Birth. The final chapter of this story, for me, the momma of 4, doula, childbirth educator, and woman of God. The birth story of Hannah Joy, could not, and would not be the same, without first telling about her three older brothers and the way they came into the world. And since that could in itself take a book, I will try to be brief.
A full 12 years and 4 days before Hannah joined us, I had my first child. Being raised a hippie girl, I was still in a bit of rebellion against such lifestyles and choices. I went with the conventional, hospital birth, and followed all the rules. I never learned about nutrition, and blood pressure, and so many other things I know now. I just used pregnancy as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted, (I was eating for two right?), sit around as much as I could, (I was taking care of my body by relaxing right?). I developed PIH, (pregnancy induced hypertension), and although there were only very slight signs that it was leading to a dangerous pregnancy disease called toxemia, I was set to be induced at 37 weeks when my blood pressure was dangerously high. The induction started on a Monday night, and after a full three days of Cytotec and Pitocin, NOTHING was happening. I was sent home to rest, and to come back the next morning, (a Friday), to have my water broken and the pit cranked. It’s worthy to note, as long as I was lying around in the hospital bed, my blood pressure was within normal limits, and out of the danger zone. After my waters were broken, labor started. Although I had “Planned” on a natural birth, after 20 hours of back to back contractions, only getting to 4cm, I got the epidural. The Epidural seemed to go up in it’s numbing power, I was shaky, short of breath, and terrified. It was not what I was expecting, and within a few hours, Benjamin’s heart rate shot up into the 180’s, and I got a fever. Once mom get’s a fever, the call is almost always for a Cesarean, since it is impossible to know if the fever is from the epidural or a uterine infection. So the Pit was turned off, the contractions stopped, and off I went. I was thrilled. I wasn’t sad or dissapointed, just so excited to meet my baby, nothing could be better. I remember my dad singing, “beautiful, beautiful boy, as I was wheeled into the OR on a stretcher, I was smiling from ear to ear and just so excited to finally get to meet my son. Well, I didn’t get to meet him right off, his blood sugar was BARELY low, and they kept him in the NICU for over 3 hours, not allowing me to see him, (just for low blood sugar?? what??) Jason became a ferocious father tiger as he watched our son get poked and prodded every hour only to find a slightly higher then normal blood sugar level. After three hours of this, I got to see him for about 30 seconds after a very kind nurse kinda snuck him into my room, and then it wasn’t for another few hours that I was able to make my way into the NICU to attempt breastfeeding and visit with him. He had already had a bottle of formula and sugar water to try to get his sugars up. Once I was able to be with him, I was with him every second I could. We stayed four nights. The last night was his first night in our room. It was not traumatic to me at the time, I was just so in love and excited to be a Mom, he was, (and is) so perfect, so beautiful, none of the breastfeeding or birth problems could touch me. Breastfeeding was hard. It took a full 8 weeks to feel like I didn’t want to cry every time he latched. But I stuck with it, because to me, there were no other options. I would never give that up, it just wasn’t in my frame of reality if that makes sense. I still never loved it, but I did it, because it was the best thing for my boy. It is important to note, that my beautiful Benjamin, perfect at birth as far as I can tell, has had a struggle beyond words in his 12 years of life. At 12 years old, he is diagnosed with Autism, Cerebral Palsey, ir-retractable Epilepsy, and mental retardation. He’s still in a diaper for constant bowel movements. But, he is still loving, sweet, adorable and not a mean or angry bone in his body. He is our biggest teacher and love as well as our greatest heartache to see him struggle. We will probably never know why he suffers the way he does, and if it had anything to do with his birth. There were no direct signs of damage, but there is no observable reason he struggles the way he does.
In the early days of Ben’s life, at a parenting class at CPI, I learned about doulas, what they do, and how to become one. I contacted my childbirth education teacher who was also a doula, and realized it was a great fit for me. A naturally nurturing person who loved babies and a growing interest in birth. I went to the training, and met C. As soon as I met her, I knew I needed her to be with me at my next birth. I also met L, who had a Cesarean, and went on to have her next baby, free of intervention, at home. I became certified, and quickly attended my first 3 births I needed to become certified. My fourth birth, and first homebirth I attended with my new and close friend L. It was a footling breech homebirth that was born safely and without incident. There was worship music, prayer, and an invitation for God to be there in our midst, and to allow GOD to be the one to bring this baby into the world safely and naturally. The birth was more like a spiritual experience then any birth I had ever been at. Christian midwife, and christian couple, the birth was amazing, and I would not know for many years how important this birth would be. After that birth, I also knew I would need THAT midwife to support me during my next birth. I remember the post partum appointment, saying goodbye to the midwife, saying, “I’ll talk to you next time I’m pregnant”. Little did I know, I was already pregnant.
