My Second Birth Story - Pt. 2

After much supportive feedback from my first birth story, I am back to share the story of my second. It makes way more sense within the context of my first birth, so if you haven’t read that, or if you need a refresher, read it here. Part 1 of this second story is here.

This time, I gave birth at home, and I know the idea of home birth is a loaded one. You should know that my first thought after returning to lucidity from laborland was: “Holy #/&%! Everyone should give birth however they want!”

You should also know that this is a story about birth. Swear words, anatomical terms, and brief reference to how babies are made are part of the package.

In Part 2 I share about evaluating medical risk for my specific pregnancy. I share, because I believe stories offer important data points. However, this is not medical advice; for that, I hope you have supportive care providers that can help you in your own personal case.

The ‘Due Period’

Then it was June, the month of a move, a new daycare, a birthday, and a baby (maybe). ‘And just like that’—after eight months of a pregnancy plagued by electric pelvic pain, peppered with nausea and vomiting, and underscored by our search and purchase of a new apartment—we made it to the ‘due period.'

Trying to explain a month of life changes to a three-year old.

Pro tip: get out of moving heavy boxes by being 39 weeks pregnant on move-in day.

Saying farewell to an apartment we loved—and Viggo's first home.

Spent half my birthday waiting on keys and an IKEA delivery. Thankful for Keri's excellent offer of company and croissants.

Walking into our new home for the first time.

First order of business in our new apartment: birthday cake.

Second order of business: wallpapering our bedroom (aka possible birthing room aka postpartum recovery room)

Our 'barnraising' crew—could not have done this without help. Massive thanks!

The ‘due period’ is the stretch of five weeks in which it is ‘ok’ to give birth, from three weeks before to two weeks after the ‘due date.’ Life in this liminal space is strange. Each day must be self-contained—all projects tied with a bow at the end of the day, because life may look completely different tomorrow.

We bought groceries for one day at a time, not wanting ingredients to expire after we shifted to eating our freezer meals postpartum. We tackled only house projects we could begin and end on the same day. Every date made with friends, family, or the craftspeople finishing work on our apartment came attached with a caveat.

I marked my ‘due date’ by sanding and oiling our kitchen countertops. That evening we welcomed spontaneous guests for the annual Sankt Hans (summer solstice) bonfire in our nature preserve backyard. “Why don’t you stay the night in our shared guest room?” we offered, with the carefree nature of people who were not expecting a baby any minute. The next morning, we plugged in the waffle iron and shared breakfast on the rooftop, relishing each moment as a gift of borrowed time.

Apartment status T-minus 7 days until 'due date.'

A light house project to ring in my ‘due date’

Past ‘Due’

Until now, the mood was dreamy in my pregnancy purgatory. I floated through life, blissfully unable to predict whether everything would change in 10 minutes or 10 days.

That mood was punctured on Tuesday, June 27th, our wedding anniversary, and four days beyond my ‘due date.’ We rolled up in our new shared car to see the midwife. My much-adored prenatal midwife Catrina was now on vacation, so I’d be seeing someone new. I tried to keep my nerves in check, as this circumstance mirrored my first birth almost exactly (then, my midwife went on parental leave just as I was due). It took mental gymnastics to go in with an open mind—to quell the feeling I’d just hopped back on the train barreling toward the same place as last time.

The appointment went fine, just a couple of strangers going through the routine checks, until the midwife posed her final question: “Well, what do you want to do from here?”

‘From where?!’ I shouted in my head, as I was merely 40 weeks + 4 days pregnant, with 10 full days to go into labor by their acceptable deadline.

‘From where?!’ I knew she was alluding to induction. I knew I was supposed to pick a date to take pills or puncture my waters, as if no one trusted my body to go into labor on its own—as if my baby wasn’t capable of coming when he was ready. I felt hot and frazzled. My resolve cracked.

I burst out of the building and went home to cry and have a dance party and empty moving boxes and test out the birth tub and fold baby clothes and jam a nail into our concrete wall to hang my homemade weaving. I called in my emotional support team: doulas Karina and Louise, along with my friend and bonus doula Diana. I deleted Instagram. I wrote to the hospital and told them to call Bjarke from now on. I turned off all phone notifications.

