Journeys

My Journey into Motherhood...Again

My second son’s birth was not ideal; It was not what my instincts cried out for. My OB at the time insisted on an induction a week before his due date. His flimsy reason had to do with the size of my first son at birth, 9.5 pounds. So the assumption was this boy would be bigger and therefore we needed to halt the pregnancy before he got “too big.” Although convenient to have a date for out of town relatives and for a husband who could then schedule his work around the birth, I had a really hard time accepting it myself. For me, I felt it was wrong. I wanted to trust my son to know when it was time for his arrival. I wanted to trust my body and I wanted to trust Mother Nature. Besides, wasn’t it a lot of trust that aided in his conception in the first place?

A year after my first son died in a car crash, I had my tubes tied. I closed down the opportunity to ever feel that pain of loss again. I had heard many horror stories in that one year; I knew lightning could strike more than once and I wasn’t about to play that lottery again.

A few years later, remarried, I brought up the subject. I said I didn’t know one way or the other but that I thought we should at least talk about it. And we did, for another year. We went back and forth; waning between selfishness and attachment (to sleep, to spontaneity, etc.) to the magic of meeting a brand new person and ushering a new life onto the planet. I was in therapy at the time (it takes a lot of emotional work to live through the death of a child) and I started asking, “Why should I have a child? Why do people have children?” My therapist had chosen not to have children, so I trusted her input. At least my question wouldn’t be answered with, “Just do it” as if the question were about buying shoes. I asked this same question of friends as well, friends who had lost a child and went on to have a subsequent child. I found myself not trusting their answers. Their answers held promises of healing and magic.

One day, my therapist had an answer that made no logical sense but held all the sense in the world: because that’s what humans do; that’s what our bodies are made to do: have babies.

I started my research about a tubal ligation reversal. You may be wondering how I was able to get my tubes tied at a young age and after having suffered the death of my only living child. It was pretty easy. The OB was trying to convince me of the other temporary ways, when I looked at her square in the eyes and said, “I’m doing this.” She knew there was no convincing me otherwise. Then her tone completely changed and she admitted, “It can be reversed.” She also revealed that it could fail! Who knew? She went on to explain that a tubal ligation can have just as high of a failure rate as birth control pills. She told me of stories of the tubes reconnecting. Then she left the room to schedule the surgery. She returned excitedly telling me that a well-known surgeon was coming to teach his laparoscopic technique on tubal ligation and would I like to participate. Absolutely! When is the surgery? Next week? Perfect!

So that next week, I drove myself to the hospital with plans for friends to pick me up. While waiting for show-time, it was discovered that no pre-op was performed. Which entailed blood tests for different things including hepatitis. The doctor was informed and, being in the predicament we were in, chose to take my answers and the color of my eyeballs as indication that I, in fact, did not have hepatitis.

I can handle needles probably better than most, but I really do hate being the guinea pig for brand new nurses. The nursling inserted the needle and I - having been the guinea pig many times over - knew she had missed a vein. Instead of listening to my whimpering and politely telling her she missed it, she chose to call the nurse in charge and wait for her response, all while the needle was in my arm in who-knows-where and my face turning green and my temper showing up all dressed up and ready to go. “Take it out!” I yelled. After missing vein after vein to insert the IV, the surgeon himself was called. Wait, when is the last time he inserted an IV?

The surgery was performed in an old surgical room that was currently being used for storage. It was very large and a make-shift surgical area was created in the center. Sure, it was questionable, but I also passed a group of Sherrif Joe’s prisoners in the lobby who were shackled together and wearing their black and white striped prison-issued clothes. I knew this was a questionable place when I first met with the OB and noticed a few drops of dried blood on the floor of the exam room. I had a very light hold on life at that time and part of me thought, the more iffy the situation the better.

