Lauren on Living

A Lifestyle Blog about Simplifying Healthy Living

Birthing Reese

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Like her brother and sister before her, Reese wouldn’t be rushed into making her debut into this world. It seems that I am firmly a 41 weeker. Reese came exactly 7 days past her due date.

The story of her birth really starts the day before on December 9th. I awoke on the ninth with a distinct ‘I’m going to go into labor soon’ ache. I recognized it because it’s the same ache I got the day before Bennett was born.

Side note: It is also worth mentioning that halfway through my pregnancy with Reese we moved away from the D.C. metro area (and our beloved midwives who I had been with for 5 years) to Maine and a whole new set of midwives that I barely knew.

Ok so back to December 9th. My midwives had been stripping my membranes for 2 weeks in an attempt to induce labor and get this baby out asap. It was my third pregnancy carried to term but my fifth pregnancy overall and I was done. I had developed varicosities in my groin that quite literally made me feel like my vagina was going to fall out. So yea, not pleasant and with a recent move and two other children I just really wanted to have my body back. Reese, of course, had other plans. So here I was on December 9th and I knew I would go into labor that night. So I made Asher’s birthday cake (since his birthday is December 11th) and went to visit my brand new niece in the hospital. My brother Jared’s third child, Juliette was born on the morning of December 9th. Even though our babies were due two weeks apart, Juliette was scheduled to be delivered a week early and with my habit of delivering a week late it was looking like that would be born very close indeed. So there I was sitting in the hospital holding my brand new niece and feeling my own baby squirm inside me and I was tingling with excitement that I would be meeting her the next day.

Sure enough, I woke up to consistent contractions at around 1:30am on December 10th after a few hours of laboring at home in front of the fireplace and with my contractions being only 3 minutes apart for an hour, my midwife decided that I should come in even though the contractions weren’t particularly strong. However seeing as this was my third baby, things could take a turn quickly, so I called my dad and once he arrived Raf and I set off for the hospital. My contractions slowed down and spaced out in the car, but they did the same thing with Bennett too. Apparently, I have to labor standing up or moving. After getting to the hospital at around 4am I labored in the room for a bit before they had me get in the bed to monitor me and this is where things started to go south. Don’t worry, nothing dramatic, just not how I would have liked it to go.

It turns out that Reese’s heart rate kept dropping during my contractions when it’s supposed to go up. My midwife (who by the way I was meeting for the first time) had me try laying on first one side and then the other and then my back and then back to my side to try and find the best position for the baby. I wish I would have asked her to let me try standing, but I didn’t and I have no real recollection as to why I didn’t other than the fact that she just told me that I needed to remain confined to my bed. I should have asked her to monitor me standing. In the bed, my contractions spaced waaay out and my labor slowed. I was 5cm dilated when I arrived and despite the fact that things had slowed I gradually progressed to 8cm, where my labor stalled. I remained at 8cm for hours and during every contraction, Raf would try and apply counter pressure or help me get through them and every time is touched me it felt like my skin was on fire. So tired, disappointed that my labor wasn’t going to go the way I wanted it to and daunted by the fact that at the end of this I would be the mother of three children under 4 (even if only for 1 day) I asked for an epidural. Rafaan to his credit did attempt to talk me off the ledge but I was tired and wanted to sleep and my labor wasn’t going anywhere. It was transition purgatory. My midwife agreed without so much as a second to pause (something my previous and beloved midwives would have NEVER done, they would have helped me manage my pain and encouraged me in any number of ways before even entertaining the idea because they knew me well enough to know that I needed that). Around 9am I got the epidural and my contractions spaced out even further. My legs became uncomfortably heavy so much so that I couldn’t move them at all and my labor pretty much came to a halt. I dozed for a while and watched the Crown on Netflix and eventually someone came in and broke my water to try and get things to progress. Still nothing and the hours ticked on, I felt completely disconnected from my body and from the entire labor process and fully regretted getting the epidural. I didn’t like being a passive observer to the birth of my child, I wanted to be actively involved. At some point, my dad came by to provide moral support and told me I should ask for some Pitocin. Finally around 4:30pm I was given the smallest amount of Pitocin (which I had been requesting for a while) and in 40 minutes I was pushing and after 15 hours of acitive labor Reese was born at 5:19pm weighing in at 7lbs 10oz.