And then I was alone, save that small circle of people I deemed ‘safe’—those who trusted me and my body and birth. I knew from my first birth that I’d entered the emotional gauntlet of the final days.

As the sun hung low in the sky, I walked the long path behind our house to commune with the cows who graze there, as if to ask them when my baby would come. I pushed in my headphones and pressed play on my birth playlist. Until now, I’d filled it with happy-go-lucky bops to boost my energy in labor, but its purpose shifted as I added songs like “Praying” by Kesha, “Hello Hallelujah” by Sam Ryder, and “I Am Here” by P!nk.” They were prayers, each one. Perhaps more than any other was Natalie Taylor’s “Surrender:”

My love, where are you?

Whenever you’re ready,

whenever you’re ready

Can we, can we surrender?

I surrender

Desperate tears flowed. I turned my hands up to the sky and willed myself to be ready.

When the fruit is ripe, it will drop.

This hospital visit jolted me into realizing that up until now, I’d been telling Baby all sorts of versions of, ‘Oh, I hope we can just [hang these cupboards / organize this dresser / onboard Viggo], and then you can come.’ I knew that it was time to pivot from ‘Wait! Wait!’ to ‘We are ready.’

And then, I tried all. the. things.

With a nagging feeling that perhaps I didn’t try hard enough with the at-home induction methods the first time, you better believe I left no method untried this time.

I curb-walked all over creation. No baby.

I pumped (prompting a painful storm of contractions that didn’t convert). No baby.

Bjarke and I did what we could to induce labor, if you know what I mean. No baby.

I vigorously waxed the drawers of our new (old) secretary. No baby.

I had a glass of wine. No baby.

For every sweet and well-meaning soul who shared how you ate spicy food or cleaned the floor or pumped out colostrum and then – pop! – out came your baby: Bless you.

Having nearly tried it all, I now wholeheartedly believe that Baby comes when Baby is ready. There’s not much we can do to influence that. Perhaps, the best thing to do is to rest, rather than chase after contractions, as Robina Khalid wisely advises.

Thus, with a knowing resignation, I returned to the wisdom of my great-grandmother: When the fruit is ripe, it will drop.

Arranged Baby's side bed to scream, 'We're ready for you!'

Thursday, June 29th: 40 weeks + 6 days pregnant

And still, because it’s hard to just sit and wait, I called in my friend and bonus doula, Diana, for a more professional attempt at natural induction. She showed up with pink roses and chocolates and reassurance. We locked ourselves in my wallpapered bedroom and she worked on me with rebozo and acupressure for 1.5 hours. I had the first contractions that required me to breathe through them. I could feel the baby moving down in my pelvis. I giggled and shared fears and anger and anticipation and exclaimed with disbelief and wonder: “He’s right there!”

Viggo opened the door mid-session and asked what we were doing. “Helping to get the baby out,” I said. He ran to Bjarke with a burst of excitement: “Little Brother is coming!” When I finally emerged, Viggo asked, “Did he come out?!”

“No,” I said. No baby.

Then Diana rubbed my feet with oil, and I cried tears of relief to feel cared for and held in these fragile, lonely days. She helped me patch back together the trust and resolve I’d lost after that hospital wobble. This was the first time I truly believed that this birth could end differently than my first.

As if to seal this belief for myself, I closed my eyes and imagined the moment at the end of all of this:

Baby on my chest.

No one remains pregnant forever; soon there’ll be a

Baby on my chest.

The knotty mess of this phase will dissolve once there’s a

Baby on my chest.

I can’t be sure how birth will go, but I can be real sure it’ll end with a

Baby on my chest.

Period of Radical Patience

The thing about my post-dates pregnancy bubble is that I couldn’t shut out the world forever.

Every time I stepped out into our fishbowl of a courtyard, I felt the eyes of my new neighbors searching for a status update from behind their still curtainless windows.

Anytime I entered a space, my bowling-ball belly preceding me, I heard, “You’re still pregnant?!”

