Giving Birth Salone Style.....Part 1

The newest addition to our family was one month old on the 8^th! That’s crazy to me! I thought I’d commemorate the occasion by sharing the story of her birth with the world.  Or at least the 2 or 3 other weirdos who are fascinated by other people’s birthing stories like I am. J I say that I’m writing this in honor of little Lettie’s birth when really….this is the first time I feel like I’m coming out of the fog I’ve been in for the last month enough to attempt to put a few coherent thoughts together. But I make no guarantees.  Turns out the things they say about 3 kids under 3 years are true….all of them. 

The births of my children have all been so different.  Ben, born 7 weeks early, included an absent husband who was still in Sierra Leone, an ambulance ride, and NICU stay.  Not bad as far as drama for your first baby.  Haddie.  Haddie was my perfect birth.  Her birth included a husband by my side, a perfectly working epidural, a proud big sister who got to be there to see it and 5 hours of watching Survivor with Peter and our nurse until it was time for 2 pushes and she was out.  Zero pain, lots of laughing.  A perfect way to end my birthing of the children.  Or so I thought.  Surprise!!!

Full disclosure.  When I found out I was pregnant with our little bonus blessing…..I.  Freaked.  Out.  We had JUST done this!  We had JUST had a baby! We had JUST returned to Sierra Leone after being in the States for 5 months having a baby.  What were we going to do???

This baby was in no way not wanted.  Peter and I had always talked about having 4.  It was more the way (we thought we’d adopt our 4^th one) and the PROXIMITY of the last two that threw us for a loop. J 

Our decision to stay here was not an easy one.  Countless nights were spent in deep conversations, often with tears, as we went over the pros and cons again and again.  Does the “wisest” decision equal the “safest” decision? If that was true, we probably wouldn’t be here in the first place. But how would I forgive myself if something happened to the baby? What if something happened to me? Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.  How could I risk leaving Peter alone with three or four children?  The thought of my kids not having a mother was unbearable to me. Around and around and around we went.  Lots and lots of praying. Lots and lots of talking.  But although we went back and forth so many times, ultimately, Peter and I really felt a peace about staying here.  Not that there wasn’t still fear.  And I didn’t have a peace that “everything would be ok”  I’ve spent years delivering babies here. I’ve seen the worst things that could happen.  Dead babies.  Dead mothers.  And I know that trusting Jesus does not mean that I trust that things will turn out the way I want them to.  Ultimately what I determined for me was that to “trust Jesus” meant that I trusted that He would be there. With me. With Peter. With my kids.  He would walk close beside us….through whatever valley we went through.  Right there.

Peter has been traveling back and forth to the US on a tourist visa.  His visa expired so it was time to apply for a new one.  Because we'd always been paranoid about following the rules exactly, and he had shown multiple times that he would return when he was supposed to, I figured it was going to be a slam dunk.  I was wrong.  His visa renewal was denied.

We were told that because Peter and I were married now (he'd still been single when he applied last time) his ties to the US were too strong and was enough to make it “extremely difficult” for him to ever qualify for another tourist visa.  We were told to apply for a permanent visa for him.  We had asked about a permanent visa for him when we were home last but were told that because we were still living in Sierra Leone he should just continue to travel on the tourist visa.  So.......who knows.  

The day his visa was denied was.....a dark day.  Although we'd been leaning towards delivering here, I still had the US in my back pocket.  I could still change my mind and we could all get on a plane and go back to the States.  Until we couldn't anymore.  It had also been our Plan A for if anything happened AFTER the delivery and we needed to seek medical treatment in the US.  All of that was gone in the course of a few minute conversation.

My due date was March 24.  However, my little bundle of joy had been in a transverse/breech position throughout my pregnancy. At 36 weeks she was still transverse so we scheduled a potential c-section for March 14. There was an end in sight! The only thing that we kept wondering about were the elections. They were scheduled for March 7. And during the day of the elections, no vehicles were allowed on the road. This was my biggest fear. Not only was I not supposed to to be on the road (I figured my giant belly and cries of pain would be enough to give us a "pass"), but I was worried about doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists……not being able to get there.  Those were all people I really wanted to be at the hospital if I went into labor!

Wouldn’t you know it, the evening of March 7 I started having some weird pain.  It started at about 7 o’clock that night.  But it didn’t feel like labor pain.  It was a weird abdominal pain that I’d never had before. It was painful to touch my abdomen, every step I took was painful and by the time I went to bed I couldn’t even roll over without being in quite a bit of pain.  At about 11 I started having contractions, coming 2-3 minutes apart. It could be something, but it could be nothing, as I have contractions quite a bit during my pregnancies.  The hospital is about an hour and a half away so by 1:30 I decided that the pain with the contractions and the fear that she’d come faster than Ben (who came in 5 hours) made me head into the hospital.  Big shout out to Nicole and Michael who came in the middle of the night to watch our kiddos.

