Earlier this month when Mio had just turned one, we asked the very talented and lovely Tea Ho of Dreambox Photography to take some photographs of Mio and the three of us together as a family. Although we were at first on the fence about whether or not we should get professional photographs taken again (as my income is not as regular anymore), we’re so glad that we did because this is her first birthday and she won’t be this toddling, chubby-cheeked baby for much longer. And of course, one look at the gorgeous photographs that Tea captured and we knew we’d made the right decision!
Tea recommended that we shoot at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek, and it was the perfect location, with its flower meadows, cute little bridges and a gazebo, and rustic paths. We were pleasantly surprised to even find a few cherry blossom trees that were in full bloom!
This was also a momentous occasion as it was the first time that I successfully convinced Dan to wear pink. That’s right, this is first time Dan has worn pink in his lifetime of 29 years! All these years, he never obliged when I asked him to, but this time I told him to do it for Mio, to better match with her, and he gave in. The things Daddies do for their daughters! (Maybe I should use the “Do it for Mio” reasoning more often… ;))
Side story: There’s a favorite photograph I have of my mother and I in a field, when I must have been just around Mio’s age or perhaps younger. I have a beaming smile on my face, and my mother is stooped down beside me, supporting me with her arms and looking at me lovingly. I’ve always wanted to recreate this photograph, and Tea did a wonderful job of doing just that! You can see the original photo and the new one with Mio and I, below…
My mother and I, circa 1983
Thank you Tea for once again working her magic to produce these lovely photographs. We’ll treasure them in our family for years to come!
Now that the dust has settled from our first couple weeks since bringing Mio home, I wanted to share her birth story here. It’s more for my own purpose of penning the whole experience down so that I can look back on it years from now, when I have forgotten all the details. This is going to be a long post and there may be some TMI moments — you have been warned!
I’ll start this story from the morning of the day I went into labor, when I got my first inkling that the baby might be coming soon. I was one day short of being 39 weeks pregnant and I had barely slept the night before, having to take a dozen trips to the bathroom throughout the night. It’s normal to have to get up a few times during the night to use the bathroom and not be able to sleep comfortably that late in the pregnancy, but that night was particularly uncomfortable and I was literally getting up every half hour, preventing me from achieving any deep, restful sleep. Right before the time I typically wake up to get ready to go to work, I was jolted awake by a sharp, prolonged pain and tightening in my lower abdomen — what was my first true contraction. (I had experienced Braxton Hicks contractions on and off since a couple months before, but they were not nearly as painful so I knew those were false contractions.) I woke up to use the bathroom, and was shocked to find that I had passed my “bloody show.” (This is the TMI portion. For those who don’t know what a “bloody show” is, it’s a small amount of blood-tinged mucus, resulting from the baby’s head descending into the pelvic cavity and prelabor contractions thinning the cervix to cause an “uncorking” of the mucus plug that previously sealed the cervix.)
I panicked in typical Misono fashion and shook Dan awake, called my mother, and texted my boss. I remembered from all my pregnancy books and childbirth preparation class that while passing the mucus plug alone could still mean labor was a couple weeks away, the “bloody show” was usually a sign that the baby could come anytime within the next three days, as early as within 24 hours, although there are some rare cases where the baby still didn’t arrive until a week later. I was at the same time excited and scared, but after an hour had passed with no recurring contractions or anything happening, I knew there was no point in just sitting there waiting for labor that may or may not commence, so I got ready as I did any other day and went into work. My boss, alarmed by my text, had already wrapped my office chair in plastic by the time I arrived at the studio… just in case my water broke while I was sitting in it. While she reminded me that the baby could still be days away, she asked me to try to wrap up as much of my unfinished projects and training as possible within that day, although I technically had one more day at work before I was scheduled to go on maternity leave. (Thank goodness for that, since as it turned out, I never made it into work for that last day!) My physical discomfort was worse than usual at work, and it was exacerbated by sleep deprivation from not being able to catch enough Z’s the night before, but I did not feel any contractions and had begun to think that the baby was going to continue to bake for a few more days.
