Running the Gamut

From an early age, I knew I wanted two things: one, a large family, and two, an advanced degree in genetics. In 2003, I was well on my way to both. While I didn’t exactly gravitate toward kids, I knew I wanted at least five on my own. With a science background, I looked at pregnancy, birth, and raising kids a bit like an experiment. That meant researching, data gathering, hypothesizing, and finally, implementation. I was excited to begin.

My husband Kurt and I were graduate students at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR. We lived there a year before deciding it was time for a baby, and in that time, I was exposed a little bit to the general culture of the area. Western Oregon is, shall we say, a bit on the crunchy side, compared to my previous homes in Los Angeles and Provo, UT. Midwives advertised openly, and nearby Eugene boasted a freestanding birth center. I found a book that mentioned homebirth at the library, and the idea resonated with me. Although I hadn’t had much experience in hospitals myself, they repulsed me. I had visceral reactions to the very idea of being there. Since we were renting a two bedroom apartment, home birth didn’t seem right. But the birth center sounded ideal.

Just by way of conversation, I mentioned this to a few key people. Next thing I know, I’m being barraged with horror stories of births gone wrong. According to those closest to me, whose opinions I trusted, not only were midwives unacceptable, any attendant other than a medical doctor whose specialty was OB/GYN meant putting your life in jeopardy. Family doctors and general practitioners need not apply. Combine that with the out of pocket cost of the birth center, and I found myself reluctantly signing on with Kaiser, the west coast health care juggernaut. Little did I know how much this would set me on the crusading path to come.

After we got the insurance part in place, we sat down and talked about names. We settled on four total, two boy names and two girl names. Middle names were places in the country of origin for each first name. We couldn’t wait to see how many we would use and in what order. It took three months of trying, but in early October, I had a dream about bringing home our first baby. Looking back, that was the night I conceived. We were on our way!

From the first, I felt my care with Kaiser was impersonal and routine. Tests and procedures were presented by way of warning rather than option. I didn’t know to ask more questions, I didn’t know the evidence for or lacking in any case, I didn’t now I could work with the doctor-of-the-week to determine if any or all were the right thing in my case, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I just went with it. I don’t remember any counsel about nutrition, and the seasonal depression I had as a former Californian living in the Pacific Northwest was treated with Zoloft, end of discussion. And yet, I still had hope I could have a “natural” birth, no drugs, just my body, and then leave the hospital ASAP.

In retrospect, my due date was July 2, 2004. I came to that conclusion years later after reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility. But at the time, I thought it was June 30. Not a huge difference, but it seemed significant. I was pregnant throughout our second year of our two year masters’ programs. Kurt and I were both late getting our thesis projects ready for defense, so we did not graduate on time in June. (He would defend his thesis later in the fall, and my turn came the following spring.) Classes finished when I was 37 weeks. By 39 weeks, I was feeling some pressure from my family to just go ahead and have that baby. They saw no advantage to spontaneous labor, and my parents were coming into town anyway, so why not just schedule it and be done. At my appointment that week, I had my first cervical check. I didn’t want it, but didn’t know how useless they were in predicting labor, so I allowed it. The doctor, whom I’d never met, said “Well, you’re at a one, maybe a three.” I still don’t know what that means. That was on Tuesday and he said he would be okay with us going over to the hospital to be induced if there was room in the hospital’s schedule. The check triggered some Braxton-Hicks contractions, so we we got excited. I spent an hour lying in a triage bed before a nurse came back and declared false labor and no room at the inn. Instead, I was scheduled for Friday, July 2 at 6 a.m. Defeated, we went home. My parents came into town a few days later, and I vividly remember Thursday night all of us taking a long walk by the Willamette River, hoping to jumpstart things. My dad and Kurt gave me a blessing before we all went to bed, and it seemed we were set to meet our baby the next day.

At 2:00 a.m., I woke up and said “Ow.” I lay there not really sure if it was a dream or not. At 2:06, I said “Ow.” Then again at 2:12, 2:18, 2:24...By 2:30, I was up and pacing around. Kurt rolled over and asked what was going on. “Oh, nothing. I’ve had contractions 6 minutes apart for the last half hour.” He leapt out of bed, and scrambled for all our items. We still didn’t leave right away. It must have been an hour before we snuck past my parents, who were excitedly awake, and left for the 45 minute drive to Salem. I remember watching the full moon while R.E.M’s Everybody Hurts played on the radio.

Since I was already scheduled for that day, I got to go straight to a regular room, and start the whole process of monitors, IV’s, and cervical checks. That was my very first IV in my life. I quickly learned that hate them. But that was only the beginning. The nurse came in to declare that the on call OB, someone I hadn’t met, decided I needed pitocin, given that I was 3 cm, and had been 3 cm on Tuesday. In hindsight, that was fishy, since Tuesday’s doctor hadn’t really be clear what I was. And it shouldn’t have mattered anyway, but at the time, it’s what we knew.

The next thing I didn’t know was that pitocin meant continuous monitoring. I found that out after the drip started. Too late to go back. But hey, at least I could get out of bed periodically. I tried that and it seemed like it took forever to get myself and the IV pole and the monitoring equipment out, all so I could sit in the nearby rocking chair. Fat load of good it did. Within minutes, yet another new doctor walked in and announced he would be checking me. I was incredulous and tried to argue against it, but he was on a schedule. I remember him patting the bed and saying “Come on.” as if I were a recalcitrant dog. For the record, this doesn’t work to establish patient trust.

While he was in me, he asked the nurse for an amnio hook. Wait, what? Oh, yes, of course. Everyone has their waters broken. So that’s what we did. And contractions picked up even more. I was handling the pain well, however. I could do this.

Around mid morning, I successfully navigated my way out of bed again and sat on a birth ball. That’s when my parents came by to say hi. I didn’t really want an audience, and they understood, so they went off to see the sights of Salem, but not before encouragement from my mom to get an epidural. I mulled that over, and decided that while I knew I *could* do the pain, I didn’t actually have to. I don’t know why I caved, but it might have had something to do with the anesthesiologist who came by to introduce himself. He seemed like the first genuine person we met that day. I hadn’t liked either of the OB’s, and our main nurse seemed saccharin-coated. But by the time I asked for an epidural, the anesthesiologist was assisting in a c-section, so I was offered stadol instead. Either way, they needed to confirm my progress with another cervical check. One check turned into about 5 in a row, as three nurses in succession tried and failed to reach my cervix. My baby was asynclitic and no one seemed to be able to work around that. I was writhing in pain and begging them to stop, telling them I’d changed my mind, and what they were doing was worse pain than contractions. But they needed to document progress anyway. They left me bloody and in tears, only to come back with stadol. That left my loopy and groggy. Never again, I vowed.

