Earth Babies Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Birth Story’

This is the story of the birth of my little miracle baby – Andrew Roy Cross, (older brother to Birth story of Michael Cross)
born on 24 June 2004.

I found out that I was pregnant on 2 December 2003. My due date was 10 August 2004. It was so exciting to tell everyone. My sister was the first to know and then I told my mom and my grandmother. My mom and sister were flying to visit my brother in Canada for the month that evening and I called my brother from the airport to tell him the news. Everyone was very excited, with it being the first grandchild on both my and my husband’s side of the family.

My pregnancy was great, except for the nausea, which lasted the whole way and was not only confined to morning sickness. I really felt like I was glowing. I love being pregnant.

I don’t know when exactly I began leaking amniotic fluid. I was feeling dampness downstairs for a week or so. I had been ill with bronchitis for a few days and had really been coughing a lot. I just assumed that the dampness was due to incontinence because of the pregnancy and that this was just worsened due to the coughing. I wore a pad and though nothing more of it.
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This is the story of the birth of my precious baby – Michael Albert Cross,
born on 29 July 2006

I found out that I was pregnant on 2 January 2006. My due date was 8 September 2006. I had a lovely (textbook-like) pregnancy and the baby was growing very nicely, although a bit big – but that I would only worry about later.

On Wednesday, 26 July, I woke up the morning with contractions. Not being sure if they were false ones or not I started timing them and sure enough they were regular, meaning it was the real thing! This concerned me as I was only 33 weeks pregnant. I went off to the hospital and was admitted with premature labour, which my gynae (tried to stop. After some drugs for the pain and others to stop the contractions I made myself at home for a bit of a hospital stay.

I remained in the hospital for 2 nights and was discharged on Friday, 28 July with some medication for in case the contractions started up again and told to take things easy (mild bedrest). All was well until 5am the next morning (29 July) when the contractions started up again. I got up and did some washing and packed a bag for myself and the baby, just incase – instinct must have taken over then – had some of the medication to stop the contractions and waited to see what would happen. By 7am I was in a lot of pain so I woke my husband up and we all (my eldest child too) made our way to the hospital again. I got to the hospital at about 8am and was told that I was indeed in labour again and that the doctor would be called. Unfortunately my gynae was not available as it was his weekend off, so I was introduced to the on duty doctor. He examined me and told me I was already 5cm dilated and therefore they would not be able to stop the labour process and that the baby would be born that day. As you can imagine, I was in a lot of shock (and pain) and had to quickly mentally prepare myself for this as it was really the last thing I had expected!

We called the parents and my mom (who happened to be in town) came over to the hospital. We also called my husband’s mom to come fetch our other child, who was still with us at that stage (terrorizing the people and the poor fish in reception, but luckily I was the only patient there that day).

After being prepped, I was moved into the labour suite. Things started to get a bit hectic then and pain-wise I was not doing too well and the baby was lying posteriorly, making labour a bit worse than anticipated. I asked for an epidural as pain relief at about 10am and the anesthetist arrived shortly before 12pm to come do the procedure. It was quite quick and painless with the only challenge being to sit perfectly still during a contraction for him to work on the spine. The epidural kicked in quite quickly and the midwife did a sweep of the membranes and my waters broke at 12h25.

Before I knew it, I was 10cm dilated and was told to hang on for the doctor before starting the next phase of labour. The gynae arrived just in time and about 10 minutes later Michael Albert Cross made his appearance at 13h35! HE screamed when he was born and wee’ed all over the nurses. He had an apgar score of 8/10 and 9/10 and I managed to hold him for a few minutes before the paediatrician took him off to the NICU. He was fine with the birth, weighing in at 2.39kg. He only needed a little bit of oxygen, which they administered by holding a tube close to his nose and mouth.

