Talya,
I came across your name from a friend about to deliver her baby at Arrivals Birth Services birthing center. You come highly recommended there! I live in South Ogden, but due to my attempting a VBA2C the only provider that I could find that would take me on as a patient and give me a TOLAC was Dr. Robert Silver at the U of U. Do you travel that far? If not can you recommend a doula that does go that way? A little about my situation... I am very adamant of having this little Peanut VBAC due to he/she being a rainbow baby and me not wanting my scar from my son EVER touched. I have never been given the opportunity to even go into labor due to my first child presenting breech and then a repeat with my second. I have no idea how any of this "labor stuff" works, and want the best fighting chance to give birth vaginally and feel that I need a doula to help me with that. IF you do travel to Salt Lake I would love to sit down with you and see if we connect. Feel free to give me a call or email me back.
I wanted to be very forward with who I was going to have as my doula so that I knew that she knew what I was expecting and there weren't any questions and I wanted her to know what kind of client she was getting so she wasn't uncomfortable or have any surprises. I understood that with a doula it gets very personal and both parties needed to feel comfortable and close with each other so I needed someone that was comfortable working with a mother that is grieving from a very recent death of her child as well as stubbornly fighting for a vaginal birth. Talya came over a couple of days before the meet the doula night and Brock and I met/interviewed her and we hit it off great. I still wanted to make sure that I was picking a doula that would be best for me emotionally since Talya hadn't worked with a grieving mother before so I still went to the meet the doula night. I met with some great women and there was even a doula there that was a mother that lost a child herself. Before I met with her I thought that she would be perfect because she has been in my position before. She was wonderful to talk to, but we didn't hit it off as much as Talya and I did. I thought and prayed about it for a couple of weeks and knew that Talya was supposed to be our doula.
I also knew that I wanted to have a birth that I felt in charge of. For that to happen I wanted to have a unmedicated birth, but I also wanted to have a calm spiritual birth. To me that sounded like those two clashed and I couldn't have both. That was until I talked to my great friend that footzoned me. She told me about hypnobirthing. I looked into it and knew that was what I needed. When I talked with Talya about it she told me about Hypnobabies and she teaches a class for it. There was no question that was what I wanted to do so Brock and I signed up for it. Let me explain hypnobabies a little to you. When I tell most people about it they immediately picture someone swinging a watch in front of them and putting them into a "bark like a dog, cluck like a chicken" hypnosis. It is not like that at all. YOU are in control completely. The 6 week course teaches you how to focus your natural pain relief that your body produces to the areas that need it. THIS is what I knew was going to give me my spiritual, peaceful vaginal birth that I wanted control of. Brock and I took the class several weeks prior and I had been keeping up and practicing my hypnobabies daily with the positive affirmations and positive birthing terms. Hypnobabies helps you to focus on the good and retrains your brain to think about birth in a positive light by using birthing terms positively. For example labor is changed to birthing time. Contractions are changed to birthing waves, etc.
Now fast forward to October. I was prepared and excited for this little guy to be coming. October 11th came and went with me showing no signs of birth in the near future. I figured that this would happen since I was considered a first time mother and my body had never experienced labor before. I went to my OB appointment that Tuesday after my "guess date" and the midwife that was seeing me wanted to check me to see if I was progressing at all. During the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy I declined getting checked because I didn't want to introduce bacteria as well as I didn't want to be given false hope or feel that my body was letting me down by not progressing. This time I felt that I needed to let her check me just so that they felt comfortable letting me go longer so that I could go into labor on my own. They were starting to use the "I" word with me and it was getting me frustrated. I didn't want to be induced for several reasons. One being that my chances of a successful VBAC decrease when being induced. Also induction= pitocin and pitocin=false birthing waves which make them stronger and harder to handle and a higher chance of me needing an epidural which would make it so that I wasn't in charge of my own body anymore. So I let her check me. Well... Not only did she check me, but she stripped my membranes without my consent. Yep I was super upset and felt so defeated that she did that without asking me first. I felt like she wasn't having faith in my body or me to let me go into my birthing time on my own. I felt like I was already starting to fight for what I wanted and I didn't want a fight. I got done with my appointment and called Talya crying. Yeah she really didn't know how much she was getting into with me. :) She was able to talk to me to calm me down and we talked about my rights and I am in charge and what happened to me at the appointment was completely inappropriate and shouldn't have happened. At my appointment Dr. Silver talked to me about the