I don’t remember how long it was before the anesthesiologist finally came in, but I spent most of that time feeling like I was floating outside my body. That abated after the epidural was in place, thankfully. And the anesthesiologist was good at his job as well as a nice person. For a few minutes, I thought things might just be looking up.

It didn’t last long however. Nurse Saccharin came back and cheerfully announced it was time for a catheter. Wait, what!? Oh yes, didn’t I know that epidurals and catheters go together? No! No I didn’t! How in blazes had no one ever mentioned that fact in my history of hearing praises of epidurals being sung? How had it not come up during the cursory childbirth class we took at our local hospital? Why wasn’t it mentioned in What (Fears) to Expect When You’re Expecting? How did it make any sense to just spring that on someone after there was no going back? I begged the nurse to give me a chance, but no, it was policy. That was my final straw. I let her insert it, and she left me crying. She came back a few minutes later to adjust the monitors, that were picking up my sobs more than anything, but she didn’t look at me at all. All I could think was that birth was one degrading humiliation after another. Why had no one ever spelled out for me just how much birth meant people being in your crotch? How did thinking, feeling women put up with this?

That was the low point somehow. Around 5 pm, the OB declared me complete and said I could start pushing. I pushed for about an hour, legs in stirrups, several people in the room looking on, and somehow I was past caring about this awful circumstance. Toward the end, the OB reached for scissors and began cutting. I yelled at him and he seemed surprised that I had an opinion, but he assured me it was for the best.

At 6:01 pm, Dorian Barton finally made his entrance, cone headed and with the cord wrapped around one wrist. He weighed 7 lbs 12 oz. I held him for just a few minutes before he went to the warmer to be cleaned off. Episiotomy repairs seemed to take forever. But then we were finally left alone. My parents met their 12th grandchild, and I tried to breastfeed, something my sisters had struggled with and my family had, if not exactly discouraged, certainly not given me much hope of success.

I desperately wanted to go home. I asked everyone I could when that might happen, and they all said “Well, 24 hours is the earliest…” Fine. That’s when we would leave. Kurt stayed with me that night, and we did our best with our hours’ old baby. I fed him every time he woke up, and thought we were doing well.

The next day, a pediatrician came by to introduce himself, and he proceeded to scare the living new parent daylights out of us because our baby had lost 4% of his body weight, and if he got to 10% that meant brain damage. In his estimation, there was no possible way we could leave that day, because I obviously did not have a handle on this whole breastfeeding thing, and he would not sign discharge papers for us. He then left and we didn’t see him again that day. However, he had succeeded in worrying us, and so every nurse that came in, we asked what was being done for our baby who was on his way to being brain damaged. They rolled their eyes and wrote us off as newbies, not having any clue what the pediatrician had said to us. They told us weight loss was normal, and it could take up to two weeks for a baby to regain their birthweight. A lactation consultant came by, and while she was reassuring that our baby was not in any danger, she too was adamant that going home was a bad idea, and that I was in serious need of help figuring out how to feed my baby. With a mixture of frustration and fear, we signed on for a second postpartum day at the hospital.

The next day, I pinned down the pediatrician to clarify just what he meant about our baby’s condition. There had been no further weight loss, so he didn’t have that to hold over us. Even so, he only agreed to let us go if we went home with a pump and made a weight check appointment two days later, at 9:00 am. Fine, whatever it took to get out of there. A nurse came in as we were talking and confirmed our 9:15 appointment. Busted. The doctor admitted he told me 9 just so I wouldn’t be late. I was so done with him, but at that point, it mattered more to me that I get out of Dodge than that I give him a piece of my mind.

We went home on Independence day, and it never felt more appropriate. Two days later, we returned for a weight check, and that same doctor happened to be the one we saw. He admitted to us that there never was any danger of any kind. He just didn’t want me to quit breastfeeding. I appreciate the goal, but simply put, the man was a bully, and his actions and attitude put a serious damper on my view of those who support breastfeeding.

At two weeks exactly, we had another check up and my baby weighed in at 7 lbs 12 oz. I was excited! That’s what he was supposed to do, right? The doctor, one I hadn’t met before, shook his head. “Well, yes, but really he should be above his birth weight by now.” That’s when I threw in the towel. No one seemed to be on the same page, and I was done trying to suss out the truth. I went home and gave my baby a bottle of formula from the free bag the hospital gave us at discharge. I didn’t quit breastfeeding altogether, but he got more bottles than nursing sessions from then on. Obviously, my body just wasn’t made for this, just like my sisters told me.

Years later, I would read Henci Goer’s classic Obstetric Myths Vs Research Realities. I would learn that IV fluid, especially with Pitocin, can make babies gain water weight during labor. Consequently, their inflated birth weight comes off quickly after delivery and it may appear they are losing too much weight. I literally saw red upon reading that passage. We were sabotaged from the get go, and in all likelihood, that 2 week weight of 7 lbs 12 oz was above whatever the birthweight might have been.

But in my new postpartum bubble, that hadn’t happened yet. I was still grappling with a surprisingly traumatizing birth and the belief that I couldn’t feed my baby. I was having a hard time bonding with him. Add to that the stress of finishing school and moving across the country, and I was barely keeping my head above water.

Five months later in December, I was preparing for a Christmas musical program, where I would sing Mary’s Lullaby as part of a trio. The song is told from Mary’s perspective, as she thinks about the things Jesus will do in his life, but for tonight, he’s just her little baby. During one rehearsal, I looked over at my baby rolling around on the floor, and it hit me just how much I loved him. It took five months to fall in love with my baby.

By six months, I could no longer ignore the nightmares and triggers I had. I was so incredibly angry with just about anyone involved in my birth, but I was having a hard time finding people to talk to about it. We were living in upstate New York by then, and I didn’t know very many people. Kurt understood how I felt, and to some degree he felt that way too. But it didn’t weigh on him and crowd out other thoughts the way it did me. We were in agreement that we wanted another baby pretty soon, although we may not have had the same reasons. We both wanted kids close together but I was also hoping for a redemptive birth next time around. No one was ever going to touch me like that again. Around that time, an internet search led me to the term birth rape. Aptly put.

I weaned Dorian completely by 6 months. When we moved to New York in October, and I became a stay at home mom full time, I toyed with the idea of trying to re-up my milk supply, but I never did. It still took several months for my body to start cycling again. I didn’t know any of that at the time. I hadn’t yet learned the signs of fertility. But that didn’t stop us from trying to conceive again when Dorian was 8 months old.