Michael spent 11 days in the NICU before coming home

Gestational age when born 34 weeks
Weight when born 2.39kg
Reason for premature birth (eg. Pre-term labour, pre-eclampisia, placenta praevia etc) Pre-term labour (I had a bladder infection)
Baby’s age & weight at time of writing 23 months (June 2008); 13kg

Was such an unbelievable experience, I had thought that as a doula I did not want to do births and only post-natal care but I think I may have found an addiction. WOW

Mom has been in pre-labour for over a week, I had been to see her in last week where she was convinced baby would come that night but I could see she was not actually in labour. Shame they did not know when she conceived so according to what they thought she went 17 days overdue but since baby, placenta etc was all strong and healthy they gave the benefit of the doubt to them being wrong about the dates. I could totally understand where she was in that you so desperately want the baby to be born that you are convinced labour has started even when it has not.

On Sunday early morning she gave me a call at about 2 am to say she was definitely in labour contractions being 4 minutes apart but she would let me know when I should come. The midwife had also let me know that if nothing happened they would have to induce Sunday 8.30am as the mom was getting very tired and worn down in the wait. So I headed over at about 7, she was very focused on having baby that day. Labour was still not really established, contractions had eased off again. Midwife did an internal and to the poor moms disappointment she had only dilated 1cm the whole week – she was now 4cm dilated and baby was not engaged against the cervix. She had thought she would be closer to 8 by then. She did not want to induce as she very much wanted a natural labour so the midwife agreed to allow till that afternoon. We stayed with her a while, encouraged her moving about, walking stairs etc to try get baby down ad advance the labour. I left at about 11 to give them (mom & dad) a chance to nap as they were both so tired after being up half the night (and many more before).

I headed back at 2 as the midwife was again going to consider applying gel to cervix. mom said her contractions were strong and regular.
We got her moving and walking again contractions were strong and regular so we didn’t think any intervention at the time was necessary. By 4 there was still no progress in terms of dilation but Mom though still strong was starting to physically tire so midwife gave her the options of gel on the cervix to help soften it or breaking her water which would mean baby would put more direct pressure on the cervix and the contractions would come on stronger – she opted for breaking of water. They did this at 4.30pm – she was by this time only 6cm .

She is such a strong woman her active labour lasted 4 long hours of really intense contractions we helped her through each one by applying counter pressure on her lower back. Her husband was fantastic, he was by her side the whole way encouraging her, applying pressure and helping soothe her.

She had only wanted to get into the water in the pushing stage but she started tiring and becoming overwhelmed by the contractions so we encouraged her in to labour there a while which gave immediate visible relief. At 8 the midwife again checked at moms request if baby was descending and was worried to see she was only 8cm dilated, her cervix had thinned on one side but the upper side was still thick – turned out baby had his head tilted slightly up – not tucked in chin to chest.
Midwives were starting to worry that they would need to transfer mom to the hospital so they decided to give it a last try to get baby to move so he could come out. Dad sent out an sms to their ‘prayer warriors’ to pray babies head down, midwives got mom to put one foot up on a low stool and do lunges which worked like a dream immediately mom could feel baby moving down she did this a few times and then we moved her back to the pool she had a few very intense contractions, midwife helped the lip of the cervix over babies head so he could move properly into the birthing canal, we encouraged mom to push with every contractions. She worked so hard to get her baby born, it was unbelievable witnessing her strength and faith at work in getting baby out.
At 8.50 after lots of hard, tiring and forceful pushing little Gabriel emerged. Beautiful, still with some vernix and quite tired. He lay quietly in mommy’s arms and mommy who just seconds before had looked exhausted and totally drained suddenly looked beautiful, totally illuminated, excited and full of energy. They stayed together for a short while but midwife could not leave baby too long as he was tired and they needed to check he was okay and get him warmed up (I don’t think mom minded so much as she was tired too and just wanted to finish up so she could climb in bed with her baby). Baby was wrapped up tight and given to Dad while mom birthed the placenta. They then went off to the room for the midwife to check on Mom and I got busy, tidying up their space to try return it to ‘pre birth’ state leaving them to spend their time together as a family without interruptions.

