BORN TO BE LOVED

At 42-weeks we had, had two false labors with both of them holding steady contractions for 8-12 hours. Both times the soon to be Kansas Grandparents jumped in the car and traveled to OKC anxiously awaiting the arrival. We were all ready to get the show on the road, and our patience was wearing thin. It was obvious that my body was showing signs of labor, but having difficulties transitioning into active labor. We proceeded with an ultrasound to get an update on my progress. I thought it would be helpful to see our baby on the screen, but it actually made me more frustrated about the whole process. Especially when the tech told us he was estimated to weigh around 9+ pounds (give or take a few). She did a full stress test on James, checked the aging status of my placenta, and the percentage of amniotic fluid still available. All the tests checked out fine, but the ultrasound did reveal a few things we were unaware of.

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It was obvious that our time frame to let “nature take it’s course” was shrinking. Time for the little guy to get moving! But that was just it… he was moving in the wrong direction! My entire pregnancy he had favored my right side. Our Midwife was fully aware of this, but my anterior placenta had caused confusion as to which direction he was facing. The ultrasound revealed that not only was he still favoring my right side, but that he was face up, Right Occiput Posterior (ROP), instead of facedown. The best birthing position for any baby is Occiput Anterior (OA), which is facedown, facing your back. This position is best for many reasons, but mainly it creates the least amount of turns the baby has to make while it travels through the birth canal. Faith reassured us that we could still deliver naturally in the ROP position, but that it was not ideal, and that we should do everything we could to get our baby turned. I could tell she was worried about the amount of additional back pain I would have delivering a posterior baby (a common result of posterior baby’s AND an anterior placenta).

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With the revelation of James’ position we realized we needed to get him out of the birth canal to create room and encourage him to flip. Luckily we found a wonderful chiropractor, Dr. Beverly at Advanced Chiropractic, who fit us into her busy schedule, 3 times within 48 hours! Not only does Dr. Beverly specialize in maternity care, but she recently had, had her own home birth just six months prior, and was very supportive of the natural birthing process. Faith reassured us that if James was healthy (which the ultrasound proved), and if we could get him in the optimal birthing position (to apply the best amount of pressure to the cervix), that he would come naturally. In between chiropractic visits Cale and I did exercises to try and drop James out of the birth canal. For 30-40 minutes at a time I sat with my head in a pillow, and my butt in the air, hoping to slide the baby out of the birth canal and encourage him to flip.

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Cale was such an awesome supporter throughout this entire process! We decided to go a head and have him take the week off, instead of after James’ arrival. Obviously we were not planning on going this many days past our due date. Now that we were this far along we both needed some extra time to work through our options, prepare for whatever type of delivery we were looking at, and try to jump start labor in whatever, “natural,” ways we could.

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And yes… this means we had SEX, but it didn’t really seem to help at all!  I can’t tell you how many people asked us about this. Sex at nine months, and 2 weeks is no fun. It’s simply to do the deed.

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So now that, that is clear…

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Once we passed 42-weeks there were a lot of friends and family who starting to get concerned. Towards the end Cale and I sorta shut everyone out, and went into our little birth hole. It wasn’t out of an us vs. them thing, and it certainly wasn’t us trying to prove anything. Honestly, we just felt like we owed my body the process of trying everything we could, naturally, before we were willing to transfer to the hospital. Faith had been keeping a close watch on our progress; alongside our mental and spiritual state. She had a list of natural inducement methods, and we felt like we had made it this far, so why not try everything we could? If at the end of it all… if baby still didn’t come, then we would transfer. We did ask our Midwife at what point would she recommend we go to the hospital and induce? She said she would wait as long as the baby, and the momma were healthy, and in a good mental state. Both Faith and Andrea did a wonderful job checking in, and supporting us without forcing us to wait it out. Out of all of their previous clients Faith had only had two other women make it to 43 weeks, and both of them were able to deliver naturally. It was obvious that my body was trying to go into labor so we were wiling to continue encouraging the natural labor process a little bit longer. Faith was very particular about making sure we rested between each natural inducement method. A lot of times she would even have us wait till the next day to try the next method so that if I did go into labor, I would not be exhausted from the work of getting into labor. She was very aware of the mental strain this process was putting on the both of us, and did a great job balancing everything so that there was enough energy in reserve to handle the pending labor.

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The next step was an aroma therapy treatment using essential oils as a form of natural inducement. We liked to give Faith a hard time about this since she seemed a little secretive, at first, about what kind of “herbs” we were using.  I’m not gonna lie I was pretty skeptical about the whole thing. Especially when the first stage included rubbing oils on my belly, and waiting for the the baby to move “rapidly” (whatever that means?). After several hours James actually did respond, and we transitioned into the bathtub for phase two. This included breathing in mint aromas for 45 minutes followed by a foot message with lavender oils. I don’t think Cale had ever massaged me with so much ambition! He was ready for our little man to get here, and was willing to do whatever it took.

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At 42-weeks + 4 days I didn’t care how hard labor was, I just wanted to be in labor! Bring it on! We kept standing on our confession from “Supernatural Childbirth”, and spoke to my body, and to my spirit. That God made my body for this. That it can and will go into labor naturally, and that we would have our baby at home just like we were believing for. We also checked our spirits on a moment by moment basis, and made sure we had a peace about the entire process. If we ever felt an uneasiness in our hearts about waiting any longer, we would have transferred, but every time we prayed we had a peace about the process. We just felt that as long as James was healthy, and that our Midwife was ok with our progress, that we owed it to our baby, and to my body, to do all that we could naturally.

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When you are closing in on 18 days past your due date you realize what it is like to truly CHOOSE a natural delivery. There were definitely moments where I could understand why a woman would choose to be induced… she wants to meet her baby, and is TIRED of being pregnant dang it! At 42 weeks + 4 days we were running out of time, and decided that if I did not go into labor by the next day that we would transfer. We did a 2nd round of the essential oils, an hour later took an Enema (probably more information that you wanted to know!), another few hours later drank Caster Oil (again, letting you into the ENTIRE process), and then went to sleep with no signs of labor. 

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