Birth #0022- The Story You All Have Been Waiting For

This story has been shared with the permission of the birthing momma.

So I had a pretty significant experience happen now almost two months ago-- I was with a very close friend of mine as her Doula for the second time, and the short story is that I ended up catching her baby. It is not the role of a doula to do anything medical, but it is my role to act in a state of emergency to help the birthing mother. The long of it is that her baby was OP (occiput posterior) (as with her first baby-- a 40 hr labor, vaginal birth with epidural-- the first birth I ever attended as a Doula) so though I was hoping this labor could progress more quickly, I was aware, that it may still be a long process-- as many OP babies take longer to be born.

She called me Thursday night as she had begun having contractions every 15-20 minutes. She was very excited about this, being 9 days over and anticipating a possible induction Sunday night if baby was not here yet. I told her to let me know when she needed me, and that I would happy to join her at any time. She called me a couple hours later telling me things were intense so I came to join her. She was stressed and worried as their one car had broken down that morning, she would be going to a hospital that was not her first choices as her midwife was at that one for the evening with another laboring mom, and for some reason she had a bad feeling about going there. I encouraged her to let go, being she could not change those circumstances. We tried a few different positions and hen she decided to go to bed to get as much rest as possible. I spent the night at their place just in case I needed to drive them to the hospital. 

By morning her contractions had spaced out considerably-- now coming about once per hour, so I left for work and encouraged a lot of walking, inversions, hands and knees, and the roll- over technique and told her to call me when they became more regular. She did have more contractions sporadically throughout the day, but they became again consistent around 7 pm coming every 10-15 minutes. I went home to get sleep, and she called at 2 am saying things were feeling more intense and contractions were coming every 10 minutes now pretty consistently. I headed over right away. She had just talked to the midwife to check in. She thought the momma should stay at home a little longer until they came a little closer, saying she would call back in an hour. She had gotten out of the tub, so now her contractions were 12-15 minutes apart. I suggested hands and knees and side lying lunge. She did this for about an hour with contractions still about 10 minutes apart. The midwife did not call back yet. She got up to use the bathroom, and got several intense contractions over the course of about 20 minutes, a few minutes apart, and I got a sense that we needed to get ahold of the midwife. We waited one contraction for a call back before the momma said, "We need to go NOW!"' I knew she was serious so we hurried to load the car. She had two VERY intense contractions, before getting in the car. I now had a pretty major sense of urgency. As soon as she sat in the car (my car), she told me with a terrified look, "I need to push!"

I immediately looked at her husband to tell him to call 911. He looked at me like, "Seriously?" the mom and I both said "YES!! right now!!!l" I encouraged her to resist the urge pant and breathe through the best she could. Again she liked at me terrified and said with a haunting look on her face, "'Hope-- I can't stop it. It's coming!" ( They did not know if it was a boy or girl). she started crying and panicking saying, "'I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! What about your car? Oh my gosh!!! I am going to be one of THOSE people!!!!" I maintained a calm presence on the outside, though I was feeling nervous, and assured her that she should continue breathing the best she could, and not to worry about my stupid car. It really did not matter to me in the moment.  

She told me with her breathe being taken away, "Take off my pants!" I knew I was in it now. Her husband got some towels to put under her, she already had a big blanket over her. The 911 dispatcher instructed me via her partner to check and see if there was anything coming out. I felt between her legs and could feel a bulging bag of waters and a crowning head! With one more urge to push the baby slid out, still in the sack ( which had ruptured on the way out) so I pulled the sack over the baby's head. (This phenomenon is called "caul" which is rare, and occurs about 1 in 80,000 births)(1). I quickly pulled up the momma's shirt to lay the baby onto her tummy (luckily baby had a very long cord) and keep the baby nice and toasty, skin to skin with momma. I covered the baby mostly with the blanket, but also started vigorously rubbing the baby's back trying to get the baby to cry- who only did a little upon first coming out. 

I stayed calm, and hoped that the paramedics would arrive shortly. Dad was amazingly calm and composed. I tried to be cheerful and hide my nervousness, "You have a baby!!" I exclaimed, while continuously feeling her uterus to see that it was clamping down. The dispatcher told him to get a shoelace to clamp the cord-- ironic to me that that was an emergent concern.... Within seconds which seemed like an eternity, the paramedics came and I was SO thankful. At this point, everyone kept saying,"she.... She.... She... And I realized we had all forgotten to see that it was a girl. The paramedics clamped the cord and let dad cut it, which I thought was awesome. Mom, dad and baby were taken in the ambulance to the hospital, where the momma birthed the placenta. Mom and baby were perfectly healthy, and mom definitely got the natural birth she was hoping for. She tells me that she would not change a thing.

This was probably one of the most significant experiences I have ever had in my life. They also honored me immensely by giving their little girl "Hope" for a middle name.  Interestingly, even though I have never caught a baby before, it all seemed "normal" to me. It completely reinforced my belief that birth is a normal, natural process, that does not need to be helped to happen. Birth is a true miracle. It was such a gift to be present at this birth.

1.  Medical College of Wisconsin. Healthlink.mcw.edu (2011-02-22). Retrieved on 2011-10-15.