Golda's Birth Story

A little background… about a week and 1/2 before Golda’s birth I had bronchitis & coughed so hard I felt a rib pop. 98% sure I broke a rib I went into the ER. If I’m heading for the hospital, you know it’s bad. My brain just kept coming back to “how am I supposed to push out a baby with a broken rib” lucky we found out no broken rib just inflamed cartilage & would feel like a broken rib. Oh and I’d be lucky if it was healed by 2weeks. Yes, it’s still tender (4weeks later when I was writing this…oh and yes, it took a full 6months to heal). 


So that brings us to why on that Tuesday (May21st) at 1am I was sleeping on the couch sitting straight up. Couldn’t lay on my back because well, I was pregnant and laying on the ribs was too tender! I had been sleeping on this couch since the coughing/popping/ER visit. This night I got up to pee and came back when I felt a pop and a warm gush. Brice was watching TV “I think my water broke” I’m pretty sure he thought I had a week or 2 left and didn’t believe me. I sat on the toilet again, but no gushes. Awh maybe the baby just kicked my bladder? I went back to my couch when the gushes return. I had broken my water about 1:15am. 


I tried to sleep and about an hour later very light contractions had started. Another hour passes, 3am nothing really picked up. Warm gushes, light contractions about 15mins or longer apart. I texted my team in case they were already at another birth. Another hour passes not much change. Super light contractions. 


4am one bigger contraction with a BIG gush of water. I got worried baby might have dropped down & things might really start going now. I called my birth photographer (doula) for added support. About 13calls with no answer later I’m starting to panic that I’ll be in these beginning stages alone. So I call my midwife, Ginger, and tell her about my mental head game I’m playing with myself and how I’m having no luck getting ahold of my doula/photographer. She agreed that no one wants to do these stages alone, she started to get everything ready to head our way. 


7am my midwife, Ginger, and her assistant make it to my home. I’m able to have a conversation, laugh, and have no contractions in the time that they are there. They decide to head in town to get breakfast while I catch rest and see if things pick up. Oh, things don’t. I take an hour nap with no contractions. 


9am Ginger & team are back and I have zero change. Maybe even slower smaller contractions than before since I took an hour nap through it all. We decide it’s ok if they run and check on Bennington clients while I keep working with my body to see if things pick up. 


10am Georgie and I go outside to feed all the animals. I hop on Marco Polo to walk and talk to my friend Kendra. 40mins has gone by and I have had 2 contractions I can WALK and TALK through! Nothing is happening and I am thinking nothing will until night fall. I text and update Ginger. 


10:34am-
“Finishing up a 30-40min walk around the yard. Not a whole lot seems to be happening. Put some clary sage oil on. I may try to rest since I didn’t get much sleep. … if you need rest we have extra rooms in the basement too!! I really thought my body would take off when that big gush set me off.”


I lay down in bed and fall asleep to a hypnobaby track. About 10-15mins goes by before a contraction wakes me and I have to actually stand up to work through it. I try walking around the house to keep things going then text Ginger again.


11:48am
“Welp laying down made me have to get up after 10mins surges now are stronger have to rock/breathe through”


And then 12 o’clock hits and the contractions are STRONG!!! My last text I am able to send to my photographer(oh yeah she is fostering a newborn and had missed my 4am calls but got ahold of me about 5am) 


“They aren’t fading or going away…pretty strong all the way to my butthole ”


I should have known then how close I was lol…


12:04 Brice calls everyone from my phone to get here. Contractions are now on top of each other or at least only a minute apart. Brice fills the tub for me. 


12:22pm Georgie comes to hold my hand in the tub for a bit. Contractions are definitely on top of one another. And starting to feel pushy. I tell myself to wait to push when I see Ginger. So I stay rested and seated in the tub working my way through and trying not to push. At some point I can feel signs there is a big stretch (a light ring of fire) I know it’s close!! Real close. 


This whole time I’m opening my eyes here and there to see Brice pacing in and out of the bathroom waiting for Gingers arrival. 


And I can’t tell you what time it was I peeked my eyes and saw Ginger sitting on the toilet so I got up on hands in knees in the tub and started to push. And within a couple pushes her head was born. 


I waited for her shoulders to glide out with the next push as I reached down to catch her. But her body wasn’t being born. I thought, oh her shoulders are stuck. I’m going to have to get into a runners lunge. As I went to get into a lunge Ginger came back into the bathroom (she left to prep the bed for me to push on. Which was my original plan) and told me her head was already out of the water and not to go back under. We emptied the tub and Brice got behind me to catch Golda. 


I got into the runners lunge, pushed, and she was born. Brice caught her as I said “do you got her? Did you catch her” “yes, she’s a girl” Turned out it wasn’t a shoulder stuck but a double nuchal cord. Ginger had Brice unwrap the cord and hand her to me. (I know to most this sounds scary but in most cases it rarely is. I added some resources below.) 


Ginger helped suck fluid out of her mouth and I gave her one small breath. (I believe I may have accidentally dunked her a little bit when her head was born. Water birth is not for me.) And after a minute of massaging her back she had her first breathes. My plan was to have her on dry land like the others, but things happened quick. So 1/2 water birth 1/2 in empty tub. I’m still a fan of dry land birth for me and baby. 


1:07pm she was born …about an hour from when contractions were officially ‘real’ and time-able  never did I think I’d have a quick birth. 


My placenta, another story, took an hour to birth, with back labor. What. 


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Although a nuchal cord sounds scary (in rare cases it is!) 1 in 3 babies are born with cord around their neck 


“Research based on 182,492 births, wielding statistical power to uncover even mild negative associations, showed that both single and multiple nuchal cords at the time of delivery are not associated with adverse perinatal outcomes. Nuchal cords are associated with higher birth weights and lower cesarean section rates than births without nuchal cords.  Present technology cannot reliably predict the presence of a nuchal cord, tell whether a nuchal cord is tight, or determine anything regarding the likelihood of hypoxia, IUGR or stillbirth. Intervention for the supposed presence of single or multiple loops of nuchal cord or a true knot, suspected by ultrasound prenatally, is unjustified because diagnosis by ultrasound is unreliable and intervention involves greater risk to the baby than the nuchal cord.  Since nuchal cords occur at rates of 30-34% at 40 weeks and are not associated with adverse perinatal outcomes, practitioners and women should consider their presence reassuring and normal. Given the common occurrence of nuchal cords and its very high association with a favorable outcome, scanning for nuchal cords appears to have no efficacy. Efforts to define and diagnose new antepartum "problems" continue to outstrip our ability to improve outcomes by diagnosing and "treating" newly defined problems.”
Repost: @future__midwife on IG


Cord around the neck—- now that is almost never an issue all by itself. 30-40% of babies are born with cord around their neck. That’s about 1 in 3 babies. Cord around the neck being an issue is a very common misunderstanding. The baby isn’t breathing through their trachea in womb. —-Resource time marker 46 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/birthing-instincts/id1552816683?i=1000644474850


Another resource- https://midwifethinking.com/2015/05/13/nuchal-cords/?amp