That night, however, around 9pm, I started feeling the same sharp pain in my abdomen that I had felt in the morning. They were initially few and far between, but by 10pm, they had begun to be consistent and regular, approximately 15 minutes apart. This is when I suspected that I was going into early labor. We got ready for bed to get as much rest as possible, and while Dan fell asleep immediately, I could not sleep — partially because of the pain of the contractions, but also because I was timing the contractions to track how long and far apart they were. (For expectant mothers with smartphones, I highly recommend downloading an app that tracks your contractions! I would have lost my mind trying to keep track with a clock and pen and paper while bearing through the pain. I used the Labor and Contraction Timer for the iPhone, and it was incredibly helpful — you just press a button for when the contraction starts and ends.)
By close to 2am, they had been consistently five minutes apart, lasting over a minute, for over an hour — the 5-1-1 rule that most hospitals use as a standard guideline to wait until before calling the hospital and heading over. I woke Dan up and had him call Kaiser Walnut Creek, but the nurse who took the call said that they typically have first-time mothers wait it out another hour before having them head over to the hospital. And so we waited for another hour, and the contractions continued, getting even closer (at this point, they were between 3 to 4 minutes apart). I finished packing my hospital bag and when 3am rolled around, we called the hospital again and they then told us we could head on over.
We stopped by a donut shop on the way so that Dan could grab some coffee, and we drove to Walnut Creek when it was still completely dark outside because it was so early in the morning. It was April 1, and all I could think was, “Great timing… this baby is going to be born on April Fool’s Day and no one is going to believe us when we call and tell them we had the baby.” We were admitted into triage at around 4am and after waiting for what seemed like forever, the midwife eventually came to check the fetal heartbeat and how dilated I was. She noted that I was only one centimeter dilated but 80-90% effaced, and told us to walk around the hospital for a couple hours to see if we could help speed things up.
My contractions were still consistently around 3 minutes apart and were getting more painful and all I wanted to do was sit down, but I stayed on my feet and walked all over the damn hospital, hoping that there would be some significant progress as long as I toughed it out and kept myself mobile. Dan was really helpful, keeping me hydrated with water and tea, and holding my arm to support me as I waddled uncomfortably from one hospital corridor to another. Around 8:30am, we returned to triage to see if there had been any progress. The nurse checked and found that I was still only a centimeter dilated, and told me that there wasn’t much they could do except to send me home and have me wait it out until I was in more active labor, which they noted could be as early as later that day, or as late as a few days later.
I was crushed. Tears spilled down my cheeks in frustration. I was in a lot of pain, and had just finished continuously walking around the hospital for two hours straight without rest, and they were sending me home. My contractions were still continuing as strong as ever, 3 minutes apart, and I felt like I was in active labor — if this didn’t qualify as labor, then how was I supposed to know when to come back without being sent home? It’s not like I could check how dilated I was myself. How could they send me home? I could not believe it.
The nurse tried to cheer me up and told us to go grab some breakfast in the area and just take it easy for the rest of the day. She took note that I had a regular appointment with my OB in Richmond scheduled for that afternoon, and she urged me to keep the appointment and still go, in case I had progressed more by that time. Dan took me to Millie’s Kitchen in Lafayette, a breakfast place that the nurse had recommended, and the food was good but I was barely able to enjoy it because I was such a wreck and still bearing through the contractions.
We drove back home, and then Dan decided to go into work in San Francisco as long as there was not much else we could do, since he had a lot to take care of at his office. I suffered through the rest of the morning and early afternoon in what felt like hell — the pain from the contractions were becoming so unbearable that I could not properly walk, and on top of how upset I was about being sent home, I was angry and resentful that Dan had abandoned me to go to work at a time like this. I tried everything to ease the pain — from taking a shower, to soaking in a bath, but it only provided slight relief. Dan called me in the afternoon to check up on me, and ultimately ended up coming back from work so that he could drive me to my OB appointment, since by that point, I was in no shape to make it there on my own.
