Birth Story

Obviously, I'm not pregnant anymore!  In fact, we've just had our 1 month pediatric appointment for this fast-growing boy.  Ian Thomas Kitsye Watt joined us on March 14, 2017 at 3:45 pm.  He was 9 lbs 4 oz and 21 inches long.

This birth completely defied our expectations, both because it was so vastly "off course" from what we thought we had planned (ha!) and because nonetheless we found it so tremendously satisfying.  Here we are a few days before this story unfolds.

Yes, even the dog is looking in the right direction!

Starting around 38 weeks I started having "false labor."  Only, not the braxton-hicks contractions that tighten up part of your belly and make a seasoned mom wonder for a moment.  I mean full-belly, coordinated contractions every 4-15 minutes for six or more hours, complete with sweating or shivering.  They were never uncomfortable, but they were intense, and they left me exhausted.  Every other night for a week, we geared up, thinking, "this is is, as soon as the timing gets regular, we'll know it's the real thing!"  And then, inevitably, they would fizzle out.

In addition, I had a bizarrely reactive uterus. If I bent over, I had a contraction.  If I sat down, contraction.  Stand up?  Contraction.  I was probably having 30+ per day, at least.

After a week of this, at my prenatal appointment with my midwife, Renee, I asked to have my cervix checked.  I really wanted to know what was going on in there.  And the news was encouraging--dilated 3 cm, super soft, 80% effaced.  Since Kevi was born at a solid 8 lbs 6 oz at 38+2, she swept my membranes, which is a relatively non-invasive process that can bring on labor if it's around the corner (if it's not, it won't do anything).

Four hours later, my water broke.  Just a trickle, but a pH strip confirmed amniotic fluid, and we all jumped into high-gear.  No doubt contractions would start any minute, and as a second time mom, he could just FLY out of me.  Renee told me to call when things got started and advised me to take a nap (yeah, right... I was having a baby!).

And then..... nothing.  No contractions, no back pain, nothing.  For hours.  Just vitals checks (to make sure that I wasn't showing any signs of an infection).  Renee came to check on the baby, and we all heard his robust heartbeat--he was clearly very comfortable.  So we started trying to give him a nudge.  And everything we did would bring on a nice pattern of contractions, until I moved, or went pee, or declared
"I really think we've got it, I'm going to rest for 10 minutes" and then fell asleep for 4 hours.

Renee felt there wasn't anything to be done with a stubborn baby in the middle of the night, so we went to bed and decided to carefully check progress in the morning.

I woke up feeling the farthest away from labor I'd felt in days, and a check confirmed--I was back to 1 cm of dilation, and only 30% effaced.  My midwife reluctantly let us know that the infection risk was really too high; she didn't feel comfortable delivering a baby who might have an infection at home--it truly wasn't a safe path for this baby anymore.  I needed to be in labor soon, and in order to get there we needed the kind of interventions you can do when you have an operating room 5 minutes away, instead of an hour out at the ranch.

We mourned the change of plans a little, but by this point I knew it was time for him to be born, and that it just wasn't happening at home.  Instead of the disappointment I expected to feel, I found myself ready to move into the next round of options.  And we were headed to a hospital with a staff my midwife respected and enjoyed working with.

We explained to Kevi the change of plan, and my midwife called the hospital to let them know we were coming.  Then we casually packed up, loaded into the car and calmly headed for the hospital. As we left, I texted some natural-birth friends "Headed to the hospital for pitocin and antibiotics... never thought I'd say that!"


When we got there, I was delighted to discover that Dr. Picco, who had provided care for my miscarriages, had agreed to come in and take me back on.  I had felt so connected to her that I seriously considered just delivering with her at Sequoia as plan A in the earl part of my pregnancy.  Now here we were to close the loop.

I was hooked up to pitocin and IV antibiotics, and everyone assured me that my contractions would start quickly with the pitocin and that this baby would just "fly out of me."  Are you noticing a theme?  What followed was 12 hours of pitocin contractions, 2 minutes apart, that I couldn't feel.  There they were on the monitor, and if I touched my belly, I could feel the hardness, but there was no discomfort, not even much sensation.

The next morning a baffled Dr. Picco returned, and checked me again.  I was at about 2.5 cm, so moving in the right direction, but clearly not in labor.  By that point the leak appeared to have stopped, so she went ahead and broke the sac again, this time with a huge gush of water.  Kevin joked, "This is like when we pull the plug on the bathtub and tell Kevi he has to get out when the tub is empty!"  Again, I was assured that this baby was about to "fly out of me."

But, you guessed it, 4 hours later I was still pregnant.  I was, however, in labor, with intense contractions that required Kevin's focused work with our hypnobabies cues.  But after another cervical check, I discovered I was only at 5, and I felt confident that it was in our best interest to get an epidural to get through the rest of the labor.  My midwife, to my surprise, agreed, explaining that often in cases like mine she saw tremendous progress when the epidural essentially forced my body to relax.

It was a good reminder than an epidural is a tool.  Applied injudiciously and it can really hamper a functional labor pattern.  But in other cases, getting a rest and getting exhausted muscles to relax can be exactly what a labor needs in order to move it forward.  I had the choice to do the procedure right now, or wait 1 hour while the anesthesiologist participated in a C-section down the hall.

Kevin and I agreed we'd wait the hour, and I'd spend it trying to get as much progress out of my mobility as I could.  Before, I'd been reclining in bed, relaxing on each contraction, and resting in between.  Now I sat on the birth ball and rocked my hips, engaging gravity and trying to make room for him to descend.  At the end of the hour I had gained another centimeter and was ready for the epidural.

 Epidurals take a surprisingly long time to take effect--it was at least 45 minutes from when the anesthesiologist started to when I was settled and the medication had actually kicked in.  My nurse gave me one last pat and told me to call her when I felt pushy.  She left the room... and I immediately called her right back in.  Another check showed I was at 9.5!

Dr. Picco encouraged me to just "labor down" from here--I rested as well as I could, considering the pressure was intense.  I could still easily slide my feet around the bed (though not pick them up), so it was easy to shift my position and stay comfortable.  Forty-five minutes later, I told the nurse I HAD to push, and within minutes there was a frenzy of activity and a ton of people in my room!  Then in walked Dr. Picco, and in about 5 contractions, he was out!

I was completely euphoric, even though the pain was intense, and I couldn't wait to get him in my arms.  Luckily he came right to my chest and by the one minute mark, he was pinking up and rooting around.

Kevi and my mom were curled up in the corner, and Kevi got to help his dad cut the cord.  Then we all just settled in to marvel a bit, Kevi alternating between snuggling me in the bed and curling up in Daddy's lap.  I even let Mom hold him after an hour or two (I really didn't want to give him up, but it was clearly worth it).


So, not the natural home birth we had imagined by a long stretch.  But I realized that at the end of the day, I didn't want a natural home birth--I wanted the least interventions that we needed to bring him out safely.  I wanted to be surrounded by my family.  I wanted to work with care providers who saw us both as people who were participating in a process, instead of as a patient who needed to be "cured" of pregnancy.  I wanted to feel like I was able to make informed decisions, and that my care providers actually CARED about me.  And I got all of that, at each step of the journey.

Welcome, Ian Thomas.  Your presence has already taught us so much!