Birth story

A little bit of history before my stream of conscious birth story...

There is only one birth center in Tucson. This is because of insurance reasons. Doctors can't stand the fact that the birth center is there and offering a way to have children without the poking and prodding that doctors do. The birth center is only allowed to have insurance if a group of doctors back them up. There is only one doctor group in Tucson that will support the birth center... they know that they are the only game in town for the birth center so they take some liberties and push the screws down on anything they can because they know they can't go anywhere else and still be able to exist.

60% of women "risk out" of the birth center. This is for any number of reasons. C-section previous births, overweight, underweight, too tall, too short, too cute... etc. For every person that comes in they want to risk them out to put them at the hospital next door where they can use all their fancy technology and gadgets and things. I understand why... they see it as a procedure. Mothers seem to see it as a natural event. Doctors want to have all of the variables defined. Midwives and mothers tend to only care if the baby is here yet or not.

They tried to risk us out. First it was a high fundus measurement. Which turned into a bi-weekly NST (Non stress test, but let me tell you it's anything but for the parents). Every time we did the NST however it came back normal... one time it wasn't going to and we woke the baby up to get the right score... let me tell you that was bull-$&*#. Next they tried to risk us out by lowering the number of weeks that you are "allowed" to be pregnant to have a birth at the birth center.

There's this wheel that they use to determine how many weeks you are pregnant. They start with the last day of your last period and assume you got pregnant then and also base your cycle on a 28 day cycle. Some women have shorter and other have longer... they range from 25-30 so I'm told. Most women don't ovulate during their period, some do it weeks or days after their period... so needless to say the wheel is flawed and can mis-judge the actual age of the child by 2 weeks on either side. This means that women can be pregnant up to 42 weeks on the wheel's chart and still be term. At some point if the birth has gone on too long the placenta can actually get too old and stops functioning properly. The doctors backing up the birth center have been taking the number of weeks based on the wheel down slowly over the years. Started at 42 weeks and then down to 41.5, 41.2 and now is set at 41 even which means that if you go over 41 weeks you "risk out". Most first time mothers will got a little "long" in the birth timeline because of a ton of factors. This was our first and Monday was 41 weeks... so we had to start labor before the day was over. The midwives had to up the ante by scheduling an induction at the hospital on Monday at 5:00PM

So with that said, here's ALT's birth story from my point of view.

Saturday morning it was go in and have Jill sweep the membranes to get labor started
Contractions came and went and finally just went... went back in Sunday morning and had the membranes swept again, this time by sky, who has longer fingers. Got dilated to 3 centimeters. Started the black cohosh regimen, and it was suggested we go home and try the castor oil. We ate breakfast and then tried the castor oil and took an hour nap... suddenly up and having faucet butt.. contractions! yeah... pooping.... booooo.
Went to go get the water broken again... this time she was checked and moved to 5 centimeters. Decided against breaking the water. Went home and got Chinese food. Contractions all night long! Nothing as of 6 AM though...

Monday - Daddy's B-day
Back in to break the water... this time CeCe was there and she broke the water at about 11:30AM. Nothing seemed to happen for awhile. My mom left to get lunch and some cards to play. We ate lunch and the threat of castor oil came again... by this time we were doing black cohosh every 30 min... we tried some nipple stimulation and smooching... contractions started, very light. My mom came back in the room and started to open the deck of cards. Another contraction... this one hurt a bit more it would seem... need to go to the bathroom it feels like. We both go into the bathroom and another contraction, they are coming within minutes of each other. Got into the shower/tub to clean off and hot water on the back begins the real contractions. Turn it down a bit and keep it flowing. Contraction, after contraction. Water on the back and belly over and over again as rhythmic as a white man can... over and over, contraction after contraction... each one building, no real relief in sight... tunnel vision for the wife on the pain... nurse and midwife distract... I take a breather... come back rhythmic water again and again... contractions getting worse... hour and half passes or so and now we need to check things out. Out of the shower/tub and on to the bed... contractions still coming... hand and knees position seems to be best. Midwife comes and checks finally. This baby is ready to come.. pushing... relief from contractions now... push after push... do you see the head? Yes. Really? No. Pushing Pushing do you see the head? No. Crap! Push, the head shows up. Pushing, more pushing. Flip and pull. Althea breathes and cries... joy. Everyone rushes in, paparazzi everywhere. Daddy and baby bond while placenta takes the same journey as baby. Everyone to the tub! Relax... breathe... back to the bed... breast feed... sigh... best birthday present for me ever!

4:51 she was born. That's 9 minutes before we had that induction appointment... guess we didn't screw up the curve for the birth center. Damned doctors didn't get to "risk us out" like they wanted to.