At the Kaiser Richmond clinic, I drew stares. I was visibly in a lot of pain as I made my way to the Women’s Health department, and I kept getting stopped by staff members who asked if I was okay. When the nurse took my blood pressure and weight, she saw that I was doubling over from the contractions and told me, “You’re definitely going to have this baby today or tomorrow” and had the OB come see me immediately. I told my OB about the ordeal of being sent home from Walnut Creek, and she assured me that she was almost certain that I was more dilated since this morning just from seeing the state I was in. Sure enough, when she checked me, she said I was 3-4 cm dilated at this point, and that I could go back to the hospital immediately — she made the call to Walnut Creek so that they would know to expect me again.
By this time, it was 5pm on a Friday, and we hit rush hour traffic as we made our way to Walnut Creek for the second time that day. It took us almost an hour to get to the hospital, and Dan almost fell asleep at the wheel a couple times because he was so exhausted. We trudged up to Labor & Delivery again, and this time, they admitted us immediately into the laboring room instead of triage. They plugged me into a machine which monitored the baby’s heartbeat as well as my contractions and gave me a saline plug for when I needed an IV, but gave me the option of unplugging myself so I could walk around as I wished. Dan’s mother arrived shortly afterward, to be there for moral support. For the next six hours, I bore through the contractions with the breathing patterns I’d learned from childbirth preparation class, and paced back and forth around the laboring room to try to take my mind off of the pain of the contractions, which were getting longer, closer together, and more painful than ever. Dan helped support me and reminded me to breathe every time I found myself holding my breath and doubling over from the pain.
After all the research I’d done during pregnancy, I had gone into labor with my mind made up that I would have a natural, unmedicated birth — I told myself that I would be able to endure the pain of childbirth naturally, and that I would refuse the epidural, Pitocin, and any other drugs they offered me. But when midnight came and it became April 2, I had been in labor for over 24 hours but was still only 6 cm dilated, and hadn’t really gotten any sleep the previous two nights — and was about to go on a third sleepless night. I was utterly exhausted, and felt like I was hitting a physical limitation with how slowly my labor was progressing and how intense the pain of my contractions had become. After being offered the epidural a number of times earlier that evening, I finally broke down and accepted it at that point. It was actually not as bad as I expected it to be — I didn’t even see the needle, and the only thing that hurt was when they numbed my back before administering the actual epidural. I felt guilty that I had betrayed my resolution to have a natural birth, but at that point, I was so tired that I didn’t really care anymore. The epidural kicked in within fifteen minutes and I was completely numb in the lower half of my body, and couldn’t feel the contractions anymore but could see that they were still steadily occurring from the computer screen I was plugged into. Thanks to the relief the epidural provided me, I was able to sleep soundly for two hours — the first restful sleep I’d gotten in two days. Dan was also able to finally get some sleep, too.
I awoke around 2:30 am and was still only 6 cm. The midwife came and told me that they could either break my bag of waters or administer Pitocin to help things along, and after hearing the risks associated with each option and the midwife’s recommendation, I chose to go with the Pitocin, despite how much I dreaded the epidural-Pitocin cycle that I’d heard about in The Business of Being Born. I was unable to go back to sleep and just laid there, dazed for the next few hours, and at around 5am, they confirmed that I was 8 cm, and the midwife said that I was dilated enough that they could safely break my bag of waters without as much risk to the baby, so they went ahead and broke it. (I didn’t even feel anything then, because I was still numb from the epidural.)
At a quarter of 8am, when the night nurses and midwives were about to get off their shifts and get switched out by the morning shift crew, the midwife came to check me again and found that I was 10 cm, and that the baby’s head was right there. It was finally time for me to push.
At this time, the nurses had switched shifts, and my new nurse was Charity, a spirited young Jamaican lady who came on just in time to guide me through the pushing. All the midwives and nurses at Kaiser Walnut Creek were great — they were all personable, professional, very skilled and knowledgeable — but this nurse in particular was awesome! She was such a wonderful, positive cheerleader throughout the whole process, and I don’t know if I would have been able to keep trying if it weren’t for her. The midwife had told me beforehand that they usually give first-time mothers about three hours to push, since a lot of times it takes about that long — so I was prepared for a long three hours of exhaustive pushing.They placed a mirror at the foot of the labor bed, and for the first hour or so, I honestly did not see any progress despite Charity’s enthusiastic coaching and constant exclamations of “Beautiful! You’re doing so great. Keep going!” each time I pushed through a contraction. (Dan was cheering me on with similar words of encouragement, but he later confessed to me that at times he had his doubts about whether we were making any progress at all, but had just been cheering along with Charity as to not lower morale….)