I made sure they were settled, had something to drink and then headed home at 10.30 – was a very long day but an unbelievable one.

don’t know baby’s details except that he weighed 3.88kg’s as I kept to the background once I was no longer needed. Name is Gabriel meaning God’s strength (which was her mantra through the labour). We knew ahead of time he was a little baby boy.

Personally the experience was empowering, it was like reliving Rafe’s birth and to actually witness that I DID that – I have new respect for myself.

More about Doulas

“Women’s strongest feelings [in terms of their birthings], positive and negative, focus on the way they were treated by their caregivers.” Annie Kennedy & Penny Simkin

The birth story of Joel Christopher Markusse

After the birth of my first son I had decided that I would really like to have a Vaginal Birth after caesarean (VBAC). So when I fell pregnant with our second I spent a lot of time researching what my best chances of achieving a VBAC would be. We decided to enlist the care of a team of midwives instead of using an OBGYN for this pregnancy.

My pregnancy was textbook – as it was the first time around. Pregnancy is a great time for me, my body responds very well to it and I really do love the whole experience.

We’d been on weekly visits with the midwives since 36 weeks. I had been having spates of regular contractions for at least a week since about 38 weeks. The contractions just never progressed though. They were strong enough that I was aware of them but that was where it ended. I had started with acupuncture to help move things along as well. On Tuesday 9 Dec I had my 3rd acupuncture appointment at the clinic. When I arrived, midwife Asia and I had a chat in the passage. I mentioned to her that I’d had some nice contractions the night before that had amounted to nothing and she then offered to do a stretch and sweep for me after my appointment to see if that helped to get things going.

She did the sweep and I left the clinic having gone from 0 – around 2-3cms dilated. She was very happy but when I asked her what the chances were that this would bring on labour she said “possible but really not likely”. She said she’d do another sweep in clinic at my appointment on Friday. I was very crampy for the rest of the afternoon but nothing too major and no contractions.

That evening I had a La Leche League meeting at 7. My mucus plug had def gone after the stretch and sweep and I was feeling quite uncomfortable. I sat through the meeting having very noticeable and regular contractions but I didn’t do any timing because I never thought they could possibly be the real thing and I didn’t want to make a big deal of anything in front of the other ladies just in case it wasn’t the real deal.

I got home just after 8 and Hannes had cooked us dinner. I ate my dinner having to stop quite often for some strong and noticeable contractions. At around 9pm they became unavoidable. We started to time them. They were at 8 mins apart and lasting 45 – 60 seconds. They moved to 5 mins apart within 2 hours and were getting much stronger. I was in bed and trying to sleep at this stage and realised it wasn’t going to happen. By now we were thinking ok, maybe this IS it!! We still were in denial though. I don’t think we wanted to get our hopes up. Eventually after I realised that the contractions weren’t going away I decided to go and have a bath. Hannes ran me a nice warm bath which was wonderful to get into. The contractions started to come faster after that though so we pretty much had to admit that this was it, the show was finally on the road. I spent some time in the bath and eventually we decided to give the midwives a page just to check in and let them know what was happening. It was around midnight by then. Asia was on call. We had a chat and she spent quite a long time on the phone with me through a few contractions just to try and get a sense of where I was. She asked if I wanted her to come through and I said I didn’t think it was necessary just yet and that she should go back to bed and we’d call her later.

After I got out of the bath and back into bed things really picked up. Sleep was not even nearly a possibility. I decided to go downstairs on my own for a while and just try and get through a few contractions on my own. I thought if I got on the couch and sat in the recliner I might be able to snooze between contractions. It doesn’t work like that though. I found that being woken from a sleep intensified the pain I felt. I managed on my own until around 3:30 and then asked Hannes to come down and be with me. (Jared was fast asleep through all of this).