A few days before Dorian’s first birthday, I started adding up my symptoms and realizing that I might just be pregnant. I bought a test, but I was in complete denial. In the bathroom I thought “What am I doing? This is a waste of time and money. There’s no way I’m preg-OMG IT’S POSITIVE!” I ran out of the bathroom and scooped up newly-walking Dorian and said, what have we done? He’s still a baby! We can’t make him a big brother yet.

I made an appointment at the clinic down the street, in some desperation, and the got me in the next day. I met with a very maternal CNM who was calm and respectful, and thought I might be 10-12 weeks along. She couldn’t find a heartbeat with a doppler, but that wasn’t too unusual. She made an appointment for an ultrasound a few days later.

Kurt and I, along with Dorian, excitedly waited to see our newest baby. The tech was very quiet as she scanned my belly. She couldn’t tell us for sure, but we saw what was very clearly a gestational sac that appeared to be empty. We were devastated. As mixed as our emotions were on getting a positive test, we had no desire for a miscarriage. The midwife spoke with me over the phone, and told me it looked like a blighted ovum, and that when the holiday weekend was over, we would look at our options.

The next day was Dorian’s first birthday. We did our best to celebrate, but inside I was grieving, both for the baby we would have had, and for all the unhappy memories of the actual birth day. Adding insult to injury, I began to feel a little off, with no appetite. Not quite sick, but definitely normal. It wasn’t fair. I was pregnant with a fake pregnancy, but I felt all the symptoms anyway.

The next week was one of volleying emotions, highs and lows. I discussed a D&C with the midwife, but she offhandedly mentioned that we could check my HcG levels first. I was very anxious to move on from this pregnancy, but I didn’t want to take the chance that it was viable after all, so I agreed to the blood draw. That would take several days. Meanwhile, I talked a lot with anyone I knew who had a history of miscarriages, wanting to know what to expect. I had some spotting during that time, including something that looked like tissue, but it stopped after a few days.

I found out my hormones did increase, but the next step didn’t seem clear, and I couldn’t get ahold of the midwife, only her office staff, who didn’t know quite what to tell me. I didn’t know what to think anymore. Not only did the HcG increase, but the numbers didn’t fit neatly into any phase of early pregnancy, and certainly not into the 10-12 week range. One day, I poured out all this frustration to my new friend Janine while our kids played at the park. She happened to be pregnant, and she strongly encouraged me to give her midwife a call. That was yet another step that didn’t seem very significant at the time, but in retrospect was a huge turning point for me, to take initiative and find someone I clicked with instead of just the person available. I called this midwife, another hospital-based CNM, and she got me into her clinic the next day for an ultrasound. Kurt came with me, and this time we waited with no expectation while the tech calmly pointed out a flickering pixel on the screen. I was glad I was already lying down or I might have fallen over. I was 7 weeks pregnant, and everything looked healthy. The earlier ultrasound had been at 5 weeks it turned out, too early to see a heartbeat.

I told people regularly that my transmission was broken by then. I couldn’t shift gears anymore. But Pam, the new midwife, was completely optimistic that this little baby was going to grow just fine and join us sometime around February 26, 2006. About a year later, I learned about vanishing twin syndrome, and I would wonder if that’s what happened to that pregnancy. Why else would the first midwife think I was 10-12 weeks when I was only 5? Why would my hormone levels not make any sense? And maybe that little bit of bloody tissue I saw was the twin. I’ll never know for sure. Either way, it could have been avoided if I’d known how to chart my cycles. Then I would have known when I got pregnant and there wouldn’t have been several weeks of wondering what was going on. And there wouldn’t have been the bone-chilling possibility that I might have had a D&C for a perfectly healthy pregnancy.

The rest of the pregnancy was surprisingly easy. We bought our first house and moved in when I was about 20 weeks. Everything was coming together. I liked Pam and her partner Rebecca. They were supportive of my birth plan, and completely understood why my previous birth was traumatizing. Rebecca in particular encouraged me to keep my options and my mind open and repeatedly mentioned a walking epidural. Later on, I wondered if she thought I had a history of sexual abuse, and maybe that’s why Dorian’s birth was so traumatizing. I don’t. It really was just that day that set me off. But this time, we were set for a great birth.

Saturday February 25, I got my first contraction at about 11:30 in the morning. For the next 4 or 5 hours, I had contractions 20 to 30 minutes apart. It was starting to snow, but I went for a walk down our street anyway. It did help the contractions, but they slowed again when I got home. They were easy enough I could cook dinner and eat it. By about 7 at night, I called Pam and let her know what was going on. She said we could come in if we wanted, but it sounded like there was still time to go. We were excited, so we called our neighbor to come stay with 19-month-old Dorian. He was down for the night and we headed to the hospital around 9. Pam wasn’t at the hospital, which was disappointing. I hadn’t wanted to deal with nurses I wasn’t familiar with. But somehow these nurses weren’t as grating as the ones from my previous birth. They checked me and said I was at a 3. Still very early. They recommended another check in an hour, and if there was no progress, we should consider going home. I sat on a birth ball, and Kurt did crossword puzzles.

They came back, and I was still at a 3. They said “You could stay, but we won’t feed you.” That helped me decide. We left and got home around midnight. Kurt went to bed and went straight to sleep, but I was in labor, early or not. I played computer solitaire, and eventually, I had to get up and move to deal with each contraction. Those hours alone in the middle of the night are a very sweet memory for me. I loved laboring by myself.

By about 4 in the morning I was having trouble staying warm. I had seen lots of bloody show and knew it was getting close to time for us to head back in, but I was freezing. I climbed in bed with Kurt and tried to get warm again. He woke up and breathed through contractions with me, and he suggested I call Pam again. I did, but I could barely talk to her. She told us it was time! Off we went again. The car ride was torturous. The snow was coming down heavily and I couldn’t find any way to be comfortable strapped in as I was. The radio played Depeche Mode’s A Pain That I’m Used To.

We arrived at the hospital just after 5 am and left the car at the front door. I clawed my way through the halls, back to the room I left only a few hours before. Pam still wasn’t there, and the nurse said she would call her after she checked me. I could barely stay still, but I was 8 cm. As she left the room, my body started pushing. There was no holding that back. The same two nurses I had been dealing with all night were going to have to catch. I don’t remember exactly how long it took, but the pain was more than I thought I could do. I begged for drugs but it was too late. I didn’t even have an IV. There wasn’t time.

I started pushing but my bag of waters was still intact. I’ll forever remember the nurses shielding their faces every time it bulged as my baby crowned. No one wanted to get splashed. It finally popped as the baby’s head came out. Her body slid out right afterward. Faith Devon was born at 5:49 am, at 8 lbs 2 oz, on her due date, February 26.

