A Birth Commentary and Puddings Birth Story

The Today show, that bastion of journalistic integrity posted this on it's show a few days ago. Go watch it and then come back for my pithy commentary.
Ok, you're back!
How many of you are scared to death that babies all over the country are dropping like flies due to mean, scary midwives who make a woman labor for 4 days without drugs?
My heart goes out to this family. I remember how it is, getting that nursery ready for that sweet baby girl, going through all those pink and fancy clothes, feeling every little kick and looking forward to the day you'll meet her. If that day had never come for me I would be devastated and I'd be out for blood.
However, I was lucky, that day did come for me and my own sweet baby girl is currently sleeping upstairs curled up next to her favorite hippo after terrorizing the Tyke, Dilbert and me most of the day. I was lucky because my baby was born alive and mostly well. However, I can relate to the feeling that the mother in the video had of feeling betrayed by her midwife.
The first midwife I labored with, I loved. I'd seen her for most of my prenatal checkups and I felt I connected with her. I'd read the material that the practice put out about what their philosophy of birth was and the Midwifery model of care and all that and that's what I thought I was going to get. Well, not exactly.
I came in with just some little tickle contractions, nothing compared to the real deal (I know that now). They'd been going all day but we'd been prodding them along all day, walking for miles, stimulating things, all kinds of craziness to keep those contractions going. I came in at about 9pm with these tickles and she thought it was enough for me to stay at the birth center. Then at midnight when I'd dilated to 3 (I know women who walk around for the last month dilated to 3) she thought it would be an ok idea to break my bag of waters. Seven hours later and still no baby, she thought maybe I ought to go to the hospital for an epidural because I couldn't seem to relax and let the contractions do their work. Oh, and she wasn't coming, another midwife was going to meet me there.
All of this was pretty far from the procedures I'd expected and what I'd read about in the literature. I hadn't asked her enough questions and I hadn't done enough research myself to learn that pushing labor ahead usually isn't a good idea, if contractions stop when you stop whatever you're doing, they aren't the real deal and speeding up labor isn't usually a good reason for breaking the bag of waters.
If I'd done the research and known those things and felt confident enough in myself to say "NO!" when these things were suggested, I might have had a very different birth and my daughter would have been born with normal blood sugar and pink hands instead of blue ones. The Pudding was cyanotic when she was born which means she wasn't getting enough oxygen between contractions because I'd gotten my epidural so I could relax and she'd gotten a big ole' dose of Pitocin so that the contractions were too hard and too close together for her to get enough of a breath. I shudder to think what would have happened had labor gone on longer. I also hadn't been allowed any food once we got to the hospital so the Pudding wasn't getting any calories that she needed either. They gave her glucose water in the nursery to fix this which insured that the first three months of breastfeeding were hell because she had nipple confusion.
I trusted my midwife too much and myself not enough.
But life was merciful this time and I got to keep my baby despite my mistakes. And they were my mistakes, it was my baby in there and my body that things were being done too. None of it was forced on me, I consented to all of it. If I didn't know better, that doesn't change the responsibility. Those were my mistakes.
I realize I've gotten off track here with talking about my first birth. The biases in this video are plentiful and you can see them for yourself. My personal favorite was that the "expert" (How the hell do you get to be an expert about birth without having done it and thus being a woman?) suggested that women ask their midwives if they carry malpractice insurance or if they have a back up OB. Do you care if your doctor carries insurance? I don't. If they screw up bad enough for someone to sue them, it's their own affair if they're prepared for it or if they loose their shirt in a lawsuit. My midwife(with my second baby) didn't carry insurance and told me so upfront. She said that if I had a problem with her care or handling of any situation I should come to her first and then do what I thought was best for my family. Luckily, we were very well taken care of the second time around so we didn't have to worry about any of that.
Here's the thing, cord strangulating happen. There is very little that you can do to prevent them and in fact I believe it's about 1 in 4 babies are born with the cord around their neck with no adverse affects. It is a sad, sad thing when this happens to a family and my heart breaks for them but lets not confuse causation with coincidence. This baby could just as easily been still born at a hospital as at home. NBC took a families tragedy and exploited it to make all homebirth seem dangerous and the practitioners of such, irresponsible. Homebirth is not extreme, it's not inherently dangerous. Life is both and many times we forget this or try to blame it one anyone at hand.

