This is the continuation of my very wordy birth story. 🙂 It could have easily ended with part one, but this next part, however small the details might seem to others, made me emotional enough that it will forever be a part of the story in my mind.
The Continuation
Everything was okay up until this point. They held the baby up and I see they are getting ready to cut his cord. “No, what are you doing? I don’t want his cord clamped yet, I want to wait.” The doctor’s response, “It’s already clamped. It’s fine, I waited long enough.” Seeing that it was clamped immediately after birth, I didn’t think it was fine – it wasn’t what I wanted and thought best for my child. (See this Ted Talk for some information as to why I think delayed cord clamping is important.)
(This is not where I planned on having my child. I knew what choices we were planning on making and what I wanted for our hospital experience and selected a hospital where I’d be supported in those decisions. The decisions we each make for our labors and deliveries will be different – and that’s okay.)
All that to say, I started getting a little emotional at this point. There were tears. “Then I want Shaun to cut it.” The hospital staff was probably wondering what the matter was with the lady who should be happy her healthy child was just born but hurriedly got Shaun to cut the cord. They took our baby over to the little newborn bed the Labor and Delivery nurse brought down with her to triage and once again I started to get nervous. “What are you going to do to him?” She told me the list of standard procedures she was going to do. “No, no I don’t want him to have any of those”. She looks at me and says, “Well, you have to have this one because it is required by Oklahoma.” I’m very glad I had the birthing experience I wanted with my daughter so I knew that wasn’t true. “No, I don’t have to. I know I don’t, because I didn’t get it done with my daughter either.” The nurse just told me fine, but that the pediatrician would probably talk to me and that I’d have to sign some paperwork. The ER doctor stood next to the side of the triage bed and said,
“You’re crazy. You know, it’s parents like you I don’t like. You make decisions like these and I’m the one that has to deal with the consequences. They get sick and they come to the ER and I’m the one that has to treat them.”
It slightly (okay, very) irked me that someone would judge me as a parent and the decisions I make without knowing me – the research, time, thought that were put into these things. I care about my children. I have an almost 2 1/2 year old that is still rear-facing. Why? Because I researched and think it’s the safest.
I look at Shaun and whisper “I just want to go home.”
I still haven’t held my son yet, neither has Shaun. They were concerned because his body temperature was slightly low, 97 degrees, and wanted to get it up first. I didn’t fight for something different because I didn’t really know for sure, this didn’t come up in any of my research. Later, at my 6 week appointment with my CNM at the larger hospital I planned to deliver at, I discussed with her and she agreed that skin-to-skin would have warmed him up right away. At their hospital they don’t worry unless the temperature is under 97. Next time I’ll be sure to push for getting to hold the baby immediately if at all possible.
We aren’t quite done yet. The ER Doctor says he needs to deliver the placenta. It’s been minutes since our son has been born. This is something else I don’t want. I want the placenta to detach on its own unless there is a medical reason for the doctor to pull it out. I let him know that I wasn’t okay with that plan and that I want to wait (once again I threw in there I did it that way with my daughter). By now, this doctor was pretty frustrated with me. (The feeling was mutual though.) He told me,
“Lady, you are holding up the entire Emergency Room. I can’t sit here and wait for you.”
I couldn’t leave the ER until the placenta delivered because it has to be done by a doctor and the on call OB said he didn’t want to come just to do the placenta. The nurses came to the brilliant solution of moving me triage to a normal ER room.
While in the ER room our daughter got to come in and be there as we held her less than an hour old brother for the first time and she gave him a sweet kiss. Things were feeling a little better now.
Except for I later wished that I would have refused to have that IV put in. Something else I didn’t read about in my research – Pitocin given routinely after birth.
Begin Side Rant:I do not like routine procedures. Not every one wants the routine. I believe a patient should be consulted before drugs, immunizations, antibiotics, etc are administered. A patient deserves to be informed. Some might not care and others will. I pay large sums of money for this care and I feel I deserve to know what’s going on and what’s being put in my and my child’s body. Give a patient the opportunity to decline or accept. End Side Rant. 🙂
The placenta detached and was delivered and we went up to a regular room. The ER nurse told me I made her month and that she now wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse. Ours was the first baby she helped catch.
The remainder of the stay went smoothly – no more pressure to get procedures done, the nurses and doctors were all fine, and we ate your stereotypical yucky hospital food.
After a long day and half we were able to go home on Wednesday – we made it in time to eat leftover mac and cheese for lunch. 🙂 Home never felt better and we even walked to the park that afternoon.
As compared to child number one this birth was way easier, way less painful, faster (and number one was fast too), and recovery a breeze (not tearing makes a world of difference there) but the experience and emotional end of it was not near as pleasant.
Did your hospital or birthing team support you in giving you the birth you wanted?
Hey Deanna. What a story! I’m sorry that your birthing team gave you such trouble 🙁 We’re planning and praying for a natural birth and, with the research I’ve been doing, I truly am AMAZED that hospitals are so eager to interfere with normal body routines with their medical ones. Ugh!
In any case I’m so glad you were able to stick to your guns even though your birth didn’t quite go as planned. (Do they ever?) I am super impressed at your fast delivery, that’s amazing!
May God bless you and your new addition!