risks of going past 41 weeks and the chances of stillbirth doubling. Here come the scare tactics... He didn't give me percentages he just said that it doubled. Talya informed me that the chances increase from 1% to 2%. Yeah doc that's a HUGE increase. I am aware of statistics. Corbyn was a 1 in 100,000 death. I agreed that at my next appointment I would do a NST (nonstress test) to make sure that everything was ok with baby and then we would talk options. That appointment was scheduled for Friday October 17th. As that day got closer I really didn't want to go to it. I had heard of evening primrose and castor oil. I had taken castor oil the day before my last appointment to see if that would do anything. It did absolutely nothing! Including it didn't even give me the runs! I knew my body wasn't ready so when she stripped my membranes I was not happy! Thursday evening I decided to give the castor oil a shot again since I did start to have bloody show that morning and afternoon as well as I had to go to the bathroom a lot more than usual that day plus I didn't want to go to that stupid OB appointment for more scare tactics. I had heard that was a sign when you had to go to the bathroom more that your body was preparing and cleaning you out for your birthing time. The night before from 2:30-4:30 A.M. I was having birthing waves 10 minutes apart that lasted about a minute as well so I was definitely showing signs that something was happening. We are also in the process of selling our condo and some people were coming by the next day to look at it right after I got off work so I wanted to make sure it was clean the night before. I made me a green smoothie and put a small amount of castor oil in it around 6:00. We straightened up the house and I decided to head to bed because either I had to be up at 4 in the morning to be at work, or I would be up all night in my birthing time. I hit the sac at about 8:00 and woke back up with what felt like bowel stomach like cramps around 11:30. I was sure that it was from the castor oil since I was feeling a lot of it in my back. **Remember** I have no idea what an actual birthing wave feels like since I have never had one before. This is something that I was terrified of that I wouldn't realize that I was in my birthing time and I would have my baby at home or in the car on the way to the hospital. (this fear comes into play later) Brock was still up at that time playing on the playstation. I was going back and forth from the bathroom sitting on the toilet trying to have a bowel movement to the birthing ball. I was certain that the castor oil was giving me a stomach ache, but since I had so many bowel movements during the day there was nothing to come out, but my bowels were still acting like there was and cramping. Brock got mad at me and forbid me from the castor oil and then continued to go back to his game. Yep this made me super happy. His wife was having this super uncomfortable stuff happening but no biggie I'll continue to play my game. Yeah men are oblivious to so many things. I literally had to tell him that I needed some comfort and help for him to realize it. He started doing some of the techniques that Talya taught us to help with birthing waves thinking that may help. It really didn't because he wasn't pushing or squeezing in the right areas and so he got ready for bed and went to bed leaving me out in the living room to work through this mess that I had put myself in with the castor oil. It was about 12:45 and I decided that me sitting on the toilet praying to Heavenly Father to please take these cramps away from me and promising him I wouldn't take castor oil again wasn't getting me any rest so I took the heating pad in bed and tried to lie down to get some rest since I had to be up at 4 for work. I fell asleep intermittently until 2:30 and then couldn't stand laying in bed anymore. When I got out I suddenly became really cold to the point that my body was shaking uncontrollably. I put on Brock's big fluffy robe and wrapped myself in several blankets and put the heating pad on my feet. At this point I was thinking that I was getting sick and was super not happy because that was all that I needed when I could be having my baby any day. Nothing I was doing was getting me warm so I decided to get in a hot shower. I sat under the water of the shower for about 30 minutes and then decided to fill up the tub and just sit in the tub. The whole time I was in there my stomach cramp like things weren't as bad so I stayed in there until about 4:30. I knew that I couldn't go to work in the state that I was in and just planned on calling in sick and possibly not even going to my OB appointment. I got out and put back on Brock's robe and went and sat on the birthing ball again since that was the second most comfortable place for me. I sat there and pulled out my phone timing these cramp like things to see if possibly they may just in fact be birthing waves. There was no consistency to them at all! Well so I thought. They would range from 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart and were all over the place in length. That was another confirmation to me that they surely couldn't be birthing waves. I thought about several times texting Talya telling her what I was going through and asking her if it was anything. I never did because I didn't want to be chastised by her as well by taking the castor oil. 4:45 rolls around and gush!!! I was still sitting on my birthing ball on our new rug that I bought a few weeks earlier and all I could think about was NOOO not my rug! Not the fact of oh my water just broke I've been having birthing waves this whole time and I'm in my birthing time. I text Talya and told her that my water broke and then