I looked down long enough to see that she was a girl, and then I lay back and said “I did it.” I’ve since heard this called the birth pause. Mothers don’t always reach for their babies right away. Sometimes they take a moment for a breather, and to take in the enormity of what happened. Then they pick up their babies and begin the bonding process. And so it was that Faith’s birth ended up being my most physiologic, the one where everything was on my body’s terms.

Pam walked in as the placenta came out. She missed the birth. A nurse named Leanne caught Faith. All Pam got to do was repair the 1st degree tear I had and tell me she’d be back the next morning to discharge us.

I felt invincible. Even with no sleep, I felt like I could climb a mountain. The birth high is something I wish I could bottle and save for later. Or maybe sell. I didn’t feel it with Dorian, but I was bathing in it with Faith.

My mom came in to help, and meet her 14th grandchild. Faith and I came home the next day, and we started life as a family of four. Breastfeeding was so much easier this time around. Life was good.

I couldn’t wait to do it again. I was proven right. Birth didn’t have to suck. It was too bad there weren’t any birth centers here, and home birth midwives were not licensed in our area, but all things considered, I’d had a great birth.

As time went on however, something kept nagging at me. What had the hospital done for us? What advantage did we have by being there? My body had worked all on its own, and looking back, I was even more convinced it would have the first time around had it been given a chance. Maybe it was still worth looking into home birth.

Sometime that summer, I stumbled onto Laura Shanley’s website, Unassisted Childbirth. My world was never the same. It was like taking the red pill. Everything I read there resonated with me, and I recalled how much I enjoyed laboring alone in the middle of the night with Faith. Just my baby and me working together toward birth. That settled it for me. I did not want to go back to the hospital. Ever.

The floodgates were open for me now. I questioned everything, and I couldn’t get enough. Up to that point, I was planning to wean Faith at 6 months, even though breastfeeding was going well. I thought I had to treat my kids the exact same, even though the circumstances were different. Now thanks to my new found knowledge, I determined not only to go past 6 months, but to go past one year. What was one year anyway but an arbitrary point in time?

Over the next year or so, I read every book and blog I could find. I read both of Henci Goer’s books, all of Robert Mendelsohn’s books, Sheila Kitzinger’s books, Pushed by Jennifer Block, Born in the USA by Marsden Wagner, Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler, Birth as an American Rite of Passage by Robbie Davis-Floyd, the list goes on. I followed the blogs of Navelgazing Midwife, and Stand and Deliver. I learned about ICAN and wished there were a similar organization for those who hadn’t had a c-section. I joined message boards to find like-minded moms. I subscribed to Mothering magazine.

I gained knowledge on several other topics, too. I was already opposed to circumcision, having chosen to leave Dorian intact, but what I learned during that year completely ingrained it for me. I explored vaccines more thoroughly, I started babywearing, I researched home schooling, which I had previously written off, and we started cloth diapering. There seemed no limit to how our lives could be improved by giving physiologic default options their due. Those were heady days, full of idealism and passion.

Summer of 2007, we were ready for another baby. I was still breastfeeding toddler Faith, and my cycles had only just come back, so it looked like everything was coming together. I couldn’t wait. As far as we can tell, I conceived right away, but my luteal phase wasn’t long enough. I had a positive pregnancy test, and calculated a due date of April 6, 2008. But there was blood, and lots of it. After a week of that, it went away, and so did any pregnancy symptoms. I retested and got a negative. Now I was desperate. Consulting Dr Google, I looked for ways to augment my luteal phase and prevent another early miscarriage. I put all of those things in place, and we tried again. This time, it stuck! My new due date was July 7, 2008. How strange it would be so close to Dorian’s birthday.

I used my newfound network to find one of the underground midwives in the area, and had a lovely consult with her and her apprentice. We were on our way, and I couldn’t have been more excited. I didn’t worry too much about the spotting I was having. Both of my previous pregnancies had spotting, and then resolved, so this probably would too.

Except that it didn’t. First trimester spotting turned into second trimester spotting. I thought I was miscarrying at 14 weeks. But then the blood stopped. Hooray! We heard the baby’s heartbeat, and things were looking up. Until 20 weeks when the blood came back. My midwife had an under-the-table relationship with my previous midwife in case of transfers, and it was time to do that. Multiple ultrasounds couldn’t discern the cause. I spotted every few days at first, but soon it was every day. Then it was continuous bleeding that gradually got heavier, and still no answers. At 25 weeks and change, I called my midwife and said “I’m swimming in blood.” It wasn’t all blood as it turned out. My membranes were broken, after being continuously irritated by blood. My baby would have to be born soon.

We were devastated and terrified. How did such early babies survive much less thrive in life? I blamed myself for not being patient with my body and using herbs to help sustain a pregnancy that might have otherwise miscarried. I wasn’t even nursing Faith anymore. It was clear very early on that I couldn’t do both, so I weaned her, which was hard on both of us. And now it didn’t matter anyway, because my body didn’t seem capable of keeping this poor tiny baby.

I checked into the hospital at 26 weeks. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, to leave my two small children with no clear idea when I would be back. On the way to the hospital, the radio played Precious by Depeche Mode. I swear it was written for that occasion.

For three dark days in early April, I waited, isolated from friends and family, scared out of my mind. My mom flew into town to help out, and the day she arrived, I went into labor. I think I was waiting to know that my other kids would be taken care of.

It started at midnight. I woke up with contractions. I downed about a half gallon of water, hoping to slow them down, but that didn’t work. An ultrasound showed my baby was breech, ordinarily not a problem at 26 weeks, but given that he was very early and likely to be born soon, we were talking about a c-section. And oh by the way, since it’s so early, the incision will have to be classical. And oh, double by the way, for some reason, labor was the revelation the doctors needed to know that my placenta was detaching. That’s what had caused all the bleeding.

All night long, we worked trying to stop labor. I was pumped full of fluid and given a sleeping pill, but by about 6 or 7 am, it was clear there was no stopping this train wreck. There was a shift change, but a kind nurse who was working with me stayed on to see me through the surgery. The new OB on call was one I had butted heads with earlier in the week, and with my last bit of autonomous energy, I told him I had to trust the person holding the scalpel and he wasn’t that person. He didn’t completely back off, but the outgoing OB did stay on and scrub in with him.

I called Kurt, who had already left for work, and he joined me in the OR, as we waited for our fate and that of our tiny tiny baby. I remember telling Kurt to get married again if I didn’t make it. Placental abruptions can be fatal for mom and baby.

Quinn Douglas emerged at 9:09 am, screaming, with APGAR’s of 8 and 9. It was April 4, and later, I would connect that to my miscarriage’s due date, and wonder if part of him had been with me for 9 months after all. He weighed 1 lb 10 oz.

