Toby's Birth Story: How I Learned the Hard Way to Expect the Unexpected

I've read a ton of birth stories. Some of them horrific, and others, so beautiful they bring me to tears. A couple of months ago, I was with a wonderful group of ladies from ICAN, telling my birth stories once again, and it occurred to me that I have never actually written down the stories of the days my boys were born. So I figured I should do that.

I should preface this by saying that the following is my experience of Toby's birth as I remember it. I was in and out of it for a little while, and it has been three and a half years since Toby was born. I know a few of the details are a little off, but my husband has assured me I do remember everything that matters.

I got pregnant with Toby the week after I dropped out of college. Yes, you read that right. I didn’t drop out because I was pregnant. I got pregnant because I dropped out. Something about feeling so free and relieved, I guess. We just weren’t being very careful.

While we were clearly not prepared to have a child financially or in any other way, we got pretty excited. We always knew we wanted a family, we were just starting younger than we hoped. So I started researching. I researched everything. I joined a forum site for moms, and asked all the questions. I read books, looked up gestation pictures, talked to my one friend who had a child (coincidentally, right before I got pregnant). I watched videos, ate right, and made a birth plan.

My birth plan was pretty simple: Don’t touch me, just let me have the baby. I didn’t really think any further than that. After all, natural birth was supposed to be pretty simple, right? No further explanation needed. I even skipped over the parts of the books that talked about pain meds, c-sections, inductions, and every other scenario. There was only one scenario I wanted to think about: naturally birthing my healthy child. I read one book that talked about the scary things, Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block. I couldn’t believe those women were so stupid and gullible to just believe everything the doctor had told them, and go along with it. Where was their willpower? I would never be such a pushover.

We bought a house and moved in when I was seven months pregnant. It so happened that we moved about an hour and a half drive from the OB practice I was going to. And we learned after moving in that our cell phone carrier didn’t cover our neighborhood. We had to go up the street to make or receive calls. And my husband worked second shift (3pm-11pm), also an hour and a half away. Not exactly the best situation for a woman who was about to give birth, but it was the choice we made.

My water broke two weeks early, the day after Thanksgiving. This was the first of many things I was not expecting. I rolled over to my husband, who had just fallen asleep, and told him. His reply, “No it didn’t, go back to sleep.” But it really had. I had the wet pajama pants to prove it. We got in the car to go call the doctor on call, who told us to come in to the hospital at about six a.m. unless the contractions got pretty close and regular. We called our moms, as well, and went back home. At this point, I wasn’t really having contractions. I thought I was, but it was mostly a lot of pressure in my lower back. If I hadn’t skipped over those parts of the book, I would have known that I was probably having back labor, and needed to get in a good position to get the baby to turn face up. But I didn’t know that.

We went to the hospital around six or seven the next morning, to be greeted by a nurse who promptly told me to lie down in the bed, and strapped a fetal monitor on me. I knew this wasn’t an optimal position to labor in, but I was so tired, so I lay down. It didn’t take very long for the nursing staff to inform me that the monitor wasn’t picking up the baby’s heart rate very well, so I would need an internal fetal monitor. I knew I didn’t want that, but again, I was tired. So I agreed.

For the next several hours, the nurse and OB on call (not my OB, by the way) took turns fiddling with the monitor, telling me to lie down during contractions so they could read the monitor, and checking my cervix. And by checking, I mean the OB rammed her hand up my vagina with very little warning or anything. My husband even cringed just watching her do it. At one point, I grimaced, and she said, “If you can’t handle this, there’s no way you’re going to be able to push a baby out of there.” I overheard “c-section” once or twice during this torture session, but I didn’t really get it until that moment. She didn’t really think I was going to push him out.

This was the moment I wanted to run for the hills. Everything in me was screaming to get the heck out of there. But what was I going to do? I had a sleep-deprived husband who hadn’t read any of the books, who didn’t know what was going on in my head. I was uncomfortable. Not just because I was in labor, but because I was scared.

Throughout the process, they had been telling me what I was feeling weren’t contractions. They were just “irritability” of the uterus. And to be honest, I didn’t really think they were contractions, either. I knew labor wasn’t supposed to be this easy, but I was hanging on with all I had to those peaks and valleys on the chart. I knew if I wasn’t in labor, then I would be in trouble soon. So I tried to relax (yeah, right!) I found a little step stool and did stair climbs on it for forty five minutes. I walked around. I sat on the toilet. I kept feeling a lot of pressure in my back, but no real contractions. And the “irratibility” was very irregular. Two minutes apart, then five, then eight, then constant for a few minutes, then another five minutes till the next one. I was all over the place.

They decided to give me Pitocin to augment my labor. Almost as soon as it went into my IV, I puked. The nurse rushed out, saying something about getting me something for the nausea. When she came back in, she put something in my IV, and told me it would ease my stomach. Then she told me what it was. Phenargen. If I had known before she gave it to me, I would never have let her. I knew that stuff made me really sleepy. I passed out, and woke up only for the occasional “irritability” for a few hours.

