My Birth Story: Day 1

It's difficult for me to even write - finding a moment without Baby Bruno breastfeeding, needing to just be on top of me, my own exhaustion, continuous bleeding, and pounding head - but I wanted to write this before I forget what happened.  I can now understand how the pain is so quickly dissolved by the new love of your own baby.

I can only do it in stages as I don't have enough energy or time.  Day 1 started with Monday morning, the second follow up visit to the doctor's office to perform non-stress tests to make sure Bruno, at 41 and a 1/2 weeks, was still in a safe environment in my womb.  I want to state first and foremost that I always intuitively knew he was.  The previous Friday our results from the first non-stress test were beyond optimal.

Monday morning we arrive to the doctor's office early.  Already a strange start was that after 10 months plus of seeing my primary gynecologist, for some reason they had scheduled me with a completely different doctor.  Massi and I went first with the nurse to do a sonogram to check my amniotic fluids and baby heartbeat.  Instantly after meeting the nurse Massi and I gave each other looks of disappointment, like who is this woman -- she was so different in how she performed these tasks than the last nurse we had.  We hated the way she placed me on the bed, the way she squeezed the warm gel on my stomach, the way she smelled, everything about this woman intuitively I did not trust . . . and immediately after doing a fast reading for amniotic fluids she told me, "oh, your fluids are extremely low.  You're going to have to get induced."  I tried asking her a few questions and she backed off and then started to tell us how healthy the baby's heartbeat is and that the doctor will speak to us about everything.

I don't have the energy to get into detail.  All I have to say is ALWAYS trust your instincts and get a second opinion.  The doctor didn't offer much more advice other than he suggested us go to the hospital that day and get induced, though he believed I was probably fine and could wait for natural labor to start because I was so progressed in every other way.  He just couldn't medically put his name on that recommendation.  He gave me a very aggressive sweeping of the membranes and sent me on my way.

We left the doctor's office in fear.  Crying.  Massi and I for the first time as parents had to come to a decision as a team.  This was not only about the birth plan I wanted, but about what my husband was comfortable with as well.  I had an appointment scheduled with my holistic chiropractor immediately after who advised us to give ourselves a time limit to go into natural labor that we were both comfortable with, whether it was only by the end of the day or perhaps early the next morning, just make a decision together and give yourselves a little bit of time to think.  I cried during the whole session while our doctor smiled and said "welcome to parenthood, this is amazing.  No matter what happens, induction or not, you are going to experience the most beautiful thing any moment now."  He then gave me an acupressure session and made an appointment for me with an acupuncturist to go to immediately after, as they are known to help naturally induce labor.

An hour acupuncture session, and a little bit more relaxed, Massi and I went home, made a few more phone calls and on some other great advices decided that we needed to just drive to the hospital and get a second opinion.  If the second opinion was that my fluids were really that low, I'd get induced.  The problem I had was never about getting induced, it's that I didn't trust my doctors.  If my baby was ever truly in danger I knew I would get induced in a second.

We had always chosen to go to a hospital in Santa Rosa, an hour away from us, because they had 24 hr midwives and a better feel to us than the Kaiser in Vallejo.  So at about 3pm with all our bags packed and ready for a possible night stay and labor induction we drove to the hospital without calling ahead and checked ourselves in -- I did have "low fluids" and was bleeding quite a bit from a second sweeping of the membranes performed in three days.  We were gratiously received and given our own birthing room.  We had to wait quite awhile for the midwife because she and the doctor were performing a c-section.  We waited about four hours to finally get re-tested by the mid-wife who hesitantly said that her reading of my fluids was normal.  Before the mid-wife had come into take my tests the only thing going through my head was the feeling that I just didn't see myself giving birth that night.  I thought to myself, they're going to re-read my tests and find that everything is ok.

The doctor came back into the room with the mid-wife and was so confident and at ease.  I really felt comfortable with both of them and if they had told me "you need to be induced right now," I wouldn't have hesitated, I would have said, "I'm in your hands."  The difference between their experience and the doctors/nurses in Napa was enormous.  The doctor searched around for my fluids with the sonogram stick and practically laughed.  I had such deep pockets of vertical fluid, it's just that the baby moved a lot so she had to constantly move around to find them.  She said, "you are fine.  You are so fine that I am signing my name on it and sending you home.  You're so close to natural labor that you'll probably start even tonight, but in case you don't I want to schedule you in for an appointment for induction by week 42, which is Friday."  She then gave me another aggressive sweeping of the membranes and sent me home.  I had an appointment to come back in thursday night if labor hadn't started naturally.

We arrive back home to Napa about 9pm, eat dinner and go to sleep.  I had spent a day crying because I knew intuitively that there was nothing wrong with me but if I didn't follow up thoroughly I could not live with myself potentially putting our baby at risk.  I was emotionally drained but so happy to be home. I really couldn't believe how difficult it had been to navigate the doctor's system to get retested.  I was just so happy that I didn't cave in to the fear that was instilled in me by my first doctor's visit and trusted my instincts instead -- coupled with the fact that we also were very careful and went to the extent to go into the hospital to get a second opinion -- they were all difficult choices to make in the moment . . . and at 3:30 a.m. that tuesday morning I started having my first labor
contractions.

To be continued. . . .