I planned a HBAC a homebirth VBAC (Vaginal birth after Cesarean). I became a part of the local online VBAC support group run by my friend L. I was also part of an awesome thriving doula group, led by my doula trainer C., who was also set to be with me for the upcoming birth of my second son, Elijah. Throughout the pregnancy, I focused all my energy on having a VBAC. My due date came, and that night, I had the first signs of labor, a contraction, and mucus. Over the next few days, I had many contractions, with each one, I thanked God for the natural process of labor since all my contraction with Benjamin had been forced by Pitocin. The pains were focused in my back, and we quickly realized the baby was posterior, and he was not budging. I had a chiropractor over to the house, and my doula Connie and my midwife Claudette spent a lot of time over at my house those 4 days. Finally labor picked up, my water broke. Laine came from Sacramento to be another support person and take photos, and I started to progress. But after being 9cm with a lip that I could not move my baby past for 6 plus hours, the call was made to go to the hospital. I got an epidural, and we waited. The epidural only really numbed half of my body, and I was stuck in bed. After many hours of no progression, but a healthy strong heartbeat. My doula and homebirth midwife that had come with me to the hospital made the call to try and turn the baby manually. They helped me get to my hands and knees, all 260 lbs of me with a very numbing epidural, it was no small task. As my midwife turned him from the inside, my doulas turned him from the outside. IT worked! I was finally 10cm. I started pushing at around 5pm. After pushing for around 4 hours, with still much back pain, I delivered my son vaginally, with the slight help of a Vacuum, all 9lbs 12oz of him. That was Elijah. It was wonderful, and I was so thankful to have had him the way I wanted, even though the journey there had been different then I planned. The support and care I received from my doulas, homebirth midwife, and hospital midwife was amazing. I however was terrified of ever going through that again, and did not get pregnant again for 3 years.
Okay, so I guess I am not going to be brief. 🙂 When I got pregnant with my third, I was filled with fear of the birth process. So scared that things would go the same way they did with Elijah. My dad and sister bought me the hypnobabies program for birth, and I studied and practiced diligently after 30 weeks. The BEST thing it did was take away my fear, and actually cause me to look forward to the birth experience. It helped me learn to relax in a way I had never done before. Again, the day after his due date, I had the first sign of labor, bloody show. 36 hours later, my contractions started to become regular at about 5am on May 4th. They were regular, but only 8-10 minuets apart all day . I relaxed through them, and they were not that bad at all. My husband cleaned the house, and I breathed, rested, and we even took a walk together in the afternoon. By 8 ocolock they were still only 10 minuets apart, and I was not looking forward to a full night of them being so far, and keeping me awake but not progressing. So my midwife and I agreed I would take a few ounces of Castor Oil to get things moving faster. I took the oil at 8:30, by 9pm the midwife was there to check on my progress, and to my absolute surprise I was already 7cm dialated!! Laine was on her way from Sacramento, and my mom was on her way from Southern Cal. Doula Connie got there about midnight. All was good to go. My mom, sister Mira and Laine got there about 11, and that’s when things go serious. My contractions did speed up, and got hard. My hypnobabies training went out the window at this point, as things were just too intense to relax through them. The last few hours of birth were hard, I lost faith, when baby started to try to turn posterior, I started to lose hope. I started becoming negative Nelly being SURE that his birth was going to be the same as E’s. Getting stuck at 9cm, and a hospital transfer. My mind was so sour, so rotten in so many ways. I opened to 9cm, I opened, to 9.5cm……. I was sure that was it. I was whining and complaining. Asking people to take me to the hospital, and saying I wanted an epidural. I needed a lot of emotional support from my amazing doulas and midwife during this time. I was a being a big baby. My water broke, and finally, finally my midwife said I could get in the labor/birth tub. I had not been allowed in there until baby was secured in a good position. I went to get in, lifting my leg over to get it over the edge, and at that moment, a contraction hit, I squatted at the side of the tub, and with that, M’s head came half way out and crowned!! He’s coming I yelled, so excited that it was actually happening. My mind said it would never happen, and then it DID!! I pushed only a few times in the squat position and his head was all the way out. After that I totally lost the pushing instinct, and felt like I didn’t know how. My midwife helped get him all the way out by hooking her finger under his shoulder and helping him come out. He slipped out, and needed a little encouragement to cry and pink up, but he did, and he was such a beautiful rich pink/purple color for days! It was amazing. He was a huge baby with a huge head, 15.25 inches. My midwife has since said that she has only delivered 3 babies out of her 1000’s of babies with bigger heads. And he came out with little fan fare and only 10 minuets of pushing. A far different story then Baby E. My mind said no way, my body said, “Uh Huh!” Such a good lesson. One that I wished I would have remembered more during Hannah’s birth, when again my mind went to Elijah’s long and hard labor.