I was conscious for the surgery and it was pretty cool. How many people get taken on a tour of their abdomen while watching a monitor. I saw both ovaries, the outside of my uterus, I even got to see my heart beating from below my diaphragm. The uncomfortable part - and there was one - was the instrument they inserted through my vagina to control my uterus. It had a claw at the end and they grabbed my cervix and used it as a joy stick to move my uterus whichever way they needed in order to access my ovaries. As in most surgical procedures, I was aware that I wasn’t really a person, I was merely body parts. When I questioned what the white stuff was all over the outside of my uterus the surgeon shrugged it off saying it was nothing. Later, another doctor explained it was endometriosis. Well, that explains a lot.

After the surgery I was back in the same room where I started. I was asked to move and felt a pool of blood between my legs. It looked like a horror film down there. The nurses were concerned but were also shrugged off by the doctor, it was “nothing.” I was allowed to hang out for a bit in hopes the bleeding would stop. Apparently the cervix isn’t exactly thrilled about having a metal claw attached to it and used as a joy stick.

My girlfriend’s boyfriend showed up to fetch me. My goodness, he was beautiful; (we were all envious.) He drove me home and someone came to pick him up, or something like that. I don’t really recall through the cocktail of painkillers the doctors had prescribed. And so it was done.

Years later, as I searched for a doctor to reverse this procedure, I came across Dr. Berger in North Carolina. He performed reversals as outpatient surgery. And that’s all he did so his costs were low and his success rate high. It made more sense for us to travel to the other side of the country and have the procedure done than to have someone in California do it; someone who just happened to have it on their menu and were charging twice what Dr. Berger was. As we sat down to meet him the day before the surgery, we were going over my medical records including the tubal ligation notes. Dr. Berger had studied under the surgeon who performed the tubal ligation. Small world. And here he was - years later - undoing the handiwork his mentor had performed.

The surgery went off (mostly) without a hitch. I had some bleeding from the incision later the same afternoon and was ushered back into surgery and under anesthesia twice in one day. That surgery went off without a hitch. As a nurse wheeling us to the car she commented on how obscenely long my fallopian tubes were. When I was pregnant six weeks later the nurses weren’t surprised, what with fallopian tubes that long.

“I’m a Berger Baby”

I became aware of contractions early on in the pregnancy. The OB over-reacted (in my opinion) and put me on partial bedrest and medication. Sometimes it was a few at a time and sometimes they seemed to have a pattern. However the contractions came and went, I was freaked. The OB wouldn’t explain them as anything other than contractions which open the cervix - even though my cervix wasn’t opening. So I had weekly ultrasounds, which I thought was neat at the time, but now I see that as a medically unnecessary intervention using a technology that has not been proven to be the safe tool OB’s say it is. Out of fear, I took a few trips to the hospital because my body was having contractions even though there was nothing else to indicate my body was in labor.

So by the end of the pregnancy I was utterly exhausted from being freaked out all the time. But I didn’t like the thought of an induction. I sincerely felt it wasn’t my call. Who am I to decide when my son’s arrive? Shouldn’t that be viewed as a decision that is out of my realm? At first I agreed to it - wanting the panic and the uncomfortableness to be over. But quickly felt uneasy with the decision. My husband and I talked over and over about it. He liked the convenience of it but felt it was ultimately my decision. I called the office and cancelled. The Dr. called me back and gave me the “OK, but if something happens to the baby, I might not be able to get him out fast enough.” Huh?! He was honestly trying to guilt me into an induction? I was shocked but at the same time not totally surprised. Isn’t that the business of being born?

The next week, the day before I was supposed to be induced in the first place, I woke up with my heart racing and it never calmed down. I called the Dr. and was told to come in to check everything. Naturally, there was nothing wrong but he said he still felt I should induce. I succumbed. The appointment was made for the next day. I didn’t know what to feel. But the pregnancy would be over soon and I would have my baby in my arms.

My husband and I packed that night and had everything ready when the hospital called first thing that next morning and said to go ahead and come in. We took the drive along the Pacific Coast Highway on that beautiful August morning to the hospital excitedly anticipating that this was our last car ride “alone”. We looked at the car seat already installed in the back seat and anticipated the baby’s presence.