The NICU team whisked him off, and we saw him very briefly, intubated and IVed in an isolette.

The placenta was only attached around the edges. Behind it was a giant clot that had been forming for weeks. I don't think it ever implanted well, and it wouldn't have lasted much longer.

It seemed to take forever to stitch me up. At one point, the OB I didn’t like started laughing. How do you laugh on a day like that? I asked him what was so funny, and he said “Oh, Dr C just made a little joke.” Dr C chimed in. “Bronwyn, how much did you weigh before getting pregnant?” When I answered 112, she said I would probably be at my prepregnancy weight within a few days. Later, I would wonder if the joke was about my weight. What a time to think about such things.

I lay in recovery, trying and failing to grapple with everything. I had a preemie. An EARLY preemie. I had a classical scar. VBAC was out of the question in my case. But we were probably done anyway. Who could try again after an experience like this?

A resident came by, one I had gotten to know during my three day stay. He asked how I was doing, and all I could do was look at him. He shook his head and said “You’re miserable, and you have every right to be.” He was the first person to validate how tragic the situation was.

Later that day, I was wheeled into the NICU, but I wasn’t nearly ready to be up and about. I remember throwing up and nearly passing out right next to Quinn’s bed. He was too fragile to hold anyway. I wasn’t allowed to hold him until he was 8 days old.

Overall, Quinn spent 99 days in the NICU. Our family trekked back and forth everyday. I pumped for him, absolutely determined not to fail in that category as I had failed his pregnancy and birth. His progress wasn’t exactly linear, but it was steady. There were ups and downs, physically and emotionally. I was so grateful that if this had to happen to us, that it happened with baby #3 and not baby #1. It’s hard enough to become a parent, but to become one under such dire circumstances seemed unthinkable.

There were lots of frustrations with NICU life, especially where I was in my own life at the time. I listened to one exasperated nurse vent about having to put surfactant back in the freezer because some woman was only a fingertip dilated and the surfactant wasn’t needed yet. I still wish I had pointed out to her that the woman she was talking about was very likely having the worst day of her life, and shut up. Then there was the new father hovering over his newborn 30 week baby demanding to know when he would be circumcised. It had to be done soon because “It’s a health issue.” Dude, your kid came too early. THAT’S a health issue. And of course, there was a nurse who found out we had been planning a homebirth, and that led to a long long discussion about how crazy that was. They got home birth disasters there all the time, didn’t I know? Sure, but I also knew that they got more hospital birth disasters. Quinn’s two primary nurses were both very compassionate and rational people, and I enjoyed every interaction we had with them. But all in all, I wouldn’t be sad to leave the hospital behind once and for all.

I recognized stages of grief for our situation. The one that stood out to me most was denial. I remember driving in the general direction of my midwife’s office one day, and thinking, couldn’t we just pretend I’m still pregnant and have a prenatal appointment? She kept in touch with me and visited us at the NICU several times, but it wasn’t the same. I missed life before all of this happened, before we had a baby so desperately sick.

Most days I felt more and more capable of getting through this trial. But every once in awhile, everything seemed overwhelming. I vividly remember the day we were getting close to discharge, and we were told that the winter would likely mean total isolation, to protect Quinn from flu, RSV, and the like. I cried all the way home. How was I going to stay home all winter long? Upstate New York winters could last 5 months. We were basically looking at keeping him under wraps until his first birthday. None of this was anything like what I pictured for him.

Quinn came home July 11, not too far from when he might have been born anyway. He was still on oxygen, and hadn’t yet transitioned from bottles of pumped milk to breastfeeding. But he was home. That was the most important thing. All else could come later. Within a month, he was off oxygen, and all other medications, and he was exclusively breastfeeding. To the casual observer, he looked like an ordinary healthy baby. It’s one of many reasons I rail against the response “At least you have a healthy baby” that so often meets women who talk about birth trauma. Health, or lack thereof, isn’t always obvious to the naked eye.

I don’t think I slept much Quinn’s first year of life. He was only readmitted to the hospital twice, once for a scheduled hernia surgery, and once because I found him in his crib soon after he learned to roll over, face down with a blanket over his head, unresponsive. He turned out to be fine, but we had an overnight observation anyway. He still made it to his first birthday and all things considered, was meeting milestones.

Shortly after that birthday, I attended my first ICAN meeting. By this time, I had read both of Nancy Wainer Cohen’s books, and joined ICAN’s online forum. I found any story I could about VBAC with a classical scar. I knew it would be a hard sell, but I also knew I had a good case. The odds of having another preemie were slim. The odds of uterine rupture were uncertain, but my having had two straightforward vaginal births was highly in my favor. The odds of increasing complications from multiple c-sections couldn’t be ignored, although far too often they were. I knew that going into my c-section, and I did not want it to happen to me.

I found great camaraderie in ICAN. Years earlier, I lamented such a group didn’t exist for women without c-sections in their history, but now that I was here, I was going to make the most of it. I learned a lot and made good contacts that I would file away for future use, because we still weren’t ready to take the plunge into baby #4.

Quinn had regular evaluations with a developmental pediatrician. One check up came when he was 18 months old, corrected age, and it was one of the first times we started to feel that he just might be okay. Not ideal, but okay, and that he wouldn’t live with debilitating disease and disability. Shortly after that appointment, Kurt and I hesitantly started talking about our next, and probably last, baby.

I was still breastfeeding. I really wanted to get Quinn through his first two winters, and I had absolutely no desire to attempt trying to conceive while breastfeeding again. So all this talk was still speculative. But shortly after Quinn’s second birthday, we tapered off and weaned, very gently, both of us ready to move on. I was cycling already, and all systems were go. I conceived my next cycle, and my due date was February 19, 2011, very close to Faith’s birthday. In my heart, I knew it was a girl, because we had alternating patterns going on.

That same spring, the birth community in New York was in a buzz because new legislation passed allowing midwives to practice independently. It was a great victory. I rallied and lobbied at the capitol building along with my fellow activists, and we had a party to celebrate the good news when it passed. All of those underground midwives were now practicing overtly, and our region became quite diverse in birth options.

There was one side effect to all of this that directly affected me. Those midwives now practicing out in the open were under a bit of extra scrutiny. As I contacted each one of them to ask if they would take me on for a homebirth, several of them told me that personally, they thought I would be fine, but politically, it was career suicide. Several offered to act as doula or monitrice, but none were willing to attend me at home. That was every midwife in a 2 hour radius of me.