I tore a little, because I was just so impatient to meet her that I pushed WAY too hard too fast. So that’s 3 for 3 for me. But she was worth it. She looked totally different than our other children and I had this completely weird feeling of meeting a complete stranger rather than someone I had been sharing everything with for the better part of a year. Which was foreign and unsettling.

I love this little girl so completely I can’t really express it in words. My mother came to see us that night, and then my cousin Sophie and my dear friend Aleah (who was 8 months pregnant with her first child) came. And Sophie held Reese while they watched the video of her birth and I watched them experience the wonder and awe and raw emotions from witnessing it and I’ll always remember that.

The next morning my parents brought Asher and Bennett, as well as my niece and nephew to come to see us and we all sang happy birthday to Asher and ate cake and seeing my older children hold their tiny sister and be immediately smitten with her is one of my sweetest memories.

Reese Marie completes us in a way I could never understand before we had her. I was always fascinated by the notion of how a couple knew that they had enough children and the moment she arrived I felt it, we were complete. Asher and Bennett think she’s the moon and the stars. Reese is a firecracker and such a fun person to be around. Every time I think I have her pegged she throws me a curve ball. It’s taken me 2 years to write her birth story probably in large part due to the fact that I was sad that her delivery didn’t go as planned. It was a magical experience that I was fully connected to, but you know what? It honestly doesn’t matter. Does it still sting? Absolutely, but that’s probably just my test. I need to learn to let go. Reese is perfection. I’m so thankful that she’s a part of our lives and that I get to be her mother. Sure for 7ish hours, I didn’t feel like I was involved in my own labor but in the end, I got a healthy, safe baby and I was healthy and safe and that’s all that matters in the end.

Happy 2nd Birthday Reesey Pea! I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to write finish writing your birth story, a lot has happened in the past two years. Three knee surgeries, your uncle surviving stage three testicular cancer, mommy trying to balance having three (AMAZING) children while juggling a budding career, and most recently a move across the country. Throughout it all, you’ve been an anchor. Your sweet smell, your wonderful scowl, your gap-toothed grin, you’re enthusiastic kisses and your love and dancing, singing, drawing and leaping without looking. You are full of joy. You are amazing in every way and I’m so excited about all the things we have ahead of us!

Birthing Bennett

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Bringing Bennett into this world is the single hardest thing I have been through to date. And honestly, this surprised me.

You see, when I was pregnant with Asher, I felt like I was the poster child for pregnancy. I LOVED being pregnant, I didn’t have any morning sickness and the bigger I got the more comfortable I felt. In fact, I had never felt more beautiful.

Being pregnant with Bennett, was a whole different story. While, I readily admit that compared to what some women go through what I experienced was a walk in the park. Still after such a wonderful and easy first pregnancy I found this one much more challenging. The day I turned 6 weeks pregnant, I threw up twice and then was queasy for several weeks after that, in addition to experiencing strong food aversions. I was so tired, but since I had a super active toddler on my hands, sleep was not something I was able to get enough of, and the little I did get was terrible. I suffered from insomnia and charlie horses, not to mention I would wake up hourly to pee. And my skin! Oh my skin was terrible. My face broke out (which hadn’t even happened to me during puberty) and I had patches of dry flaky skin that just no amount of moisturizing or exfoliating could tackle.

I felt fragile, and uncomfortable nearly the whole pregnancy, so I was hoping for an early delivery. I was more than ready to get this baby out. She had other plans. At 40 weeks exactly I had a bloody show and I got excited thinking that this might be the start of labour, but my due date came and went and the days creeped by. I was becoming increasingly more and more impatient and I felt pressured by everyone to have this baby already. Several nights I had contractions that were fairly consistent for an hour or so and then would simply stop. I was quickly losing all confidence that I had any idea at all what my body was doing.