Hooked up to an IV with Pitocin, blood pressure and fetal monitors, I could not roam anywhere other than the two feet next to the hospital bed. I had a birthing ball I could bounce on. Nothing happened for the first several hours. I was of the mindset “I’ll see far I can go” without an epidural. I didn’t learn till later why this was a setup for almost imminent failure. In fact, the entire situation was a set up. The contractions brought on by pitocin are more intense and longer-lasting than naturally occurring contractions. And seeing as how I was completely unprepared for how I would approach childbirth, it was obvious I would throw in the towel as soon as I could. The contractions became intense and I prayed my water would break. Please, I begged my body, do something in the direction of delivering this baby!

They decided to break my water in hopes that would get things moving. Another intervention that unnaturally intensifies labor itself. At that time they placed a monitor directly onto the baby’s scalp. He was a mover and a shaker and the fetal monitor was basically useless in following his progress. Things started to pick up after that.

I had to pee and decided I would be checked afterwards and make my epidural decision at that time. I was only at four centimeters dilated. Yes, yes! Give me the garden-hose shunt in my spine!

The doctor had long ago returned to his office a few blocks away, making his decisions and giving orders via telephone. When the anesthesiologist arrived I was feeling the intense labor and handling it as well as I could being essentially unprepared. I was trying to focus on my husband and the music we brought. I was trying to breathe through it but I felt completely helpless. With the epidural installed I was still feeling intense pain. In the end he was called back three times within 20 minutes, giving me all the drugs he could legally inject into the epidural. A nurse cued in on my signals and said she wanted to check my cervix. It had literally been 20 minutes since I was at 4 centimeters and my water was broken. I was now completely dilated. A slight panic shot through the room. I never felt an urge to push and the third visit from the anesthesiologist must have been the charm because I wasn’t feeling a great deal of anything at that time. Within five minutes, my overweight OB arrived, red, sweaty and panting. Intern in tow, they gloved up and told me to start pushing when the monitor indicated a contraction. I hate pushing when you can’t feel anything, I have no idea what I’m doing. I kept asking if I was doing it right.

I no longer remember how long I pushed, it may have been another 20 minutes. But Kage Phoenix arrived safe and sound.

I wanted to breastfeed desperately. I had “failed” with my first son after three weeks of intense pain, blood, blisters and lots of tears. I put him to my breast, not really knowing what I was doing. But he started sucking and everything seemed fine. I asked a nurse for help. I was under the impression they were ready to help with breastfeeding. She bent over and looked at my son, “Everything looks fine,” was her response. I was too insecure to ask for further direction and I thought she must be right.

From the epidural, my right leg was paralyzed completely for the rest of the night. I was unable to sleep because my room was located next to the nursery which had a door that slammed shut every time someone entered or exited, which was often, all night long. The other bed in the room was empty but was pathetically uncomfortable; My husband couldn’t sleep and I insisted he go home. I wanted time alone with my new son. We slept together; well, I wouldn’t call it sleeping, at least not for me. Nurses would not leave me alone. One even came to me in the middle of the night just to tell me there was a private room available and would I like to move. I was so confused seeing as how I was the only one in this room, so how was it not private, at least for the time. People were coming to take my food order, get my feedback on the stay, give me free videos about babies, bringing me food, taking away the food tray, getting my next meal order, cleaning the room, checking my vitals, checking the baby’s vitals, our new pediatrician visited. There was no rest involved. And no one of real value ever visited either. There was no talk of a lactation consultant and when I asked about caring for the penis of an uncircumcised baby, I was met with blank faces and told there was rumor of a pamphlet somewhere.

But by golly, I got plenty of formula “samples” and backpacks provided by the formula companies.

We could not escape the hospital fast enough. We were gone in less than 24 hours of Kage’s birth.

Oh ya, and Kage weighed somewhere around 8.7 pounds. Geez, that’s HUGE. I never would have made it. (Insert obnoxious eyeroll here.)