After this baby, we were done. I knew during my pregnancy that he would be my last. 3 boys, and I was happy with that. I would have had 10 babies, but finances, and physical and emotional reserves, especially from my husband said we were done. About 4 years later, my husband had a bit of a vision, and said, “who was he to stop God’s plan for our life, and that if we were blessed with a baby in our later years, then who was he to say God’s plan was not a good one.” But with Ben’s increasing Seizures, he changed his mind, and really did not think another baby was a good idea. My heart had been changed though. I was fine being done, until he said that, and then I thought we could have one more. After years of going back and forth about whether or not we would have another, I got my IUD out. Not to have another baby, but because it was supposed to be a 5 year IUD, and it had been 5 and half years, and I was having some weird hormonal responses to the end of the IUD. I read much of the book, “taking charge of your fertility” and was committed to letting my body work as it was designed to, to allow my uterus to become lined and ready for pregnancy, and then to avoid pregnancy by careful planning, and then to let it flow. We did this successfully for 5 months. On the 6th month I thought I was a pro, and I had this natural family planning thing down, but I couldn’t stand the wondering every month if we had gotten in right or not, and wondering if I could be pregnant. I decided it was time to do something permanent, to prevent pregnancy, and focus on and love the boys I had, and probably start doing foster care, and give love and a home to those who did not have one. It was too late, that very month I found out I was pregnant. I was scared, but so excited and happy. Jason was terrified.
This pregnancy was very different, I was sick, real true morning sickness from week 6 to week 10. I was pretty miserable. I was trying hard to work out and not lose all the fitness and weight loss I had worked so hard to achieve over the previous 2 years. But all I wanted was carbs!! I gained weight fast. It was an emotional pregnancy. I was sure it was another boy, because all the signs said girl, and that just couldn’t be right. When I was 16 weeks pregnant, I had an early elective ultrasound and the tech said girl. I couldn’t believe it. The 20 week anatomy ultrasound confirmed girl, and I started to settle in to the fact that our unexpected, unplanned baby would in fact we a daughter. So wild. A girl after 3 boys…… it felt like the whole world was excited. I was not scared of labor this time. I was almost excited. I couldn’t believe I got to do it again, especially after teaching about labor and birth for the previous 2 years, I was excited to use all the things I had taught so many moms to do. I would have the same birth team as Micah and Elijah…. Claudette the midwife, and Connie and Laine for doulas. I did co care at Kaiser too, but felt very strange there, because there were a lot of people at Kaiser who did not like the fact that I had homebirths, homebirth VBAC’s at that, and taught their patients hospital childbirth classes. I love my job at Kaiser, and have had hard time with the ill feelings towards me based on my personal birth choices, and always went out of my way not to share with my students that I did it at home. In fact, I straight up lied to them.
Anyway, I continued to do bootcamp and work out through 7.5 months pregnant, I felt great, despite the fact that the weight was piling on. That part was emotionally difficult. There were a lot of stresses during my pregnancy, a lot of them stemming from Bens bad seizures, and how we could handle a newborn AND Ben. Elijah and Micah were super excited. They wanted it to be a girl so bad. We talked about it every day. We included Hannah in our prayers, and she was part of the family before she was ever born. So many times, the boys said, while I was pregnant, that having a sister was the best thing that ever happened to them, now that she is here, they still say that. It is beautiful. We chose the name Hannah Joy, in 2001, when we were very first pregnant with Benjamin. That would be his name, were he a girl. At first, I didn’t want to name her Hannah, but one day, while talking about it at work, (Mary’s pizza shack), I had a distinct vision of a woman, about 20, with long dark hair, standing on a hill, with long flowing hair. She was beautiful, she was our daughter, and her name…. was Hannah Joy Sanders. I still see her. When I worry about Hannah’s health, I see her, it’s as if God gave me this vision to keep reminding me, during my many, many moments of fear, that Hannah was fine, and she would grow up, and be with us. The Joy part of her name, comes from a girl I met right after Jason and I got engaged. On a trip from Florida to Ca, where I was helping my dads mom Jessie move from Florida to Ca, we met her on a plane. The plane ride was horrible, full of missing a flight, a man having a seizure on a the plane, and a very cranky Grandma Jessie. But Joy was this young Christian girl who had just gotten back from her YWAM missions trip in florida. She was like an angel to me. She was so sweet, and helpful. We stayed in touch for a few years, but lost touch. Wonderfully, she found me on facebook a few years ago, we have been able to stay in touch during that time. But in 2001, she was just a memory, and there was part of me who wondered if she wasn’t really and angel, who was sent to help me and encourage me in my faith during that difficult trip.
Okay, finally getting to the birth, I will start this in my next post.