At 41 weeks I had a None Stress Test (NST) (which I found incredibly stressful), but it turned out that while my fluid levels were on the low side the baby was doing fine. I was only 2 centimeters dilated and about 50% effaced so my midwife stripped my membranes in the hopes of getting things moving and sent me home with instructions to come back in 5 days for another NST if I hadn’t had my baby by then.

So I went home feeling dejected. A part of me was really hoping that they would discover that the baby needed to come out right then and that I’d be induced. The bloody show that I had been having fairly consistently for a week already, picked up and the rest of the day I felt pretty achy. My mom and I went to the mall that evening and walked around but I was becoming increasing more uncomfortable so we headed home. I went to bed around 10:30pm thinking that this could be the night and I woke up at 11:30pm with contractions. I began timing them like I had done several times before during the past week and found that while they were fairly mild/moderate they were pretty consistent and close together. By about 2am the contractions, while still pretty mild were coming 2-3 minutes apart, so I decided to call my midwives to let them know what was going on. After speaking to the midwife on call, Alex, we decided that I should probably head into the hospital since this was my second baby and things could turn a corner quickly. I woke up Raf, finished packing up a few things into my hospital bag, informed my parents and off we went. I was fairly sure that we would be sent right back home, since my contractions were so mild.

We got to the hospital at 3am and Alex checked me and found that I was only 4 centimeters dilated, but that was enough to keep me at the hospital. So, feeling discouraged that this wasn’t going to be a quick labour I settled in for the long haul. Now that I knew this was actually labour I kind of felt like maybe I was a labour rock star. I was totally in control during every contraction. When I felt one coming on, I’d just breathe through it gently. There was no wailing or screaming or crying. It was peaceful, calm, serene. I labored in the shower, on the exercise ball, leaning over the bed and in a birth chair.  The whole time I was thinking to myself, ‘this is going to take forever, these contractions aren’t strong enough to be doing anything.’ I kept thinking about how tired I was and how easy it would be to just get an epidural and go to sleep until it was time to push at which point I told Raf that I felt like I may crack and ask for an epidural and that he was to talk me off the ledge.  Unless I was adamantly insistent, he was not to allow me to get one. He protested but finally agreed.

At around 6am I got into the birth tub.  About 30 minutes later I was told by my nurse, Gabby that Alex thought I was entering transition. I remember thinking, ‘that’s odd because my contractions are still only moderate and isn’t transition the hardest part of labour?’ No sooner had I expressed this sentiment aloud than the next contraction hit me like a ton of bricks. A few more of those and I was begging for drugs and writhing about in the birth tub. All serenity had gone out the window. My student midwife, Michelle, suggested that I get out of the tub and have Alex check my dilation before making any decisions. I felt this was reasonable so I got out and Alex checked me, only to announce that I was 6 cm dilated. ONLY 6!

GIVE ME DRUGS!!!

I was a mess. I was crying and panicky. As each contraction ended I cowered in anticipation of the next, yet there was no escape. I later described it to my Dad like I was standing in front of a stampede of horses and I knew I would be trampled but I couldn’t move, I just had to stand there knowing it would happen, over and over and over.

Alex let me know that she heard my request for drugs, but that she thought I only had 2 or so more hours, which to me felt like she was telling me I would be stuck in this misery for the rest of my life. I kept saying that I couldn’t do it, to which everyone would reply, that I was doing it, which only served to have me scream that I DIDN’T WANT TO DO IT!! Alex suggested I return to laboring in the shower, so I made my way to the bathroom.

I first labored on the toilet for a while, when my body began bearing down on it’s own. After what happened in my labour with Asher I was deathly afraid of my cervix swelling, but I couldn’t prevent my body from pushing. I was reaching a point of total terror. I was utterly and completely terrified of the torture pain. I finally got up to walk the 3 feet to the shower, when a massive contraction hit. I immediately dropped to my hands and knees on the bathroom floor.