My Journey into Natural Childbirth

When I was pregnant with my son, Kage, it was the first child for my husband and I together. We each had had sons from previous marriages. I was in the age of the Internet full-force and being on partial bedrest I took full advantage of this technology. I discovered many things regarding pregnancy and childbirth that I had not been exposed to thus far. As is most common I never questioned what society had taught me about childbirth; it’s painful, women aren’t equipped and therefore require painkillers and/or epidurals. A C-section is preferable because then a woman does not have to suffer childbirth at all and life can be conveniently scheduled around the baby’s pre-determined arrival. But I quickly began learning the many other ways of childbirth; natural, at home, in water, in a birth center, using hypnosis...

Sometime during that pregnancy I mentioned to my husband that I was interested in a birth center or a home birth. No, No, and Not a Chance were his well thought-out answers. So I agreed to a hospital birth...this time. I made it clear that the next birth was my call. So when we were pregnant again a year and a half later, I remembered that “deal” and I was ecstatic to announce I would have whatever birth I wanted. He still emphatically said no to a home birth, so I found the next best thing, a birth center.

Soon into our second pregnancy together, I knew I wanted to give birth naturally. I sorta knew it with Kage but had no support around me for that decision. In fact, when I mentioned the thought to my mother, she had one of my aunts call me begging me to get the epidural. This particular aunt is the mother of four, all of which arrived so fast she was unable to get the pain relief she longed for, nor was she prepared for what was coming all too fast. Kage’s birth was my second disappointing experience with the epidural which left me paralyzed for the next twelve hours and didn’t really work anyway. Plus, the recovery time was longer for me and I simply didn’t like the way I felt. Another reason I wanted to stay away from the epidural was the obvioud observation: we spend our entire pregnancies watching what we eat,not drinking caffeine, not so much as taking Extra Strength Tylenol and at the end of our pregnancy, when the baby is alive and ready to make its debut, we pack our bodies full of questionable drugs? To me, it made no sense.

To believe epidurals are completely safe and that the drugs don’t enter the baby’s body, is, in my opinion, looking through rose-colored glasses. Sure it may be the safest form of pain relief, but compared to what? Narcotics? For every study published stating that epidurals are safe and do not prolong labor I can find another one that says it does. I don’t need a study anyway, I have my proof.

I approached my husband about my desire to give birth naturally. His response? “Good luck with that.” Sigh. My heart dropped; once again no support for the decision I felt was right for me. I sank into the Internet instead. I found a forum board where all the women were pregnant and intended to give birth naturally or they had done it and were available to offer questions and support. I visited this forum often. Asked lots of questions and learned a mountain of information not made readily available in the standard Western medical world.

I also did a search for birth centers. Being in Southern California I assumed I would have plenty to choose from. I found one that was not too far from me. I checked out the website and made a call.

This birth center, the midwives, the staff...I can’t say enough good things. It was a dream of an experience. My appointments were never rushed; I swear each lasted at least an hour with all the discussion and questions.

When I look back at the pregnancy overall, it was so calm and wonderful. With Kage’s pregnancy - under the care of an OB - I was stressed out about every little thing. Mostly because the OB instilled all this unnecessary fear into me. When I could detect contractions at 18 weeks the OB put me on medication and partial bedrest. In this litigation-happy society I can understand he had no other choice but to react with extreme measures. When I recognized the familiar flutter in my next pregnancy, I had already learned that those contractions are perfectly normal; most women simply do not feel them so early. There was never an indication that the contractions were not intensifying or forming a pattern.

With the midwives, I was a person. I was Katie. With the OB, I was a file.

Even though I look at the pregnancy overall as beautiful and empowering when I start to look closely I remember some huge milestones that occurred that, in themselves, were really scary and devastating.

At 12 weeks I had an ache in my right side that only went away if I laid perfectly still, which, with an almost-two year old was nearly impossible. Throughout the day it just kept getting worse. I called the midwives, answered a few questions, then rested as much as I could. My husband headed home and we went to the birth center when he arrived home. Everything was fine except for the pain and a slight fever. Whatever was going on was out of their scope and we were sent to the hospital. I could go on and on about how horrible the next 6 days were (still attached to the anger obviously), but in a nutshell, after two MRI’s, a chest x-ray, and an x-ray to my exposed abdomen, one night in ICU, too many pain killers to count, a fever spiking to 108 one night, vomiting multiple times from the liquid I had to drink for the MRI, signing waiver after waiver stating, yes, I understand there is a danger to the baby, a diagnosis of a blood clot in my lungs, a couple ultrasounds of the baby to make sure he/she was still alive.... it was concluded that I had pleurisy (an infection in the lining of the lung).

