Once Upon a Lifetime

***TRIGGER WARNING***

About prenatal/birth and traumatic birth

This is for all women… and especially the ones who were denied their wishes for no good reason, or made to feel like they were anything less than the incredible warriors they are, regardless of the birth story. I wish that every woman who reads this will know their incredible power, strength and gifts and not judge themselves or anyone else on the insane journey of motherhood ❤️❤️❤️

It’s probably a good idea if I share some of the heartache I’ve experienced the last few years. Those who are closest to me know all of this already, and I won’t go too in depth in this post about all of it, but I will start with my pregnancy experience and why it’s important for the context of this whole blog ❤️❤️❤️

I wish I could say the birth of my daughter was a blissful and love filled day where my wishes (that were communicated MONTHS before) were respected, and that I felt happy and empowered as a woman should feel after going through the war-like experience of giving birth (especially to the first child)… but that’s not my story 🤷‍♀️

Maddie was due October 30, 2016 (a Sunday) and my prenatal care had left me so devastated that I sought my own care and paid out of pocket to see a practice of women who didn’t demonize me for gaining weight during my pregnancy, saw me for the person I was and acknowledged all the healthy habits I had, despite gaining 80lbs during my pregnancy. I knew I had to give birth on base, or I could be NJP’d (punished by the military)… but there wasn’t much restricting my prenatal care if I was willing to pay… and after my 36 week checkup on base, I was willing to pay ANYTHING to have a provider who cared about my baby AND I.

It’s worth mentioning here that when you are assigned someone to care for you during pregnancy, you don’t have much say when you’re enlisted… I was assigned to ‘Family Practice’ and a brand new, young PA… so she was going to learn about pregnancy from ME… and I wasn’t supposed to have a say about it. I asked to be seen by the OBGYN clinic early in my pregnancy, but they were “too busy”… Further more, this person who is at least a decade younger than you, outranks you… and you better believe there are PLENTY of rules about rank. So that right there sets up a HUGE PROBLEM for anyone to get adequate and honest care without fear of repercussions.

My prenatal care on base was *ok* for a while… my care provider was a very young PA, and she was sweet and adorable… but also clueless about almost everything that mattered. (At least as far as pregnancy was concerned). The first few visits were fine, like I said, she was sweet and I really did like her… then as my pregnancy progressed and I gained more and more weight, the comments started to pour in… she ALWAYS let me know how much I gained with a very disapproving look (as if I wasn’t the one already living in this body) and how I was WAY OVER what was ‘healthy’…. (FYI: I’m one of the lucky women in this world who LITERALLY GAINS 15LBS OF WATER WEIGHT a day or 3 before my period… so it would have been GREAT to be someone who only gains 20lbs during their pregnancy… but for the love of everything good, that’s not my body 😔😖😫). Anyway… despite all of this very depressing talk, my vitals were always stellar, I never had any issues with hypertension, sugar, heart rate, cholesterol… nothing! I was taking classes at Orange Theory Fitness until I was 8 months, I ran, swam, lifted, walked a ton and even did turbofire THE DAY BEFORE I WAS INDUCED!!! I had zero health problems. I was tested 3 times for gestational diabetes because my father has type 2 diabetes… the second time they tested me, they claimed I didn’t need to fast before the test, so of course the results were off. This resulted in me having to do the 3 hour test… which “came back fine” yet, bottomed my sugar out so bad I wouldn’t have been able to get back to work if I didn’t stop at McDonald’s after the appointment because my sugar had dropped so much… my “provider” called me the next day to let me know that I didn’t have gestational diabetes, but that they sure did ‘bottom me out’ bc my sugar was 36 when I left medical that day… the normal values for blood sugar are between 60-100… she laughed on the phone at how they ‘bottomed me out’…. Had it not been for McDonald’s that day, I probably would have passed out before I made it back to work… and for anyone unfamiliar with emergency medicine, hypoglycemia (or low blood sugar) can put someone in cardiac arrest faster than a lot of other medical conditions 😳 great job Navy medical!