In the meantime, I booked an appointment with Pam, just to get prenatal care started, knowing that she too probably wouldn’t feel comfortable overseeing this pregnancy. Everything was going fine. For the first time, I got through the first trimester with no bleeding. I still had anxiety about it of course, but things seemed to be going well. The OB at that office wanted me to have my 20 week ultrasound and a consult with the high risk OBs at Albany Med, where Quinn was born. I probably don’t need to spell out why I didn’t want to go anywhere near there, but the options were slim. Off we went.

It was my first of only two ultrasounds that pregnancy. The tech was unhelpful, as techs are bound hand and foot against saying anything useful. We would need to wait for the doctor to come in. She did, and she was someone I remembered from my time with Quinn. She didn’t introduce herself, instead saying “Now, you’re having a c-section.” For all I knew, that was her name. I was stunned for a moment, but I came back with “I’m here for an ultrasound. Let’s talk about that.” She then told me the baby girl (!) looked great, but that my placenta was low and anterior, and there was evidence that it was not only covering my scar, but might be developing accreta. I freaked. I knew exactly what accreta was. It was on my top three list of fears for this pregnancy, the other two being having another preemie and having a rupture. I also knew that there was a high false positive rate with ultrasound at that stage, but just putting it out there cast a pall over the rest of the pregnancy.

I got out of there before I let the panic completely overtake me. Accreta is unlike most pregnancy complications where you likely feel sick in some way. There is nothing you do in your daily life that makes it either better or worse. The placenta just silently grows into and sometime through the scar, and at birth, can be difficult to detach, which results in heavy bleeding. It has about a 10% mortality rate, and even survivors often need a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding. The likelihood of its occurrence increases with each scar, and it’s something first time moms rarely if ever hear about if they start motherhood with a c-section. Some of them learn about it the hard way. And here I was. I knew all of that before, but it might happen to me anyway, no matter how hard I tried to avoid that first cut.

The regular OB recommended both that I transfer to a higher risk OB and that I do serial ultrasounds to monitor its progress. I declined the ultrasounds. What would they tell me that would change my daily life? Why not just do one late in pregnancy to help determine how the birth would go? That was surprising to him, but he agreed. I then transferred to a doctor that I learned about through Kelly, my chosen midwife for that pregnancy. I consulted with him, and he admitted that he had attended VBACs with classical scars in the past, and that the rupture rate was probably 2-3 times that of a low transverse scar. He had to officially recommend another c-section, but given that I had a lot in my favor, he didn’t say no. It was the best I could hope for.

At 35 weeks, I had one last ultrasound, and the placenta had moved up. I don’t’ know whether it moved off my scar completely, but no one was worrying about accreta anymore. Dr C was still talking about an induction. “If you get to your due date, we probably only have to break your water.” I wasn’t interested in induction, but at least he was still talking VBAC.

39+6, I had an appointment with elevated blood pressure. We talked about membrane sweeps and other methods to hurry things along. I didn’t want to do any of it, but I was already bartering on borrowed time with my special circumstances. That night, I woke up to contractions. Hooray! Another due date baby! But that was short lived. A few hours later, they fizzled. I let Kelly sweep my membranes on Saturday, my due date, and it was horrifically painful. It also didn’t appear to do anything. I even slept okay that night. The next day, I woke up and said, this is officially the longest I’ve ever been pregnant. I had a few contractions, and even some bloody show, but no real labor. That night, they started and stopped again, keeping me awake. By Monday, I was slap happy tired, and not really thinking straight. I met with Dr C again, and he wanted to book me for an induction the following day. My blood pressure was still up, although not increasing, and I was out of time. That night, I tried my best to sleep through the pesky prodromal contractions.

We checked into the hospital at 7, and started the rigmarole of intake, IVs, and the like. It wasn’t how I’d hoped, but we were still talking VBAC. In our prep work for this birth, I drafted a birth plan, gone over it with Kelly, had it signed by Dr C, and sent ahead to the hospital. I think that really paid off. My nurse turned out to be a midwife in training, having had all of her children at home. I know that wasn't just luck of the draw. Unfortunately, while I liked her in general, she botched my IV. She put it in my wrist and hit a nerve. I almost passed out, and I'm sure I looked a bit pathetic, that here I was planning a drug-free birth and I couldn't even handle an IV, but wow, did it hurt. And it still does, if someone grabs my wrist. Part of my index finger is also numb. Who knows how long that will last. But I digress.

After I had the IV in place and had my full history taken, and repeated for a resident, Dr C finally came in after 9 to break my water. That was the only check I had for the labor, and he declared me 3-4 cm and 80% effaced. Kelly sounded relieved, as that meant the AROM was likely all it would take to get labor into high gear.

Afterward, I kicked everyone out with the plan to sleep. Ha. Contractions started right off, strong and regular. I got a good 20 minute strip on the monitor, and then the nurse said I could take it off. I was quite surprised. We had expected continuous monitoring, but we weren't going to complain. I got up, used the bathroom, and sat on the birth ball for awhile. That's when the anesthesiology resident came to talk to us, giving us the whole rigmarole of what would happen should I need her services, and why it was so important that I not eat or drink anything. (Later, Kelly and I had an eye-rolling conversation about that.) I wish she had stopped by earlier. I had to take several breaks from the conversation to deal with contractions. But I'm convinced hospital time exists outside the experience of ordinary mortals.

Maybe an hour later, our nurse came back and said I could go without the IV for a little while. That meant I was completely unhampered as I changed positions. I did spend some time in bed, partly due to a questionably high blood pressure reading. I rested until it was normal again, then I wandered back into the bathroom and found quite a bit of bloody show. I tried the shower as well. There was absolutely no water pressure, which makes me wonder just how often those showers are used. But still, the warm water trickling down my back felt great.

Somewhere around noon, I was back in bed resting on my left side when I started vocalizing through contractions. Kelly encouraged me through that, helping me focus and relax. But things were getting intense. After one particularly long strong contraction, I opened my eyes and said "Is it alright if I admit I don't want to do this for hours?" I still had it in my mind that this labor would be like my previous labors, and I would be at this at least until late evening. Kelly said that was fine, we would take things one contraction at a time. She also said she wouldn't tell anyone I said that. Minutes later, she told the nurse what I'd said, which confused me at the time, but looking back, that was code to the nurse to get everything ready. And indeed they did get everything ready. The equipment was brought in and set up on the corner table. I watched and shook my head, thinking they were getting ahead of the game. That was right before I had a contraction that included a push. I was incredulous. Could I really be that close?

The exact sequence and timing of things at that point are a little fuzzy. I remember a new resident coming in and saying "Are we ready for a check?" Kelly held her off and said we needed the doctor. This resident obviously didn't know who Kelly was because she launched into an explanation about how important it was to make sure I was fully dilated before I started pushing or I'd swell my cervix. If my body hadn't been working on pushing out a baby RIGHT THEN I might have laughed at her. As it was, I was thinking "Congratulations, you read your OB text. Now throw it out and watch how it's done with an unmedicated woman listening to her body!" Thankfully she was called away. I think she needed to finish up for my doctor who had been in the OR with a set of twins.