The Birth of The Tyke

So, he's finally here! The labor was only 8 hours long from start to finish and everything went very well.
I went to my midwife appointment on Tuesday morning (December 30th) and Peggy said it was time to think about doing some natural induction methods since I was 2 weeks past due and we were pretty sure on the dates.
At around noon Kim (the assistant midwife) came over and helped me go through the various things they do to stimulate labor. This included some homeopathic medicines, herbal tinctures, Castor oil, belly massage and a breast pump. This part wasn't much fun because you're taking these very nasty herbs every half an hour and then the Castor oil kicks in which isn't much fun at all. It was nice just hanging out with Kim and she really helped me stay on track with things which did get things going. She left around 3:30 and checked me just before she went. I wasn't dilated at all but there had been some "softening."
My mom and Pudding, who had been at the park for most of the afternoon, got back shortly after Kim left and I was starting to have light contractions and running to the bathroom all the time. Castor oil really does what they say it does. Matt got home around 4:30 and right around then I was starting to think this could actually be it. We'd had so many starts and stops with labor this time around that I was not really sure I should believe it. I called my doula Tara to see what she thought. She said she'd come by after she'd fed her kids and gotten them settled for the night.
Meanwhile I sat down to knit on our big chair with Dilbert there. We would chat between contractions and he would rub my belly to keep them going. I kept a heating pad on my breasts because Kim had said that that would sometimes help stimulate things and I was feeling cold all the time so it just felt cozy to me. During a contraction Dilbert would stop rubbing my belly and I would look in his eyes. Things were not very intense yet but I would have to think about staying relaxed and focus on my breathing. Dilbert was a big help because he didn't look worried once, that was a huge thing for me. He just looked so confident and calm that it calmed me down.
Dilbert had to head out for a while to get some prescription filled. His sinus infection was kicking his butt. I stayed in the chair knitting for a little while. Whenever a contraction hit I would make eye contact with a silly little ornament on my Christmas tree. Oddly enough, it helped.
Tara got there around 7 or so and things were starting to pick up. When Dilbert got back, we made the decision to bring Pudding to our friend Jenn's house for the night. Dilbert packed Pudding off to Jenn's house so she could have a sleep over with her buddy K. I sang her her baby song just before she left, it was kindof a bitter sweet moment because it was the last time I saw her as my only child.
After Pudding left, things started really getting down to business. I started to have to make noise through the peak of a contraction and we moved up to my room with just me, Tara and my mom. During a contraction Tara would rub my leggs and mom my shoulders to help me stay relaxed. I started really wanting Dilbert to be there and somewhere around this time we called Peggy to come too. Dilbert got there first and I leaned on him for a few contractions. Then we tried laying down under the covers so that Dilbert could hold my belly. I remember the heat from his hands feeling really good and it didn't work very well when anyone else did it.
Kim got there pretty quickly followed by Peggy and Desiree. They got everything set up and said they would get out of our way if I wanted them too. I told them I'd rather have them there, "lets keep the party going " is I think what I said.
Shortly after that I got hot all of the sudden. Tara ripped off the wool socks she'd put on me earlier and Dilbert helped me off with the silly yellow hoodie that I'd been wearing. I was pretty frantic to get them off. Soon the Castor oil kicked in (again) and Dilbert helped me to the bathroom and stayed with me because I was having pretty intense contractions and didn't want to be alone. That was a new phase of our marriage right there.
I stayed in there for a while because I just didn't want to get up. My mom said that it was great to see how Dilbert and I worked together through this part because I was really starting to loose it. I kept saying that I didn't want to do it anymore and that it hurt, I don't like it. Dilbert would tell me to look at him and tell me that I was doing great and that I was doing it and that it would be done soon. That would usually calm me down enough to stop screaming.
For a little while Kim came in because they needed to check the babies heart tones and she did the same thing for me. As good as she did, it was nicer with Dilbert because I could pull on him and not worry about pulling him over. I don't know how long I was in the bathroom but it must have been a while. After a bit the midwives said they should check me since we hadn't done that since Kim had been here earlier. At 11:05 ( they read the chart entry later) I was at 7-8 cm dilation.
The midwives got the birth stool set up (not really a stool, just a big metal frame that you perch on) and I moved over there.
This I remember being the hardest part. I was still whining my way through contractions, sometimes yelling, sometimes just saying, "I don't like this." When I got on the stool though everything felt even more intense and I started feeling like my body was pushing even though I wasn't trying to. Peggy kept checking and said that I shouldn't push yet but I simply couldn't help it. For a few contractions I kept the pushing to a minimum because I would pant my way through them but pushing was still happening though I don't think I told Peggy that. I was sortof roaring through contractions now and they were right on top of each other. I would yell as loud as I could and still wish I could go louder.
Finally at 11:30 they said I could push for real so I stopped panting and just let things go. The contractions spaced out some but they were so hard when they came that I didn't notice. One last big push and out he came with a big splash of water all over the midwives. That last sentence makes it sound easy but it was anything but, I seriously thought in the moment that natural childbirth was a stupid idea and the epidural was the way to go. However, I changed my mind very quickly because then he was there I could still feel my legs and everyone was telling me how good I'd done and that I hadn't torn much at all. I walked (assisted by several people) over to my own bed and got in while holding my baby whose cord was still intact. I laid down in bed and the midwives came over the check me out and massage the uterus (no fun). I discovered that I had a boy, no one told me that, it was mine to discover. The Tyke didn't seem much interested in nursing but he didn't cry much, just enough to let us know he was ok. We got him to latch on a little to help get the placenta out. That seemed to take a long time and I had to push really hard. When the placenta finally came out, I could see why it was so hard to get out, it was huge, bigger than the baby. The midwives said that when your nutrition is really good you get a big placenta like that and that it's very good for the baby. They told me I should be really proud of a placenta that big. It weighed nearly as much as the baby himself. The Tyke weighed in at 9 lbs 10 oz!
That was pretty much it. Peggy, Kim and Desiree tucked us in and headed out after fixing things up and Tara headed home to her family. My mom went downstairs and Dilbert, The Tyke and I snuggled into our own bed. Other than feeling sore and whatnot, I'm in good shape and The Tyke is doing so well. I definitely recommend home birth because the whole thing was so much more peaceful and I never remember feeling uncomfortable, people came into my space, I didn't have to go to theirs. It was good.