Adeline’s Birth Story
I’d like to start this story by sharing that Adeline’s birth story is not what I would consider a positive birth story. I still carry some resentment towards my provider and sadness about my birth experience to this day.
But I have accepted that I can have conflicting emotions about the same experience at the same time, and it doesn’t diminish the love I have for my daughter.
If you are struggling with your own birth trauma, please read carefully if hearing other’s stories are sensitive for you.
Preparation for Birth
Adeline is my first child, and amazing in every way. She is so kind and sensitive to others, and it has been an absolute joy watching her grow up. Bittersweet, but so amazing.
As we were preparing for her birth back in 2017, my husband and I were living apart due to the military. We had plans for me to relocate to his location near the end of my third trimester.
Prior to this, our main focus was on being physically together and not as much on actual birth preparation.
After we were relocated towards the end of my third trimester, we decided to take a childbirth education class and hire a doula. Prior to this, I had no real expectations on birth and was not incredibly concerned about my experience: I honestly didn’t know how powerful birth could even be, so I had just planned to show up and see what happened.
After the childbirth education class, we realized how little we knew and felt more scared of birth. It was an informative course, but very biased, so it left us feeling afraid of giving birth in a hospital (which was our only real option at the time). This is the main reason why we strive to ensure the childbirth education courses we offer through MamasteFit offer multiple perspectives without demonizing any interventions or glorifying a specific birth path.
My hope was that my sister would be in our area by the time I went into labor, but she was in the process of moving and may not be here in time, depending on when I went into labor. Because of this, we hired a doula.
At this point my plan was an unmedicated birth in the hospital with my husband, doula, and mom. And hopefully my sister if she had arrived on time!
Now all we had to do was wait for birth to begin!
Induction?
I hit 40-weeks and, unsurprisingly, was still pregnant. I went to my 40-week appointment, and without a conversation, the nurse practitioner told me that they had scheduled my induction for 41+3 on this specific date.
I was confused why there was no opportunity for conversation or even a discussion on my birth preferences. It left me feeling really unheard and as if my decisions were unimportant in my own birth.
What was funny to me, was that my due date had been changed during my first trimester after a dating ultrasound. It adjusted by over ten days. Had I not had that first-trimester ultrasound, I would have been induced on my current due date because of an arbitrary date.
I spent the next ten days anxious about labor beginning before the scheduled induction date. Anyone I mentioned feeling anxious about dismissed my concerns, which added to my anxiety.
In hindsight, I wish I had a better understanding of the induction process and knew it was more than just Pitocin and pain.
Over the next ten days, I tried EVERYTHING to go into labor. I ate all the dates; I did all the walking; I ate spicy food; I devoured pineapple; I inserted as many evening primrose oil pills; I drank all the raspberry leaf tea…
And nothing worked. I would wake up each night still pregnant.
Labor Day: June 27th starting at 6am
Feeling completely defeated and knowing my induction was in two days, I felt like my entire birth plan would be thrown in the trash.
But then I woke up the next morning feeling something new! I was having contractions!
They started about 20 minutes apart and, throughout the morning, increased in intensity and decreased spacing to about 4-5 minutes apart. I was anxious to ensure this kept going, so I kept moving all morning.
I called my doula and my sister (who had arrived in the area a few days prior) to let them know I was in labor, and contractions were getting more intense. I told them I wanted to go to the hospital. They both told me to stay home, and I decided that I wanted to go in anyways.
We had a 40-minute drive to our hospital, and I was nervous about being in a lot of pain in the car ride and wanted to go when I was not too uncomfortable yet.
It was around 12 pm when I showed up; I was 2cm and told to go away. This news surprised no one but me.
I decided that I would likely progress quickly (spoiler alert, I did not) and didn’t want to go home (which in hindsight, is what I should have done). We went to a nearby track and walked around it for a few hours, then tried to get some dinner.
My contractions started to pick up on the drive back from grabbing food, and I wanted to go back to the hospital. I did not want to be in the car anymore.
We arrived back at the hospital around 8 pm, and I was still 2cm. Then, I was admitted; I still don’t know the reason, but was told to go walk around for a few hours and then come back.
The midwife told me that when I got back, they would start Pitocin since I was an induction for the next day. I was confused because I had contractions that felt pretty regular, and I tried to ask her about it but was ignored. I then began to panic because I felt my contractions were already pretty intense and heard that Pitocin contractions were worse, and didn’t know if I could keep coping if it was worse than this.
I told the midwife that I didn’t want an epidrual but I felt nervous about the Pitocin, and she offered IV pain meds then left the triage room without much more of a conversation.
We went and walked for a few hours, then returned around 1 am to be admitted to our room.
Being Admitted, June 28th around 2:30 am
We finally were admitted to a room, and I was still having pretty consistent contractions. I felt very anxious about getting Pitocin and wanted something to help with the pain. The midwife offered IV pain meds, but the IV pain meds mostly made me feel drugged and drunk. 10/10 would not recommend (although I had had some clients who found IV pain meds helpful).
After the initial drugged feeling, I fell asleep for a short period of time. When I woke up, I started to feel my contractions more again as the IV pain meds wore off, and began to panic. I wanted the Pitocin turned off and called my nurse in to ask her to turn it off.
