Down In My Heart Joy!: Birth, Dreams, and Surprises

Baby Number Two
Julian Williams (also more middle names here). Stephen (the daddy in question) and Melissa intend to have five children. With those kind of numbers in mind, certain things have to be planned ahead. Birthing five children is one of those. No doctor will give a woman five caesarean sections, many will advise no more than two, at most three. And furthermore, most hospitals these days don’t allow VBACs (vaginal birth after caesarean). Although statistically proven in recent years to be equally as safe as a repeat caesarean, the doctors don’t like it for fear of uterine rupture (which usually results in danger and sterilization to the mother and death to the infant). Turns out the increased rate of uterine rupture in VBAC births versus vaginal births without a prior caesarean can be blamed on the type of incision (vertical is bad, horizontal is good), and use of labor –inducing drugs on a scarred uterus (labor-inducing drugs cause more violent contractions than natural contractions and put too much stress on the uterus). Most likely if Melissa had chosen a hospital birth, and was overdue again, they would have just given her another caesearean since they could not induce labor. These problems, in light of their desire to have five children, made another hospital birth impossible. Looking for alternatives, they discovered a midwife group who would accept VBAC births.

Julian was a week overdue, just as D’arcy was, but Melissa did go into labor on her own, and Julian was born healthy after a medium-length labor and almost three hours of pushing, just like D’arcy. The birth occurred at my parents’ home where my husband and I were living at the time, because the Williams’ home was too far from a hospital, just in case there were problems. My grandmother, who had also lived with us, had just passed away a week before Melissa’s labor. I had a video editing project to finish which included colorful video loops, hard rock music, and staying up all night long. It just so happened that my bedroom was on the other side of the wall from my parents’ bathroom, where Melissa labored for many hours that night. Now when you’re in the room with an un-medicated laboring woman, and she groans, cries out, or makes strange noises, it’s not a big deal. I had attended four births prior to this one, three at home, and all un-medicated, and knew the sounds I was hearing were not to be frightened of. Nonetheless, from the other side of the wall, the sounds get spooky. I shoved earplugs deep in my ears, clamped gigantic headphones over top, and cranked up the rock music in an effort to drown out her groaning. At one point, I glanced at the clock – it was 2 am. I wondered how long this would go on, and into my head popped “4:00.” Wow, I thought, I wonder if I’ll be right. And I wonder if that would be good news or bad news to the people working on the other side of the wall.

About 3:15 am, my mom came to get me. The baby’s heart rate had dropped frighteningly low, which in normal labor is expected, but in a VBAC labor, could be a sign of uterine rupture. The midwives were moving Melissa from the bathtub where she had been laboring in a squatting position, to the bedroom in a reclining position, in an effort to get a bit of pressure off the baby and see if his heart rate would rise again. There was an edge in the air, because the midwife had called the hospital and given them a heads up that we might be rushing in for an emergency caesarean. The need for prayer was urgent. My mom and I stood at the head of the bed, respectfully out of view of Melissa’s legs, and began to pray under our breaths.

It wasn’t long before Julian’s heart rate increased, the midwives were at ease, and Julian was born within minutes of 4:00 am.

Moments after he was delivered, Melissa noticed a dark purplish mark on his forehead, and with a tremble in her voice, said, “Oh no, he has a birthmark.” I glanced over, and thought, “hmm”, licked my thumb, and smeared it across his forehead, rubbing off the dried blood and revealing a perfectly pink forehead. Melissa laughed under her breath, and blamed her misperception on her labor-induced bleary vision (oh and not wearing her glasses). This story is now central to the birth story of Julian – Melissa tells it over and over. How it didn’t occur to me to be any problem to wipe my spit on her newborn baby’s forehead, how she was so afraid he had a large birthmark, and how she laughed at herself once she realized everything was okay and how comical the situation really was.

Baby Number Three
D’arcy is now four years old, and Julian is two and a half. Melissa’s midwife has built a roomy birthing center in the medical center area of San Antonio. The birth center has several examination rooms, and several delivery rooms. But you’ll have to “x” out a hospital delivery room from your mind – with all its plastic and metal sterility and harsh coldness. Instead, imagine an upscale hotel room – complete with comfy four-poster bed in one corner and a large whirlpool tub in the other. This is where baby number three was supposed to be born. I was supposed to meet the Williams over there and stay with them for as much of the labor as I would like, and especially the delivery, where I was to take tasteful photos of the family during labor, delivery, and after delivery.

The Williams had decided to let the gender of this child be a surprise, since they already had one of each, so the moment of birth and discovery was sure to be a photogenic moment.

In Melissa’s seventh month of pregnancy, I woke up one morning from a dream about their family. In the dream, Priscilla, Mercy, and I were exiting an elevator into some kind of hospital/center/facility. We had cameras, bags, and things with us, and I knew we were arriving to Melissa’s labor – me to support and take photographs, and Priscilla and Mercy to babysit D’arcy and Julian. But instead, as we came out of the elevator, we saw the entire Williams family walking toward us – Stephen with D’arcy holding his right hand, and Julian on his left. And Melissa carrying the newborn baby on her hip. The baby was a boy, with curly blond hair and bright blue eyes, and the most beautiful baby boy I’ve ever seen (although in the dream he looked about three months old). Melissa was flushed and glowing, wearing a white blouse, and radiating beauty, femininity, and strength. I sputtered something like, “What happened?”, and Melissa said, “We got here, and the baby came, and it was easy, and it’s over, and you missed it!” Then I woke up.

