Atticus David Glaze // Birth Story and Early Days

Pregnancy

I'm just going to back up briefly to before the labor began.  Michael and I had decided to be under the midwifery model of care for the pregnancy and birth instead of a traditional OBGYN setting.  We had nothing against doctors, medication, or hospitals, but we saw many health benefits to pursuing a natural, out of hospital birth as long as myself and the baby were healthy candidates.  To prepare for the birth we took a Bradley method class and began meeting with a doula that we hired.  (While midwives provide the medical care for natural, low-risk births, doulas can be hired in addition to midwives to support the mom emotionally and physically before, during, and after the birth).  I was diligent to stay healthy by working out multiple times a week up until the birth.  I also was at my healthiest eating as I wanted to be sure to avoid gestational diabetes.  The pregnancy was overall a very healthy one.  I was never very sick or swollen.  He always measured exactly on target at our appointments and had a healthy heart rate.  I loved being pregnant and know that I was really fortunate to not experience many of the common pregnancy woes. 

Early Labor

I had an appointment with our midwives scheduled for the morning of Thursday, February 26th. As I ate breakfast I thought about the month of cramping I'd had and hoped it had been productive. Wouldn't it be awesome if they told me I was dilated to a 3?? But I didn't want to get my hopes up. When I was checked at the appointment I was at a 3 (could be stretched to a 5) and about 70% effaced. Hooray! I was so glad Michael was with me because I probably would have panicked at the idea of the baby coming so soon if I was by myself. I agreed to let them sweep my membranes to try and get labor going - at this point I was 41w 4d. The rest of the afternoon I bounced on the birthing ball at home to try and get bebe to come down while watching netflix and talking on the phone. I had saved a few household chores that I thought I would be up for while in early labor (everyone told me that it's best to carry on with your normal activities to keep your mind off labor but keep it going) but I just did not feel up to vacuuming. Around 4 pm my general crampiness would get stronger at times - the first of my contractions! Hallelujah and what the heck am I doing.

When Michael got home around 6pm we decided to go to the grocery store to get labor going with walking and pick up a few last minute items. By the time we got home I had completely lost my appetite and felt nauseous.  We had a fairly normal evening and contacted our midwives and doula before going to bed to let them know there'd probably be a baby coming soon! Michael slept pretty much straight through the night. When the contractions got bad I really wanted to wake him for emotional support but I also knew that I would need it much more further down the road, so I let him sleep. The contractions came anywhere from 10-25 minutes apart, i would sleep in between them and wake up for every one. By the time 4 am rolled around they were getting closer together and more intense. We texted our doula around 4:30am and she was over by 5:30. Once she arrived the contractions were about 4 minutes apart and much more intense. I had Michael call the midwife to let her know we'd need to meet her at the center. It seemed like we were out the door just a few minutes after the doula arrived, but instead of having her meet us at the center, I was glad to have her come over to confirm that it was time to go as I can be kind of a princess about pain. :)

Birth Center

When we got to the center we waited just a few minutes for the midwife to arrive. When she opened the door for us she greeted is with hugs and showed is to the birthing room. I immediately wanted to get in the tub but it needed to be filled. In the mean time I labored mostly standing up- leaning on Michael during contractions were the best way I found to cope. I craved feeling his emotional and physical support. Our doula massaged my lower back.

Both mine and the baby's heart rate were elevated pretty much from the time the midwives started monitoring us. I also had a slight fever, so they were diligent to check on baby and I frequently. Michael and our doula were also determined to get me to eat but I felt too nauseous. Michael was faithful, however, to make me take a sip of water after every contraction.

I labored in the pool for probably about an hour. The doula and Michael stayed by the pools side the entire time. Our doula would suggest different positions for me to try to get baby moving down. Sometimes I followed her directions. Sometimes I completely ignored her because I knew it would hurt more. At one point while I was in the tub the midwife checked me (ouch) and I was only at a 6. That scared me because I was already experiencing signs of transition (saying I couldn't do it, feeling nauseous, having multiple peak contractions) but transition happens at 9 or 10 centimeters. Our doula suggested that I labor outside of the pool for a while to get things going. That was the last thing I wanted to hear but I knew she was right. Once I was out of the tub I paced the room and stood for all contractions. Sitting and lying just brought on unwanted pressure.  Michael was seriously the best supporter through it all.  There were multiple times during the labor when I would ask him to pray for something specifically and he would pray over us.

