Born with Love: Our Birth Story

Hello all! It’s been a while since I last wrote on VWL, because so much has happened! It’s been a ride from the end of our pregnancy to the delivery and fourth trimester.

Not sure if many of you follow me on Instagram - but I had briefly mentioned my ideal birth plan. I learned that a birth plan is a beautiful goal to achieve, but at the end of the day, it’s all about delivering your baby Earth-side safe and sound.

When I was at about 35 weeks, we went for a routine midwife checkup and one of our midwives, Terry Lyn (Pacific Midwifery is our midwifery clinic), noticed something strange about the position of our baby. She felt my stomach and realized that our little had flipped and become breech. I was quickly given an appointment for an ultrasound to confirm her diagnosis.

We went for our ultrasound at 36 weeks and immediately was admitted into the maternity ward. What I thought was going to be a routine, 15-ish minute ultrasound, ended up being a little bit of a scare for my husband and I.

Me: not prepared to potentially meet our daughter that day - I was ready to go to the gym after!

My ultrasound results showed that our baby’s stomach was measuring smaller than normal, the technician was worried she was not getting enough nutrients from either my placenta or umbilical cord. In the maternity ward I was told that if she didn’t pass a series of tests, we would meet her that day!

Panic and fear were just the tip of the iceberg of my emotions that morning. I was hoping to have a home birth and had educated myself thoroughly for the mental & physical marathon to bring our baby to the world. I also wasn’t ready to part with my belly. It was my favorite part of the pregnancy, and made me feel like my baby and I had a secret bond, one that we only we had with each other, and I wasn’t prepared for her to come just yet. We didn’t have hospital bags packed and I knew nothing of cesareans (my bad). Luckily, our little one was such a trooper through the tests and she passed with flying colors. But she was still breech and we had to figure out our options from thereon.

As I mentioned, our original birth plan was to labor and delivery our baby at home. Our doula, Emma, from Bunky Bambino had provided us with the tub. I had my home birth kit ready, as well as all the items for immediate postpartum for a natural delivery. Plan B was to deliver at St. Paul’s Hospital and I had already familiarized myself with some of the doctors and nurses there (I didn’t want to meet them for the first time during labor).

Ultimately I learned to always keep an open mind. A birth plan is a great guideline of what you hope you can achieve, but if I’ve taken anything away from this whole process, is to listen to my body and my baby. I’ve never been more grateful for modern medicine, as well as our privilege to have easy access to it.

Captured by Celine Richardson

At 37.5 weeks, we were referred to an OB. In the Canadian medical system, you don’t typically get a midwife and an OB—you get one or the other. But with special circumstances, like when you are presented with a breech baby or an option to have a cesarean, you are able to have both (they both get paid out by MSP, the midwife would follow the baby’s health and the OB would follow the mother). Our OB was incredible, he took us in quickly and was able to provide his honest opinion given the circumstances. I was incredibly scared at first, but if it weren’t for him, my team of midwives, and doula, I imagine a very different mental state of how things played out.

Our OB checked baby’s position and because my cavity was small, he gave us a 5% chance for an ECV. An ECV, also known as an external cephalic version, is when you manually turn the baby from breech, to the correct position, head down, for a vaginal birth. The process is painful and often you are given an epidural. Also, you have to be mindful and mentally prepared to meet your baby that day, as it can also put you in labor!

I felt defeated after hearing about our 5% chance of successfully turning her. I asked what my chances were of delivering her naturally, breech, and he calmly gave me a 50/50 chance. His best advice for the baby was to go for an elective cesarean (which was my last resort). Not going to lie, I was upset to hear the news, mostly because I had to decide quickly, as they would require to have the cesarean before my body went into labor.

I’ve noticed not too many people talk about the grief of losing the option of a natural delivery. I definitely went through that. But we are incredibly grateful and lucky to have our options presented before us with all the facts laid out. I ended up choosing to go with an elective cesarean. Small things made the unpredicted process as comfortable as it could be: we were able to request that no medical students, just staff attend the surgery, a playlist for her arrival, delayed cord clamping, placenta preservation, immediate skin to skin contact, and there was no shop talk between the staff.

Our OB’s office contacted BC Women’s hospital for surgery slots and we were able to choose which time frame of days to have the delivery. This was also an option I liked, so I could prepare our home for postpartum and arrange for Ollie’s care for a week.

February 26 quickly came and I was 39 weeks pregnant. Driving into the parking lot of BC Women’s gave me a rush of emotions I somehow expected to feel. I was incredibly uncomfortable going into this hospital, because although it is one of the best hospitals to deliver, some of my family members have had less than positive experiences. You can read about it here.

Every birth and labor looks different for everyone. What happened in the past to our family was terrible, but the chance it could happen again to me was small. I repeated these words in my head as we checked ourselves in and admitted for the operation.

