How Hypnobirthing Saved Her Medicated Birth

The Labor and Delivery of my sweet Amberly Faith

Wednesday November 6th, 1:30am. I have just officially hit 37 weeks, and my water breaks while I'm asleep. "That can't be my water breaking!" I remember thinking. No. Freaking. Way.

No contractions (which I will also refer to as "surges" thanks to my Hypnobirthing classes). No other symptoms other than...wait a minute...it was hard to fall asleep because something funky was going on with my back and sides. But there is no way that could have been my water breaking?

And yet...it continued to trickle without any control on my part. Is there such a thing as false water breaking? I'm in the bathroom and little do I know that my husband is also out of bed, already aware of what's coming, and trying not to throw up in our kitchen sink. He knows he has to be strong for me.

It's not like we haven't been waiting for years for this moment, so why are we so concerned, confused? So panicked? Because she is three weeks early, and we thought we still had a few days left to prepare for her anticipated arrival. Then again, how can you ever really prepare yourself for something as life changing as welcoming a new baby into your family?

 

Too many clothes already for this little Diva

 

 

My 37 week photo, taken literally five hours before my water broke.

I think my greatest concern of all was her health. Was she truly developed enough to come? Her little brain? Those tiny lungs that would give her adequate oxygen? I was still in denial.

At 2:00am, after Jon and I had looked online a little while for any such symptom as "false water breaking", I asked my wonderful husband to give me a Priesthood blessing.

I distinctly remember two phrases of the blessing.

"Your Heavenly Father knows you've waited long enough."
With those words, my body gave me its first official surge - a wave of pressure throughout my entire lower body. And I felt the tears well up in my eyes as I realized that is what a contraction feels like. And we might be having this baby today.

And the other phrase I referred to often throughout our labor were words of sheer comfort -
"This baby will be healthy."

So what next? We wondered. The surges continued to come and finally Jon began to time how long and far apart they were on a timer on his phone. We both knew the likely outcome if we went to the hospital right away. Pitocin. Followed by an ever increasing wave of surges thanks to how it can interfere with oxytocin, and most likely an epidural. After saying another prayer together, we thought it best to labor in the comfort of our home for the time being. So we used our hypnobirthing techniques as the surges grew closer and stronger together.

Jon's favorite moment of the evening was when he encouraged me to take a shower to relax and my vanity showed blatantly through - "But I don't want to ruin my hair." He laughed and laughed and of course I eventually gave in. The shower was followed by a lot of vomiting, although there was nothing for me to throw up. The night went on and I rested in between the waves of pressure. Finally we decided to begin packing a hospital bag and to call a few people. By now my adrenaline shakes had come at full force and try as we could to keep me warm and calm, I could not relax. I was completely thrown off guard that I was laboring already. We still had no clue what was going on, despite all the stories you hear about giving birth. Finally Jon called my doctor's office and we knew what the orders would be - no surprise there that my doctor would be concerned and would order me to Labor and Delivery right away to have me checked.

So we pulled into the hospital parking lot at 7:00am. As I passed the windows where I work, I saw one of our therapists in the kitchen making soup. She was preparing it for my baby shower that was supposed to be at lunch that day. :)

In between surges, I felt fine. But because of my "Fight or Flight" mode that felt much beyond my control, the surges themselves were miserable. I breathed through them and tried different positions. My husband was a rockstar and never showed once on his face how concerned he was at the fact that I was trembling. They admitted me to a beautiful room on the 5th floor and the nurse checked me with the remark - "Your membranes have ruptured, so we're admitting you. You're having a baby today."

I tried practicing the breathing techniques and everything we had learned from hypnobirthing for the next three hours. My adrenaline shakes only grew worse though whenever it sunk in that I was having a baby today. Around 10am, it got to the point where I felt like I was putting my baby in distress. Furthermore, I was miserable and I thought to myself - this isn't right. I have imagined this to be so positive for so long. I think I need some help to relax. It's not that Jon and I were completely opposed to an epidural as we prepared for a natural birth, we just recognized all the positives if you are able to birth relaxed, and unmedicated. And the epidural kind of scared us both, quite frankly. But I think what we both forgot to take into consideration is how hyperactive of a person I am. I am a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, and I should have anticipated that my levels would be outrageously high during my personal laboring.