Finally at around 4:30 I got Hannes to call Asia and asked her to pop over. I went and got back into the bath. It was very comfy in the bath, by far the most comfy place I could find. Asia arrived just after 5. The contractions were by now coming every 3 and sometimes 4 minutes and were very strong but when she checked me I was only at 3cms. I don’t think any of us could believe it. I had thinned out to nothing but there had been no real further dilation. I told Asia to go back home and at least have her get some more sleep. I didn’t see the sense in 3 of us sitting and watching the clock.

By 6:30am I decided I had enough. I told Hannes that I wanted to go to the hospital. I had until then never considered an epidural but at that moment it was all I wanted. I think the fact that I was in so much pain for so little progress really impacted me. I also think that at that stage I may have gotten a little bit of a 6th sense of things to come.

We called our support person for Jared and asked her to come over, we called Asia and told her to meet us at the hospital and then we started to get ready. We had to do everything in 3 minute increments because I was not able to move during a contraction. Hannes was amazing. So supportive and understanding. I would never have lasted as long as I did if it wasn’t for him.

Michelle arrived just after 8 to be with Jared. He actually only woke for the day once she had arrived. He was very happy to see her and he didn’t seem at all distressed by me being in pain or by the fact that we were leaving him to go to the hospital.

We finally arrived at the hospital at around 9:30. Asia had already admitted me so we went straight up to labour and delivery where Asia was waiting. I was put straight onto the monitor to check baby. He was doing very well. Asia checked me and there had still been no real progress. She was concerned that baby was lying posterior and asked if I would agree to have one of the doctors come in and give us a second opinion.

The doctor arrived and did a check and confirmed that they head was still very high and that there had not been much dilation for the contractions I was having. Her recommendation was that we break my water and see if that got things going at all. They then offered me something for pain. I decided on the epidural. I think they got that going at around 12pm finally. After 15 hours without pain relief and knowing that this was going to be a long haul I could have proposed marriage to the anaesthetist at that point.

Not long after that Asia called the doctor back in to come and break my water. She wanted it to be done as a controlled break because his head was still so high and so she wasn’t going to take any chances with a possible cord prolapse. My waters broke and they were clear, baby was doing well on the monitor. My epidural was working and we were good to go for a while longer. The epidural was actually amazing. I could move around but I could feel no pain. I felt some pressure when I was having a contraction but no pain. The fact that I could still feel my feet and legs and move made such a difference.

We got me up onto hands and knees to try and encourage baby to turn some and to try and get the contractions up a bit more. They had all but stopped by that stage. Things were really not looking good. The only thing left that we hadn’t tried was an Oxytocin drip. Knowing the added risks that came with that we weren’t sure if we wanted to try it. Asia decided to get another doctor in for another opinion.

The doctor arrived and checked me. He told us that although I was sitting at around 6cm by then (and had been for a good few hours) the baby’s head had not descended down and so there was nothing putting any pressure on my cervix which is what it needs in order to dilate. He said that he did not see any merit in giving the oxytocin and that the possible risks were far too great taking into account that it would not alter the course of my labour anyway. He told me that he was sorry to say that I was starting another c-section in the face. He did say that I could take as long as I wanted to try and get things going again since baby was happy but that in his opinion it was futile. He didn’t want me to feel forced into it though.

We talked about it after he left and both Hannes and I and Asia decided that it was silly to prolong the inevitable and that we would prefer to get it done while the baby was still happy and there were no emergencies.

I was wheeled into theatre just after 4:30pm and baby Joel Christopher Markusse was born at 4:55pm. He came out shouting and was perfect!! He weighed 4.12kgs and was 53cms long. We’re all healthy and happy and have no regrets. We always knew there was a chance we would need another c-section, we are just happy we got the chance to give a VBAC our best shot.

I wrote an article for Parent24 that was about the unassisted birth that I had with my son Caleb.
It is not a birth choice that I think would suit most people but it I think part of appreciating our differences as parents is seeing what other people have done and even if it is something we would never do, it is nice to share.

So here is the link to the day I caught my lovely Baby Boy Parent24: I delivered my own baby