tried to call to my snoring husband in the bedroom that was completely clueless as to what his wife has been doing the last several hours. He, of course, was out cold and couldn't hear me yelling for him. So what was the next best thing... Call him. Yep I called my husband on the phone when I could literally see him from the living room. I couldn't move, I had so much amniotic fluid coming out or else I would have went in and smacked him! Right after that the birthing waves were barely a minute apart and I was having a really hard time focusing because they were getting pretty strong. Brock finally woke up and came out in a what's going on kind of oblivion. I told him that my water broke. You know how on shows when a wife tells her husband that her water broke and he immediately goes into panic mode? Yep my calm, level headed, nothing affects me husband hit the panic mode in full force. He was walking around in a circle for it felt like a minute saying OK OK OK over and over again. Then he started grabbing things actually progressing on getting out the door. Talya called me and was talking with me to see where I was at in my birthing time. I told her everything started at about 11:30 and how far apart my birthing waves were. She said that was consistent enough and they didn't have to be same time apart every time (that would have been good to know at around 11:30. See I was oblivious to all of this!). While I was on the phone with her I had several birthing waves back to back. Then I got sick and was throwing up. She informed me that it sounded like I was in transition ( the last stage before baby comes out). She asked me if I thought we could make it all the way to the U of U or if we needed to go somewhere closer. I of course didn't have any idea. This is where the fear thing comes into play that I talked about before. I know that if I would have stayed home a few minutes longer he would have dropped and I would have had him at home since I felt the exact same then as I did when I was in transition at the hospital, but since I had such a fear of that I swear my body sucked him back up into the birth canal. We decided to start heading to the hospital and if he started to come there were several hospitals on the way if we needed to stop there. Talya decided that she would not meet us at our house and would just start heading down to the U and we would stay in contact the whole way.
We got there at about 5:30 and went to the OB ER for them to evaluate me. Yep sure enough they confirmed that my water had broken. If they said it hadn't I was really going to have to evaluate my bladder situation because I was still leaking while laying there in the bed. I was 5 cm dilated which was a good thing. I was well on my way. They got me into a room over on the labor and delivery side and we sat... Well, I worked through all my birthing waves while I'm sure the rest of my birth team felt like they sat. The team of medical staff came in at about 10:00 wanting to check me to see if I had progressed any further. When I say team I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. I forgot that it is a teaching hospital so for every hospital staff member assigned to you, you then double that at a teaching hospital. I had my OB (who was actually not there for any of it since he had been up for 40 straight hours) then there was a resident plus a medical student, plus other residents that tagged along as well. Then there was my nurse and she also had a student with her. I felt bombarded with people wanting me to drop my pants. Yep, I really didn't like that at all. I was doing just fine and continuing to have birthing waves consistently so I told them to come back later. 11:00 rolls around and here comes my drop-your-pants-lady medical team of people. I seriously felt like they were all gloving up right outside my door of my room and as they all walked in they were snapping their gloves on as each of them walked in like vultures eager to get in my pants. Sadly for them, I turned them down again. This time it didn't make them very happy and the head resident was most of all not pleased with me. She was the type that felt that since she was the physician she was in charge. I sure was not a fan of her and I really think she could have used a few more patient care courses and popped a few more caring pills while she was at it. I hope she doesn't practice in Utah. Anyway so a very kind member of my birthing team went out and spoke to my medical team informing them of the different type of birth that they were dealing with and really fought for me and my birth plan. After that come to Jesus talk that was had with them Talya explained to me the reasons behind them wanting to check me. I agreed to have them check me if I could choose who it was and nobody else came in the room. I had the sweetest nurse, Erika, that was very understanding and gentle with me physically and emotionally. I chose her to check me. When she checked me I was at a 5+. See, this is why I didn't want to get checked. I felt so let down. I had worked so hard for 6+ hours to pretty much not dilate at all! I did find out the reason why I was having "back labor" when she checked me was because Ledgyr was slightly turned. By this point I had been up over 24 hours (minus the 3 hours I got from 8-11 the night before) I was worn out. I could barely keep my eyes open in between birthing waves when I was sitting down. I had cried several times by this point for several reasons none of which were because I was in pain or couldn't handle my birthing waves. Now they were talking pitocin with me so I was crying some more. Plus I was frustrated that baby wasn't in the perfect position so I had to work even harder to try and get him turned.
