My Birth Story

Modern society and the natural birth community are both wrong.

There seems to be a disconnect between modern society and the natural birth community and what is actually reality. Pregnancy and birth aren’t all scary and misery as our modern society likes to project. But also it’s not always easy or pleasant and things do go wrong. I think the best way to sum it up is that it’s really hard but also worth every painful or traumatic experience.

I want to share my birth story, even though some might say it was negative. I don’t think it was negative; I think it was humbling.

I was 35 weeks pregnant. I hadn’t felt him move very often for about 4 days and I had tried everything (drinking cold drinks, poking, eating, changing positions) and I just felt like something was wrong. So we went to the hospital and they started monitoring his heart rate and it kept dropping. They monitored me for 4 hours and I was thinking we would probably end up going home. They put me in an emergency ultrasound and they still couldn’t get him to move. His heart rate variability was bad. And I wasn’t having any contractions. They checked me for dilation but I was not dilated.

Then his heart rate started dropping dangerously low and I was reluctantly rushed into a c section. I had become very paranoid about medical interventions because the natural birth community always says that doctors will try to push medical intervention on you when you’re pregnant. I finally signed the consent forms and they prepped me as fast as they could for the c section. I remember when I sat on the operating table to get the spinal block, I just exclaimed “this is all absolutely insane!”

The spinal block did not hurt, and at that point I didn’t care if it did. That poor anesthesiologist, I kept saying the most dark things to him while the doctors were cutting me open.

“What if we are too late and he’s dead?”

“What if they have to remove my uterus because I hemorrhage and he dies and I can never have children?”

But thankfully he was born. He didn’t cry, but me and my husband were bawling. When he was born he was extremely pale and limp. He had to have a blood transfusion at birth. He was rushed up to the NICU immediately after I got to hold his tiny pale hand. My husband went with the baby and the doctors sewed me up and transferred me to a room.

The next few days were met with more frustration and despair because my milk took about a day and a half to come in. I was so shaky that I couldn’t stay still. I couldn’t walk because of the abdominal trauma from the surgery. I couldn’t sleep because people kept coming in to work on me (doctors, nurses, psychologists, lactation consultants, etc). And I couldn’t feed my baby.

I remember it was 5 am on the second day and I was trying to breastfeed my baby, who had a feeding tube and a million wires connected to him, and he was just screaming. And I was crying too, because I had felt like I was broken. My body couldn’t keep him safe during pregnancy. And now I couldn’t even feed him. I also had not taken a shower in three days, and I was wearing only my hospital gown and the postpartum underwear, so I was basically half naked. But at that point I didn’t care. The nurses and other parents awkwardly tried to look away.

Things did improve as the days went on during his time in the NICU. Neonatologists and pediatricians monitored him and treated him for several health issues he had developed. And they also found the reason for my early birth.

They tested my placenta and found that I had a maternal feto hemorrhage, meaning his blood had been slowly leaking into my blood stream for about 3-4 weeks prior. There was also evidence of his bone marrow making new blood cells, indicating it was a slow bleed. The most annoying part was that they couldn’t find a cause. It just happened. I had no physical trauma. They told me he would have been stillborn if I hadn’t come in that day.

I had so many plans. Things never went my way, but these experiences have humbled me. I couldn’t birth naturally or avoid medical intervention. But I have my miracle baby. And I also have so much empathy for other people going through these situations. Most of all, God has been with us, even when I felt distant. He has always taken care of my little baby boy. From before his conception and even now. My body is not broken, but it is not complete without the Lord.

I now see that my instincts were right to go in that day. I felt like the worst mother, with no motherly instincts. I couldn’t birth him naturally. But in reality, God was watching over me, and I did have motherly instincts. We have defied all odds in every step of my son’s life so far.

Even with all of that, I don’t regret being pregnant and giving birth the way I did. It was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever gotten to experience in my life. So to other first time moms, who are pregnant or going to be pregnant, I would just tell you to never doubt yourself. Even if you think you’re paranoid, just go get checked. Don’t believe the people who say “it’s fine your body knows what to do” for every circumstance. But also don’t be afraid. Because you will have the most life changing experience. And it will all be worth it, even if it takes a while after postpartum to realize it.