6:05 a.m.

The story of my son's birth, a "happy unhappy" ending.

            Our first child. I’m pregnant. This is real. At 4:00a.m., I stared at that positive test and said to myself, “Oh, God.” Then I crawled back into bed and stared alternately at the ceiling and my sleeping husband until the sun came up. Six a.m. seems like a much more decent time to break this kind of news.

            We hadn’t been trying long when the good news finally arrived, but I’d been preparing for months before we even officially started. Prenatal vitamins, Folate, no caffeine, no alcohol, increased exercise regimen, healthy eating. I did all the things. And once I knew there was a baby on the way, I immersed myself in the birthing preparations with similar zeal.

Many of our friends were making the parenting transition around this time. One good friend birthed their baby at home in their fourteenth floor, all white and chrome, downtown apartment with the assistance of a midwife. Two other friends birthed naturally in the hospital with no epidural. One friend had a Cesarean Section with a host of complications.

A C-Section was simply not an option for me. I worked at the library and had endless resources at my fingertips. My lunch breaks were full of stacks of the latest birthing books, parenting magazines, and social media pages. The research I did only further reinforced the notion that Cesareans were the worst possible birthing outcome. The more I read, the more I learned about unnecessary hospital interventions, doctor and nurse pressure to hurry labor along, shady hospital policies regarding the amount of time they would let a woman labor before intervening, and doctors only trained to in the art of surgery, not the art of birth. Since neither of our families would have stood for a homebirth and midwife, and I knew that would be a hard sell for Mason, too, I settled for building my birth plan around a natural birth in the hospital.

To further prevent any unnecessary interventions that might result in a C-Section, I enrolled us in a natural birth class and suggested we hire a doula. Mason, to his credit, never batted an eye, even when words like “laboring positions” and “placenta encapsulation” started rolling off my tongue. I think he wanted me to have whatever I needed to feel secure and confident in bringing our child into the world.

After two interviews, we chose our doula Mekelle. She was funny, smart, and with three kids of her own, knew all the things that I did not. She had experience. Her first baby was delivered by Cesarean in a Mexican hospital after days of labor. She and her husband were missionaries. Her second baby was also a Cesarean delivery. Her third baby? Not a Cesarean. She birthed that child naturally. A VBA2C. A vaginal birth after two Cesareans. I was amazed. I thought once you had a Cesarean, you could only have a Cesarean for all subsequent births. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. And that was ultimately the deciding factor. I wanted to be prepared for all possible outcomes and having a doula who had birthed children both by Cesarean and naturally just made sense. If something crazy happened and I had to have a C-Section, I wanted her on my team. But I wasn’t going to have a C-Section. My doctor supported natural birth. I had a doula.

My pregnancy was easy. I experienced minimal sickness in the first trimester. We told the families and everyone celebrated. We decided to wait until Baby Ellis arrived to find out if we were having a boy or girl. Some people were shocked. “Don’t you need to be prepared?” they would ask. “Prepared for what?” was my response. “Babies don’t care what color the nursery walls are. As long as we’ve got diapers, we’ll be fine.”

The first trimester passed quickly and suddenly I had a belly. I felt amazing. I wore snug shirts to show it off. I walked. I ate. I felt our baby start to move. We went to our birthing classes. We made more plans. Hot air balloons to decorate the nursery. Car seats for the cars. Baby showers brought diapers, both cloth and disposable, Pack N’ Plays, Boppy pillows, blankets, tiny socks, and enough baby wash to last well past the first year.

 Summer faded into fall and fall into winter. My belly grew. I would bump into my coworkers at the library as we passed in the workroom. Shelving books on the bottom shelf was getting more and more uncomfortable, but it was exercise. I took walks on my lunch break, down past the Sherwood police station and city hall to a small fishing pond. I would make a slow lap, walking and talking to my belly, one hand feeling the hard knot of a baby booty pressed under my ribs. It didn’t matter how cold it was; I was a hot momma.

Christmas came and Mason caught the flu. Everyone panicked. I could not get sick with the flu! Out of sheer, hormone-driven fear, I left work early, threw clothes in a bag, scooped Christmas presents for my family from under the tree, took the dog and went to my mother’s house. Mason was left on the couch of our apartment with his fever and some cans of soup his mother left outside the door. It was not the best holiday, but we did whatever we had to do to keep the baby healthy.