But that’s not the worst, nor the proverbial ‘straw that broke the camels back’…. that came at the end. 36 weeks… I was HUGE, super uncomfortable, my master chief had just let me start calling in since he was concerned I would give birth on the office floor 😅😖😫 so I went in for my 36 week checkup. By that time, it was late September/early October (I forget the date of the appointment) but my provider did not even ask about the baby… she instead lectured me on the importance of vaccines and how I should get a flu shot! (Now, for those who do not know me well, I am not anti-vax at all… I support any and all informed choices- but I am against BLINDLY injecting people with everything under the sun without their permission! I was active duty during this time, only off sea duty for 1.5years, and completely up to date with EVERYTHING that the military required of me. Also, when I first went in, someone had created 2 medical records under my name, and the whole first year I was in I received DOUBLE vaccines (after I was already vaccinated as a civilian). SO, I was hesitant to just let anyone inject me while I was pregnant!) So I requested that my provider do a titer check on me when I first found out I was pregnant… (West Nile virus was huge that year- just for reference). They were crazy about giving extra vaccines because of west Nile, and I understand the concern- but my one very simple request was to test my blood to see what I was already immune to from previous vaccines before blindly injecting me because there was a scare.

It’s probably not surprising that she NEVER ordered the titers… THEN, at my 36 week appointment tried to bully me into getting vaccines that I’d already had MULTIPLE times before, in addition to the flu shot… when all I wanted to know was what my titers were. She referred me to her commander (who called me later that night about not getting the flu shot earlier that day). I had stated multiple times I would be happy to get my flu shot as soon as I gave birth- she was due right in the middle of the flu season, and just a couple of weeks after they received vaccines for active duty… I was so disturbed by how they handled not only my whole pregnancy, but that visit in particular that I sought care outside of the base after that visit.

Thankfully I had a doula for some extra support from about 14 weeks on. She gave me the name of the practice she typically worked out of, and I saw those women for the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy. I paid for every visit because tricare wouldn’t… I couldn’t get anyone at the Naval Hospital to release my care to someone competent (but they DID offer me OBGYN care then- only after my unborn baby was blatantly ignored by a student and they couldn’t entertain my request earlier in the pregnancy 🤔: just let that sink in)… but I was able to go to get care that was wonderful for the last month of my pregnancy. The women there are incredible! I wish I could have gone through my whole pregnancy with them. I do think that things turn out as they are meant to though, and if my story wasn’t what it was, I probably wouldn’t feel the need to write about it to this extent 🤷‍♀️.

My birthday was Monday that year. My 40 week checkup was that morning. Nothing at all was happening before that, despite all my natural efforts of exercising, bouncing on the balance ball, eating all sorts of ‘labor-inducing foods’ and even trying to drink castor oil 🤢💩. I convinced my mom to fly in on my birthday and we could go to the beach every day until little Miss decided to show up. So my mom flew in just before noon on my birthday. I had my 40 week checkup before her flight was due to arrive… we ended up getting stuck there for a while because I was showing d-cels (decelerations on the fetal scanner). I didn’t really understand it at that time, I was just thinking that she was less active because it was morning and she had been less active during the day towards the end of the pregnancy… I really thought she just wasn’t awake yet. The practice advised me to go get another NST (non-stress test) at the hospital to be sure, but they did say it would be a good idea to grab some food first and since mom was flying in, go pick her up, then go to the hospital.

So we did that… mom’s flight came in while we were at the appointment, so we went to get her first, and I was pretty hungry by then, so we stopped at Moe’s to get lunch before we went to the Naval Hospital for another test. I was still oblivious to what was happening at this point… I didn’t even stop at home for any clothes or anything because I thought I would get another NST and get sent home again 🤷‍♀️

