Isabelle's birth story--the long version--Part 4

Now that I was back in the United States, the first thing I needed to do would be to find a provider who would support my desire to have a VBAC. That was easier said than done, sad to say. In my town, there are two hospitals. I had had my older daughter at one of the hospitals and decided that I would look into the other hospital to have this baby. The OB I had when I had my older daughter had left the area so I figured maybe a new hospital would be just what I needed. I was also trying to look into a midwife but wasn't having the best of luck there. A lot of this I was trying to do while I was in Korea and I didn't have my birth records with me which made it more difficult for anyone to really know what had gone on when I had my older daughter.

Now that I was in the US, I could really get going. I didn't have much going on because I was staying in a hotel and after I saw everyone the first night I arrived (after a very long, grueling, international flight from Korea to Japan, Japan to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to my home town) I was pretty much left to myself so I called up OB/GYN at the first hospital and scheduled an appointment, hoping to maybe get set up with a midwife there. When I get to my first appointment, the nurse was kind of surprised to hear I was already over 30 weeks. I guess I didn't look that far along because of the extra weight but I was and was very much showing in front but the weight kind of hid it too. They did the glucose testing then and there and I failed it (my fault, I think I over did the Oreos the night before) so they wanted to set up the three hour test at some point during the next week. I was also set up with an OB. I had to see her before I could even see a midwife. In the meantime, I tried to stay with my older sister to save some money on the hotel because it was costing me $200/week. I was there a week already and that had ended. I stayed at my sister's for three days before I realized that it was better for me to stay in the hotel where I was closer to everything, especially since I was trying to watch what I was eating so that I wouldn't fail the three hour test when I finally had it done.

So, Sunday the 16th of May I was back at the hotel and I had appointments scheduled for the next week which included the evil nasty 3 hour glucose testing and an appointment with an OB. The three hour test, as I figured, was evil. I hate needles, hate having my blood drawn, tend to freak out about it. When I had it done during my pregnancy with my older daughter, I almost passed out. I went white, had a bunch of nurses surrounding me with washcloths, had to lie down in another room for about 20 minutes to get my blood pressure back up, in general did not do well. And I would have to endure three or four blood draws. The sugar stuff made me sleepy. I was falling asleep in the waiting room waiting for the blood draw. During the one drawing, the nurse got particularly rough with my inner elbow, rubbing it raw. It just didn't give me warm fuzzy feelings, that's for sure. I wasn't sure about going to this hospital. I had never heard the greatest things about it in as far as its OB/GYN department but wanted to have a clean slate so to emotionally when trying for my VBAC. Should have just gone with the devil I knew, you know?

My appointment with the OB was the next day, I think. I had passed the test (one worry off my mind) but apparently, that didn't matter. My BMI was too high, according to this OB (a woman), and therefore, I would need to have a repeat cesarean scheduled. Before this conclusion, she basically berated me for several minutes as to why I would even want a VBAC, pulling out the dead baby card by saying that because I was SO FAT it would take them up to FIVE MINUTES LONGER to get to my baby if something happened that more than likely my baby would die and I didn't want my baby to DIE, DID I? I kind of mentioned something along the lines of well no, but a cesarean could kill ME but I don't think she heard me. She just went on and on and about risks and how my chance of success were SO LOW because of my HIGH BMI that it was just TOO RISKY for me to even TRY to have a VBAC. So, in other words, I wasn't even going to get a trial of labor. When she passed me off to the nurse, she told the nurse to schedule the cesarean. I had had my birth plan already written up to show her and the nurse wouldn't even look at it. I cried. I had gone through SO MUCH getting to this point and I felt emotionally crushed and I just cried. I don't think I even scheduled it, just scheduled a bunch of appointments and maybe went through a few things for the birth plan (in as far as a cesarean) and then I left, kind of out of it. When I got back to the hotel, I started thinking and I started getting MAD. HOW DARE SHE?! No, I was NOT going to put up with that kind of attitude. I did NOT travel 6000 miles to have this WOMAN treat me that way! That was NOT why I came back to the US!

