Claire's Birth Story

I quickly threw this together a few days after Claire was born so I could send something out to friends and family, and get some of the details down while they were still fresh in my mind...

Thursday, November 8, 2007
I started noticing what I thought was early labor around dinnertime, but it was more of an annoyance than actual pain. I remembered my mom telling me that she had no idea she was in labor with my brother until she went to a checkup and the doctor told her she was 5 centimeters dilated; she just had a sore back and she thought it was from moving furniture earlier that day. That’s exactly how mine felt: achy as if I had been moving furniture (which I hadn’t been.) By the time Mark got home from school around 9pm, I was already asleep because it had gotten a little worse and I wanted to rest up in case I really was in labor.

Friday, November 9, 2007
I woke up a few minutes after midnight because my backache was starting to radiate to my lower abdomen. It seemed to come and go every 15 minutes or so, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up quite yet – it almost seemed too good to be true, considering her revised due date was October 28th and we felt as if we had been waiting forever. I waited an hour or so before waking Mark, just to be sure.

By 3:00 am Mark and I were both up and moving around. I was picking up the house between contractions so it would be organized when we came home, and Mark was taking care of some loose ends at work on his computer. It was really exciting knowing we would have Claire very soon! The contractions were getting strong enough that I had to stop what I was doing, but using the techniques we learned in our Bradley childbirth classes got me through them just fine. Our plan was to stay at home to labor as long as possible, so I kept myself busy as long as I could. By 6 am, about 12 hours after I initially noticed the backache, I could no longer do anything but concentrate on laboring; we dropped what we were doing and Mark helped me get through them. Time was moving a lot faster than I imagined it would.

A little before 9 am I was sitting on the couch, breathing deeply and trying to stay relaxed during contractions, which were now a few minutes apart. Until then, the contractions had been hard work to get through but I still felt in control. Suddenly they were so strong and close together that for a moment I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore. And that’s when I knew it was time to go to the hospital – we had learned in our classes that I would make it to this point, and that meant the end was very near. Then I knew I could do it!

The drive to the hospital was pretty uncomfortable – it was only about 15 minutes, but was driven on a very bumpy road. It was difficult to stay relaxed around the turns and over the bumps, but Mark had wrapped a down blanket around me and I kept my eyes closed the whole time to help me focus. I didn’t open them until Mark rolled up to my door with a wheelchair, and I noticed that it was snowing lightly.

When the midwife checked me upon our arrival around 9:00 she announced that I was fully dilated and ready to push. I was so shocked! It had taken a lot of hard work and concentration to make it that far, but it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. We had planned on having a water birth, so they took me straight to the tub and I pushed for 2+ hours. I didn’t feel like we were making any progress and I was getting really tired so I got out and allowed the midwife to break my water to see if that would speed things up. We were scared to see that the amniotic fluid was stained with meconium (Claire had passed her first bowel movement in the womb, which can be very dangerous.) I was terrified that Claire may have aspirated the meconium, which could mean very serious lung problems. The midwife let me get back in the birthing tub to labor a while longer, but told me that we were no longer eligible to deliver in the water.

The fear that Claire was in danger put me into overdrive, and to the surprise of everybody (including myself!) Claire was born not even 5 minutes later. In the water. Oops! She was placed on my belly and let out a few hearty cries, and we knew she was ok (which was confirmed by Apgar scores of 8 and 9). Mark and I were so relieved! And it was love at first sight.

I was so happy to have made it through the birth drug-free as planned, but shortly afterwards I started hemorrhaging and they had to give me an IV with several drugs to try and stop it. I ended up losing over 1,000 CCs of blood, but the joy of sharing Claire’s beautiful birth with Mark seemed to override the fear and pain of the complications. Lunch was brought in after they took care of me, and I realized how starving I was. That had to be one of the best meals of my life!

We spent the rest of the day in kind of a blur, getting to know Claire and enjoying the calm after our hard work. The next day, our midwife said that my hemoglobin had dropped dangerously low (from 14 during pregnancy to 7 after the birth; normal range is 12-15). If I didn’t show any improvement I was going to need a blood transfusion. Thankfully I was up and walking around the following day so they let us go home with strict orders: lots of iron, protein, and calcium, along with a chlorophyll supplement. It will take a while to get back to normal levels but I’m feeling better each day, and Mark and our families – and especially Claire – are keeping me in excellent spirits. We are so happy to finally have Claire in our arms!

**Many of my friends and family were surprised to learn that we were planning a waterbirth, and wondered if it was safe. In fact, it is very safe. The baby receives oxygen through the umbilical cord via the placenta; the water is kept at body temperature, so it is a very smooth transition for the baby from the womb to the water. It is the cold, dry air that causes the baby to take the first breath, so there is no danger of the baby inhaling water – it’s no different than the amniotic fluid already in the lungs. There are many benefits to waterbirth, including reduction of pain (it’s called the “aqua-dural” for that reason), greater mobility that comes with buoyancy, greater relaxation, reduced abdominal pressure, and a gentle entrance into the world for the baby, among others.