At the end of the first hour, I was getting seriously winded, the blood had gone to my head, and I was having issues breathing. They put an oxygen mask on me to help with the breathing, and I continued to push into the second hour, and it was then that we started to see the crowning of the head, and we could see that the baby had a lot of hair! Looking at the hair on her head, we could see that she was shifting and rotating to get into the best position to come out. Ten more minutes of pushing with all the strength that I had left in me, and Mio’s head was halfway out. (I admit, I was a little freaked out by the sight.) I continued to push, and the midwife came rushing into the room just in time for the baby’s head to completely emerge — she helped pull the shoulders out, and at that point, Mio just tumbled out with ease. Charity immediately took a bulb syringe and quickly and repeatedly inserted it into her mouth to pull out any fluids that were in her mouth and eventually, I heard Mio’s first cry.
It was 9:12 am, and she was laid directly on my chest. Some parts of her face were red from having just made her exit, and her eyes were wide as she silently looked up into my eyes. She no longer cried and just laid there peacefully but alert, against my heart, which felt like it was going to burst. For that first hour, no one took her away to measure her or weigh her or do any tests, and we were undisturbed as we shared our first moments as a family together. At a certain point, Dan cut Mio’s umbilical cord and was offered to view the placenta that had just been pulled out by the midwife, but it was all background noise to me. I couldn’t stop gazing at this little pink person that had just come out of me, taking in her dark eyes, her little button nose, full lips, pudgy arms, and tiny hands which already had long fingernails growing over the edges of the fingers. She was so beautiful and sweet, and I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and joy, as well as renewed energy despite having just endured 35 hours of labor. I nursed her her for the first time and I was amazed at how naturally and heartily she took to the breast, all the while never taking her eyes off of mine. Eventually, Charity took her to be weighed and measured, and told us that she was a healthy 7 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches long.
To tell the truth, I had been a little skeptical whenever other mothers had told me that you will experience a whole new realm and depth of love when you first encounter your baby, and would worry sometimes during my pregnancy that I may not so readily fall in love with my own baby when she was born. But they were right — nothing can prepare you for when you look upon the face of your child for the first time. After hours of enduring the most intense pain with the strongest desire and determination to see this birth through, I came face to face with the deepest unconditional love I had ever experienced.
Motherhood is a role that I’m still adjusting to and struggling to fit into day by day, but it is also the most extraordinary gift that I have ever been given.
Last night, Dan and I attended a transfer class at the Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center. We’ve been going to Kaiser Richmond for our regular prenatal checkups throughout the pregnancy, but since the Richmond clinic does not have an actual labor & delivery department, we have to go to either the Oakland or Walnut Creek hospital when it comes time to deliver the baby. Although the Oakland hospital is closer to us, we chose to birth at Walnut Creek because of its successful midwifery program, private facilities, low C-section rates, and their reputation for being supportive of natural births — which is something that is important to us, as we mentioned previously. In order to birth at either hospital, you need to attend a transfer class at which you sit in on an orientation with information about the facilities and the staff, get any questions answered, fill out paperwork so that its in the hospital’s database for when you arrive, and get a tour of the hospital.
The drive to Walnut Creek is roughly half an hour away (40 – 45 minutes in traffic), and so it’s not really around the corner for us, but we were impressed with how clean and well-maintained the hospital was. When we arrived at the transfer class, there were about fifteen other couples there, with due dates ranging from late March to early June. I don’t think I’ve ever been around so many other pregnant women before, so it was kind of fun to see. (When we were initially wandering around trying to figure out where the class was being held, someone pointed us in the direction of a herd of big-bellied women and told us to “Follow the bellies.”)