I know – it’s crazy. Seems like it makes much more sense to just let the body do it’s thing and interfere only if truly necessary. Ha ha, so true. Things rarely go as planned. I was quite glad for the fast and uncomplicated delivery. God is good. Looking forward to hearing your story this winter. 🙂
Deanna, wow! I feel so bad for you. Not just because of the rude attitudes thrown your way but the lack of support also. My husband and I are bold people. If this had been us, we would probably be banned from using that hospital forever lol Sounds like you handled it well! Our experience was different…pretty smooth except for a little scare when the meds from the epidural made my son’s heart rate drop. My team was amazing. The hospital and staff are big on skin-to-skin, breastfeeding, etc. They actually encourage it and I was able to even have a lactation specialist help me. It truly makes a world of a difference when everyone is on the same page! Stopping by from the Mommy Brain Mixer, glad I found you 🙂 Blessings, Jacy
http://www.jacyleepulford.com
Thank you for your kind words! It wasn’t the experience I wanted – who wants to argue with people while delivering or just after. Glad you had a supportive team. 🙂 It is nice when the hospital encourage those types of things. That’s more how the hospital I was planning on having our baby at was like. Oh well. On the plus side it was nice being 2 minutes from home and our daughter.
Wow! I’m so pleased that your second experience had at least some positive attributes to it, mainly a healthy baby. But my goodness, talk about lacking bedside manner. That’s an aspect that I somewhat dread as I rapidly approach my first birth this November… coming up against medical interventions/advice that I don’t want but don’t necessarily know enough about to confidently insist otherwise.
My team so far has been pretty good, although I have undergone some minor interventions just during the pregnancy. I do hate the ‘look’ I’m prone to get, each time I question or politely contradict (purely in the interest of learning and being open minded) their initial advice…
Do you have any suggestions for good places to delve into more in-depth research about birth interventions, routine procedures postnatally etc.?
http://www.theblossomingbump.com
Exactly – so thankful for a healthy child and a quick delivery but the entire experience was not fun. Kind-of stinks that my memories of Spencer’s birth are not super happy ones. The hospital I wanted to deliver at using CNM is much more supportive and doesn’t ridicule you for your choices – even the OBs and nurses. At least my first was born there so like you say, I knew that I could insist otherwise. 🙂
Glad that you are pretty happy with your team, and you are getting to know them and will help you know how forceful to be. I don’t like those looks either, ha ha, which is a lot of the reason I didn’t plan on using my local hospital to begin with. But when you are in the middle of delivering your child or right after he’s born you don’t really care as much what other people are thinking of you.
Keeper of the Home has a Two Part series on Decisions of Newborn Parents that might be a good starting point with links you can click to dig deeper. This Post from Mommypotamus talks about some hospital procedures.
I know I just ended up doing lots of Google searches and link clicking. After this birth I tried researching about the low birth temp thing and couldn’t find anything, so it made me feel better (or maybe worse. . .) when I talked to my midwife at my 6 weeks check-up. Oh well at least I know for next time that 97 degrees I can still fight to hold my child.
You’re right, I do appreciate where you are coming from in part two. Hospital procedures drive me nuts! My last baby was born at home but had trouble breathing, so we transferred to the hospital (she wasn’t in any danger, just not as pink as we wanted). Hospital staff actually reported me to CPS for refusing the antibiotic ointment and vaccines. Of course, CPS never did anything about that; but still. Every patient is entitled to informed consent and informed refusal. Great job advocating for yourself and your baby!!
Good grief, that’s crazy! So glad I don’t have to deal with our hospital very often. I’m thankful that in our fairly small town we found a pediatrician who respects our decisions and doesn’t give us grief for skipping/delaying vaccines or whatever. If we have a 3rd we are considering a home birth, but one of the things that still makes me nervous is that if something happened to go wrong we’d be back at the same stinky hospital. . . But having a supportive birth team, being in my own home, not having to be away from the older kids, decent food etc all sound amazing. It would be nice to be happy and peaceful after a birth rather then stressed and upset. 🙂
Such good links! I’m excited to really investigate the options we have after birth and chat to our midwife about where we feel we stand on some of the routine procedures – thanks so much for taking the time to share! 🙂
Carly @ http://www.theblossomingbump.com
You’re welcome! Hope your researching goes well!
oh your story is touching me this week. I am pregnant and ready to deliver. I have never delivered in this hospital. This week I had a blood pressure scare that landed me in labor and delivery. They first put you in triage which is 2 women to a room where my husband and I had to hear a lady with the stomach bug get checked internally. The sheet had a stain, they did not even have pillows and the soap dispenser was falling off the wall. I was beyond distraught. I have delivered in other military hospitals but this one is scaring me. I have heard that labor and deliver rooms are better but I do not know how I will make it past the triage part.
Oh my goodness! I hope that things are clean and profession when you go in to deliver. I couldn’t imagine. You made me thankful that my triage was clean and well kept and it was only for one patient. 🙂 The bed in my triage was more of a glorified stretcher and bed and I don’t even think there was sheets on it. . . Hopefully they clean well between checking people in. I hope you are the only one there when you go in. Hugs.
Oh, yikes! I’ve been very lucky to have supportive OBs for each of my pregnancies, but I’ve had bad ER experiences before at other stages of pregnancy/miscarriage, so your experience doesn’t exactly surprise me. So sorry you had to deal with all of that in the moments after giving birth!
Hooray for supportive OBs! It makes a world of difference. Aww, I’m sorry you’ve had bad ER experiences as well. They are no fun. The local OBs might have been slightly better but I think I would have still been given some flack. Hopefully if baby 3 happens God will make it clear what we should do as far as a birthing team.