After that Dr. Zelenkov came to see me. She was the physician that I switched to in the middle of this pregnancy because she was up by me and I was having issues with my insurance accepting Dr. Silver. She abruptly retired and quit her practice when I was about 30 weeks but fought with the insurance for me to deliver at the U and to have Dr. Silver. She was a wonderful physician and it showed because she showed up to be labor support for me when she wasn't even my physician any more. Anyway, she explained to me the benefits of me getting a small dose of pitocin since my birthing waves weren't getting stronger or closer together anymore and my labor was starting to taper off. She talked to me about my body would eventually do it on it's own, but because I am already so exhausted all that it would do for me to wait for my body to progress on it's own would send me into a section because I would be too exhausted to push my baby out. That was the last thing that I wanted so I agreed to get an IV of glucose to help my energy and to start me on the lowest dose of pitocin and increase it until my birthing waves picked up. This was around 5:00 when they started it. They started me off at 2 mU/min and then 4 and nothing was happening there other than the birthing waves being more intense. Once they increased me to 6 is when they picked up. It was about 15 minutes of being at a dose of 6 mU/min and I felt like I needed to go back to my room and sit on the birthing ball. I had two contractions on the birthing ball and I felt him drop and I immediately felt I needed to push. I climbed up on the bed on my hands and knees and the next thing I knew every inch of my room was covered in people. It was 7:00 by this time which was shift change so I literally had every square inch of my room filled because I had staff from both shifts in there. I kinda turned into a not so nice person at this point because I was having people come stick their face right by mine wanting to introduce themselves to me. Ok nice to meet you let me shake your hand, now go catch my baby that I'm pushing out my hooha right now please. It was rather annoying to me so I kept saying to them "I don't care who you are". Whoops! Probably should have been nicer, but he was coming so fast and those pitocin birthing waves were not letting me rest for more than a couple of seconds at a time. I did apologize after everything cooled and he was here. They all understood and gave me a pass for acting like that. They even said I was super mild compare to a lot of other women. That made me feel a lot better. Over all I pushed for a total of 11 minutes and according to Talya and Brock I was calm and very in control while I was pushing. I felt like there was a complete circus going on in my body and I felt like I was not in as much control as I would have liked. Looking at the video, though, I was. It's kinda weird what your mind perceives versus what really happened. I know that it was all because of my hypnobabies training that I was able to have an unmedicated birth that lasted almost 24 hours.
It was beautiful and spiritual just like I wanted it to be. As well as pain free. Emotional free... not even close. He arrived at 7:19 weighing 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.
I also know that there were more than just the medical staff and my birthing team there in that room. I felt Corby there delivering his baby brother to us as well as so many other spirits. THAT is what I wanted. I wanted to feel Corbyn there with me. I wanted to make sure I was in the right state of mind so that I could feel that. I wanted to be in control of my whole body for that reason alone. I don't care that I went unmedicated. I don't want a badge of honor. I'm not bragging that I went unmedicated because I could. I did it only so that I could be in control- mind and spirit so that I could feel my son with me while the veil was thin. This baby has no idea how special he is both here on earth and in Heaven. I firmly believe that a rainbow baby has to be a special spirit because of the role they have been assigned to now on earth.
The minute that they put Ledgyr on my chest he reached up at grabbed onto my Corby necklace. It was weird for him to reach as far as he did and was very unusual for a baby to reach that far, but I know it was Corbyn saying to me "here you go mama. Here is your baby don't be sad for me anymore". I know that Corbyn played a huge role in when his brother was brought into this world.
It is bittersweet to have Ledgyr be born just hours before the day that his older brother grew his angel wings just a year prior. I know that he came the perfect day now that I have had time to process it. If he would have come on his due date it would have been too far away and Corby's angel day would have been a mess for me. If he would have come on Corby's angel day I probably would have been too emotionally spent to have a successful VBA2C and I would have probably ended up with another section. If I would have had him after Corby's angel day I would have already been too emotionally spent even before I went into my birthing time. The day before made it so that I could focus on him and my birthing time. Plus it made is so that I focused a lot of the following day resting and paying more attention to my baby that was hours old. It was the perfect time and I know it wasn't a coincidence.
I remember going to my first OB appointment and finding out the EDD of Ledgyr and knowing then that he would be born closer to Corby's angel day. I remember talking on the phone with my mom as I was driving home and her saying the exact same thing. There are some things that you can just feel. This was one of those things for me. All in all I am so grateful for my wonderful doula, Talya, for being there for me emotionally as well as just doing her job as a doula. I'm grateful for my husband and how wonderful he is. He gave me a priesthood blessing the day before to help with my comfort as well as other things, and I know that helped me so much as well. I am grateful for my sister -in- law Erika for being there to take pictures and video as well as be emotional support. I would relive that day over and over again if I could. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be able to birth my baby vaginally and I am so unbelievably grateful that it was a success and so peaceful.
This picture says a thousand words as to how unbelievably happy I was to have my baby here with me and to feel his brother so close to me as well. I can't begin to describe the feeling I felt at that moment.