At the introductory information session, one of the midwives talked to us about the labor and delivery department and the midwifery program at Kaiser Walnut Creek. The hospital has nineteen midwives, at least two of whom are always on duty, accompanied by several nurses that will monitor and care for you during triage, labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery. The midwives work and communicate closely with the doctors who are on duty, in case any of them need to be brought in for emergency operations such as vacuum or forceps extraction or a C-section in case a complication arises. One of the laboring rooms has a labor tub (although it is not used for birthing), and the midwives are very supportive of alternative pain relief measures (other than drugs and epidurals), intermittent fetal monitoring, and allowing you to move around and be in different positions during labor. Kaiser Walnut Creek boasts one of the lowest C-section rates in the state of California, at around 15% (compared to the national average of over 33%).
The midwife had the couples in the room each share their name, due date, and why they were interested in Kaiser Walnut Creek, and you could really see that several of the couples were there because of their desire to have natural/unmedicated births or VBACs, and because of the great midwifery program that Walnut Creek has. From what I gleaned at the orientation, the midwives at Walnut Creek act more like OB/GYNs in the sense that they handle multiple patients at once and check up on you intermittently (rather than being one-on-one with you the whole time) and run from room to room catching babies while the LDNs handle you during labor. Considering that Walnut Creek delivers 4,000 babies a year, and an average of ten babies a day, you can’t really expect to have a midwife be one-on-one with you during labor and that is something we’ll have to accept since we’ll be delivering at a hospital instead of a birthing center. Still, we’re grateful that we have such a progressive medical center nearby that will be supportive of our birth plan.
After the information session, there was an extensive Q&A during which the midwife was very helpful and thorough in answering the plethora of questions that everyone had for her. After turning in our paperwork, we went on a group tour of the hospital, where we got to see the laboring rooms, birthing rooms, and postpartum recovery rooms. We, along with a lot of the other couples, were surprised at how spacious and nice the birthing rooms were. They come furnished with (besides the birthing bed) chairs that fold out into beds for partners and TVs and didn’t really feel like the sterile, cold hospital rooms that we were imagining at all. It’s nice that mothers can be in rooms that are so cushy and private for the first hour or so that they’ll spend with their babies after delivery, before getting moved to the more cramped postpartum recovery rooms (which still didn’t seem so bad).
The security at the hospital is of course excellent, and the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit, for babies who are high-risk or suffer from complications) is one of the best in the Bay Area. Hopefully our baby will be born healthy and strong so she will never have to see the NICU, but it’s great that it’s there just in case!
Overall, we were very impressed with both the facilities and staff at Kaiser Walnut Creek, and the transfer class and hospital tour reaffirmed our decision that it is where we want to deliver our baby. Fortunately, I can continue my regular prenatal checkups at my home clinic in Richmond instead of going all the way to Walnut Creek, so I suppose the next time we’ll be at Walnut Creek will be when it comes time to deliver. We’re just counting down the days now — I’m nearly 35 weeks, with about 35 days to go, give or take a few!
We watched a documentary film the other night, and our minds were changed forever. The Business of Being Born had actually been recommended to me by multiple friends and acquaintances, so I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. Dan and I are so glad that we had the opportunity to watch this movie before we set foot in the hospital for labor and delivery in a few weeks. It was a true eye-opener and I feel strongly that every woman who is expecting, as well as every woman who plans on giving birth someday, should watch it.
Produced by Ricki Lake, the documentary explores the contemporary experience of childbirth in the United States and turns a critical eye to the American health care system which emphasizes drugs and costly interventions, often at the expense of the best possible outcome for mothers and their babies. The film has an obvious bias in that it documents several home birth experiences assisted by midwives and shows them in a much more positive light than hospital births in which mothers are riddled with drugs and various forms of intervention. It’s a very clearly anti-hospital perspective, but the documentary does put forth a strong argument with very solid facts and supporting evidence:
The U.S. stands alone in the developed world in its physician-driven birth system — midwives attend over 70% of the births in Europe and Japan, versus 8% in the U.S. While the U.S. spends twice as much money per birth as any other country, it has the second worst newborn death rate and one of the highest maternal mortality rates among developed nations.
