St.Peter Family Adventures: Emily's Birth Story

It seems the only time I do a blog update is to share a Birth Story :-) This is a great way for me to track it for printing for the baby book and to share the birth story with family and friends.

As most know I try for a birth with a midwife either at home or at a birthing center. This was not different this pregnancy. I found a birthing center that also offered home births here in Bonners Ferry called Womancare Midwives. Barbara and Lori were wonderful and amazing. The plan was to have a home-birth in my awesome jacuzzi tub here at our home. As usual I was prepared had everything we needed at home and all of my prenatal appointments were going great. My last 2 babies came late so I just expected Emily to come late as well. The last 2 appointments I had with my midwives at 37 weeks and 38 weeks left some thought on whether little Miss Emily was in the right position or not. At my 38 week appointment we decided that it would be best if I went in for an ultrasound to confirm her position since she wasn't in the pelvis and it appeared she could possibly not be fully head down (head off to the side below belly button). I was able to get an ultrasound scheduled for Saturday Oct 28th, which happened to be 39 weeks 1 day. We thought if she was in the wrong position we could work on getting her turned just right and hopefully we would still have time.

On Saturday morning 10/28 around 3:30am I woke up restless and couldn't get back to sleep (guessing a little nervous about the ultrasound). Around 4 am I start noticing the need for many bathroom trips. I thought this might be my water leaking slowly. I decided we still needed the ultrasound so we would still continue to CDA ( about 70 miles from home). I usually have long labors and hadn't had any contractions yet. I made sure to pack the birthing kit, blankets, baby car seat, baby bag, and one set of spare clothes for me just in case Chris had to deliver a baby in the back of the van. I also figured worst case scenario we were going through Sandpoint and into CDA which is where the hospitals are.

As we were driving I started having contractions, but they were 16 minutes apart, so wasn't too worried. We arrived to CDA early so we stopped in the gun/outdoor store to go check out a few things. As I was walking to the entrance my water started to leak and a lot more, so I went into the bathroom and my amniotic fluid was not clear so I contacted Lori, my on call midwife, and sent her a picture. We agreed it was meconium and that little Emily had most likely past her first bowel movement while in the womb. Lori informed me she just would need to be monitored a bit more while in labor but to head to the ultrasound to verify position.

We got to the ultrasound facility and when I laid down I had which looked like a baseball above my belly button on my upper right. We all knew then that was most likely her head and the ultrasound confirmed that. She was in transverse lie position, leaning more toward breech. I called Lori and she advised me not to go home and head to the hospital in Sandpoint to see if the doctors could turn her or not. Barb worked on transferring my records to the hospital and began discussing all with Dr. Johnson who was on call.

I was devastated at this point. I knew this meant I would most likely be having a c-section, one of my biggest fears. That may sound crazy to some, but it was a huge fear for me. I have small children at home, I work full time from home, and we don't live near family to have extra hands available to help. I knew many who had told me the horror stories of their recovery and well to be honest c-section recovery sounded a lot worse then traditional birth recovery.

I reached out to my amazing friend April to see if she would be able to meet us at the hospital to take the boys, so Chris could stay with me and we would know the boys were in good hands.

When we arrived at the hospital I was greeted at the door by Dr Johnson and he was awesome. He made sure I was comfortable and took me up for a check to confirm my water had broken and to check on baby position. He confirmed yes my water had broke, there was meconium present, and she was in transverse lie position more toward breech. He told us since there was little water left it was not safe to turn her. There was too much risk for her and I if something went wrong and that is recommendation was go in for a c-section sooner rather than later since contractions were still 13 minutes apart and we didn't want her to go into any distress since c-section was really the only option available. My heart sunk, I knew this was going to be rough, but we knew what we had to do.

The boys said goodbye to me and headed to meet April to head home with her. Chris came back up and we were both prepped to proceed with the c-section. Everyone introduced themselves as I was brought in, the staff was all pretty amazing. By the time the c-section took place Emily was in full breech position. She was out, crying, then handed over to Chris to hold next to me while they finished with me. I did hear a comment the Dr made about velamentous cord, but didn't know what that meant. Later Dr.Johnson told me that the cord was velamentous cord insertion and this meant the cord was attached differently (more like webbed to the placenta) which meant if the tried to turn her it would have had an increased chance of rupture and complications and he was very happy we didn't try.

Emily Alice St.Peter was born on 10/28/17 and was 7lbs 12 oz and 19.25 long and was beautiful and perfect. As for her name Emily is a name Chris and I picked that we both loved and her middle name Alice is after my Grandmother Alice who passed away in 2016.

I stayed in the hospital for 3 nights to recover, which was needed. Chris and the boys stayed at home, but visited every day and I was fortunate to have my midwives stop in for a visit and my wonderful friend April. Our amazing ward at our church also coordinated bringing dinner every night from Sunday-Saturday for us that week. This helped me to know the kids and hubby were being fed in my absence and meals were taken care of when I got home for a little while. Luckily Chris has a great job and was able to take the week off to help and coordinate picking my Mum up who was flying in Wednesday and she would be around to help for a week after Chris started work.

I couldn't of managed without the help of meals, friends, the hubby, and my awesome Mum. Frank is still young and likes to be held, picked up, and snuggled so having Chris and my Mum around to help with that was key.

It seems I have had just about every type of birth now:
1st: Planned successful natural home birth with a midwife
2nd: Unsuccessful home birth that resulted in Hospital transfer medicated vaginal birth
3rd: Planned natural water birth at a birthing center with a midwife
4th: Hospital C-section birth.

A big thank you to my wonderful midwives who were smart enough to know when the birth was out of their hands and for giving me amazing prenatal support and postnatal support. Thank you April for being there to help with the boys, to visit, and to give me advice since she has had her experience with c-sections. To our incredible Ward for being there with meals to feed us and to share love and support. Thank you to my wonderful Mum for getting out here and taking care of me, my kids, and husband during my recovery. Of course thank you to my loving husband for being there to support and love me through this all. I was also very impressed with the staff and doctors at Bonner General Health in Sandpoint; they really made this scary situation easier to handle and treated Emily and I like we were special.

For the record, in my experience the pain and discomfort from the c-section surgery was much worse then the painful parts of natural childbirth. Try natural childbirth...it doesn't hurt as much.

Thank you Heavenly Father for watching over us and protecting us on this journey. Continue to give us strength and guide us through this life. 💙Amen💜