I called a friend of mine, Tami, and talked to her and it wasn't long after that that she presented an idea that I feel was the absolute turning point of the whole thing. She offered me a place to stay for the summer (I was actually looking into doing a sublease deal for the summer because I had no other options for housing) and she offered to help me out with the midwife she had had when she had her youngest daughter (who was born right around the time I conceived my older daughter). We had actually met on ICAN back when I had joined after Natalie was born and had kept in touch off and on throughout the last four years. I was really surprised that she offered to take me in considering we didn't know each other THAT well but she truly is one of those people who helps those who are in need whenever and however she can. So on Sunday, May 23rd, she picked me up from the hotel and we went down to Iowa for my first appointment with the midwife. Brenda was awesome. We talked a bit and made plans to see each other again. I made plans to get my medical records from Natalie's birth. In the meantime, as we were trying to figure out how to get it all to work, I made an appointment with OB/GYN at the other hospital since we weren't sure if it could all be pulled off and I was getting into my 33rd week of pregnancy. So I went in in early June (due date was July 17) to get something set up.

The OB I was put with was okay. It was a male which I wasn't sure about in the first place (feel more comfortable with females in general). But, on the whole, he was a little more positive and supportive about my chance for a VBAC than the last OB was. While his recommendation would be for a repeat cesarean, he felt that if he did not at least support my attempt to have a VBAC, I would just leave and go to a midwife and he felt that was even more dangerous (crickets kind of sounded after he said that because that was pretty much exactly what I was doing!). I would have to sign a bunch of papers that would say I'm doing this AMA and we would go over everything we needed to go over (like my birth plan which, I do have to say, he did go over very thoroughly with me and explained to me what could be done and what could not be done due to hospital policies so in that regard, he was pretty good). He had me do an ultrasound, baby was fine and within normal size (at least not showing to be excessively large especially since my older daughter was over 9 lbs at birth) and he seemed less concerned when he had taken a look at my scar (which is almost invisible and is at the bikini line). Baby was showing to be head down so it was just a matter of doing the last several appointments.

In the meantime, I decided to hire the midwife on as montrice. Due to the due date and the timing of things in July, it was possible that since I would need two midwives that we would have to do a montrice situation to begin with if I went into labor before my due date. If it was after my due date, the plan was to do the labor and delivery at a hotel down in Iowa. I wasn't very sure about this. First of all, I wasn't sure about the idea of having two different plans depending on when I went into labor. I also really did not feel comfortable with the idea of going down to Iowa and having the baby at a hotel. It didn't quite meet my idea of a homebirth and I also kind of felt that it would sort of take away some of the benefits of having a homebirth/midwife birth. So, after some thinking, I decided and asked if it would be possible to have the midwife on as just a montrice. And she came back to me saying that that's what we can do and so I think finally, around 35 weeks, everything was in place and I just had to wait. The plan was when I went into labor, to labor at home as long as possible, AT LEAST past where I was when I had the cesarean with Natalie (so past 4 cms, that was important to me), then go to the hospital where my friend Tami would serve as my doula.

My last appointment with the OB was July 5th. When he used the dopplar, it malfunctioned, making some REALLY loud noises. When he used one that worked, he noted that the baby's heart rate was kind of high so had me go and do a NST. Well, during that, I realized that my cell phone was missing so ended up a little panicked which probably didn't help the test and since the heart rate was still a little high, I got sent up to L&D. I KNEW the baby was fine, just likely freaked out by the loud dopplar and my own panicking but got sent up there anyway for several hours only to find out the baby was just fine. Obviously, they weren't overly concerned because my next appointment wasn't set up until July 15--ten days later and two days before my due date. When that day came I decided to cancel the appointment. I realize that it was a gamble and a lot of people probably would judge me for making that kind of decision but the baby had been moving around fine and when I had asked the OB, he told me that he would be doing a cervical check starting at week 39. I didn't want it. I didn't want to be discouraged and I didn't want him to become concerned about something and decide I needed to go up to L&D. If baby didn't come by Tuesday morning, I would go in then. If baby stopped moving, I would go in. If anything didn't feel right, I would go in. In the meantime, I would do a bunch of walking and moving around in hopes of getting things moving. I felt good about that decision and if I was worried, I had a midwife who was a phone call away and a friend/doula who likely knew when to be concerned as well. Now, we just had to wait until Isabelle was ready to come out.