The film points out that the medical industry has convinced the majority of American women that they “don’t know how to birth,” creating a culture of fear — hence why women these days are so afraid of birth and the pain associated with it that they will cling to anything that helps diminish that fear, including pain medication and all sorts of intervention. In the past few decades, there has been alarming increase in the number of women who have Caesarean sections, with the most recent statistic showing that C-sections make up a third of of all births in this country. While in some cases, C-sections are necessary due to any of a number of possible complications, the reality is that most of them are unnecessary and could have been prevented. OBs are basically surgeons, and since they are often more knowledgeable about surgery than natural birth, C-sections are an easy way for them to speed up the delivery process and get the mother and baby in and out of the hospital as fast as possible. Litigation concerns also drive doctors to perform C-sections as soon as the slightest complication surfaces. These days in the U.S., childbirth is treated as a medical emergency rather than a natural occurrence.
The above clip from the documentary in particular stuck in my mind: it shows how the use of one drug can lead to another, and yet another… creating an inevitable domino effect. Pitocin is very commonly used to increase the intensity and frequency of contractions. This also means increased pain for the laboring mother, which often leads to her getting an epidural anesthetic to help alleviate the pain. But the epidural often slows labor, leading to a perceived need for more pitocin; this cycle of pitocin and epidural (along with any of a number of other drugs) may well continue until the baby’s blood and oxygen flow is compromised, leading to an emergency C-section. The doctor is then credited with saving the mother and baby, when the domino effect of all these intervention drugs may have been what actually contributed to or caused the emergency.
Overall, I thought it was a very powerful documentary, and it was really well put together, interviewing several women and documenting a number of births. It also gives a brief background of the history of birth in America, and how the medical industry has changed the childbirth experience within the past century. You can see the full trailer below.
On a personal level, Dan and I were really forced to rethink our birth plan after watching this film. After reading all my pregnancy books and listening to the labor and delivery experience from other mothers, I had kind of accepted without question that I would get an epidural and whatever other pain relief medication when it came time to deliver my baby — it just seemed like it was what all women did. I never really thought about all of the adverse consequences that may come about from going along with all of those intervention measures that the hospital throws at you. Isn’t it funny that we as Americans spend so much time researching certain things, such as what latest camera to purchase, but don’t give nearly as much thought and consideration to how we give birth to our children?
For us, it was a real wakeup call and we have decided that we are going to try as much as possible to have a natural birth. But before I go further into the reasoning of why, I want to preface this by saying that I absolutely do not think that not having a natural birth makes a person any less of a woman or a mother than one who does. In the same vein, I know I need to be realistic and be aware that you can go into labor with your heart set on a natural birth, but end up needing medical intervention or even an emergency C-section if a truly severe complication arises. My mother went to Lamaze classes throughout her first pregnancy when I was in her belly, preparing to have a natural birth, but ended up with preeclampsia (high blood pressure during pregnancy) and had to schedule an emergency C-section before my due date even came around. Due to the nature of C-sections performed back then, VBACs (vaginal birth after C-section) were not an option for her and she had to have all three of her subsequent children by scheduled C-sections as well — and she is the best mother I could have ever wished for, and I admire and respect her.
But I can’t help but feel that there is something inherently wrong with the picture when I see expectant mothers talking about how they will absolutely be getting that epidural when it comes time for them to go to the hospital. How can you be so sure that it will be necessary when you aren’t even in labor yet? Are you just planning on getting it because the hospital advises that you should? I feel like when you go into labor requesting all these drugs and medical intervention at the outset, you’re already setting yourself up to fight an uphill battle in terms of having a regular vaginal birth. You’re not even supposed to get an epidural until you are at least 5cm dilated, but not all hospitals abide by this rule and I’ve heard stories of women who had the epidural administered prematurely and they ultimately ended up in the operation room for an emergency C-section. (According to a statistic I read, getting an epidural any time before you are 5cm dilated triples your odds of needing a C-section.) A lot of people forget that C-sections are major surgery, and while hospitals have a lot of experience with them (apparently moreso than with natural births these days), it still poses a danger to both mother and baby and should be avoided in favor of a regular vaginal birth, unless absolutely necessary. Having a C-section also interrupts the release of oxytocin, a hormone that is released in natural childbirth which helps trigger an immediate bond with your baby and also stimulates breastfeeding. As I mentioned above, my mother had a C-section for all four of her children, so in the back of my head, I’ve always been aware that it could be a possibility for when I have a baby — but I’d like to avoid it if at all possible.