The midwives continued to check mine and baby's vitals and neither of us were improving. Some positions of laboring made baby's heart rate rise even more. As I would labor I would sometimes leak amniotic fluid and other discharge, and when I wiped it one time there was a bit of green on the tissue. Our doula took it to the midwives for them to see. The assisting midwife came in to check on me, and just then I felt a huge gush and looked down to see dark fluid instead of clear. She called to the other midwife that we had fresh meconium and that she should get in here. The lead midwife then had me lay down and checked me again. I was still at a 6 so she said "Ok we still have time. It looks like you have an amniotic infection so we are going to transfer to the hospital." I only felt a small tinge of disappointment, but mostly I just felt relief. Maybe because I couldn't take the pain, but I think mostly because I knew we needed help. The midwife asked if I had a preference in hospital and I asked for their recommendation. She then went and called the hospital to let then know we were coming and see which doctor would be seeing me.

(As a side note: one reason that I felt really comfortable seeing the midwives is that I knew they would not hesitate to transfer us to a hospital at any point in the process if there was a possibility of an issue beyond their care. This included any red flags in prenatal care or during or after labor.)

In looking back on the transfer I'm really impressed with how quickly everyone moved to get me there but how nobody expressed any panic in the process. The midwives gathered my files. Michael packed up our stuff. My doula helped me put my pants on while I was leaking meconium. (Reason #157 to hire a doula.). Off we went to the hospital - our little caravan of midwives, doula, and us.

Hospital

When we got to the hospital the midwives dealt with speaking to the nurses about my situation and getting me to a room. I remember the nurses asking me, at the counter, all of my info while I was having contractions. Name, dob, etc. Luckily the members of my entourage could answer those for me, and I hope now that I didn't give the nurse too many dirty looks. A different nurse then walked us to our room all the way at the end of the hallway. She told me a few days later that she chose that room because it was closest to the OR, but that she didn't want to mention that at the time. I thanked her for both decisions.

The room felt so luxurious and had an entire wall of windows. The nurse explained that they had a jacuzzi tub I could labor in and a birthing ball! While she was excited to encourage me in my natural birth plan, I could see the worry in my midwife's eye that the nurse maybe didn't understand fully that we had to transfer, so the birth ball and tub weren't gonna cut it. She told the nurse "we're beyond that" and continued to ask/make references to be being put on antibiotics multiple times.

One thing that I was pleasantly surprised by at the hospital is that the midwives and hospital staff had a very good relationship.  Every nurse who heard I was with the midwives went on about how much they love the Spokane Midwives.  I never at all felt judged or shamed for attempting an out of hospital birth, when I expected the attitude to be more of "well of course things aren't going well if you're trying to do this outside of a hospital."

They got my IV going and I agreed to an epidural. At this point no one was acknowledging it outright but I think we were all aware of the possibility of a cesarean, so it made sense to get the epidural going sooner rather than later. The anesthesiologist had me juiced up in 10 minutes - I was really impressed with his timeliness. I had a few contractions while he got me going on it, I was surprised at how casual they were about the fact that I would have contractions while it was being put in place after stressing how utterly important it was that I stay still. No pressure. Getting the epidural was not nearly as big of a deal as I thought it'd be and I was so relieved to have it. Getting the epidural did slow down my labor, but that lowered mine and the baby's heart rate so I welcomed the break for both of us. Since labor had slowed they started pitocin to bring the contractions back up. I labored on the epidural and pitocin for about 6 hours. I couldn't believe that, because of the epidural, I was sleeping through the same contractions that we're overtaking my whole being just hours before.

Once the midwives had transferred all of my info to the hospital staff it was time for them to go. The lead midwife came over to my bed and I said "I just don't think this baby will be able to come by itself" and she said "Honey, I don't think it will either." That confirmation was actually really important for me to hear and got me one step closer to the cesarean. If a midwife, who's mission is to do everything possible to safely ensure natural deliveries acknowledges the need for assistance, then I wasn't crazy or just giving up. Our doula did stay with is after the midwives leave - another great thing about a doula is they are with you for the whole birth even of you switch care providers part way through.