The ride into town was….quite the adventure.  It was the middle of the night but it was still a little eery as there were zero other cars on the road.  The main highway is currently under construction so it’s always a guess as to where the correct road is.  They hadn't grated the road yet so it was a bumpy mess and every bump was painful as my abdomen was so tender. As we were driving, someone flagged us down and Peter stopped.  He was a guy who had been helping with the election and was looking for a ride home.  Peter told him that I was in labor and couldn’t help the guy.  The guy started begging but I (probably not very nicely) said, “Sorry, we can’t. Go, go, go Peter!”.  Ten minutes later, someone else flagged us down. Same story, looking for a ride. 

After Peter stopped for the third time I VERY politely said, “Honey, maybe could we not stop for every person on the side of the road and have the same conversation with them about not being able to give them a ride?  Do you think we could do that?  I’m in quite a bit of pain here….”  At least that’s how I remember the conversation.  He might give  you a different rendition involving elevated volumes and some sort of growl.  He told me that he had to stop because he wasn’t sure who was flagging him down. Tensions were really high because of the election and if we blew through a check point that they’d set up for the elections and we weren’t aware of, it could get really bad, really quickly.  His points were validated thirty minutes later as we entered town.  A policeman pointed a rifle at us as we pulled up to a checkpoint.  As he staggered to the car, barely able to keep himself up and began talking, it was quickly apparent that he’d been partaking of the celebratory festivities of the night and I silently thanked God for my very cautious husband.

We got to the hospital at about 3am.  As with most hospitals at night, it was pretty empty.  I went to the registration area, gave them my card and went down to the maternity ward. 

This baby had been transverse (sideways) throughout my pregnancy.  It seemed that no amount of laying upside down on the couch or swaying back and forth on my hands and knees would convince this little one to turn.  One of the exercises I was doing had me sitting on my knees on the edge of the couch with my elbows down on the ground in front of me and my rear up in the air.  I’m not sure if you can see the mental picture, but let’s just say that it provided for several embarrassing moments as we have a pretty steady stream of people coming to our house and the door is always open!

My last baby had been breech as well but she turned by 35 weeks.  This one persisted in either being transverse (sideways) or breech (upside down).  People will deliver breech babies vaginally in the States but my doctor here didn’t want to risk it and I agreed.  So for that reason, we had a scheduled c-section planned for 38 weeks unless she turned before then.

When this little one persisted in being transverse, I of course, googled all sorts of things about it.  That.....is almost always a bad idea. Apparently, one of the dangers of having a baby with a transverse lie is that if your water breaks, there is an increased risk of a prolapsed cord, thereby cutting off the circulation to baby and causing a lot of problems.  In the UK they often keep mothers in the hospital for the last few weeks of pregnancy so that they can frequently monitor her for signs of labor and do a c-section immediately to prevent this from happening.  I lived an hour and a half away from the hospital.

My water broke before my contractions started with Ben and he came 5 hour later.  And he was my first! I was terrified that my water would break or I would progress too quickly and something would happen with the baby’s cord.  When I arrived in the hospital, I was desperate to see how dilated I was to see how much time I had before baby started getting into trouble.  I knew the fact that I came in the middle of the night probably meant that unless it was a dire emergency, I wouldn’t see a doctor until the morning. And I was just afraid that although it didn’t SEEM like an emergency at the time, it could quickly turn into one.  C-sections don’t happen in minutes here.  More like hours. 

The other thing that was on my mind was this weird pain.  It hadn’t gone away.  I had spent quite a bit of time on google that night trying to figure out what this pain could be.  It wasn’t coming and going like contractions did, it was constant. (There were contractions on top of it). And it was getting worse, not better.  Of course everything on google said that if you have this kind of abdominal pain while pregnant, call your doctor right away.  The closest diagnosis I could find to match my symptoms was placenta abruptio.  This is when the placenta prematurely separates from the uterus, which of course is dangerous for baby.  It typically causes vaginal bleeding but in 20% of the cases, there is no bleeding.  The definitive diagnosis can only be made with delivery, although it can often be seen on ultrasound. I wasn’t having any bleeding but have seen too many “this almost never happens but in this case it has” to be reassured by that fact. 

I've been called a hypochondriac by many and it is probably true.  I will at least admit to hypochondriacal tendencies.  Having kids and living here has made it MUCH worse.  I actually take my kids to the doctor sometimes instead of sitting home, assuming that my headache is probably an aneurysm but not actually doing anything about it......like I did when I was childless.   Either way, all of these things were running through my mind as we hit every bump on the road, stopped for every person wanting a ride and as I stood pacing back and forth in the maternity ward.  I just wanted to find out how far along I was so I'd know how much time we had and preferably wanted an ultrasound so I'd know whether or not I was bleeding internally.