I had been in labor for over 8 hours, and because I could not bring myself to a state of relaxation I was only dilated to a 2. It became clear that we needed to consider the epidural. We said a prayer and the decision was made. 10:15am, they gave me the shot. That needle was nothing compared to what the surges felt like to my panicked body. Our anesthesiologist was awesome, and that epidural quickly became my best friend. :)

Here is the best part though: we continued to use our hypnobirthing techniques throughout the entire process. I was able to control how much epidural I needed, and I felt the pressure of every surge. I still felt like I was helping my baby girl by breathing her down the birth path with every contraction. I loved feeling that I was helping her along with minimal discomfort. And once I got the epidural, I dilated quickly. I went from a 2 to a 3 by 11:00am.  By noon I was at 4.5,  at 1pm I was 5.5 and then jumped to an 8.5 by 2:00. Within the next hour I could actually feel the baby's head, which made me so happy as I thought the epidural would prevent that! By 3:00pm I was fully dilated to a 10 and we were just waiting on my doctor to arrive.

My baby's heart rate was all over the place during these hours of laboring. Around 11:05, her heart rate dropped so low that multiple nurses came in somewhat panicked, placed the oxygen mask on me, and turned me to the other side thinking the baby was resting on the umbilical cord. Many silent prayers were given and I kept breathing deeply with the techniques I had practiced, letting the music on my ipod calm me, and always referring back to the words of the Priesthood blessing Jon had given me -  "This baby will be healthy."

Semi-fake smiles

 

Mama came to help calm me down as well before "show time" as we like to call it. That woman is seriously one of my best friends.

Her heart rate resumed to normal and they placed monitors on her head to watch her heart for the duration of my labor. In that moment, I turned to Jon and told him - "I'm so glad we're here." It was so comforting to know I could rest as much as possible while the caring nurses at Utah Valley Hospital monitored my surges and my baby's heart rate.

About an hour and a half later, Baby Girl's heart rate went the other direction - raging high. We think this was due to my having a high fever and the stress my body had been in for so many hours. Jon calmly went outside to ask the nurses about it, tricking me into thinking he was going out to get some food in the other room. Little did I know that both times her heart rate went to the extremes, my doctor was on her way to order a C-section. Everyone around me stayed so calm to avoid stressing me more than I already was (even with the epidural the adrenaline shakes would come and go - it was so annoying that I could not control them!). Jon came in and asked me if I'd like to do some of the visualization practices we had done at home that we learned from our Hypnobirthing class. And the techniques helped me relax again so that Amberly's heart rate resumed to normal.

We love hypnobirthing and we are so glad we took the classes!

By the time my doctor arrived just after 3pm, she bluntly told me how serious the situation had been all day. "Baby is not happy. I've almost ordered you back for a C-section twice today and I am concerned about her being in there as long as she's been. So you've got to push with everything you've got Rachel, because one way or another, this baby has to come out in the next few minutes."

I have never been more determined in my entire life. I think I needed what this particular doctor had to offer me at this time - tough love.

I had practiced doing a few pushes with the nurse before my doctor arrived. I knew I'd have to push a lot harder for this baby to come out. One contraction resulted in three hard and effective pushes and my doctor was impressed. I remember it so vividly - "Come on Rachel! Push push push! Good job! Alright you push like that again with the next contraction and you're gonna have a baby." Second contraction was another three more pushes, and my distressed baby was out!

Jon was so darling. His gasps of excitement as he saw her head were the most encouraging to me to push with everything I had in me. "She has dark hair, can you see?" And for the record, everything changes when you're in labor. At least for us, it did. I never thought I would want a mirror because that sounded pretty weird. It was super helpful and the first thing I did see was her darling dark hair, just like I had dreamed. :)

During my laboring, I remember thinking to myself "please be over 6 pounds, Baby Girl. Please be healthy." Her fierce cry as soon as she came was the most reassuring sound in the world. Her lungs were strong and ready for the world. And she was pretty angry after all of that. :)

And then the most reassuring words when they weighed her - 6 lbs 10 oz and 19 inches long! I was so relieved!

 

My poor girl was so swollen after all that hard work. Of course we thought she was so beautiful because she was ours, and she had arrived. Now we kind of joke a bit looking back at these pictures. She looks like a completely different baby now!

 

Our Asian baby? Did the fertility center mix the sperm samples? ;)

Seeing this for the first time really melted my heart. Finally, he's a daddy.

We had a couple hours just to ourselves as a new family. I did some skin to skin contact with Amberly and had some time to practice nursing her.

And time. stood. still.
It was still sinking in.
I am a mother.

We truly feel that I was able to deliver Amberly without a C-section because of Hypnobirthing, and also that our baby arrived safely because of the combination of medical technology and the relaxation techniques we learned. Maybe for me, both are necessary! All we can do is say a million thank you prayers to our Father in Heaven for blessing us with a healthy, determined, resilient baby girl.

Amberly Faith Ditto

Born Wednesday Nov. 6th @ 3:17pm

6 lbs. 10 oz. 19 inches