Another point that the documentary only briefly mentioned — that Dan and I ended up discussing further in detail afterwards — is that the rise in the use of these intervention drugs coincides with the rise in cases of ADHD and autism in children in the past few decades. There’s no real evidence that shows a direct link between the two yet, so it could be purely coincidental and more due to the fact that more and more women are giving birth when they are older… but we were discussing how we honestly wouldn’t be surprised if in the future, they find that there’s a direct correlation between such disorders and medicated births.
I know that this is starting to sound very anti-medical establishment and I’m making hospitals look like the “bad guys” for pushing interventions on women, but this is not the case. I have a lot of respect for the doctors and nurses that work in the labor & delivery units in hospitals (I know a few myself), and I think it’s amazing how every day they assist in bringing new lives into the world. I’m grateful that we live in a time when we’re equipped with more knowledge and medical advancements than ever to safely deliver babies, and thank goodness for the doctors who know how to administer an intervention when there are emergency situations that necessitate one. While The Business of Being Born seems to push home births, I personally don’t think I could ever do a home birth — I’m too paranoid that something will go wrong, and a home birth is just in general a little too New Age for me. I will likely always rely on a hospital for labor and delivery (although I may consider a birthing center in the future), and it would be silly of me to bash them when I am going to be completely in their care.
I do think it’s important, however, to find a hospital that is respectful and supportive of your birthing plan. Thankfully, the hospital we plan to deliver at is Kaiser Walnut Creek, which has a very progressive midwifery program; Kaiser hospitals in the Bay Area are known in general to set the standard for other Kaiser branches around the country, so we are pretty confident that we are in good hands. The hospital will assign us a midwife when we arrive to deliver, and an OB will only be brought in if there’s a complication or we request it. Kaiser Walnut Creek has a low C-section rate, and are known to be pro-natural birth and I’ve heard that they let you labor and push at your own pace, without trying to rush you with drugs and intervention. It’s such a relief to know that they will respect our hopes to have as natural a birth as possible, so that we won’t have to expend our energy putting up a fight in the eleventh hour.
We were able to conceive this baby without intervention, and she has been growing healthy and strong the past eight months in the womb without intervention, so it only makes sense that the best way for her to come into this world would be without unnatural intervention. Again, I know that there are so many unpredictable and unknown factors that may come into play in the delivery of our child, and although I may dream of a natural birth, I’m not necessarily going to get what I want when the time comes. I know I need to prepare myself for such circumstances, and if it truly comes down to a life-threatening situation for the baby, I will of course gratefully accept medical intervention. But with nearly 33% of women delivering their babies by C-section today (compared to the less than 5% back in 1965), I can’t help but question how many of those were truly unavoidable and how much of the intervention that is pushed onto mothers is really necessary.  I know that labor and delivery will be the most difficult, painful, and challenging experience I’ve encountered yet, but I just want to make sure that we’ve done as much as possible to have our ducks in a row to make it as smooth, healthy, and safe a delivery for both myself and for our daughter.
At the introductory information session, one of the midwives talked to us about the labor and delivery department and the midwifery program at Kaiser Walnut Creek. The hospital has nineteen midwives, at least two of whom are always on duty, accompanied by several nurses that will monitor and care for you during triage, labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery. The midwives work and communicate closely with the doctors who are on duty, in case any of them need to be brought in for emergency operations such as vacuum or forceps extraction or a C-section in case a complication arises. One of the laboring rooms has a labor tub (although it is not used for birthing), and the midwives are very supportive of alternative pain relief measures (other than drugs and epidurals), intermittent fetal monitoring, and allowing you to move around and be in different positions during labor. Kaiser Walnut Creek boasts one of the lowest C-section rates in the state of California, at around 15% (compared to the national average of over 33%).
