The Story of Elsie Ruth’s Birth Part 1: The “Birth Plan”

Today our sweet baby girl is 1 month old!  I can’t even believe it!  To celebrate her 1-month birthday, I thought I would share the first of a three-part saga of Elsie’s birth story.  A fair warning…I will be talking about the three Bs in these posts: blood, birthing, and breastfeeding.  If any of these topics upset or offend you or you do not yet know the logistics of how a baby gets out of the belly, please discontinue reading these posts.  It’s about to get real.

Part 1 will discuss our “Birth Plan” and background information leading up to Elsie’s birth.

Part 2 will be about the labor and delivery…and why Danny Slone deserves 4,000 gold stars.

Part 3 will be about Elsie’s NICU stay and adventures in breastfeeding.

Background:  So like…first, I was pregnant.  That was fun.  During every doctor’s visit after about 20 weeks, I was told I was measuring small, but that it was “probably just because you’re a small person.”  At 30 weeks, my obstetrician suggested I get an additional ultrasound to make sure Elsie was growing like she was supposed to.  The ultrasound technician assured us that we had a healthy baby, and that she was just small.  Even after hearing the words “healthy” and “normal”, I let my mind wander and freak me out.  I was convinced I was housing a “little person” in my body (who, for some reason, was dressed as a circus clown) or that somehow (even though I saw a living, breathing, kicking baby with fingers, toes, and eyes in my ultrasounds) that my daughter was going to come out as a ball of Jell-O and the doctor would shout, “Oh, JELL-O!  THAT explains why she was so small.”  I couldn’t even let myself enjoy compliments from coworkers like “Girl, are you sure you’re pregnant?  You just look like I look after I ate a big meal” or “You don’t even look pregnant from behind” because I wanted to scream “Don’t you know it’s not a real baby?!?  I’m housing a gelatinous snack!”  In case you haven’t picked up on it by now, my pregnant brain was psycho. 

At 35 weeks, I was still measuring really small, so my obstetrician suggested another ultrasound.  After this ultrasound, the technician said “Let me go get the doctor”.  Doctor?  I had never had to talk to a doctor before during these ultrasounds.  As we waited I held my breath, trying desperately to shut out the list of horrible scenarios that were running rampant in my brain.  The doctor told me that there were a few “red flags”: first, there was an indication that Elsie might not be getting enough blood flow through the umbilical cord.  Second, Elsie’s head was measuring slightly larger than her belly, indicating that she might not be getting sufficient nutrition.  Third, she was barely over the 10^th percentile for weight.  Tearfully I asked, “Am I just not eating enough?  I can eat more!”, to which the doctor replied “No, it’s nothing with what you’re eating.  With this type of thing it’s almost always an issue with the placenta.”  He told me that I would need to come back weekly to do an ultrasound to make sure she was growing properly.  The week between the appointments felt like a month, and I was worried sick that our sweet baby wasn’t growing.  Even though the doctor said that eating more wouldn’t help, I ate lots and lots of cheeseburgers that week just in case.  Weeks 36 and 37 we went back and got a report that everything looked good, and I finally let myself feel hopeful that maybe we would have a baby after all.  At our 38 week appointment, the doctor told us that Elsie hadn’t grown a significant amount in the past 3 weeks, and that it would be safer to induce labor and have Elsie grow outside of me than inside me at that point.  I stared at the doctor with an open mouth, and after a few moments of silence, I asked, “Like right now?  I’m going to go have a baby RIGHT NOW?!?!”, to which the doctor calmly replied “Yep.  Head on over to the hospital.”  I suddenly became aware of the fact that I wouldn’t be allowed to eat for a long time and shoved some trail mix in my mouth.  I was on my way to have a circus clown…or a pile of Jell-O…or hopefully…a baby!

The Birth Plan: I’m a planner…some might call it a control freak, but I like the word “planner” better.  I like to go into new scenarios (especially important ones) with a game plan…I am capable of “winging it”, but only if I make a plan in advance to do so. J So naturally, when it came to giving birth to our first child, Danny and I made a game plan.  We were given a worksheet from the hospital with a birth plan, and we filled it out.  Our basic desires were:

•   Natural birth—Before we knew about any medical complications, Danny and I decided we wanted to bring Elsie into the world on God’s time, without being induced, without pitocin, and without an epidural.  Almost everyone I mentioned it to said “Good luck with that!” with a huge smile on their face.  Translation: “You don’t even know what you’re about to get yourself into, you crazy hippy.”  I had read a few books and watched a few videos on natural childbirth and decided that the benefits for me and baby were worth a little discomfort.  In one video, a strong woman just lightly rocked back and forth throughout her whole labor, not making a peep except one small grunt as her baby came out.  I decided that woman was my hero, and that I was going to be just like her.  Strong and silent…yep, sounded just like me.  We wrote on the birth plan to not offer pain medication, and that we would ask for it if needed.
•    Breastfeeding—I planned to exclusively breastfeed Elsie, and we had taken a few breastfeeding classes.  In the classes and in the breastfeeding material I had read, there had been a few major recommendations. 1.  No bottle feeding for the first 2 weeks.  2.  No pacifier for the first month.  Both were to avoid “nipple confusion” (babies use a different kind of suck to suck a nipple than they do a pacifier or bottle).  In short, I was basically told my baby would bite my nipple off if I introduced a bottle or pacifier too soon.  Thinking that sounded a bit too painful for my liking, we wrote “No bottle-feeding and no pacifier” on the birth plan.  We also wrote that in the event Elsie needed to have supplemental intake, it should be from cup-feeding instead of bottle-feeding.
•   Rooming in—Danny and I really wanted Elsie to sleep in the same room as us while we were in the hospital, even though several of our friends and family suggested having the baby sleep in the nursery the first night so we could get some sleep following the labor and delivery.  Danny and I both agreed we couldn’t imagine meeting our baby and then being away from her, even if only for a night, so we wrote on our birth plan we wanted her to sleep in the same room as us.

When I gave my obstetrician the birth plan to sign during my 32-week appointment, she gently reminded me that I would need to be flexible, because even with the best-laid plans, things could change very quickly, depending on how the labor and delivery went.  I smiled politely and said “Of course!”.  Leaving the office, my last thought was “Sweet OB, she must not know how determined I am.” If I had a time machine, I would go back and slap myself in the face, saying “Honey child, you don’t even know how real it’s about to get.”

Stay tuned for Part 2: Labor of Love to find out the three things I yelled most frequently during labor J (Oops, spoiler alert, I was NOT strong OR silent).