Nervous, but excited, parents-to-be

We entered a room where we were admitted to prepare & dress for the delivery. I was handed a gown and we had to have the rest of our belongings in the car (there wasn’t a locker big enough for our overnight bags + we didn’t have a room assigned to us yet). We were allowed to bring a camera to take photos of our little’s first moments Earth-side, along with the cord blood bank kit for our midwife to collect, and a cooler for my placenta to be saved (I had it turned into capsules for postpartum).

I am grateful for my husband, Emma (Bunky Bambino), my sister in law, Terry Lyn (Pacific Midwifery) and Dr. Woo (OB) who came by pre-operation to check up on me. I then met the anesthetist and he reassured me his success rate and his plan of action if there needed additional interventions. The nurse inserted the IV (hurt like a bee sting) and then I was whisked into the operating room (first without husband).

My operating room was bright and spacious, with the operation bed in the middle. It felt surreal, and almost as if I was entering a spaceship. From there I was greeted by each of the nurses and they helped me onto the bed, where I had the anesthetist insert the spinal (you do this sitting up, it helps to hug a pillow & Terry Lyn had held my hands because I was shaking in fear) and then I had to lay flat with my arms open & momentarily bound (a side effect of a spinal anesthetic is that your body could shake in the process). From here the anesthetist does a series of checks & tests to see if the spinal is working. They rotate the bed to ensure the medicine flows through your body, numbing it in the process. He asked me to lift my legs and was shocked I was still able to have movement and feel the cold ice on my stomach. According to his calculations based on my weight, I shouldn’t have felt the ice, let alone be able to move my legs. My body was rejecting the spinal anesthetic.

Michael had been allowed to enter the operating room but when the anesthetist realized I was rejecting medication, he had my husband removed from the room and was going to try a different medication before he had to go for the last resort - general anesthetic. Luckily on the 11th hour, my body succumbed to the medication and we were able to experience the delivery, awake.

And then, our tiny dancer arrived Earth-side.

Our baby arrived Earth-side on February 26 at 10:03am. She arrived to the song “Tiny Dancer” by Elton John which was perfect because she loved dancing in my tummy, and that includes her final bow, somersaulting into a Frank Breech position as her final pose. She weighed 5 pounds 5 ounces, a little lady, just like me. There were tears of joy and my heart definitely exploded, as she was placed on my chest for the very first time.

Our bundle of love

The immediate postpartum.

With Everly on my chest, the medical staff stitched me up and I was wheeled into recovery where women typically spend around 1 hour before they are transferred to their room. To my dismay, I started to feel the incision as we approached the recovery room. What was supposed to be a 1 hour stay turned into three… and the pain would not subside (normally it takes 6-8 hours for the numbness to subside, which was not the case for me). I cried at every fundus check - where the nurse would press down your stomach to ensure the fundus slowly descends down your stomach (the fundus is the top of your uterus). To know that the fundus is descending, you bleed like a period. I can’t remember how many times they pressed on my stomach, but I was in so much pain, they provided me a lot more pain medication than expected.

Eventually, I was brought to a private room where Mike was able to gather our hospital bags and we were able to settle in for the next few days. (For the first time pregnancies reading this, a vaginal delivery would normally just stay 1-2 nights, depending if there were complications, a cesarean you would normally spend 3 days or longer.) The next 24 hours were a blur. I was still in pain I was given my own self administering Morphine drip as well as a bag of Gravol to help curb the nausea caused by Morphine.

Babies after birth normally lose an average of 10% of their body weight, which is why breastfeeding and skin to skin is important for them to normalize their system as well as grow & thrive outside of the womb. Our little miss was so tiny, she was nearly admitted into NICU, but luckily we were breastfeeding well and she didn’t need to be incubated.

All dressed up & ready for home!

Coming home.

Our OB estimated we were staying till Saturday, but by Friday morning, I was desperate to go home and shower. The pain from the incision was still strong, but I mustered through it and requested to be off the morphine drip, Gravol & Hydromorphone. We were eventually discharged Friday night and I was sent home with pain medication on an as-needed basis. I mentioned to the hospital staff a weird, cold tingling on my back, but there was nothing to see for them to properly diagnose what I was feeling. But once I got home and took my first shower, I quickly realized I was allergic to the cleaning agent they had wiped on my back before they injected the spinal - Chlorhexidine. Note that we went into surgery not knowing I was allergic to the agent - it is an uncommon allergy!

Chlorhexidine burn

My husband and I were so grateful for the postpartum checkups and the transition from hospital to home with our doula. We are so grateful for our midwives, Mandy, Terry Lyn and Jesse (Pacific Midwifery), our doula, Emma (Bunky Bambino), OB (Crossroads), the staff who helped us at BC Women’s Hospital, our family & friends who all collectively helped us safely bring our little Everly Gray into this world. We are blessed to have such a strong & loving village that surrounds our little.

That’s all for the story of the birth of little Miss Everly Gray Baxter. Stay tuned for the fourth trimester, and in my Chinese heritage, the first 100 days.

With love, as always.

V