 My doctor’s visits moved from monthly to weekly in January. At the thirty-six week check-up, we had a final ultrasound. Mason came along to get another glimpse at our sweet baby. As Doctor Beck scanned my swollen belly, she watched the screen which she had partially turned so we couldn’t see.

“Huh,” she said. “Your baby is breech. That changes things.”

I felt the knot under my right rib.

“This isn’t a little baby butt?” I asked.

“No, that’s your baby’s big head,” she said.

Her next words were the ones I had worked against for the last eight months: Cesarean Section.

Devastation.

Tears. 

Modern medicine is incredible, but sometimes, for all the steps we’ve taken forward, we’ve lost the old ways that helped get us here. There are not many modern medical doctors who will attempt a vaginal breech birth these days and Dr. Beck was not one of these rare doctors. If Baby Ellis were head down, things would have progressed with as few medical interventions as possible. Dr. Beck was completely on board with a natural birth. However, since our baby had yet to turn at such a late date, it made sense, in her opinion, to go ahead and schedule a date for surgery.

I could not do it.

I wanted options. I wanted to know more before we signed away on all I had mentally prepared for. Thankfully, Dr. Beck was willing to talk. It was important that we go ahead and schedule a date for the potential Cesarean so that it would be on the calendar. We still had some time to try to get our baby to turn and a number of options to explore. The first option was to try any number of exercises recommended at SpinningBabies.com. The second option was chiropractic adjustments. The third and final option was to manually turn the baby by performing an external cephalic version.

This last option was the most extreme, a procedure that would be performed by Dr. Beck and the hospital’s laborist. I would have to check into the hospital and be prepped for a possible emergency Cesarean, just in case their efforts to manually turn Baby Ellis caused distress or injury to one or both of us. This all seemed so unreal to me. But a date for this procedure went on the calendar, too. I left the office with one week to try and do everything I could to turn my baby naturally.

I called my mother as soon as we got to the parking lot. I cried. I tried to explain the options we had, but the only thing that stuck were the dates scheduled for surgery. I called Mekelle. I cried some more. Thank goodness we had her to lean on in this crisis! Her first words were, “We’ve got time.” A meeting was scheduled, appointments were made. Within the hour I was set up with a midwife and a chiropractor who worked together with their pregnant patients. Mekelle told me to go home and rest.

So I did. And I started new research on how to make my breech baby spin and turn head down. I started with the easiest: peppermint essential oil. According to all that I read on-line, the tingly, cooling sensation of the essential oil would irritate the baby and make it try to move away. The peppermint oil smelled nice and did have a cooling sensation, but I didn’t notice much movement coming from my belly.

Next, I tried shining a bright flashlight on my lower abdomen. Again, according to my research, the baby would try to turn towards the light and move head down. It was worth a shot. I did the same with loud music, too. Neither of these produced noticeable results. Next! Elephant walking. Rebozo sifting. Lying upside down. This last exercise was accomplished by propping our ironing board against the couch and Mason helping me balance my hugely pregnant self on it, surrounded by pillows in case I rolled off. The idea with these physical exercises was to try and let gravity help lift the baby’s booty up out of my pelvis and give him or her more room to move around.

I also met with Amy Cefalo, a licensed midwife. Mekelle sat in on the meeting and we proceeded down the laundry list of exercises I had been doing since receiving the news that Baby Ellis was breech. Her opinion: we were doing all we could. She also gave me some insight into the external cephalic version, explaining that she had done a few herself, in a very gentle manner. She explained that doctors needed extra precautions, which was why I would be prepped for an emergency Cesarean, but that ECVs could be done without these interventions. I began to feel like Dr. Beck had used scare tactics to get me to agree to this major procedure. I felt frustrated.

Amy offered one more natural option that she said had good success in conjunction with the exercises I was already doing and the chiropractic adjustments I was scheduled for. It was called Moxibustion. She had to repeat the word and spell it, but finally I was able to understand. Moxibustion. She handed me two sticks that resembled cigars. Inside the sticks was dried mugwort, an herb used in healing. I was to take these home and set myself up so that each stick could be lit and placed near the outside edge of my little toes. There are nerve connections between points on your feet and different areas of your body. Heating this point on my toes with the Moxa sticks would invigorate my lower abdomen and the baby. It was possible, Amy explained, that if I did the exercises while the baby was active, it would be enough to get the baby to turn. At this point, I agreeing to try anything.

