Letter from My Midwife

This is an email that I got from one of the midwives that gave me care when I was in labor.

I emailed her and asked her what it looked like from her viewpoint went wrong with my birth, and she wrote me back a very nice email. I thought I might share for those of you that are tracking my road to not having this c-section stuff bother me anymore.

"To start off, as one midwife I worked with used to say, "Birth is normal, except when it's not." I think it's important to keep in mind that 90% of births progress normally with no complications, with little need even for the midwife to be present in any clinical role. And while 90% is a great odds to have, unfortunately someone has to fall into that 10% category, and with Daphne's birth, you happened to fall into that place. I don't, however, think that this means you won't fall into the 90% category if you do indeed choose to have other babies. I have seen on numerous occasions women who have had exactly the same labor/birth as yours, have a normally progressing 2nd labor with a successful vaginal birth (a few that were even quicker than the first!).

I think what happened in your birth is three fold. 1) You were exhausted. It was a long labor, one that many women in your place would have given up HOURS before you did. If you had kept going who knows what could have happened. Although it may be easy to blame yourself and say "If only I had stayed with it a little bit longer", I think that you have to also trust yourself as a mother that everything in you said "I AM DONE!" and that it wasn't working the way you were doing it. If you hadn't listened to your gut, there is always the possibility that the baby would not have reacted well to a longer labor, her heart rate may have gone down because SHE was getting tired from the long labor, or you could have ended up with the exact same scenario of a c-section, but just postponed it a few more hours or days. 2) Her position on c-section confirmed that she was having a hard time turning herself into an optimal position to descend down and be born. Again, who knows what would have happened if you had given it more time, it could have resulted in her finally turning after many more hours or days, or it could have resulted in her getting stressed and lead to an emergency c-section which would have been a lot more frightening for you. I think you made the best decision you could with the information that you had as a mother. From what I saw externally, you knew that something wasn't working and something wasn't right, and had really been feeling that way from the beginning. And the position they found her in, I think supports that feeling you had that things weren't right. 3) Your pain tolerance- I have often seen it that women who have a baby who is in a weird position experience A LOT more pain that with a normally positioned baby. Often this is because the baby is pressing on the sacrum or pelvis in such a way that it causes the level of pain the mother experiences to rise. Therefore, I think it is COMPLETELY understandable that this would have made your labor more painful that the norm, and make it more difficult for you to be able to continue with a slowly progressing labor.

As for her position, we will never know why she was positioned the way she was after so many exams seemed to lead all of us to believe that she was in a perfect position. I often think what we are trying to do in a vaginal exam as trying to "see" with our fingers, which in reality isn't possible. However, we all do our best to "see" the baby's position and unfortunately this isn't an exact science. The only way to know accurately throughout the labor what the baby's position is, would be to do an ultrasound every few hours, and I'm pretty sure that would not have been ok with you! And it could very well have been why you progressed slowly in early labor. Whether she was in a perfect position throughout labor and then changed positions over time or when you were pushing... or whether all of the exams led us to believe that she was in a position that she actually wasn't, again we will never know.

I can totally understand why you are so scared to move past this birth because of the mystery that you feel still surrounds it. It is a strange experience to spend 9 months growing a baby and feeling that you know what's going on in your body so intimately, and then to have such a profoundly life-changing moment be so unexplainable would most definitely make it hard to want to do it all over again.

I think that your birth, however, was your first lesson as a mother. To have and love a child that YOU created who now is creating her own destiny can be very hard to come to terms with. You have to remember that it wasn't just you who made decisions about the birth. Daphne also played a role. It is through the release of hormones in her brain that help to start the labor process, and it is her moving and wiggling about that helps to bring her down into your pelvis, thus she ultimately played a role in this outcome. In my mind, to be a mother is about hoping and wanting the best for your child, but being able to release these wishes if they are not fulfilled, knowing that your child is her own master. Accepting that there are things you will never know about your child starts with birth. Creating a baby is a mysterious process, birth is a mysterious process, a growing child is a mysterious process. Although the mystery is very frightening for you right now, I hope that with time and help from continuing to try process your experience with others, you will eventually come to embrace the mystery in your birth as a wonderful thing, a life lesson from your baby. Beyond that, I believe that you did exactly what you should as a mother... listen to your instinct. Your mind and body told you that you needed to stop and you did that. And while you will never know the outcome if you had acted differently, I would go on the assumption that your body would not have told you to quit if it didn't feel that this was the correct course of action. Your body is very smart! Think about all that goes into growing a baby...

I realize that what I am saying may not be at all helpful or comforting to you during this time of trying to find answers. I hope that if you really are feeling upset or scared that you will continue to talk to people not only now but before you decide to have other kids. I am sure Esme can give you names of really great postpartum support therapists or mom's groups. And I hope you have been reaching out to other mothers who have had experiences like you through ICAN or other sources. Know that you are not alone in your feelings and that I ABSOLUTELY believe that your next birth can and will be totally different from your last. "