At about seven p.m., the OB came in and told me we needed to talk about me having a c-section. She told me a myriad of things, including my pelvis was too narrow to birth such a big baby, and he was at least eight pounds (she said this without ever seeing any sort of ultrasound. His birthweight was seven pounds, two ounces). She said my water had been broken for eighteen hours, and they really don’t like to wait longer than thirteen hours. She said all kinds of things, but she said one thing that made my husband’s face go white, “The baby’s heart rate is getting dangerously low.” She left us alone to talk about it for a few minutes, but I knew already what was going to happen. When she came back in, I looked at her and said, “I can basically choose to do this now or wait a couple of hours and be forced to do it, is that about right?” She said yes. So I gave up the fight.

They gave me a spinal block, and prepped me for surgery. My husband went to get all bunny suited up, and we met back in the O.R. I started shaking uncontrollably (a side effect of the spinal block), and they put heavy blankets on my arms. When the O.B. lifted my gown and saw my abdomen, her comment was, “Wow, this kid really did a number on you, huh?” The anesthesiologist must have known I needed to be distracted from what was happening, so he and my husband told Chuck Norris jokes while I was being cut open. When they brought him out, I could barely think straight. A combination of exhaustion, the drugs, and the emotions inside of me. All I remember is seeing him and thinking, that’s not my baby, this isn’t my experience. It doesn’t feel real enough. My husband took him and they whisked them out while I was being put back together. During the last half of the procedure, I started feeling everything they were doing. I panicked, and they had to put me out. Obviously, I don’t remember much of anything from that point on.

I do know I got to hold him and nurse him later, in my room. I decided to play superhero and refuse pain meds because I truly didn’t feel much pain. I just felt numb. My postpartum nurse was amazing, and almost made up for the horrible bedside manner of the Labor and Delivery department. But I lay there in my hospital bed, and I felt like a gutted fish. Like no one cared that I had been violated. It didn’t matter how I felt, because of course I got a beautiful baby out of it. That’s what they kept telling me. “All that matters is that you’re both healthy.”

Now, I found out later that the O.B. on call that day was new to the practice I was a patient with, and her specialty was Juvenile Gynocology. That explained why she treated my husband and me as if we were children. That’s who she was used to treating. I got a letter several months later saying she was no longer with the practice. I’ve always wondered if I wasn’t the only one she treated that way. I sure hope no one else had to go through what I did.

It took me over a year to really deal with my feelings about Toby’s birth. I was in a dark place for a very long time, and I didn’t even really know it. That's not to say I didn't (or don't) love Toby with everything inside of me. It took me a few weeks to really know that I did, but I love him to pieces. But for a while, I couldn't look at him without reliving that experience. It was really only after I started going to ICAN meetings, talked through it with one of my dear friends, and was able to VBAC my second child that I was able to deal with those feelings and felt like I was back to normal.

The lessons here? Read all of the books, even the scary parts. When you make your birth plan, make a contingency plan for everything. Research the doctor or midwife practice and hospital before you choose them. And if you find yourself in a dark place after giving birth, get help. It is out there, and you don’t have to suffer alone.

When it comes to birth, we really do have to plan for every "what if," and expect every unexpected.

When you know better...

The interwebs are abuzz. What about? That AT&T bought out T-Mobile? Sure. That Michelle Obama is writing a gardening book? Yep. But that's not what I'm interested in.



The American Academy of Pediatrics released new recommendations this week about carseats. And they are causing quite a stir.

Here are the new recommendations:

http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/carseat2011.htm

In a nutshell, the AAP is clarifying what they advised in 2002, which was that all children should remain rearfacing up to the limit of the carseat, forward facing at a minimum of 1 year and 20 pounds. Now, they are adding that their recommendation is that children remain rearfacing until age two unless they max out the carseats RF limits before then.

This argument is nothing new. I've been reading it online since I was pregnant with my first in 2007. "ERF, or you're a bad mom!" "Don't you care about your kids' safety?" "Your child is five times safer in an accident if they are RF."

So I have this problem: When something is hyped up and oversold, I tend to ignore it. And in general, if you tell me I'm a bad mom unless I agree with you, I'm ten or twenty times less likely to even hear you out. I think I have a defective filter when it comes to some of these things.

But when an organization like the AAP backs you up, I suddenly decide to check into it. Sometimes, that just means that I find more information to solidify my own opinion on things. But sometimes, like today, I pull my head out of the sand and start doing things differently.

The thing is, I already had all of the information. I have watched the videos, read the statistics, even talked with my aunt, who is a car seat tech. But I couldn't quite make the leap from "believer" to "ERFer." I'm really not sure why. I already do things out of the norm. We cloth diaper, we don't vaccinate, I breastfed both of them for a year, I had a VBAC, all of which people think we are weird for doing. I think it's because I didn't want to make the leap to "all the way nuts." It's one thing to be halfway weird. But crossing the line to "flat out crazy" is too much for me.

The thing is, we as Americans are the weird ones on this. Most developed countries have been keeping kids RFing past two for years. So what am I so afraid of?

