My Pregnancy Journey Part 4: My Rainbow Baby
In this multi-post series, I share my full pregnancy journey, from the first moment motherhood became a concrete goal, through my pregnancies and births, loss, and fertility challenges. I hope that doing so will help to challenge commonly-held misconceptions about pregnancy and birth, and foster recognition that there are a wide variety of experiences, choices, and outcomes that are possible. Ultimately, it’s about connection, to empower each other with confidence and wisdom to make our own informed decisions about what’s best for ourselves and our babies. If you have a pregnancy, loss, or birth story that you would like to share on the blog, please reach out here!
This is the story of my rainbow baby. If you’re not familiar with the term, a rainbow baby is a baby born after loss. But more than that, like a rainbow after a storm, a rainbow baby is something special and beautiful that arrives after something dark and scary. I talked about my dark and scary in part 2 and part 3 of this series. Today, I’m sharing my special and beautiful.
Overall, my third pregnancy went well. I was still living in Beijing, China for the first part of my pregnancy, which brought some unique concerns. While the air quality in Beijing was never great, it got seriously bad for a period early in my pregnancy- it was literally off the charts bad. Food quality was also an ongoing concern for us, which likely played a role in the strong aversion to meat that hit me early on. On the plus side, my union went on strike and we were off the job for two weeks, which I spent preparing for our move back to Canada and eating frozen grapes by the pool.
We arrived back in Canada at the start of my second trimester, and soon aftwerwards we started planning for the birth. After my experience with baby C, I knew I did not want to give birth in a hospital again and be faced with the possibility of cascading medical interventions. We toured the new birth centre that had recently opened near us, but it felt too institutional for me. So we started to explore homebirth as a realistic possibility and, with the support of our midwife, quickly realized that the benefits far outweighed any potential risks. Plus, since we were expecting a December baby, the idea of not having to drive our new baby home from the hospital in frigid snowy conditions was very appealing.
I was halfway through week 39 when we were lying in bed one evening watching Homeland, and I felt a wet trickle. I turned to my partner and said “either I just peed myself or this baby is coming soon!” While he randomly ran down to the kitchen and started boiling large pots of water (?!?!) I paged my midwife. Our backup midwife arrived at the house shortly afterwards and, after assuring my partner that there would be no need for all that boiling water, she examined me, confirmed that active labour had not started yet, recommended I try to get some sleep, and told me to call if things ramped up.
I’m not sure I actually slept that night. Every twinge and cramp had me wondering “Is this it? Is this something?” In the morning, my midwife called and, when I reported that nothing much had changed, she got really serious and told me that because my water had broken, if I was not in active labour by that afternoon, she would need to admit me to the hospital for induction and my dream of a homebirth would be lost. That was 100% NOT what I wanted to happen at all, so I listened closely when she told me that there was a way to encourage labour to start: castor oil. She explained that ingesting castor oil would stimulate my bowels, which would in turn stimulate my uterus. While this was not something that she recommended for everyone, in my specific case she felt it was a safe and beneficial option. Feeling pretty desperate to avoid a medical induction and a hospital birth, I decided to give it a try.
At this point, I had been having occasional contractions. But shortly after ingesting the castor oil, things ramped up. Contractions got much stronger, longer, and closer together. And, because the castor oil was stimulating my bowels, I had to poop almost as frequently as my contractions occurred. But things were finally happening!
My midwife arrived at our house shortly after I threw up my lunch, a sure-fire sign that active labour had begun. Things began to feel very intense, so I decided to take a bath. Up to this point, I was feeling good. I was able to breathe through the contractions; I felt calm and excited. But something changed in the tub, and just as I had with my first pregnancy, I lost my inner cool and started to panic. I called my midwife into the bathroom and adamantly told her that I was done with this drug-free hippie homebirth bullshit and I wanted to go to the hospital and have an epidural. Now. Stat.
She examined me, and then coolly looked me in the eye and told me that that would not be happening, that I was only a couple centimeters dilated and still in early labour so even if I went to the hospital she would not admit me. So we were going to stay at home and I was going to suck it up. And then she left the room. And I proceeded to bawl my eyes out.
A few minutes later, she came back in and made me a deal: in an hour from then, at 4:30, she would examine me again. If I progressed to 4 centimeters dilation, she would consider that sufficient to be active labour and we could go to the hospital.
I dried my eyes. I got out of the tub, dried myself off (pooped for the millionth time), and sat on my birthing ball facing my bedside clock. I told myself could do this. I just had to make it to 4:30 and then we could go get those sweet sweet drugs. One contraction at a time, one minute at a time, I slowly but surely inched closer to 4:30.
At around 4:15 I had to poop again. I stumbled to the bathroom and just as I was about to get off the toilet, my body started pushing. I yelled for my midwife, who quickly examined me on the bathroom floor, and to my total surprise she told me I was fully dilated. She helped me move to the bed, where I gave into the pushing energy that had overtaken my body. And a few minutes later, at 4:31, baby A was born.
This was when the beauty of homebirth really kicked in. Nobody took my baby away from me to be examined: instead, she was placed directly on my chest. Her cord was left intact until it stopped pulsing. Nobody was rushing to poke and prod her or me. There was no need for anyone to go anywhere anytime soon.
We called C. in to meet her new sister, and she helped the midwife weigh and dress the baby. Baby A was declared healthy and beautiful. I took a long hot shower and got back into my bed. We ordered pizza and ate dinner together in bed. I fell asleep at some point and the midwife quietly left.
Me and my rainbow baby, at about 2 minutes old, sharing some skin-to-skin time.
Born Fall 2013 at 39.5 weeks, 6lb 5oz
While the story of baby A’s birth ends on a happy note, it took me awhile to process what happened between my midwife and me. It had just sort of been taken for granted that her refusing to acknowledge my request to be transferred to the hospital had worked out well in the end, with baby A coming before I likely would have even had time for an epidural. And after all, I was supposed to be grateful that I had gotten the homebirth I had wanted, not to mention a beautiful and totally healthy baby. Which, everyone who I relayed the birth story to agreed, was the most important thing.
But eventually I did realize that I was not okay with what had happened. My midwife had dismissed my needs and concerns, and had left me feeling totally alone and powerless right in the middle of labour, when I was in no position to advocate for myself. I suspect that part of it had to do with her own personal desire to deliver a baby in a homebirth setting, where midwives have a lot more autonomy and a whole lot less paperwork to deal with. But I had specifically chosen to have a midwife as my healthcare practitioner out of my own desire for a patient-centered experience, where my needs would be put first and my voice would be respected. So, while I got my wish of a midwife-assisted homebirth, I was nonetheless subjected to the patronizing dismissal and disempowerment many women are faced with when dealing with healthcare professionals.
Birth trauma comes in many different forms. So eventhough on paper I got my wish of a natural, quick homebirth and a beautiful healthy baby, in reality there was trauma too. And it was only once I acknowleged and accepted that that I could begin to heal. And now, I have turned this experience into a driving force in the philosophy of the care I provide to women at Aubergine & Olive. If you follow me on social media or have read my other blog posts, you’ll know how passionate I am about empowering women so that they are equipped to make the best informed decisions for themselves and their babies. So that our voices are heard and our needs and desires are respected. Always.