The doctor seeing me was great. He would come in every couple of hours and sit down, go over where we were in labor and asked if we had any questions. The nurse said that he can be kind of abrupt so I was expecting him to be all about the bottom line. Whenever we would talk about possibly having a cesarean I would ask how long we had to decide - I expected him to say "If the baby isn't born in x amount of hours, then we're doing a cesarean," but he kept the conversation very open and left it up to us as long as things weren't getting worse. When I had been there about 6 hours the conversation got real, as I hadn't progressed at all since arriving at the hospital and the doctor was concerned with how big the baby was, especially since he wasn't descending. While I personally don't think that a big baby is usually reason enough for a cesarean, I knew that both the baby and I were sick and a section would be the safest way to go. The doctor left the room and both our doula and Michael said we should do the section now instead of waiting and having to do an emergency one later. It didn't seem like a hard decision at all, or even like there was a decision to be made. This was how my son was going to be born.

Once we decided to move forward with the procedure I signed a few papers, Michael and the doula got suited up in their space-suit looking scrubs, and I was wheeled into the OR.  I made it my mission to mentally disengage while they performed the surgery, I knew that if I caught wind of anything going on on the other side of the curtain I would lose it. Michael was on my left, faithfully holding my hand, and the anesthesiologist was on my right. After having been laboring so long I was used to dealing with any type of pain with deep breaths and mooing sounds. At one point during the surgery I was doing this to calm myself and someone in the room asked if I was ok. The anesthesiologist, who had been with me since my epidural, explained "She moos! You have to get used to it but it would be great if all moms did that." Haha.

The one time I tuned in to what was going on was when I heard our little boy cry when he was born. I immediately looked at Michael with tears in my eyes - that was our son. He was real and out in the world with us. I didn't see him until after he was cleaned up, Michael brought him over to me before he was taken to the special care nursery. I intentionally didn't look for him when they carried him to the crib to be cleaned, I didn't know if I could stomach (emotionally and otherwise) seeing him covered in the mec and blood. He was born at 5:27pm weighing 9lb 14oz.  When they announced his weight the doctor looked over the curtain and said "he was NOT coming out!"

After Michael brought Atticus to me he went with him and the nurse entourage to the nursery where a was put on oxygen and iv antibiotics. Our doula stayed with me through the rest of the surgery. After it was done all I wanted to do was sleep. I'll chalk it up to the pain meds but I was okay not being with Atticus right away. He was on oxygen so he couldn't nurse and I knew he was getting the best care from the nurses and had his daddy's company.  The first time I went to see him was about 6 hours after the surgery. I didn't hold him until the next day. I knew that this was when all that blissful bonding was supposed to happen but as I was going through the initial recovery and dealing with a lot of pain I didn't miss those moments together at the time, and I have no regret now.  He needed the special care more than he needed my snuggles. The nurses were really helpful with and supportive of breastfeeding, they brought me a pump within an hour after my surgery and explained how often I should be pumping. I was so glad that they were proactive in getting me started because it was the last thing on my mind as they wheeled me out if the OR.  As soon as A was off of oxygen they would wheel me down to feed him and helped me navigate those waters of newborn nursing.  Even though the circumstances were not ideal I was glad to be figuring out the whole nursing thing in both hospitals with the assistance of the nurses. 

 The first time I got to see him and then holding him for the first time the next day

Atticus and I stayed at that first hospital for the next 2 nights, both of us on antibiotics.  I was also being monitored due to blood loss from the birth.  Michael split his time between me and A, and I was really grateful that he had a chance to establish a relationship with Atticus as his papa. On Sunday evening the pediatrician on call who was observing Atticus said they had decided to transfer him to the NICU at a different hospital for further observation. The main reason was that his eyes were having some unusual movement and they wondered if it could be seizures. The staff offered to discharge me the same night if I wanted to be with him but at that point I still couldn't get out of bed without assistance so I waited until the next day.

NICU

On the following day, Monday, the discharge process began. I was able to walk around more and was feeling great. They sent us off with prescription for some pain meds, I knew I would be utilizing those a lot with spending time in the NICU while I was really supposed to be in bed.  The medicine was such a blessing and a curse: a blessing in that it allowed me to be with our son, but a curse in that they made me fall asleep almost instantly.  I remember after I had been discharged on Monday we went to the NICU to visit Atticus.  I was holding him and trying to nurse but I couldn't stop dozing off.  I woke up to a few nurses peering around the curtain at us, seeing that we were struggling with nursing, and offering, "maybe if you could engage with him a little bit more, you know hold him closer and talk to him..." and I just broke down crying.  All I could think was "that's what I want to do, all I want to do, but I'm physically unable to."  Exhaustion overtook me so at that point we put him back in the crib and went home to sleep.