This morning, as my boys were playing in the front yard, I switched my one year old's carseat to the RFing position. It turns out, part of the reason it had been so hard for me to RF in the past is because I was doing it wrong. That little carseat manual is so much more helpful when you're reading it after a good night's sleep. Now, my little one will be securely facing the backseat, whether he likes it or not. And I will have the peace of mind that he is 75% more likely to survive a crash with minor injuries. My preschooler will soon be getting a new seat as well, since he is right on the edge of outgrowing his.

I'm wondering when the new recommendations will become law. The AAP had more than just infant and toddler seats to talk about. They are now recommending that all children be in at least a booster until eight (which is already the law in my state) and that they should remain in one until they are at least 4'9'' and a hundred pounds, or twelve years old. The reason for this is belt positioning. I've been wondering why they don't just recommend a product like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Sunshine-Kids-Child-Seatbelt-Adjuster/dp/B000BUTCOY, which would easily keep the seatbelt at a correct position without putting a twelve year old in a booster seat. They also say that kids should be kept in the backseat until they are teenagers, which we all knew anyway. My car has that information on the visor in the front passenger seat.

Things sure have changed since I was a kid. I can remember sleeping on the floorboard in the backseat of our Carolla when I was a little kid and we were on road trips, or going to pick my dad up from work. Most of my friends had already learned to drive when I was twelve, living in rural Louisiana. I used to ride home from school in the back of my dad's pickup with about six other kids. I can even remember when seatbelts in the backseat of a vehichle were not required by law. But the news stories sure have changed, too. I haven't heard of a young child being killed in a car accident in a long time. I guess the saying is true, "When you know better, you do better."

Flood

Last night, my three year old wanted to read "Noah's Ark." Nothing new. In our house, both boys get to pick a story, and then we read a Bible story together. Toby has asked for "Noah's Ark" for the past several nights.

Last night, while reading it, I got an idea. This is a great opportunity for a teaching moment, I said to myself. So here's what I did.

I read the story, like always. Then after we were done I had a little talk with my preschooler. "Toby, do you know what? Last week, something happened in a faraway country called Japan. You know how we just read about the flood that happened in the Bible and how Noah and his family stayed safe and warm in a big boat? Well, there was a great big flood in Japan. But the people there didn't have a big boat. So they got caught up in all the water. And some of them lost their homes and everything. Isn't that sad?"

At this point, he began to get really interested in what I was saying. He made a sad face, and moaned a little, "Yeah. That's sad."

So I went on, "But you know what? Even though we're really far away, we can help the people in Japan. What do you think we can do?"

"I don't know. What, Mommy?"

"Well, tomorrow we're going to go to the store and do some shopping. We're going to buy some things for the people in trouble in Japan. Things like soap, so they can take a bath, and toothpaste and toothbrushes, so they can brush their teeth. And we're going to put it all in bags. Your job is to pick out a little stuffed animal, like your bear, to put in each of the bags. So when the people in Japan get these special bags, they'll know that someone cares about them enough to make sure they have the things they need. Isn't that cool?"

"Yeah, Mommy! We make some bags!"

"And do you know what else we can do? We can do something else that's very important to the people in Japan. We can pray for them. We're going to pray that God will help them to find their families, and find new places to live, and we're going to pray that God will comfort them and keep them safe."

It so happens that our family is going through "Ashes to Fire," a fourteen week study from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost, with our church family. This is the first time Toby has been in a big kid group on Sunday nights. His teacher sent home a folder with a page of prayers we were to pray every night this week with him. Last night, this was what we prayed:

"Dear God, thank you for being with me. Please be with the people who are in need. Amen."

As his Daddy prayed that prayer with him, tears filled my eyes. Toby is only three years old, but he is already learning about compassion, prayer, and that God comforts those who are in need. How awesome, that God can be so present in such a small life! I'm so proud of him now, but I know that as he grows older, it will be our job to cultivate those things in him. What a blessing to be a parent!


The tsunami victims and survivors in Japan really do need our help. If you would like to donate via Red Cross, you can visit www.redcross.org, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10.

You can also assemble a Crisis Care Kit like the ones our family is making.

Gather new items in quantities listed below. Assemble Crisis Care Kits (CCKs) and seal the Zip-loc bags. Include only those items listed on the inventory. Deviating from this list can cause an entire shipment to be rejected in customs. INSTRUCTIONS: Into a 2-GALLON ZIPLOC BAG put the following items:
1 medium size bottle of shampoo (12 to 18oz.), please tape flip-tops closed
2 bars of soap (no travel size)
1 medium toothpaste (4.0 to 6.4 oz.)
3 toothbrushes
1 box of Band-Aids (30 or more)
1 fingernail clipper
1 sturdy hair comb
2 hand towels
4 pocket-size packages of facial tissue
1 Beanie Baby-size stuffed toy

Drop these off at your nearest Church of the Nazarene, and we will ship them to our headquarters to be distributed to disaster victims in Japan.

To find a church near you, go to http://app.nazarene.org/FindAChurch/

For more information, go to

http://www.ncm.org/act/disasterresponse/cck