I love giving birth.  I know that is unusual to say, but for me, birthing my babiesat home have been the most joyful times in my life.  But this last birth, my third in three years, was not so perfect.  I had to be transported to the hospital.  Now as a woman who loves birth but enlightened with this hospital experience, I can say that I understand why some women don’t enjoy birth and are even left feeling traumatized by it.  This may not be the case for women who planned hospital births, but I am just sharing my own personal experience as a woman who enjoys birthing at home.

What I loved and cherished with my first two births was being able to do anything I  wanted because I was at home.  In my first birth, I was able to labor for 36 hours without  any pressure to hurry up.  I was able to eat anything I wanted, be naked or clothed if I wanted, get in a tub of water with my husband, go outside to see the moon rising over the Haleakala crater and even walk down to the stream near my house to contemplate and be in nature.  During my second birth I enjoyed the luxury of not having anyone disturb me during my hour and a half labor.  I enjoyed just lying in bed, with my husband holding my hand.  It felt so private.  My midwife arrived only a short time before delivery.

Probably the most enjoyable aspect about birthing at home for me was that right after birth, I was already at home.  The baby didn’t need to leave my side.  My husband, the baby and I could continue to be in that blissful bubble of love without any outside interference.  We could just lay in bed together right after birth and not leave the bed or house for days until we felt like it.  And right away, the baby could experience the comforting smells and the quiet sounds of his own home.  I didn’t worry about anyone else’s germs affecting the baby.  I could determine who came into his sphere and I could keep him protected like this for months or as long as I chose.

My third home birth experience was a quick 2 hours in labor and blissful up until I had some complications.  My placenta did not slide out as easily as it had the first two times.  I began to gush blood while trying to push the placenta out and then passed out for a short  time.  The more traumatic time started once the paramedics arrived to take me to the hospital.  They asked me to stand up to get onto the gurney.  As soon as I stood up, I passed out again.  I woke up on the floor of my bedroom with the paramedics looking at me.  They lifted me up and laid me back down on the bed and then slid me over to the gurney.  That seemed to me to be a lot of commotion just to get me on the gurney and I wasn’t even out of the house yet.  My bliss bubble definitely had been burst.

Once at the hospital, I believe that I had the best set of circumstances going in my favor.  I was greeted by a Kaiser Permanente group doctor that I was familiar with and who is known to be one of the best especially in dealing with home birth patients.  And on top of that, she and my midwife have a very good working relationship.  I also had great nurses who were familiar with my midwife as well and they seemed to be doing all that they could to make us happy.  I was told that fortunately the hospital was not busy during the time I was there, otherwise I may not have had the nice amount of attention that I was given.  And still, with all those perfect conditions, my experience was traumatic.

Just being away from the comfort of my own home was the first thing.  It’s also hard to get comfortable with an IV needle in your hand… and the hospital environment itself, visually and energetically is not warm and fuzzy.  I agreed to have an intravenous round of antibiotics and pitocin to help the placenta come out with stronger contractions, but it seems that once they give you one round of drugs, it is hard to stop the meds from continuing to be pumped into you.  I did ask if it was necessary to continue to give me meds… and when I did ask, the nurse lowered the dose… but then instead of weaning me, continued to give me more and then changed to a different drug that was supposed to control the bleeding.  I didn’t know if the drugs were really necessary, but I felt that I had no control over what happening to me and my body.

None of that was singularly traumatizing, but added to the total traumatic experience and helped to escalate the intensity once I had to go through the real trauma.  I was lucky notto have to have any kind of surgery to remove the placenta.  Fortunately the doctor wanted to try to get it out naturally (and I imagine the women who have to have c-sections or other types of surgery may feel even more traumatized than I did).  The doctor pushed on my belly and then reached inside of me.  She pulled as I pushed and screamed the placenta out of me.  It was actually more painful than giving birth, but necessary to do.  She could have given me pain killers, but fortunately my midwife told the doctor I was a tough mama who could do without.  I’m glad because the side effects of the painkillers would have lasted longer than the immediate pain and done more harm to my getting back to feeling normal.

My husband who was by my side the whole time, went back home to get the baby and to bring me foods that I wanted to eat.  I was so happy to be reconnected and to nurse the baby.  The warm comfort foods and my baby brought some of the feeling of home into the hospital room.  The doctor kept me for about 7 hours to observe and to make sure I was stable.  They had “threatened” to keep me over night if I  didn’t show signs of being able to manage on my own.  That would mean that my husband and the baby would have to go home at 10pm and not be allowed back until 7 in the morning.  Or they would have to admit the baby to the hospital, which would have opened up a whole can of worms for what they would want to do to my baby.  Fortunately I was able to go home.

All in all I know I had a good hospital experience, but I still felt traumatized.  And I also felt an overall sadness about not being able to live out the vision that I had for this birth.  My vision was to give birth at home and to be with my husband, my 16 month old toddler and my new baby all together in our bubble of love sleeping, waking up in our bed, talking, laughing, playing and discovering who we are as a new family in the hours after birth.

I am fortunate that I got to experience ideal births twice in my life.  Even though my first child died 20 hours after she was born, my entire birth experience and those 20 hours were wonderful and blissful… and even her death was peaceful.  In contrast, the hospital experience takes away that magical, unique and precious time after a home birth.  This is something that can never be replaced.  I think for every woman that experiences a traumatic birth, there is a grieving of this loss of this precious time.  And even though you are grateful to be alive and to have a healthy newborn baby, you feel this intangible loss.

I am thankful in a way to have had this experience though…

With two perfect births, I couldn’t truly understand how other women felt who had a traumatic birth experience.  This last experience gives me a deeper appreciation of what we birthing mothers endure, probably carry with us and incorporate into who we are to become as mothers.