were able to
do. The way that I felt about the birth afterwards, the
completely empowered feeling that I had done this that it was all me,
and no one else had done it for me, and that it was my choice to do it
this way. I was the one in control. Now I still
just feel amazing about that because it was just such - I don't know.
It was amazing how your body can do it. Can do something
seemingly so large, and yet it just, it just does it!!! It
just can, and it's actually not that bad if you allow yourself to
follow your instincts. I think that was, I can't hardly
compare the different sensations between the first birth of laboring to
eight centimeters in that hospital bed and how miserable that
was. And, yet, completely giving birth one hundred percent
un- medicated on my own in my own bedroom. I don't have any memories of
it being painful. Intense, yes. Powerful, amazingly strong.
But it never hurt. It was just, I was able to work with that
sensation so much better when I was upright and moving, and putting my
leg up on the bed, and sitting in the tub, and doing what I felt was
right to do.
CATHERINE:
Then what the evidence says works best.
HEIDI:
Yes. With support. Tat makes all the
difference.
CATHERINE:
If you were to have another child, would you make different decisions
the next time?
HEIDI:
No, I wouldn't do a whole lot different. I know more of the
midwives in our community now, so I might choose a different midwife.
Not because mine wasn't fabulous, but because I'm better friends with
some of the others now. Just my birth team might be a little
bit different, just because of who I know. But basically I
wouldn't really do anything different. I would probably like
to change the way that my husband felt about it. If
there was anything that I could do to make it, so it wasn't as scary
for him throughout the whole experience. I just think his gut
reaction was to have the adrenaline release like fight or flight kind
of panicky sensation, but it's not fun for anyone of course.
He had that during Eric's whole birth, and that's a shame because I was
flooded with wonderful emotions of endorphins and oxytocin, so it was
the most amazing beautiful experience for me, and he was just
scared. If I could do anything differently, I would want to
change that for him. And that would be a task. I'm
not quite sure how I'd manage but…
CATHERINE:
You wanted him to feel as good as you did.
HEIDI:
Yes, I'd like that. If it all came down to it, and if I really didn't
feel like I could make it feel better for him, I'd probably just send
him out to hunt or something. I don't know.
CATHERINE:
Thank you so much for being with us today. Before we end,
what's the piece of take away advice you'd like to share with other
women considering home births or considering home birth after having a
previous cesarean?
HEIDI:
Well, they need to do some real research and talk to the people in
their community about all of their options; and then they really need
to check with themselves inside their gut, or heart, or instinct, or
however you want to word that but, women know what's best for them.
There isn't a right answer or wrong answer. There's just what
feels safe and right and comfortable to you. For some people
that's at home. Just doing their thing with very little
intervention, with very little monitoring. But for other people they
really need to feel like the technology is there or that the monitor is
beeping and that they can hear their little baby's heart
pound. For some of us that creates a calm feeling and for
some of us that creates a feeling of panic, to be hooked up to beeping
machines. That's okay. You just have to know that
you have options. Know what all of them are, and then use
your gut to kind of tell you, “What is the best thing for you?” That's
what I tell women.
CATHERINE:
Thank you so much Heidi for being with us and sharing your
story. You definitely have a lot of good information to
share, having been at both ends of the spectrum.
HEIDI:
You're very welcome. I love to share. I'm known to
talk too much.
CATHERINE:
I think today you talked just enough. Thank you again so much
for being with us.