Atticus was in the NICU for the next week to finish out his antibiotics and continue to be tested.  Each day when we got there they would explain the tests they had recently run and that things were continually looking better.  It seemed like we could follow when the doctor was explaining things but it was impossible to regurgitate when people asked us.  Our heads were swimming, and as long as they said he was getting better, that was all that we needed.  One thing that I do remember clearly is that when his sodium levels improved, almost all of his other symptoms did as well, included his eye movement that they had suspected could be seizures. 

One side effect of him fighting off this infection is that he would easily be overstimulated.  When we held him we would be careful not to hold eye contact if he looked away, indicating overstimulation.  I didn't rock him while I nursed as that would overwhelm him.  No more than one of us at a time would talk to him in order to not overwhelm him.  All of this makes it all the more amazing to me that he now is so alert and loves to hold eye contact with whoever is talking to him.  He'll look back and forth between Michael and I, and not look away when we are both playing with him.  It was 8 days after he was born that he looked me in the eye, and it wrecked me.  Now he'll stare me down for minutes at a time and it's the best thing ever. 

On Wednesday of his week in the NICU my mom came into town.  Selfishly I loved her being here during that time to help Michael and I with the normal operations of life: laundry, dishes, runs to the store, etc. so we could come home and crash after our days at the NICU.  She was such a servant.  But for her sake I was sad that her time with Atticus was enjoyed in short segments and spent in the hospital.  He had an IV in his head and chords connected to his chest and heels, so maneuvering him around to hold him was an ordeal.  I'm glad that she got to spend the time with him that she did, and she also got to see him improve by leaps and bounds.  He was discharged an hour after she had to leave for the airport, so the timing of her departure was unfortunate, but I'm glad that she was at least able to see him well before leaving. 

Anyways, Atticus continued to pass his various tests with flying colors and was discharged on Monday March 9th.  We couldn't wait to have him home with us and bond as a family.  Michael had been given 2 weeks paternity leave from work so he was able to spend Atticus' first week at home with us.  It was such an amazing blessing for him to be with us, I am really grateful for him to be working in such a supportive work environment. 

A's home for the week

Discharge weight of 10-5!

Off to the car!

Home

The first week at home was emotionally the hardest. I realized I had been in survival mode since labor, and everything that happened was often more serious than I let myself believe at the time. Shortly before we left the hospital, I started to wonder if this was true because every nurse we came in contact with was familiar with our situation and apologized for it. Even the nurse at his pediatrician apt a few days after we were discharged acknowledged the ride we'd had.

One thing that was hard in emotionally understanding was that it was never made clear what caused Atticus's distress in labor.  Was there anything I could've done to have prevented it?  Will this happen again?  Did I cause him to become sick or did he cause me to become sick?  In one of my follow up visits with the midwife, she explained that it was a uterine infection.  GBS (Group B Strep) is one of many kinds of uterine infections that you can develop, but GBS is the only one that they are able to detect and treat early enough for it to not affect the labor.  I tested negative for GBS, but ended up with a similar infection that wasn't able to be detected ahead of time. While knowing that it was an infection is still kind of vague, I was glad to have some light shed on the situation.  Atticus's health has been stellar since he was discharged, there are no remaining side effects from the infection that we see.  Everyone who meets him comments on how alert and engaging he is. 

Even in preparing for a natural birth, I was always aware that it doesn't work out for everyone. I'd read birth-positive people write "your body is made to do this" and "your body knows better than the doctors" and every time I just thought, "but what about when it doesn't." Maybe it's the pessimist in me but I just had an inkling that I would be in the small percentile that sees a midwife and ends in a cesarean. I am glad though that we didn't hold to the out of hospital birth dream too tightly. I fully appreciate the staff and my experience at both hospitals and knew from the moment we got there that it is what we both needed. 

All of this to say, thank you SO much to those of you who prayed for us before, during, and after our time in the hospital, to those who brought us meals, and also to those who came over to help me and take Atticus and I to appointments after he was home and I still couldn't drive.  We are surrounded by so much love and support that really stepped in knowing that our families lived far away.  I know that our transition out of the hospital and into full time parenting would have been a very different experience without all of you.

And here's a few that Michael took when we first got home from the hospital. :)