At one particular daycare pick-up, Viggo’s caregiver inquired how it was going and asked, “Are you going to be induced?” The answer shot out of my mouth before my thinking mind could catch up: “No,” I said firmly, speaking from a resolve deep in my body—a deep, no-ing, if you will.

I imagine you might be thinking: “Why not just accept a damn induction already? What’s so bad about that?”

To which I will first say: I believe birth can take all sorts of forms. What matters is that each family receives support in making choices that feel most safe and aligned for them.

For me…I remember that foggy haze from which Viggo emerged after a 3-day induction, placed in the hands of parents who were shaken from the start. I feel fury pulsing every time induction is presented as the solution to skirt all risk, as I know in my bones that induction itself carries risks that are also worth weighing out.

I wanted so badly for us to have a solid start as a family this time. I wanted so badly to simply be allowed to birth.

Physiological birth requires patience: patience in waiting for Baby to signal their readiness, and patience as Baby finds their way through the birth canal. But what I see is a medical system—and a society—that have lost that patience.

In a world with increasingly routine, non-medically-indicated inductions, seeing someone like me, with a belly almost 42 weeks ripe, is unheard of. It seems we’ve grown uncomfortable witnessing any pregnancy last beyond its ‘due date,’ which now feels more like an expiration date.

Every time I entered a public space, every time I was asked about a precise ‘due date,’ I felt people’s discomfort with my ‘overdue’ body. People like me are invisible. Why? Perhaps with the spinning opinions and unnecessarily scary ‘talking-to’s’ from doctors, we hole up in our homes, like turtles retreating into the safe protection of their shells. It feels like no one understands why we wait.

‘Why am I waiting?’ I asked myself daily, arriving at the same conclusion each time: I would only be accepting induction to ease other people’s discomfort. It’s what felt best for everyone else, but not for me and not for my baby. Waiting for Baby to signal his readiness, and waiting to birth at home—that’s what felt best for us. So, I chose to carry on.

Took all the 'final' bump shots as we waited for days and days.

Full-time Oxytocin Job

Every day I woke up with one directive: generate oxytocin. I watched all of Bridgerton for the third time. I danced to Whitney Houston and Edward Sharpe. I went to yoga, where we moved to Bob Marley. I went to cafes and read a good book and ate foods that felt luxurious. I walked up and down the nature preserve, baked blueberry turnovers with Viggo, and reveled in a double rainbow from our rooftop.

Together, Bjarke and I hung lamps, went out for ice cream, watched happy movies, did face masks (yes, we did), swapped foot rubs, lit candles, and practiced rebozo.

One morning Viggo approached my belly, knocked on it twice, and said “Crack!” as if willing Baby to hatch like a chick from an egg. I collapsed in laughter.

This was fun for a while, but after a point, even figuring out how to feel good became a chore.

10 days of contractions

Throughout this time, I acquired a close companion: contractions…of all kinds. Braxton Hicks, yes, but also the period-cramp kind and the painful-but-still-not-quite-right kind, and eventually the real deal, substantial kind. During one potent spell, I swayed through contractions in the courtyard, telling my neighbors, “maybe today.”

For 10 days I worked through these contractions, often in the night, many times during the daycare-to-dinner stretch of evening. I welcomed all of them. They perplexed me in their coming and going. But they reminded me daily that my body was getting ready to birth, and that I would, eventually, go into labor.

On many of these days I chatted with my doula Karina. I reported on the contractions and my oxytocin efforts, and she reassured me that Baby and I were doing exactly what we needed to do. On one of these calls, I hypothesized, “I wonder if labor hasn’t started yet because Baby is still working out his positioning. Maybe all he needs to do is tuck his chin or something, and then these contractions will tip over into the real deal.”

Wednesday, July 5th: 41 weeks + 5 days

Despite all my efforts at positivity, I grew weary as we neared 42 weeks, knowing full well that hospitals really want babies out by then. I dreaded the increased pressure ahead.

I went to an evening yoga class with my other doula Louise and heard chatter from fellow pregnant women whose patience was waning already at 39 weeks. Meanwhile, I brought my 41 weeks + 5 days pregnant body to the mat and melted like a blubbery, teary puddle into the floor. I felt open, vulnerable, soft, tired.

