Views on Childbirth - part 7

Read part 6: Luke's Birth here

Blondie's Birth
The biggest difficulty I had with Blondie's pregnancy was that we weren't sure where we would be living when her due date came along. DH was finishing up his graduate work at BYU and was looking for full-time employment. I decided to see my midwife Hugs again for my care and was hoping that we would be around in Utah for the birth so Hugs could be there. Blondie was due on July 13th and DH was due to finish up his graduate work in April. DH sent his resume to several places and we were actually hoping to get a job around the D.C. area for a few years - partly because my parents lived there but also partly for the experience. Well, we heard nothing from any of the companies and around April the church, which had not been hiring software engineers for quite a while, started interviewing for some new jobs that were being created in the Family History Dept. DH knew one of the managers from the church through some work at BYU and got an interview and was hired. He started work in May at Church Headquarters in downtown Salt Lake and we shortly after that started looking for a home to buy in the Salt Lake area. The way things worked out we found a home and were set to move in at the end of July/first part of August (perfect timing, huh?).

We had a 20 week ultrasound again to make sure everything looked fine with the baby and we decided not to find out the gender this time around. We figured that we already had one of each and it would be fun to be surprised with this one. My mom was set to fly out again about a week before my due date. She came out and my due date came & went with nothing. This was my first experience with an overdue baby. My mom was trying to decide if she should extend her stay at this point. July 14th was a Monday and we went to a local park for Family Home Evening. We did a lot of walking to see if that would jump start things.

Well, the next morning I woke up to contractions around 4 a.m. I was having back labor (again) and managed on my own for a time. Around 7 in the morning I woke up DH & we called Hugs. We then woke up my mom and the kids so we could start trying to get the birthing pool set up. We put in as much hot water as we could from the tap and then DH started boiling pots of water to dump in as well. I was actually in a great mood & frame of mind for the birth. I was really ready to have this baby and had read several books that contained mostly birth stories in them to prepare for the birth. There is something really inspiring about reading other people's birth stories. One of the books that I read talked some about keeping a sense of humor during the labor. I decided that I wanted to try this and it worked wonders for me. Most of the labor I sat on my bed with Hugs & DH in the room and we just talked about anything. Whenever a contraction would start in I would close my eyes and just silently endure them one at a time. Then I would continue in on the conversation. When things started to get more intense we decided to try out the pool. I got in and the water was TOO HOT. I stayed in for a few minutes and then had to get out because I couldn't take the heat. I think that they ended up dumping in some pots of cold water to cool it off and I was finally able to get in again. It is fairly relaxing to get in a big tub of warm water and just let the water take the weight off of your body and the contractions. Just before I got in the water for the second time I remember DH asking if he could do anything for me, to which I replied, "Yeah, you can have this baby for me." I also remember asking at one point why I let him do this to me. :) It was after that comment that my midwife said I must be going through transition and getting ready to finally have this baby. It's been nice having the same midwife for these homebirths because she can read me pretty well during labor now.

I got back into the pool and was trying to manage through the final contractions. I was feeling the urge to push so I started to push and there was a gush into the pool - my water finally broke. I was on my knees with my arms over the side of the pool bearing down. Before I knew it the head was out and was apparently out for several moments when the midwives realized that the baby's shoulders were stuck. Hugs quickly jumped into action and stepped into the pool with one leg and started trying to maneuver the baby out. She had me flip over onto my back and she was finally successful. (There isn't any danger in the baby trying to breathe in the water because the baby doesn't get the stimulation to breathe until it's mouth & nose come in contact with air.) I brought the baby up to my chest and we found out that it was a girl - which is what I had guessed. After the placenta was delivered I got out of the pool and moved over to the bed. Hugs was surprised that I didn't have any tearing the way she had to maneuver the baby around. Needless to say I was very ecstatic though!

Blondie was born around 1 p.m. on July 15th and was 8 lbs even. It was a very positive experience for the whole family & M&M & Luke both observed the birth. Luke was 2 1/2 & M&M was almost 5 at the time. M&M was excited to have a sister! There really isn't anything that I would have changed about Blondie's birth - it was awesome! (Actually, I would have loved it even more if I could have prevented her from getting stuck but I didn't really have any control over that.) I did have to go through the whole rhogam procedure again at the hospital but we knew a little more what to expect this time and we left Blondie home with Grandma.