I needed drugs! I clung to this thought like a life raft, it was the only thing I could really think about. Alex told me I was doing great and that I was still in control of my contractions. No sooner has she said that, than I lost all control with the next one. My breathing was erratic, I started to bite Raf and probably would have come away with a chunk of his arm, before I remembered miraculously that I needed to relax my jaw. My body was still bearing down and at this point my water broke (although, I didn’t know it at the time).  I began insisting on an epidural. Alex called the anesthesiologist, but said she wanted to check my dilation again while we waited for him to arrive. I made my way back to the bed and she checked me and then promptly announced that I was fully dilated and it was time to push. I went from 6 cm to 10 cm in 20 minutes. I had passed the point of getting an epidural.

So I pushed with every ounce of strength that I had. I’m pretty sure I nearly crushed Rafaan’s fingers, I was gripping them so hard. I had no thought of meeting my baby, only of getting the pain to end. Tears streamed down my face, I was in total and complete agony but after 4 or 5 contractions I reached down and pulled my tiny perfect baby onto my belly.

Bennett Rose Anvari was born on February 27th at 7:25am after 8 hours of labor, weighing in at exactly 7 pounds and measuring 20.5 inches long. Just like her brother before her, she rocked her Apgar test, scoring 9 and 9!

I wish I could say that any thought of the pain of labour immediately vanished when I laid eyes on my daughter, but it didn’t. I felt utterly traumatized and in shock. I was pretty shaken up. While Rafaan cried tears of joy at meeting our little girl, all I could do was shake and sob over what I had just endured as they sewed up my small first degree tear. I slowly came around and was able to marvel at my little girl and what I had just done to bring her here, but it took me a good two days to no longer feel traumatized by the experience. It was rough to say the least, though I can honestly say I’d do it again and I definitely still want to have more children. I am proud of myself for having a completely natural, drug free labour, because ultimately that’s the best and safest thing for both mother and baby (barring any complications). Another one of my midwives told me the next morning that what I experienced she refers to as “transition trash talk.” I’m so thankful to Wisdom Midwifery and the GWU Hospital labor and delivery staff for assisting me and helping me have a natural labour, despite everything I said to the contrary at the time.

In retrospect I think the reason I had such a hard time, was because I had lost confidence in knowing what my body was doing. I didn’t trust myself or my body and labour is such a mental battle in addition to a physical one, that not being in the right head space really had a huge negative impact on how I was able to handle the pain. I also needed to be pulled out of my head more. The first 7 hours were so easy that I don’t think Raf (despite his best efforts) was really prepared to coach me through the last hour like I really needed. Those are two things we definitely need to work on and prepare for next time.

We are so proud to be the parents to not only our beautiful little pistol of a son, Asher, but now to our sweet and cuddly perfection of a daughter, Bennett. We couldn’t have asked for a better addition to our family!

Bennett: 8 minutes old

Bennett: 8 minutes old

Birthing Asher

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This is Asher’s birth story and some of the content may fall into the realm of TMI (too much information).  So if you’re squeamish about labor and birth and the nether region body parts, then perhaps you should skip this post.  Otherwise I hope you enjoy!

I had a lot of ideas about how I wanted the birth of my first-born to go.  I wanted a completely natural un-medicated labor, that would be attended by a midwife in a hospital.  I wanted my water to break on its own and to use perineal massage to avoid tearing, however tearing was preferable to an episiotomy.  Raf and I had attended 12 weeks of The Bradely Method birthing classes and had learned all kinds of techniques and positions to use during labor.  Well, things didn’t exactly go as planned.  One of the first things you learn when you’re in labor is detachment and the next is that it’s an incredibly humbling experience.

On Friday December 7th, while I was in the shower I lost my mucus plug.  I didn’t think too much of it since you can lose your mucus plug, days or even weeks before labor begins.  Saturday night around 11:45pm I went to bed and shortly afterwards I started having contractions that felt like menstrual cramps along with a back ache.  I began timing them and discovered they were irregular but I felt I should still call my midwives to let them know.  As I suspected they told me to call back when they were 3-5 minutes apart and lasting for about 1 minute for 1 hour.  After hanging up the phone I tried to get some sleep, but the contractions wouldn’t allow it, being anywhere from 4 minutes apart to 3o minutes apart.  Nonetheless I tried to relax and conserve my energy.  On Sunday the contractions went away and I was able to take a 4 hour nap, but just as I was going to bed Sunday night they returned and once again I had a sleepless night.  All Monday the contractions persisted and were still quite irregular, but I felt that they were becoming stronger.  Monday night I knew sleep was out of the question, but I tried to go to bed anyway to at least rest because I was exhausted due to the lack of sleep for 2 nights in a row.  Well, just after we went to bed around midnight, the contractions started becoming regular and I began to seriously resent Rafaan for sleeping so soundly beside me.  I knew I could no longer manage getting through them without him, so it was time to wake him up.  For several hours he would massage my lower back during the contractions due to the serious back pain I was having. Around 3am, the contractions finally became close enough together to warrant calling the midwives again.  After listening to me moan and groan through several contractions Kimla (the midwife on call) told me that I should call our doula, Sade and head over to the hospital once she arrived.

