Every Birth Starts the World Anew

I had the honor of being at the birth of my friend Christina's third child on Monday August 10th. What an amazing experience to be able to watch a birth instead of being the one pushing! She and her husband Jimmy have been long time friends, and being there for such an important day only brought us closer.

Kylia Madelynn- August 10, 2009 9:58pm
8 pounds 5 ounces
17 1/5 inches

I got into town on the 9th of August and camped out at their house that night. She had been contracting mildly all day at about 7-10 minutes apart. I've been looking into getting my doula certification (more on that later) so this was like a trial run for me. We walked a lot, I worked on pressure points that cause the uterus to contract, and she tried some basic stretches and exercises to make sure Kylia was in an optimal position for delivery. Things picked up briefly, but quickly tapered off so we gave up and got some sleep.

The next day, her other children were at my parent's house swimming with the foster kids and Ariana when she called around 3:30pm telling me she was going for another walk around the block with her mother because she started contracting again every 5-7 minutes. We got her kids ready for a possible overnight stay with an aunt since their grandma would be in the delivery room as well. Around 6 or 6:30 we got another call to let us know that she was headed to the hospital with contractions 3-5 minutes apart! We dropped the kids off with their aunt and I got a bag ready for an overnight stay in the hospital. I arrived there at 7 after she had been monitored for an hour and was being admitted. She was having painful contractions every 1.5-3 minutes and had gone from 3cm dilated to 5cm dilated! Once in the room a nurse was trying to administer an IV for fluids to keep her hydrated since you can't eat or drink while laboring in a hospital. I was helping her work on keeping her breathing steady and not tensing up during contractions so her body could do what it needed to. We were asked to leave so the nurse could ask her basic admittance questions (I'm still not sure why we had to leave the room. Marty was there every time they asked me). That took maybe all of 10 minutes but by the time we returned her water had broken and there was meconium in it. She had also zipped right on through to 8.5/9cm dilated and the nurses were paging the midwife and breaking down the bed. My head was spinning, I couldn't even imagine how Christina and Jimmy felt! When a baby passes meconium in utero, they swallow and inhale some during their basic actions in the womb. Usually, the mouth and throat are deeply suctioned with a tube rather than a nasal aspirator so that the meconium isn't drawn down into their lungs when that first breath is taken. Meconium aspiration can cause pneumonia, respiratory distress, and a need for the newborn to be in the NICU.

The birthing ball I had requested while we were killing time in the hallway never even made it to the room. Within 4 pushes a beautifully molded full head of black hair emerged and the midwife quickly started sucking out globs of greenish brown amniotic fluid from her mouth, nose and throat. Poor Christina was told NOT to push and was screaming and panting through a couple contractions. In what was only a few minutes, but I'm sure seemed like forever to her, the midwife told her she could push again. Kylia's shoulders were already starting to squirm their way out, but with Christina's final push she slid right out! The final gush of hindwaters splashed out, green and murky. Her cord was too short to be put directly onto Christina, so the midwife cut it and the nurse whisked her away to the warming table. Jimmy and I went over there with her, camera in tow! She cried heartily the second her body was born, but they still wanted to keep an eye on her coloring and the was she was breathing. She never stopped wailing from that first second on! After being cleaned up and swaddled, they nurse brought her back over to Christina to hold. She attempted to nurse her, but Kylia was too busy letting the world know she wanted to go back inside Mommy's tummy to latch on! She got about 10 minutes with her before she was taken to the nursery. This is where her hospital stay quickly went downhill.

We were transferred to the maternity ward for her post pardum stay where she showered, got dinner and settled in. She made a comment about how disconnected she felt from Kylia since she really didn't get any time to bond with her. The first hour after birth is crucial for Mommy and baby. Both are experiencing a slew of hormones that aide in the bonding process. Nursing should be done for the first time during the first hour, as should skin on skin time. When a baby is taken away from its mother during this crucial time period everything is thrown off. Christina, ever the passive one, realized it had been almost 2 hours since Kylia was born and called the nursery to request that her baby be brought to her. The pediatric nurse there explained that because Kylia was a bigger baby, they had to do a glucose test to make sure there wasn't any gestational diabetes in Christina that went unnoticed. Before they even got the results back (if her blood sugar was low, she would've needed to eat), they gave her a bottle of formula. Everything came back perfect, but of course now she was in a formula coma. A newborn's stomach is the size of a raisin. The bottles the hospital gives for formula fed newborns is 2 ounces. Doesn't seem right, does it? The nurse also told her that since they like to keep babies on a schedule, she wouldn't need to eat for another 3 hours, so that's when Christina would get to see Kylia. She was in tears as she hung up the phone so I went and got a wheelchair so I could take her down there and talk to the nurse face to face. When we got there Kylia was in just a diaper laying under the warmer still. Apparently they needed to monitor her ability to regulate her body temperature for one hour after her first bath. I asked the nurse about Kangaroo Care (which is basically skin on skin, chest to chest hold of a newborn baby which is proven to regulate body temperature, heart rate, and help newborn and premature babies immensely), to which she replied "We don't do that here. It's not our protocol." What a tease for Christina to be standing over her fresh newborn, but unable to hold her close. She demanded that Kylia be brought to her room the very second they were done monitoring her. 30 minutes later she was finally in her Mommy's arms safe and sound. She was still out cold and didn't actually wake to nurse again for a little less than an hour.

She had trouble getting Kylia to latch on all night, but she was determined and by morning Kylia was nursing like a pro.

While we were in the nursery vising Kylia, there were about 7 other babies there. The nursery is brightly lit with fluorescent light bulbs and was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. That environment is the exact opposite of the one these babies had just recently left. They were all swaddled, their little hands covered and alone. At one point, a nearby newborn started to scream and root at his hands, which is a sure sign of hunger. In utero, a baby has constant access to his hands which bring him comfort. A hospital's protocol is to cover them so they don't scratch themselves, but at the same time they're taking away the only familiar comfort the baby has. The nurse checked his diaper without even picking him up out of the sterile plastic bassinet, then went to her desk and looked over a piece of paper. I'm assuming it was a list of when each baby there had eaten last because she looked over at the newborn saying "Oops! Not time for you to eat yet!" and shoved a pacifier in his mouth, holding it there until he stopped crying around it and trying to push it out with his tongue. I was so upset my entire body was shaking and I couldn't swallow the lump in my throat. Where was this baby's mother? Why do these new mothers think that their babies are safe and sound in the hospital nursery where they are not cuddled, not talked to, and not fed when they're hungry? My heart was breaking into pieces and the impulsive side of me wanted to pick up each baby one at a time and hold it close, singing softly to ii and shielding its eyes from the light, but the side of me that's aware of laws and repercussions kept my hands in my pockets and bolted out the door as soon as Christina said she was ready to go back to her room.

My hospital stay was sunshine and roses compared to Christina's! Although I'm coming to realize that hers is the experience women all across the country are having on a daily basis. The worst part is that they're accepting it as what's normal for bringing a new life into the world. These nurses and doctors are robbing us of all of our instincts and insisting that they know better because they have a degree in pediatric medicine. If a baby is born with a defect that requires surgery, a doctor is the first person I would bring him or her to. But for a healthy, full term baby, the hospital is the last place I would want to be. As joyful and amazing as Christina's experience was, it also solidified my decision to never birth in a hospital again.

I realize that was a little long winded, but I cannot finish a post about a new life without new pictures! Please ignore the date on the bottom right hand corner of the pictures. Apparently no one thought to check what the camera was programmed to!