Your Birth Stories: Weslie and Honeybee

I went to a recovery room and Dave made all of the calls and the nurses taught me how to use the hospital pump and to self-express in order to get the colostrum to feed to our baby. “What’s her name?” the nurses ask. Dave and I look at each other…”It’s Honeybee, right?” says Dave. “Yeah, Honeybee,” I said.

We manage to put the colostrum in a little syringe to take up to the NICU. On the way to my recovery room, the nurses wheeled my bed up to our baby. She had a tiny little newborn-sized oxygen mask, some tubes going in her mouth, an IV in her little hand, and was being warmed by a heat lamp. I touched her arm. There she was…the one who was in there the whole time.

Honeybee’s birth did not go how we had thought it would. Here’s what happened, as I later learned:

While being monitored in the triage room when we arrived at the hospital, Honeybee’s heart rate was normal in between contractions, but would drop during contractions. My midwife called in the OB/GYN for a second opinion about the baby’s heart rate. When the OB/GYN came in, the baby’s heart rate stopped coming back up between contractions and was staying very low.

The rate of birth by c-section in the US is about 32%, depending on the hospital and the year. The rate of c-section with the group of midwives I had chosen to birth with is under 10%.

Honeybee was born with meconium in the amniotic fluid. The doctor said it looked like it had been there a long time.Her nails were stained light brown.

My placenta was sent to pathology for it to be tested. It came back as infected, and Panvasculitis is the name for it. The placenta was small, and the reason for this isn’t known, but could have played a part in her birth.

Dave and I felt so grateful for the nurses and doctors.  All of the interventions I received that I once thought were horrific at most, and at least, a detriment to our over-medicated, litigious, and instantly-gratified society, saved my child. Without them, who knows what would have happened. We were so thankful for our midwife, who noticed a problem, transferred care without hesitation, and stayed with us the entire time.

Upon reflection, I felt disappointed in the natural birth movement my husband and I were so vehemently a part of.  Where did I now fit in to this? We wanted a natural birth, wasn’t that enough? I gave away all of my natural birthing books. I made connections with other moms who had given birth by cesarean. I felt angry sometimes. I felt like I missed out on something that could have been beautiful and powerful.

My body slowly healed. And I slowly realized that it all didn’t matter. It was a lesson in acceptance, moving forward, gratitude, and perspective. And it was my first of many, many lessons I expect to learn on our journey with Honeybee.