Kelly was stationed at the foot of the bed, holding the place in case any other residents decided to plant themselves there. She told me she could see the baby's hair. Now I knew she was pulling my leg. I make bald babies.

Contractions had really spaced out by this point, giving me a second wind, but I could no longer deny that I was indeed about to give birth. I don't know exactly how many times I pushed. I only remember two and a half. The half one was the one that first caught my attention. The other two were The baby’s head and body emerging. Either way, the pushing phase was not very long. I was again hooked up to the IV, for third stage pit, and the doctor finally came back just as the baby was crowning. Kelly did move aside for him, but they were both side by side as I pushed my baby out.  There a loop of cord around her neck, but that was easily slipped off, and she was handed straight to me. Lenore Calais was born at 12:41, 8 lbs 1 oz on February 22.

As I was basking in the afterglow and holding my minutes old baby, I thought of a more practical matter. Roughly 5 minutes after birth, I looked up and said "At what point do we worry about the-" Kelly didn't let me finish. She said the placenta was right there and would come out with a quick push. And indeed it did and looked whole. That spiked me right back up on my high. Not only had I successfully pushed my baby out with my classical scar, my anterior placenta had behaved perfectly. Things couldn't be better. I had a beautiful healthy baby who was nursing well and would be mine to take home to rejoin the rest of the family.

Later on, I heard from Kelly and others that news of what we did spread throughout the birth community. Kelly went to another hospital that night and was greeted with “We heard what you did.” Another midwife told me I was the talk of the town. Maybe that’s why Lenore had to be born in a hospital. Had it been done at home, it wouldn’t have been nearly as high profile.

That turned out to be one of the greatest years of my life. Lenore was an easy baby, and I rode the birth high for months. I felt all capable, and I loved telling her birth story. By then, I was involved with the Special Scars group, an organization like ICAN but for women with scars other than low transverse. I was planning to certify as a childbirth educator when Lenore got a little older. I was sad to be done with babies, but I felt like I had a lot to offer the birth world.

Years went by, and I never did get over being done with babies. I loved the kids I had and was enjoying each of them in their stages. I loved that we used each of the four names we chose before I ever got pregnant the first time. But I desperately missed pregnancy and birth and newborns. I also had the nagging feeling that someone was missing. Unfortunately, this was almost the only thing in our otherwise happy marriage on which Kurt and I did not see eye to eye. And there is no compromising. Someone has to lose. And for the sake of the rest of the family, that person was me...until Christmas 2015.

Unbeknownst to me, I contracted Lyme disease sometime that fall. I didn’t recognize the strange symptoms right away. They didn’t fit the classic descriptions. I was told it was flu, even though it matched no flu I’d ever had. To top it off, that Christmas was especially stressful. As a musician, I was involved in several musical productions that I hadn’t done in previous years. That combined with the Lyme wreaked havoc on my cycle, and I didn’t figure that out until too late.

Mid-January, symptoms began presenting themselves. They didn’t fit neatly into the pregnancy category. I’ve been pregnant enough to know what that feels like to me personally. But they were just enough similar that I thought it wouldn’t hurt to pick up a dollar store test and rule it out. I took the test and I ruled it in.

I was floored. Kurt was floored. How?! But counting back, and then forward, it made an odd sort of sense. Besides, I’d often joked that since I made boys in October and girls in May, what would happen if I conceived at a completely different time of year? My due date was September 23, 2016.

I contacted Kelly again, and this time we were planning that long sought after home birth, 10 years in the making. But this pregnancy felt so different. For the first time ever, I had full on morning sickness. Until then, I thought I was just one of those women who didn’t get it. I had zero symptoms with my boys, and with my girls I simply lost my appetite, but never truly felt sick. This time, I couldn’t stand to eat anything, and it only eased after the first trimester. It didn’t go away fully until 18 weeks. Looking back, I wonder how much Lyme disease had to do with it.

I also had a subchorionic bleed at 8 weeks. That almost sent me over the edge of sanity. That’s what happened to Quinn, and it progressed to an abruption. This wasn’t shaping up to be a straightforward pregnancy. But it did resolve this time, as the vast majority of SCH does.

Despite feeling sicker than ever, I was excited to make home birth plans. This was going to be great! It would be a lovely fall day in our home, and our kids would all have the memory of what birth can be.

In June of that year, it became clear that my dad was in his last days. He started a slow painful decline in late 2009. That came to a head in March of 2010 when he spent 5 weeks in ICU. He came home, but was never the same. Now there was no turning back. Dad wouldn’t meet his 20th grandchild in this life.

I was 28 weeks when I went to the newer family homestead in Dallas with my four living siblings. We said goodbye to our dad and made funeral arrangements. He passed away July 3. I was there for one week. During that time, I felt sick with what seemed like heat exhaustion symptoms. Not too unusual in late June/early July in north Texas while six month pregnant. But it was debilitating. I felt dizzy all the time and couldn’t stay upright for very long. I had a local friend, Katie, who was a midwife, and she graciously checked me out and saw no immediate danger. We both concluded that grief and the stress of being separated from my husband and kids created this problem. That seemed to be confirmed when we all flew to Utah for the burial. The minute I stepped off the plane into thin, dry mountain air, I felt 95% better. Plus meeting my family at the airport helped immensely. Looking back, these were Lyme and Epstein-Barr symptoms.

Back in New York, I mostly recovered, but for the rest of our unusually hot summer, I felt just the slightest bit off. Maybe it was being 5 years older, maybe it was the heat, maybe it was grief. But above all, I really was sick and didn’t know it.

I worried about my blood pressure going up again. So far so good, but I didn’t want another induction. Kelly was reassuring. But unfortunately, at 39 weeks, it was high enough that Kelly recommended bed rest. I was angry. Rip roaring, seeing red angry. What more could I have done under the circumstances? Was I just too old, too stressed, too grief-stricken, not obsessive enough about my diet? In retrospect, given the Lyme and Epstein-Barr running rampant in my body, I’m amazed it took that long for my blood pressure to rise.

Staying off my feet was frustrating. Fortunately, by that time, Kurt’s parents had come to stay with us, and would until after the birth. They graciously took over the morning routine of getting kids ready for school. Lenore started kindergarten, and so everyone was gone during the day. But it made mornings hectic. Meanwhile, I took baths, some with Epsom salts, some without, downed extra protein, and extra potassium, all in an effort to lower my blood pressure. All to no avail. By my next appointment, at 39+5, I was so worked up about possibly having pre-e that my blood pressure was horrible. Kelly sighed and said “I think we need to make you have a baby.” She cleared her schedule for the next day, and stripped my membranes. I still hate that procedure, but I was slightly relieved that even with higher BP I had no pre-e symptoms.

