Our third baby, a girl, yet unnamed, had been in a transverse (sideways) position for much of my pregnancy. In response, I ventured out to chiropractic appointments multiple times a week, utilizing a specific type of chiropractic care called Webster’s technique. I was familiar with Webster’s because it had been successful with Finn, my second baby, who was breech for almost the entire pregnancy.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about this baby’s positioning; it was the main subject of so many of my prayers. I even recruited my close friends and family to make it a matter of their prayers, too. I felt mostly sure that she would end up head-down, allowing for a typical vaginal delivery just like I had with my other babies.
Our last photo as a family of four!
May 21, 2019. It’s the day of my induction, four days past my due date. Every last one of my babies have had to be evicted…they just get way too cozy in there. My doctor has been out of town but is now back, so it’s time to get this baby out! I sneak in a last minute chiropractic appointment (baby is head-down, best we can tell), and then I rest for the remainder of the day in the living room chair I’ve claimed for the majority of this pregnancy. Soon we kiss our babies and make our way to the hospital.
Third baby, yet it’s every bit as surreal as the first go around.
To jump to a different part of this story, just click these links: PART II PART III PART IV
My last baby’s birth story. Big, deep breath.
It’s not the story I wanted to write. In fact, I’ve basically avoided it for a full year.
On May 23, she turns one (!!!), and it’s finally time I share the story of how she got here. It’s a wild one, a total whirlwind, and unlike any of my other birth experiences.
First, some caveats:
I’m acutely aware that this is not a worse-case scenario. Things could have gone way better; things could have gone way worse.
The medical staff did their best work and honored my wishes every step of the way. In fact, they all went above and beyond and had they not been so attentive, the ending of this story could have been tragically different.
I have experienced two relatively straight-forward vaginal deliveries. That is what I know and that is my comfort zone. Having a c-section has always been the least desirable option for me personally.
Not all C-sections are urgent or emergent.
We are without-question BEYOND grateful everything turned out well. We are healthy, and we got to leave the hospital with our baby. All of that is a grace. I know not everyone has a happy ending.
Brushing past a mother’s hard birth story because “at least the baby is okay” might be well-meaning, but it does not honor the mother’s experience at all. It does not give her the space to wrap her head around what actually happened, or deal with the full spectrum of her feelings about her birth.
If this story mirrors your own in any way, please know that I am so sorry your experience was not ideal. I’m sorry that the memory of your baby’s birth – a beautiful moment regardless – may be tainted or difficult to face because of the circumstances surrounding it. I don’t think we are alone. I just think we’re scared to say it out loud.
Part I
(c) 2019 D Crowe Photography
Mamas, write your birth stories.
Write them. Even if you’re not a writer, even if you’re not the type to bother with writing down your grocery list. Record. That. Birth. Story.
I’ve preached this since I first became a mom in 2014.
Pen it on paper, list it in timeline form in the baby book, save a digital note in your phone, blog about it, create a voice memo….the method doesn’t matter, but the memory does.
Leading up to having my first daughter, I became easily wrapped up in birth stories. It didn’t matter if I knew the mom or not – it could be a woman in my real life sharing her story or a stranger on a podcast revealing the details of hers – hearing the first-person account of how any given birth went down was always intriguing to me. I hung on every word, amazed at how the details of each story were never repeated and were unique to each woman at that particular point in time. Tons (and tons) of stories later, I learned this truth: the only predictable element of birth is its unpredictability.
I think what fascinates me the most about birth is not only it’s unpredictability but also it’s sacredness. It’s set apart. Your entry or re-entry to motherhood is shaped by it, to some extent. Birth is a sacred space that mothers may initially enter with a whole team of supporters — her husband, a doula, a best friend, her mom, a top-notch nurse, a doctor or midwife — but ultimately, she endures the weight of it aided only by God. Her surrender is required. And through her surrender, the mother’s body is the chosen tool, the vessel, that God partners with to bring life forth. What an honor.
So you can imagine my shock when, after having baby #3, I couldn’t write our birth story.
I could start it, but I definitely couldn’t finish it. The memories of my daughter’s actual delivery (and much of my labor) simply do not exist for me.
That will always break my heart.
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Do you remember those paper-mache crafts you proudly assembled in elementary school? You know the ones – first, you cut out various shapes, pictures, and letters from newspapers or magazines. Then you meticulously glue the pieces together to create something entirely new. All gluey gobs and messy paper clippings, piled on top of each other, covering some unrecognizable surface. At first it’s completely gooey and seemingly disastrous, but before long it dries and everything is cemented in place. That’s when the true art is revealed. Once it’s completely finished, you can appreciate the beauty of how it was built. Piece by piece. Scrap by scrap.
That’s what this birth story is – a decoupage creation, crafted by overlapping, stuck together scraps of memories. Some of mine, but also my husband, my family, the hospital records, and the hospital staff. In fact, the first thing my husband did after we were discharged from the hospital was pull out his tablet and set his fingers to the keys to document his account of this adventure. Bless him. All of the scraps and pieces come together on these pages to build something beautiful. (Because no matter how hard a birth is, I do believe it is always beautiful.)
Something you might remember about paper-mache in the early stages is it’s fragility. It can easily fall apart. Until everything dries and “sets,” it’s vulnerable.
As am I.
(c) 2019 D Crowe Photography
A year later and this story still feels delicate and tender. When I tell it out loud, will I fall apart? I’ll be honest…my heart hasn’t completely “set” yet. But the good news is, I’m getting there. The more I talk about it, the more it solidifies somewhere deep that this is my story. It’s our story. I’ve got to find the beauty in it wherever possible. So I’ll cherish it and carry it carefully and close always.
By the time my due date was in sight, I was ready. So. Very. Ready.
Maybe it was being pregnant with a boy this time, or maybe it was because this was pregnancy number two for me, but growing a baby was not as easy this time around. Borderline polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid) that made me look and feel so much bigger so much faster, a breech baby, ridiculous swelling, Rhogam shots, two rounds of antibiotics….certainly nothing major, but still, it made my first pregnancy look like a walk in a really lovely park.
At my 39 week appointment, my doctor joked with me about the massive amount of amniotic fluid I was still carrying around, and said she hoped it would break in Walmart. (Good thing I can totally appreciate a warped sense of humor like that). I told her that would be impossible considering I don’t shop at Walmart because my mental health cannot handle it. But Target? Highly likely. And actually a scenario I welcomed because COME ON OUT BABY BOY. I was really, really ready.
I left that appointment believing he would be coming – on his own – any day now.
But unlike me, he was in no hurry. My babies must love life in the womb, because my due date of February 14 came and went uneventfully, just as it had with my daughter three years ago. And since she had weighed over 9 lbs at 9 days late, we decided to go ahead and induce me on the 16th.
At my 39 week appointment, my doctor joked with me about the massive amount of amniotic fluid I was still carrying around, and said she hoped it would break in Walmart. (Good thing I can totally appreciate a warped sense of humor like that). I told her that would be impossible considering I don’t shop at Walmart because my mental health cannot handle it. But Target? Highly likely. And actually a scenario I welcomed because COME ON OUT BABY BOY. I was really, really ready.
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