Andrew was born at 10:02pm! 6lbs 5oz and 19”.
We were induced with a Foley bulb at 4:30pm Friday and made it to 3cm by 4:30am Saturday when they took it out. I had active labor every 2-3 minutes from 1am-5am but it paused so we moved forward with pitocin. I continued into strong active labor until about 8pm, when we decided to sweep the membranes since I was still only 4cm and 80% effaced. Once we did that, his heart started decelerating with every contraction and they became concerned with the cord prolapsing or wrapping around him. We tried changing positions but everything we tried wasn’t changing. We chose to move forward with the C-section since we still had time for a spinal (I wanted to avoid an emergency with general anesthesia).
Turns out that as soon as we broke the water, he headed for the cervix, but went down sideways, smashing his face so hard that he was born with a big bruise on his nose/face. Also turns out that the heart decels were because he was grabbing onto the cord and squeezing it so hard with his hands during each surge that he was cutting off his own oxygen.
So even though we didn’t have a natural birth as we hoped for, we were still able to be calm, focused, be unmedicated (with the exception of the spinal) and advocate for a healthy mom and baby.
I’ve used hypnobirthing twice now, and ended up with unexpected c-sections both times. I think it’s important for moms and dads to know that they can be powerful advocates for their own care and use hypnobirthing techniques even if things don’t go according to plan.
By the way, the staff at Kaiser Westside were all great in following my plan. There were no mentions of contractions (they referred to them as surges!) or pain, and loved coming into my calming room with essential oils and quiet meditation and breathing.