I rested the rest of that day, and didn’t tell the kids that their little brother would likely join us the next day. In my mind, I was hoping he would come while they were at school and they would arrive home surprised. I had some prodromal labor over the last week, although not nearly to the degree I had with Lenore. But every little bit helped, right? Plus, 5th babies just fall out. This would be quick. And September 22 was the autumn equinox and the forecast was for a gorgeous day. Full steam ahead.

I woke up at 6 am to strong regular contractions. Such a relief after the prodromal contractions I’d had for over a week. I called Kelly and she said she would make her way over in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, the other four kids left for school and I didn’t tell them I was in labor. I was hoping it would all be done by the time they came home. Little did I know.

Kelly arrived at about 10 and contractions hadn’t really picked up. We talked about the pros and cons of breaking my water. That had worked so well for my previous VBAC that it seemed like a good idea. I let her AROM me and we waited. And waited. My friend April, arrived to take pictures, and we still waited. There was some meconium staining in the waters after a while, but the heart tones remained strong and steady. I went for a walk outside. After spending most of the week off my feet, it was incredibly relieving to be outside, especially on such a beautiful day. I walked all over our property just enjoying the day, and also hoping to increase contractions. I did nipple stimulation, but things really weren’t picking up much.

Somewhere in the early afternoon, Kurt and I went for a walk in the woods. It seemed like it was going to be one of the last warm days of the year. I had several strong contractions while we were out, but when we got back, I didn’t want to go inside. Everyone stayed to hang out on our back deck for a few hours, while I rode out more progress. I sat, I paced, and in between, we talked and laughed in such a casual atmosphere. We even discussed dragging a mattress down to the deck for the big event. My only hang up was getting myself back upstairs right after, so we scrapped that idea.

Kids started trickling home from school, and there was no hiding from them that I was in labor. The older three kids kicked right into gear, all “helping” me to walk and pace. Lenore didn’t know what to make of any of it. Faith especially went right into doula mode, hugging me, getting me water, walking with me. It was very sweet.

By early evening, I’d had enough of the outdoors, so we all trooped back up to my bedroom. I felt like transition was hitting. The contractions were strong and close, and I was vocalizing through them. Somewhere around 8, I involuntarily pushed, and everyone sprang into action. I was kneeling at the foot of my bed at the time, with Kelly and her assistant underneath me. But after several more contractions with no pushes, Kelly gently suggested she check me to see what was going on. She knows I hate that, but there was definitely something up with this labor. I watched the sunset, and it was demoralizing, after watching the sunrise that morning and being in labor that whole time. After such a quick and easy VBAC the first time around, the fact that I was more than 12 hours in and stalling was unusual. After several more miserable contractions, I threw in the towel. I’d felt transition-like contractions for going on 3 hours at that point and I was ready to be done. In fact, I was asking to go to the hospital. Kelly warned me they would section me without a second thought and my response was “But I won’t feel it.” I don’t remember my previous labors being that painful, and I knew something had to be done.

She checked me and found a lip. Through two contractions she held it back. Pick your worst cuss word and triple it, that’s how painful that procedure was. After the second one, I yelled at Kelly to stop and she said “That’s your baby!” Sure enough, he was descending at last. I was ready to blast him out, not caring one bit about tearing. Light the fuse, yell fire in the hole, he was coming out. But Kelly coached me through easing the tissues open. It felt like forever, but pushing really didn’t last more than a few minutes. Everyone around me encouraged me to touch the head just to help me focus. I did finally, and it was more wrinkly than I expected, lol. When the head came out, I heard some talk about a cord, and being non-reducible, so they helped his body out the rest of the way. Then I heard everyone chorus out “One, two, three, four!” as they unwrapped the baby. The cord was wrapped four times around his neck. No wonder he was having trouble descending. Kelly had never seen that many wraps in nearly 30 years as a midwife.

I’ve told several people since then that the cord incident wasn’t scary to me, because by the time I fully understood what was happening, it was over, and my baby was in my arms, pink and breathing. Throughout labor and pushing, his heart tones never faltered. It turned out he had an extra long cord too. To top it off, he had been my most active baby, so little wonder he got himself tangled up. Malcolm Dunbar was born at 8:57 pm, 6 lbs 15 oz.

But none of that registered to me as I held my baby, who was still connected to me, on my own bed. I looked at Kurt and said “We just had a home birth!” April later told me it made her tear up. She’s known me nearly 10 years, and that’s how long I’ve been planning a home birth. And here it was, with my fifth baby, at 9 pm on a beautiful first day of fall.

The rest is a blur. The placenta came out at one point, and then we were covered up, while Malcolm breast crawled and latched on. My older kids drifted in, even though they should have long since been in bed. My older two fought over who would eventually hold him first, while the younger two hardly knew what to make of the situation. Eventually everyone settled in for the night, and I got to hold my baby all night long. I was completely and utterly head over heels with this little boy.

As far as everything directly related to the birth, I recovered just fine. My milk came in on day 2 and Malcolm immediately began to pack on weight. I had a very normal amount of bleeding, and with no tears or repairs, I healed physically quite well. But something was off. I developed tinnitus and had vertigo most of the time. My blood pressure didn’t resolve like it did after Lenore’s birth. None of this was easing up as time went on, no matter what I did. I checked for anemia about one month later, and if anything, my levels were quite high.

I don’t remember the exact sequence that led me to Lyme, but I did remember my friend Janine’s story, the same friend who years earlier had recommended I see Pam for my second pregnancy. Her symptoms matched up with mine, and I concluded it was Lyme. Then it took another month to get a blood draw for the test, and another 6 weeks to get the test results. When I finally got them, I felt completely vindicated. Somewhere deep down, I knew it wasn’t just being older, or losing my dad, or having my third trimester during an extra hot summer, or managing the stress in my life poorly, or any of those things. I knew something else was going on. As of this writing, I am still in treatment, and the jury is still out. I’m still breastfeeding Malcolm, so treatment has to be compatible with that. I have hope for a full recovery, but we aren’t there yet.

And with that, I leave my childbearing behind me. Despite jokes that I would like to try again and see if we can have our own Brady Bunch, I think my body has waved the white flag. I will always love birth, talking about it, learning about it, teaching about it, networking about it, but for me, it’s time to move on. I’m grateful for each one of the babies I was able to have, and each of their unique journeys, no two alike. I’ve truly run the gamut.