After yoga, I picked up an ice cream cone and wandered through the Østerbro neighborhood, the sun on my skin, the sky light until late. I arrived home to a bowl of lentil soup made by a neighbor. The day had passed with few contractions, and my mantra felt more like a plea:

Baby on my chest.

Please, soon, please…

Baby on my chest.

Thursday, July 6th: 41 weeks + 6 days

I woke to the news that I was going for a hospital scan today. Per our agreement, Bjarke was in charge of hospital communication. I did not want to know when our scans were scheduled, so I could avoid anxiety in the lead-up.

I wish preparing to go to the hospital did not feel like preparing to go to battle. I was called a warrior after my first marathon-long birth. But the hardest part about that experience was not the labor pains, it was the emotional pain of trying to make the best decisions while feeling unsure who to trust at best, and coerced at worst.

I don’t wish to be a warrior who must fight for the right to birth on my own terms. Instead, I want a system of care that supports me, listens to me, sees the power I have within me. I want a system that trusts my connection with my body and my baby, that trusts the process of birth.

Despite my idyllic dreams, I knew that, in reality, I would have to advocate for myself. Because the last hospital visit set my oxytocin efforts back a day and a half, I went into this one prepared with an intro script.

“My name is Gina,” I said, “My first pregnancy went to 42 weeks + 2 days, and my son arrived, robust, with a perfect Apgar score. I believe my body may have a longer gestation than average. For this exam, I’d like you to look at my specific body and my specific baby, versus pre-judging our well-being based on general statistics.”

The midwife smiled and said, “My name is Eva. I birthed my first baby at home at 42 weeks + 2 days pregnant.” Throughout the exam she was extremely supportive and non judgemental, and…not concerned. “Baby looks great!” she said.

Again, we declined induction, as there was no medical reason for it. Eva left the room and we waited like delinquents for a doctor to give us the obligatory follow-up talk. They want babies out by 42 weeks max (aka tomorrow in our case), and we were going against their guidelines. He rattled off the risks, but ultimately admitted, “You’re not insane for waiting.”

Beyond 42 weeks

The 42-week ‘deadline’ came and went, and I spent the weekend in no-(wo)man’s land, at a point in pregnancy that most people don’t reach.

I did not know how much more I could bear, and probably not for reasons you’d think. My body still felt strong and capable of carrying on (sure, I could do without lightning crotch, which had me crawling across the floor one night, but I was otherwise alright).

Rather, I was low on emotional energy to keep advocating for myself against an impatient system. Everyone’s opinions swirled around me, but everything rested ultimately on my shoulders; midwives counselled that it was fine to keep waiting, “as long as you keep feeling Baby like normal.” It became a mind game. Did I feel him less this past hour? Was this kick weaker than the last?

Of course, I spent a borderline unhealthy amount of time with research, both numerical and narrative. Most helpful were midwife Robina Khalid’s writing; Sara Wickham’s research; a Danish decision-making tool; and Facebook groups for ’10-Month Mamas’ and ‘Births Against General Recommendations (Danish)’.

Some swore that my baby could fall ill suddenly, without warning. Most reassured my intuition, that I would certainly notice a decline in my baby’s well-being, with plenty of time to encourage his arrival, in the rare event it was needed.

Nervous about my next scheduled hospital scan on Monday, and feeling myself slip into the fear that this birth would match my first exactly, I called doula Karina to make a plan. With her help, I decided that I still would not accept medical induction if Baby and I were both well in the morning, but I would accept a cervical sweep. I knew I’d regret not trying.

Monday, July 10th: 42 weeks + 3 days

I woke up to a delivery of freshly baked bagels, gifted by my good friend Keri. I cannot imagine a better boost to my mood as we headed for the hospital.

Again we were met with a dynamic I’d describe as good cop (midwife and ultrasound techs) / bad cop (obstetrician). The ultrasound techs seemed very pleased with my scan. They checked Baby’s brain and heart; umbilical cord blood flow; water in Baby’s stomach and bladder; and tried to find and record the ‘deepest lake’ of amniotic fluid they could. They were unsure where to put their notes, as my pregnancy was literally off the charts, since all of their templates stopped at 42 weeks.