She pretty much laughed at me and said she would go get the midwife. The midwife walked in, with her arms crossed in front of her chest, and said, “I was told you wanted to talk to me,” to which I replied no thanks.
And this is where I began to panic and spin out of control mentally. The next contraction hit, and I began to ask for an epidural. I was not mentally able to fight with this provider and manage my own comfort during contractions anymore.
June 28th, around 6am
My doula convinced me to move around for another half hour before I felt defeated and asked for the epidural again.
She offered for me to see where I was at before making a final decision, and I agreed. Maybe I had finally progressed.
But, the check was only 4cm. Now, I know that doesn’t mean much about predicting how long labor will go, but at that moment, it felt so defeating to have been working for over 24 hours to find out I barely made any progress.
I ended up progressing to 10 in less than 3 hours after this check, as a side note.
You have to receive an epidural at our hospital alone, so once everyone walked out of the room, I felt relaxed again and calmer. I debated saying never mind to the epidural, but I felt defeated by this provider and sat still for it anyways.
At this time, I didn’t realize there was a shift change happening and had this shift change occurred even an hour earlier, or if the new midwife had come in to meet me before I decided to get my epidural, I may have had a very different experience.
I then fell asleep for a few hours until I was woken up for a cervical check. They said I was almost ten centimeters but had a bulging bag of water. The midwife recommended we break my water so we could start pushing soon.
I remember at that moment just feeling so defeated by this entire process, that I said sure, whatever. I had tried to prepare for birth and thought I did all the right things, but I still found myself at the mercy of some provider that wasn’t compassionate with their care.
Pushing: June 28th, around 10am
Around 10am, they checked me again and I was 10cm and said it was time to push! I just felt relief that this whole experience was finally almost over.
And then I pushed for almost two hours. It felt endless.
At one point, the entire room was filled with random staff members, and I asked my nurse who they were. She looked around and started to point out who each person was: the baby nurse, that is NICU, that is an attending, I’m your nurse, this is your midwife, not sure why they are here…
My husband reflects on our birth and felt like he was watching a fight but couldn’t get a front-row seat to it because there were so many people crowding the room.
I eventually started to hear the attending speaking to the midwife about how I needed a vacuum to get this baby out, and I had no idea what a vacuum was and was not excited about this new intervention.
I would stare at him as I pushed to make sure he didn’t pull out something random while he thought I was distracted. 10/10 not a fan of him anymore.
But I felt very lucky with the midwife and nurse I had for pushing and the actual birth of my daughter! I felt that my midwife had advocated for me to keep pushing and helped me give birth to my baby vaginally without any more interventions.
Adeline's Birth: June 28, 11:58am
After what felt like the longest part of my labor, Adeline finally was born. She was placed on my chest for half a second and immediately brought to the warmer to be assessed by NICU and the baby nurse. Still confused about why this occurred since she came out immediately crying.
A few minutes later she was returned to my chest, and we were able to bond as a family for the first time.
I was so happy she was finally in our arms, but struggled for some time with my birth experience. This was such as transformative moment in our lives, and we felt so disrespected and ignored by our initial provider and team. I feel really fortunate that we had the team we had when she was born, but it still makes it hard for me to look back on her birth experience and not feel sad.
The Birth of MamasteFit
A few months after Adeline was born, I transitioned out of the Army and into a role of a stay-at-home mom. This was the first time in my adult life I did not identify myself by my career, and it was a struggle professionally for me to accept this new role, plus grappling with the traumas of my own birth experience.
After a few months, I decided to create a space for new moms like me to bring their babies and kids and exercise together. MamasteFit was born. There were several key points in MamasteFit’s growth that I was presented with an opportunity that really shifted our growth in a positive direction. When I was searching for a place to offer MamasteFit, SPARTC, a local gym welcomed us and our kids with open arms. We hosted classes out of their gym for almost 18 months!
After about a year of focusing solely on prenatal and postnatal fitness, we expanded to offer birth doula support and childbirth education.
I reflected on what contributed to my own birth trauma, and it was mostly due to an uncompassionate provider, but my own preparation could have offered me more so I could advocate for myself.
We wanted to support others in this phase of life to feel empowered to make decisions and be heard in their care!
When developing our childbirth education curriculum, we wanted to ensure that any choice someone made felt supported by us. Whether you want a low to no intervention home birth or an epidural in a hospital, we want you to feel that you are still supported by our course!
Had I had a better understanding of Pitocin, I would not have been so afraid of it.
But the preparation I did for my birth was so focused on no intervention and interventions are “bad” that I didn’t take the time to consider:
- What if I need it?
- In what circumstances would I need it?
- What other options do I have instead of that?
So, it was important to us that our course be focused on educating, as unbiased as we could, on each birth option that could be available. If we didn’t cover the specific intervention, offering a method to navigating making an informed decision.
Now, MamasteFit is almost 5 years old and we are supporting folks in this phase of life all over the world! While my first birth was not my dream birth, there was a lot of good things that came from my experience.
I know what it feels like to be unheard and ignored by my provider, so I strive to help you all feel heard and supported by your team.
MamasteFit is here because of my daughter, and she is so amazing, that it’s hard to regret my experience. My emotions are allowed to co-exist, so some days I feel sad when I think about her birth, but I know I can still be so happy that she is with us even if I am sad about her birth.
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