The next day after this dream was a Thursday, and Melissa shared during community group that she was suddenly nervous about the birth. At her appointment with the midwife that morning, the baby had been breech, and even though it had plenty of time yet to turn, it struck a chord of fear in her heart that maybe things wouldn’t go smoothly at the birth. I had previously considered not telling her the dream, not wanting to get her hopes up, but after this, I felt I should share it. She laughed when I told it to her, and said she thought it was a girl, based on when it was conceived. We prayed for her that evening, and continued to pray for a safe, quick, delivery.

Now I wish it had occurred to me to pray that I wouldn’t miss the birth after all!

Fast forward two months, and Melissa is a week overdue. This is nothing unusual, as she was also overdue with D’arcy and Julian. At her weekly appointment with the midwife, they stripped her membranes (separating the bag of waters that houses the baby from the uterine wall, just inside the opening to the cervix). At community group that night, we prayed After community group that evening, she and Stephen spent a little quality time together as well, all in an effort to bring this baby into the world! (In case you didn’t know, prostaglandin is the hormone that softens the cervix, making it ready for delivery. The highest natural concentration of this hormone can be found in sperm).

That Thursday evening I went to bed later than usual, despite having been short on sleep the entire week. So on Friday morning, when I woke up at 5:30 am, wide awake, I was a bit surprised. However, I was waking up from a dream in which I was on the phone with Stephen Williams, and I was saying to him, “Well, I guess I’m not going to work today; I’ll be right over.” I glanced at the clock a second time, debating whether to get up thirty minutes before I really had to. I could take a nice hot shower before work, and lazily get myself ready for work. I decided, no, I’ll just lay back down and wait for my cell phone to ring. And sure enough it did, fifteen minutes later, to a hurried Stephen saying “You better get over here right away, come to our house.”

Too bad I hadn’t started getting myself ready, although I would have missed the phone call if I was in the shower. I threw clothes on, brushed my teeth, grabbed a change of clothes, and rushed out the door. I sped as much above the speed limit as I thought I could get away with (about seven miles over if you’re curious), and made the usually 25 minute drive in 10 minutes since there was no traffic. Throwing my car into park outside their house, I rushed inside the house without knocking, but my ears were greeted by the shrill wail of a newborn. I had indeed missed it.

With a sigh of disappointment, I headed into the back bedroom where I found the family, the midwife, and Melissa staring into the eyes of the baby wailing in her arms. She looked up at me, her voice still trembling, “I was soo scared!, It was so scary!” I stroked her bangs out of her forehead as she tried to explain what had happened.

“Stephen, why didn’t you call me?”

“I did! I didn’t know it was coming so fast!”

Holly, the midwife interjected, “I just got here! I didn’t even put gloves on – that was the first time I ever caught a baby with my bare hands – it felt so cool!”

Gradually I gathered the story – Melissa slept that night, waking frequently and fitfully to mild contractions the entire night. She had drowsily wondered if they would go away in the morning like they had been for the last two weeks. About 4:30 am, she woke up to stronger contractions that seemed to pick up pace and energy quickly. She sent Stephen to find a watch with a second hand to time the contractions. He couldn’t find one, but found a free online website that would do it, and set up the laptop in the bathroom next to her. A few minutes later she let him know the contractions were one to two minutes long and only a minute apart (this occurs at the end of labor). Stephen woke up the kids and started getting them and everything in the car to drive to the birth center. Coming back inside, Stephen had to help Melissa out to the car. Outside, she says she paused to lean on the car during a strong contraction, and thought “I can’t do this for six hours, this is too painful!” She told Stephen, “I can’t, I can’t go anywhere, this is too much, I think the baby is coming too fast.”

Stephen helped her back inside to the bed, and called the midwife to have her come to the house, quickly. By this point, Melissa was in intense pain with nearly non-stop contractions, and “yelling” as she described it, in pain. Stephen tried to go out to the car to bring Julian inside, since he was still asleep buckled in his car seat, but Melissa told him not to leave. D’arcy had let herself out of her car seat and come back into the house. Now she wandered into their bedroom undaunted, and asked, “I found this muffin – can I have it?” Of course she could. Melissa was scared, everything was so intense she could hardly stand it, but she was afraid too. What if she wasn’t really having the baby as quickly as she thought, and the midwife would arrive to find her dialated only five centimeters and say, suck it up, we’re going to the birth center, you have hours to go. What if the baby was coming quickly and the midwife didn’t get there in time for the birth, and something was wrong where the baby needed help? They weren’t prepared for a birth at their home! Stephen called the midwife again, and got her on the speakerphone for the last ten minutes of her drive. She told him to check Melissa, and see if he could feel the baby’s head, and if so, how far away was it from exiting the birth canal?

“About two inches.”

Okay, that was bad. Melissa clamped her legs shut in an effort to keep the baby from progressing any further. “No,” the midwife said, “Don’t do that. Open your legs. If the baby is coming, it needs to come, you should’nt try to stop it.”

“Then this baby is coming!” Melissa said between contractions.

The midwife’s voice calmly coached Melissa through panting through the contractions, Stephen to get an armful of towels and prepare to catch the baby. Pulling up outside their house, the midwife threw her car into park halfway onto their lawn, and rushed inside, giving her about 1 ½ minutes before the baby slipped out in just two good pushes.