Home I went, Moxa sticks in hand. The look on Mason’s face when I explained what we were going to do after dinner that evening was one I won’t easily forget. He had gone along with so much already.

“You’re going to light your toes on fire?” he asked. He knew I was going off the deep end with this one.

“No,” I replied and explained the whole process of Moxibustion to him again.

With a shrug, he helped me get set up in our tiny condo living room with a kitchen chair, a footstool, and two cookie sheets set on top of cinder blocks. This was mid-January, and it was cold outside, too cold to be doing this in the open and well ventilated outdoors. So there I sat, swollen belly, feet propped up, with my skeptical husband lighting Moxa sticks and setting them on the cookie sheets near my toes. He had to leave the room because the burning mugwort made him gag. I waited, moving my little toes as close as I dared to the smoldering sticks. Baby started to move.

It was just a few bumps at first, then I felt a hard kick. It was working! I couldn’t help but laugh. Mason peeked around the corner to check on me. He could see my tight shirt moving from across the room. After about ten minutes, he moved the Moxa sticks outside and helped me down onto the ironing board so I could lie upside down. Surely, with all of that excited movement, Baby Ellis would slide up out of my pelvis and easily flip head down. I did more elephant walking for good measure after I got done lying on the ironing board. Then I went to bed, ready to see Dr. Beck and hear her tell me how amazed she was that I’d been able to turn my baby naturally.

With a sense of déjà vu, we returned to the doctor’s office. Dr. Beck wasted no time in starting the ultrasound when she arrived. Shirt up, maternity support band pulled down, cold gel, sensor, and then the sound of our baby’s heartbeat, mine galloping alongside it. Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. Please. Please. Please. Please.

“I’m sorry, Nicole, but the baby is still breech.”

Damn.

But at this point, what more could we do? I sighed. The ECV was scheduled for the next day. Dr. Beck wiped the sonogram gel from by belly, washed her hands, and said she would see us tomorrow. We left. We sat in the parking lot and I cried.

There was nothing to do, but go home, make sure our hospital bags were ready, and wait. We called our parents so they could meet us at the hospital. It was their first grandbaby, after all, and no matter how or when he or she made their appearance, everyone was going to be there.

I think I slept. Time seemed to pass both quickly and slowly. I wasn’t allowed food or water after midnight in preparation for the possible anesthesia. The clock tortured me. I’ve never been so thirsty or hungry! Before we left for the hospital, I hugged our Poodle and told her we would be home soon.

We arrived at the hospital by 10:00a.m., checked in at Labor and Delivery, and met my parents. My mother-in-law was there, too. Buddy, my Father-in-law, was waiting for a phone call before he came up. Mekelle arrived. We went to our room and a nurse began pulling blankets out of cabinets, pushing machine buttons, putting a monitor on my belly, and asking questions. I asked for water. No, I couldn’t have water. Mekelle watched the monitor. It showed my contractions along with everyone else that was in L & D that day. My contractions were mild and not unexpected, especially at 37 ½ weeks. Mekelle pointed to one part of the monitor and said that person was about to have their baby.

The anesthesiologist came to do my epidural. I asked for water and was denied. I hugged a pillow, arched my back, leaned into my nurse’s big, busty chest. Mason, Mekelle, and my mom had to sit on a couch. There could be no sudden movements. Done. Cold fluid flowed down the tube, into my back, and I became numb. With no food or hydration, the drugs hit me hard. My blood pressure dropped rapidly and the change made me vomit. New sheet, new blanket, some IV fluids. We waited some more. Water, please? No.

Finally, an hour after we were scheduled, Dr. Beck arrived. Maybe it was someone’s baby, maybe it was something else; I was so loopy by this point, I couldn’t bother to care. Dr. Studdard, the laborist, shook my hand. Monitors were checked, an ultrasound done to check the baby’s position. Dr. Beck and Dr. Studdard discussed their maneuvers, who would be at the baby’s top, who would be at the baby’s bottom, clockwise turn or counter.  It was time.

Mekelle moved to the head of my bed, coaching in my ear. Mason moved away from the bed to be out of the doctors’ way and so I could see him. Dr. Studdard leaned over, pushing up on my lower belly.  Dr. Beck put her hands on that knot under my right ribs and pushed down. Monitors beeped. Sweat broke out on Dr. Studdard’s forhead. Stop. Check the baby, check me. No change.

Try again, opposite direction this time. Dr. Studdard lifted and pushed, Dr. Beck did the same. We felt movement. Stop. Check. They had managed to shift the baby’s head from my right side to my left.