With lots of antibiotics, it was resolved. I was traumatized. I didn’t realize it until about a week later. I felt so numb and scared. I was really scared for the baby. My husband and I even found ourselves in the position of hypothetically choosing one over the other: me or the baby. It was horrible.

Everything progressed right along from there. I chose to use Hypnobabies for the birth. I ordered my materials and dove right in. After reading a few pages about the program and why it works my husband was even on board. I know I had started a bit early in the pregnancy, but I felt I could take my time if I needed to.

We had an in-depth ultrasound to check for any obvious anomalies from all the radiation exposure. Everything looked fine. Thank God! We weren’t sure about checking the gender, but secretly we really did want to know. We wanted a girl so badly. Yes, I am clear that the sex is not important, but it was something we were excited about nonetheless. The final conclusion: it was a girl! Although the doctor could see that it was a girl, he could see that it was not a boy - if that makes any sense. He said to me, “Katie, if this is a boy, he’s got problems.”

I told my dad and he was beside himself. He kept saying, “Oh man! A girl! What am I going to do with a girl!” Even though he had two of them!

At 26 weeks, after not being able to get my dad on the phone for a few days, I called my sister - who lived in the same city - and asked her to try to get a hold of him. She said she would go over there. Several hours later I received the most horrific and devastating phone call. My sister had just found the dead body of our father. There were no signs of anything wrong, he was still in bed, like he was sleeping. But she says she just knew he was gone.

I’ll save the details of all the emotion for another journey.

A week later, after the funeral, we returned home. I was exhausted and trying to rest. But I couldn’t feel the baby moving and was getting scared. I did everything I could think of: drank orange juice, ate something sweet, tried resting on my left side. I finally called the midwife. “Has anything significant happened this week?” she asked me. Umm, ya. She explained the baby was going through what I was going through. After such an emotional week, both baby girl and I were recovering. The baby started moving while I was on the phone.

Around 32 weeks my almost 2-year old son was diagnosed with Autism. It was so devastating. I had always known there was something - something just wasn’t right. He was so intense and independent. No, this wasn’t normal two-year old behavior. It was way beyond that. Even though I knew there was something wrong, I never suspected Autism.

I overwhelmed myself with learning all I could about this syndrome and getting him therapy as fast as possible. Luckily, there were some great counselors who helped push his case through as fast as possible before the baby arrived.

Early on in my pregnancy I declared the baby would be a girl and would arrive on May 27 - my Nana’s birthday. Nana died at the end of 2006 shortly after a diagnosis of liver cancer.

On the morning of May 27 contractions began coming and gaining a little in intensity and forming a pattern. The time between contractions went from ten minutes to two minutes in less than ten minutes. So we went ahead and made the calls. My mother in law was on toddler duty and she was only two hours away. So we had another friend come to watch our son until Grandma arrived, and off we went to the birth center.

I was trying to be aware of he timing of contractions and was too afraid to admit they had either stopped or weakened. As a laboring mother, there is nothing more worrisome than feeling you called in the troops for no reason and might have to send everyone home. When we arrived we found the midwife - not the one I had bonded with more through the pregnancy - two doulas and a backup midwife. This didn't conform to my birth plan which asked for only necessary people, but it was a beautiful gift in the end.

We got comfy and tried to begin timing. Again, everything seemed to have stopped. I was so deflated. We walked and walked and waited. Not much was going on: Contractions here and there. The midwife checked me at one point and I literally dilated from 4-7 while she was checking me. It was incredible and she didn't believe it herself. We talked at length with her about our son's birth and how fast he arrived after the water sac being broken. She suggested we walk some more and see what happens then we would discuss breaking the water sac.

Journeys

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