Once I was back at the Naval Hospital, everyone treated me pretty weirdly… it was obvious that the stink I made 4 weeks earlier was discussed among the staff. Majority of the staff from the L&D unit were amazing. The first doctor I saw was a jackass, but he had a very good point. He did scare the ish out of me, which I’m not sure was necessary, but ultimately I value the truth… he took one look at my NST and said “we need to induce you today”… I was nervous and had a whole bunch of things I wanted to try before pitocin, and I told him I didn’t want to start there… he didn’t like that I had any knowledge about induction or that I wanted a say in any of it… he informed me that the last woman who left with a NST like mine came back a week later and delivered a dead baby 🥺🥺🥺 He was a jerk, but he also had a point, and I’m glad he made it. By that time, I knew I wasn’t going home again until after I had Maddie. I sent ex-husband home to get our stuff at that point, called my doula to tell her what was going on and settled in for the unplanned induction.

Thankfully I was very educated in induction methods and drugs, and since I very willingly stayed after the doctors ominous prediction, the staff was willing to work with me. I didn’t want to start with pitocin (which was the right choice for me in the moment, but if by some weird stroke of fate I’m ever in that place again, I’d just go right for the pit). I wanted to see if a little coaxing from cervadil would help me go into labor… it just kept me up all night cramping 😒 so by 4am I was ready for more. I was still stubbornly refusing as many drugs as possible, so I opted for the Cooke catheter. (For anyone who is unfamiliar: it manually dilates your cervix to 4cm 😫). That pretty much kicked me into full blown labor… I spent hours going between the toilet and the balance ball. Then it just plateaued! It was so strange to be in full-blown labor, then nothing! (My doula later told me that actual labor isn’t until like 6cm or some nonsense)… but I labored harder from that Cooke catheter than all the pitocin they gave me! They started the pit around 10am Nov 1st, and it took hours for me to feel distressed again. The first few hours on pit were literally nothing. I was able to visit with people, talk normally, sit in bed… but by the evening they had kicked it up a lot. I remember talking to my dad through a couple of contractions, and then one of my best friends, we facetimed for a couple of minutes. By then my doula was asking how long I would do this to myself and she convinced me to get an epidural. My water hadn’t broken yet, I was only about 7cm from the pit, and they figured if I could rest a bit, they could Crank the pit up and hopefully deliver by the morning. So around 1900 I agreed to the epidural…. ps: it didn’t help me rest at all. It made me feel like a turtle on its back… I couldn’t sleep or even rest. It was SO UNCOMFORTABLE! Even though I was numb, my body still knew it wasn’t the time to rest, it was so odd. They broke my water around 2300 and said they would come back to check me around 0400… by that point I was only dilated to an 8. Everyone tried to sleep. I was so uncomfortable, but I tried to rest. I guess it was around 0100 or 0200 while I was trying to sleep, I was jolted by the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. It started just under my bust line, went down to my pubic bone, and straight back through to my spine. It was the craziest pain I’ve ever felt! I immediately started screaming, and luckily my mom heard me, and asked me if everything was ok- (at this point I knew nothing was ok and I needed an emergency c-section, but i didn’t say that). She asked me if she should get the doctors, and I screamed yes. Once they came and checked me they saw I was hemorrhaging… both the vitals of Maddie and I were so off. They told me they were prepping for surgery, and I was relieved I was in the hospital. I knew before the doctor told me that we were headed for the OR.

There’s some blanks by that point… I had been awake for 3 days straight with barely any sleep and I had labored all day before. I remember getting wheeled into the OR and I had to be strapped to the table bc I couldn’t stop shaking from whatever drugs they had given me at that point (and I’m usually excellent with knowing those things, but I was pretty out of it by then). I remember the anesthesiologist was there and super nice and supportive, he talked to me the whole time. He was so happy once they got Maddie out and we heard her crying 😍 he told me she is perfect and beautiful, and that I’d see her in just a minute. And as soon as they wrapped her up, they put her on my chest, her head to my right side. She took one look at me, locked her eyes with mine, and as soon as I said ‘hi’ she stopped crying!!! I was amazed!!! She already knew me!!! I don’t think I’ll ever feel that level of amazement again… it was so unique! We have had an unshakable bond ever since ❤️❤️❤️ I hope we always do!

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