“Nicole,” Dr. Beck said, her face glistening in the bright lights, “We can try one more time, but that is all I feel comfortable doing. Much more and it will be too much stress on your baby.”

Okay.

One more time. One more lift. One more push. Nothing. Just one stubbornly stuck baby. A collective sigh of frustration went around the room. Out of all the times Dr. Beck had performed an ECV procedure, this was the first time it hadn’t worked.

“When do you want to schedule your Cesarean?” she asked.

“January 27. It’s my dad’s birthday. He and Baby can be birthday buddies.”

It was done.

The doctors left. The anesthesiologist returned to remove my epidural. The nurse put things away. I was brought a glass of water. I shook uncontrollably, and the nurse explained that it was the drugs leaving my system. My legs became red and itchy. Again, it was the morphine.  A sandwich appeared and I ate. We went home.

The next day, I returned to work. I shuffled around in my too big shoes on swollen feet. My belly hurt. There were scratches from Dr. Beck’s nails even though she had been wearing gloves. I was tired. We waited.

The weekend passed. The unused hospital bags sat in the hallway. Days ticked by. We bought a few more things. Another base for the car seat. Special pillow cases so I would know my pillows from the hospital’s. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Thursday meant spaghetti special at Mama’s Gyros. I treated myself and ate it all.

I went home after work and laid down on the couch. It was just me and Beckett Jean, our dog, for the evening. Mason was playing poker at a friend’s house. I fell asleep on the couch watching Big Bang Theory reruns. Around 8:00p.m., I woke up and took a shower. I read a book. I took selfies with the dog laying her head on my big belly. I had a snack. Mason came home around 11:30p.m. with a fist full of cash, his winnings from the evening. We laughed, we crawled into bed, we slept.

At 3:00a.m., I woke. Bathroom. Help me. Mason! He pushed me out of bed. My feet hit the floor and the water flooded down. I couldn’t control myself. Lights. Towels. Get the dog out of the room. Call Mekelle. Contractions. Bags. Keys. Contractions. Down the stairs. Into the car. Contractions. Breathe. Call the parents. Yes, we are really going to the hospital!

We sped down 630, marveling at the lack of traffic or bad weather. I had been convinced I would be birthing this baby through a late January snow storm. Bright lights and long hallways greeted us once we got to the hospital. More contractions. A wheel chair. The triage room. Nurses. Monitors. Mekelle arrived, hair wet from a quick shower. Time ticked on. Contractions were frequent, but I wasn’t going to birth this baby naturally. Baby was still breech.

Doctor Beck was on-call, and arrived early for her regular day’s work to deliver my baby. I walked from triage to the operating room. Mason and Mekelle stayed behind to get their sterile boots, gowns, and gloves. Alone, I received my epidural. Alone, I lay on the table. Arms out, legs splayed, gown pulled up over my belly. The anesthesiologist loomed over my face, asked how I was doing. I was ok. No. I wasn’t. I knew I couldn’t move my legs, but they were on fire. I had ants burning in my veins! Make it stop! An oxygen mask came down. Breathe. A dose of Benadryl to counteract the reaction. People around me talked about their lunch from the day before. Finally, Mason came in. He and Mekelle sat next me on either side of my head.

A curtain went up. Dr. Beck came in.

“Are you ready to meet your baby?” she asked.

We both nodded.

I kept my eyes on Mason as the cutting and tugging began. Mekelle whispered in my ear, telling me what they were doing and how close they were to bringing my baby out into the world. Murmurs from the doctors. Beeping. A pressure change in my abdomen. Mason’s eyes on mine. And then, Doctor Beck’s words:

“It’s a boy!”

At 6:05a.m. we met our son. William Avery Ellis. Eight pounds and three ounces of our love. Screaming, pooping, messy love. They tried twice to bring him to me, but he kept pooping and making a mess. Finally, they handed our bundle to Mason and he held him close to my face. Tiny nose, closed eyes, and the most incredible thing I had ever seen. Even though his arrival was nothing like I planned, that moment was perfect.

Author's Note

Finished, but needing quite a bit of revision. Input appreciated.

Reviews

[Jacob Clifford]

Such a beautiful journey. From those first moments of euphoric disbelief, to the joy in sharing the news, to the terror/excitement of being a parent, to the surgery. There's nothing as magical as meeting your child for the first time.