So we called Sade and in the meantime I went to the bathroom and felt my cervix, and was surprised to feel that it was slightly dilated  but it only felt about 1-2 centimeters dilated…not that I knew how to check cervical dilation, but I was curious nonetheless.  While I was busy feeling around my lady bits, Raf was packing our hospital bags, which despite being 6 days past my due date we had still not packed.  As soon as Sade arrived we hopped in the car and made our way to the hospital.  The whole ride over I was certain we would be sent home due to me not being dilated enough.  We arrived at the hospital around 5:30am on Tuesday, December 11th at which point Kimla checked my cervix and told me I was 5 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced and that I would be staying at the hospital.

For the next several hours I labored in my birth room with Raf and Sade alternating between rubbing my back and providing me with support.  I was laboring in the shower when I began to become very aware of a pain in my rear at which point I started to suspect that a hemorrhoid had reared its ugly head.  The pain grew worse and worse so I started to bear down with each contraction and realized that it lessened the pain at which point I asked to have my dilation checked because I felt like I wanted to start pushing. You see, during our birth class our instructor told us that some women never get the urge to push but rather they know that it’s time to start pushing, when pushing feels better than not pushing.  Little did I know that this little tid bit of information would be my undoing.  A midwifery student (Alex) came in and checked me around 11:30am and told me I was 7 centimeters dilated at which point I nearly started crying.  I asked her if she could break my water to speed things along (right then Raf and I should have known that I was not in my right mind), she said that it was too soon and that I should try laboring in the bed for a few hours. For the next two hours I laid in bed and tried to relax into each contraction and doze in between and at 1:30pm when Alex came back in I had dilated to 9.5 centimeters.  Again I begged her to break my water to speed things along and this time she hesitantly agreed.  She broke my water and found meconium in the water but since Asher’s heart rate was still strong she told me that there was nothing to worry about and that all it meant at this point was the pediatric team would need to be in the room when he was delivered just to be safe.  I told her that I wanted to start pushing and she advised me that it was best to wait until I was 10 centimeters dilated but that if my body was telling me to push that I should listen to my body.

Now let’s be clear, my body was NOT telling me to push.  I did not have the urge to push.  I WANTED to push and it felt better to push.  So with each contraction I started bearing down a bit, not pushing but adding pressure.  A few hours went by and I was laboring in the birth tub when I realized that the pressure I had been adding to each contraction turned into full on INVOLUNTARY PUSHING!  So I asked the midwife to come in and check me.  By now Kimla’s shift had ended and Whitney’s had started so she came in and checked me with Hannah (another midwifery student).  I thought I had misheard at first when she said I was 4 centimeters dilated…FOUR?!  Well, apparently when you begin pushing before you’re fully dilated it can cause your cervix to SWELL SHUT.  Whitney was able to push my cervix open to 7 centimeters again and told me that I would need to stop pushing and that I should use breathing techniques to get through each contraction.  She also gave me sterile water injections in my lower back to help with my back labor.