30 weeks earlier, I was teary-eyed in this same ultrasound wing, as I heard Baby’s heartbeat for the first time. At that 12-week ultrasound, the staff moved my due date up three days, despite my pleading and precise ovulation dating. “Ultrasound measurement is the most accurate way to calculate a due date,” they repeated, as I negotiated with them, desperate not to lose three days.

I knew then what I would be facing now: that leaving my due date unchanged would have saved me at least three days of emotional turmoil, would mean that I was still in the ‘safe’ gestation zone at 42+0 weeks (instead of 42+3), would have spared me (some of) the scare of doctors piling on their perceived risk to my already-vulnerable and just-trying-to-do-what’s-best pregnant body.

Despite their best efforts, I knew that the ultrasound techs’ measurement of amniotic fluid was lower than the hospital likes. Bam, we landed back in the gray zone like we had with Viggo; he was born three days after the same diagnosis, as healthy as could be. So I was skeptical. How precisely can an ultrasound measure liquid anyway? What did ‘low fluid’ really indicate, especially as all other vitals looked great?

My eyes pleaded with the midwife who monitored me, an almost perfect stranger who’s guidance I desperately needed. I wanted her to tell me what to do, how to navigate this gray zone, how to prepare for the doctor’s diagnosis, and how to make my body go into labor, dammit. She softly responded with a series of Maybes and We-can’t-know-for-sures, ultimately deferring to the doctor to deliver an official recommendation.

The midwife left and another new-to-me obstetrician walked in. I delivered my intro script before she launched her campaign. “Low amniotic fluid,” she said, “we strongly encourage induction right now.”

I tried to appeal for a more personalized recommendation, but she did not yield. “We have zero risk tolerance,” she said, referring to the complex web of data that explores risk of stillbirth in post-dates pregnancies.

“But what about the risks of induction itself?” I asked. Surely, my mental health and a strong start for our family were worth weighing against the risks of waiting for labor to begin on its own.

“We still recommend induction,” was her ultimate answer. Case closed.

I could’ve screamed, but I was out of energy.

I get so angry at numbers—the way we treat them like gods who can determine life and death. Are these numbers not derived from well-intentioned but imperfectly human efforts? Sure, I concede that numbers contribute a vital perspective to the decision-making pie. But when we present them as the only way to make a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ decision—that’s when I call bullshit.

No, I don’t want only numbers. I want someone to look into my eyes with care. I want someone to lay their hands on my belly—my baby—and feel. I want someone to listen with their ears to the strength of the heartbeat(s) inside of me. I want someone to hear the story of my body, of my previous pregnancy and birth. These are all vital data points, too.

But, alas, I was worn out, and for that reason alone, I asked for a cervical sweep (ouch) and acupuncture, and resolved to return the following day if labor did not begin that evening.

The midwife placed a needle on the inner side of my right ankle—the direct channel to the womb, I’m told—and twisted it to set. It was as if she’d turned the keys in the ignition, and my body immediately responded. Maybe it was my needle phobia, or maybe it was birth finally switching on, but I felt that familiar sensation of being on the brink of consciousness: sweating, black blotches shadowing my eyesight, that nauseous lump in my throat. I told the midwife and Bjarke that I might pass out and/or throw up. They maneuvered my legs—now with needles poking in all directions—so I could lay on my side, a puke-bag tucked under my cheek. I laid still like that, on the verge of being sick, for a full 30 minutes, repeating, Baby on my chest, Baby on my chest, Baby on my chest.

Then I got up and walked gingerly out of the hospital—my body spent, my mind fried. I went home to rest, hoping I’d need my energy for labor later.

Thanks for reading Part 2 of 3. Here you can find Part 3. This story was written to share, so please pass it on to anyone who may benefit from it. As always, I love to hear your own thoughts and stories, too.

MotherhoodGina LorubbioAugust 26, 2024home birth, family size, second child, another baby, birth in denmark, expat birth, 20241 Comment