The real drama with Blondie came a couple of weeks later. We moved to our house when Blondie was about 2 1/2 weeks old & DH was due to fly out to Scotland the next day for a research conference he was presenting at. My mom left several days after Blondie was born and then my dad flew out to help with the moving. While we in the process of moving, the BYU student health center was apparently trying to contact us and they only had our number for the apartment we were moving from (which had been disconnected by this time). They finally called my in-laws and we were given the message that I needed to call the clinic immediately. When I finally was able to call the clinic I was told to stop breastfeeding Blondie immediately and she needed to be put on a soy formula because of some abnormal results for a condition called galactosemia from her PKU screening! I got this message on a Saturday, the day after DH left for Scotland. That was all the information that I was given because the pediatrician & pediatric nurse wouldn't be back into the clinic until Monday!

In the meantime, my dad was leaving to fly back home so I was left with a newborn & 2 young kids in a neighborhood where I didn't know anyone. My dad was able to make some contacts for me before he left so we did have some people that were aware of my situation in the ward. I contacted my midwife as well and let her know what was going on. She came over to see me and thought that the test result was probably a false positive because Blondie was healthy in every way. I was able to use the internet at my neighbor's house to look up what galactosemia actually was and was able to print out some information to go off of. The main thing that I found out that didn't fit in with Blondie at all was that babies with this condition are very fussy & irritable when they are breastfed and they spit up a LOT. Blondie did not have this problem. My oldest brother also had a doctor friend that he talked to about the condition and he said that if the doctors were really concerned that her condition was life-threatening, they would have had her in the hospital on dialysis. It was very hard for me to feed Blondie a bottle with formula because I love nursing my kids. It is an awesome bonding experience for me & the baby. I would feed her formula and then I would pump as much as I could so that my milk supply wouldn't dry up.

On Saturday I was supposed to be cleaning up our old apartment and having a checkout with the managers but with everything going on I was able to postpone that until Monday. Thankfully Tan & Chez & Taryn were able to step in and help out and they went over to the apartment on Saturday and cleaned for me! I was VERY grateful for their help. On Monday I went down to the BYU Health Center to see the pediatrician and to have the second PKU test done. It had to be sent to a special lab for testing and the results were to be sent to the genetics research dept in Salt Lake. I actually started breastfeeding again at this point because I was pretty confident that Blondie did not have this disorder.

My midwife advised me to contact the genetics dept after 2 days to see if the results were in. I did this and they had just gotten the results and were in the process of sending them to the pediatrician down at BYU. The lady at the genetics dept told me that Blondie has a variant form of galactosemia which is not the full-blown condition. The condition that she has is the most mild form of galactosemia - she has one normal gene and one duarte gene - which means that her enzyme activity to break down lactose is just below normal. I was then told that I could resume breastfeeding and that Blondie would not need any type of diet change. The nurse then asked for my address so that she could send me a copy of the results. This was on a Wednesday that I found out the results. The next day I got a call from the nurse down at BYU who told me that they had just gotten the results from the genetics dept and that I would have to permanently stop breastfeeding and Blondie would have to follow a strict diet!?! I informed the nurse that I had called the genetics lab myself and had been informed that the mild form of the disorder that Blondie was diagnosed with didn't require any diet changes - to which she sheepishly responded, "Oh, sorry about that." Boy was I glad that I had taken my midwife's advice and called the lab myself!! As you may imagine, that was my last visit to that pediatrician!!

During all of this mess I was able to get in contact with DH's professor, who had gone to Scotland as well, through email and he gave DH to message to call home ASAP. DH ended up being delayed in Chicago for a day because of bad weather and didn't have any idea what was going on with Blondie until he got my message in Scotland on Sunday! After my dad left on Saturday my younger sister came out to spend some time with us while DH was gone which I was grateful for. Also that week M&M started kindergarten! Talk about a roller coaster ride! Thankfully though everything turned out fine in the end!!