So began what I lovingly refer to as transition ground hogs day.  I would labor and labor and get to 9 centimeters only to be told the next time I was checked that I had gone down to 7 centimeters.  This happened over and over.  I began to think that this baby would never come out and that there was no way I would be able to have more children.  I started to fear that a c-section was in my future because I literally could not stop my body from pushing of its own will.  Some contractions I would be able to get through but then one would come along that would slam into me like a freight train and my whole body would become possessed and it would push for all it was worth and all I could go was scream in frustration.  I started to ask for an epidural.  I knew that I couldn’t stop my body from pushing and that if it kept happening my cervix would remain swollen and a c-section would be the only solution.  There was a lot of sobbing on my part and begging everyone to JUST GET THE BABY OUT.  I have never seen Rafaan so raw.  He looked like he was ready to pull his hair out and was on the verge of tears the entire time.  Later he would tell me that seeing me like that was the hardest thing he has ever experienced. Finally Whitney told me it would be a good idea to just talk to the anesthesiologist to hear about my options.  The anesthesiologist showed up and explained that they would give me an epidural and a spinal block and all about the risks involved, then she had me sign a consent form just in case we decided to actually do it so that all the paper work would be out of the way.  I decided that I wanted to be checked one last time before making the decision, because I didn’t want to have to get the epidural if I was almost there.  Whitney agreed that this was a good idea but before she would check me she wanted me to march back and forth across the room while doing high knees and she wanted me alternate between sitting forward and sitting backwards on the toilet during contractions.  So march I did.  I marched with every ounce of energy I had left and for most of the contractions I was able to keep my body from pushing, but every once in a while one would come along that would get away from me.  

Finally when I felt that I could go on no longer I asked to be checked again.  By now Whitney’s shift had ended and Laura’s had begun, so they asked me a wait just a little longer while Whitney got Laura up to speed.  When they finally came back in, Laura checked me and found that I was 7 centimeters AGAIN!!  At this point Laura and Whitney both agreed that I should get an epidural. They both felt that we had exhausted all the options in door number 1 and that it was time to open door number 2.  They also informed me that I needed to have some pitocin augmentation because my contractions were  not consistently strong enough to push the baby out due to my uterus being overly tired.    At 8pm I got the spinal block and the epidural both of which I didn’t even feel at all and shortly after that all the pain from my contractions was gone.  It was wonderful to be free from the fear that I wouldn’t be able to stop my body from pushing.  For the next 2 hours I laid in bed and rested and tried to recharge.  At 10pm Laura came back in and told me that due to the pitocin making my contractions very strong Asher was beginning to experience some stress.  She checked me and found my cervix to be much less swollen and 9.5 centimeters dilated.  She told me that she wanted to try to get his head past my cervix and that during the next contraction she wanted me to push while she also pushed my cervix.  When the next contraction came along I gave a great big push and Laura told me that it was working.  Raf and Sade each held a leg while I pushed and Laura pushed my cervix back and finally Asher’s head made its way past the cervix and into the birth canal!!  At this point despite the epidural, I began to feel immense rectal pressure and pain.  Laura and Hannah were both administering perineal massage and using warm compresses to ease the pain, but the hemorrhoid would not be quelled.  Laura told me that the only way to end the pain at this point was to push him out so I pushed with all the force I could muster.  I remember thinking “if I keep pushing this hard, I’m going to tear”  and I didn’t care one bit.  I just. wanted. him. out.  So I pushed and I pushed and I saw myself tear and I felt the ring of fire. Finally after an hour and a half of pushing Laura told Raf and I to reach down and we both caught our baby and pulled him onto my belly, at which point he pooped all over me and proceeded to slosh around in it and all I could think about was how perfect he was and that I could definitely do this again.

Just like that we were parents.  Asher Nathan Anvari, weighing in at 7 pounds 11.5 ounces was born on December 11th at 11:36pm after 23.5 hours of active labor and several days of pre and early labor.  He was one of the cutest newborns I had ever seen and I know I’m biased but everyone else said so too.

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p.s. I’m not an advocate epidurals or pitocin, but I’m a perfect example about how sometimes they’re medically necessary. Sometimes things just don’t go your way, however I feel that my road to needing interventions would have been entirely avoidable had I allowed my water to break on its own and not pushed before I was fully dilated.   Ah well, you live and learn.  In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll tell you when I got the epidural the relief was wonderful but I had bad back pain at the site of my epidural for several months.  I’m seriously hoping that my future labors can be all natural and I feel confident that I can achieve that.