Summer’s Labor and Delivery Story: Jaci’s Point of View

At a little after noon on Thursday, March 5th, I had just put Connor down for a nap and was sitting on my bed watching television when my phone rang. I looked at my phone and saw that it was Summer and my stomach jumped just as it had every time Summer had called me in the last two weeks.

“Hey, what’s up?”
“Umm, I’m bleeding…”

Summer had woken up with a little bleeding after not feeling well for a long time. She was wondering what to do. I told her to call her doctor and see if they suggested coming in (which she already knew) but what I really think she was looking for was someone else to say it was okay to cancel her son’s Destination Imagination meeting. I laughed and said “Yes! Cancel it, even if it is nothing, you’ll need to rest!”

I let her go so she could call her doctor and I made arrangements for Connor (who also had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon). She called back and told me they said to go in just to be sure, so I said I’d be over to drive her after I had a chance to shower.

It took me just over an hour to get Connor situated at Missi’s (my neighbor) and get my shower in. On my way into her house I was organizing my Tupperware stuff for the evening (I had a new consultant doing her grand opening and I wanted to prepare for the possibility that I might not be there and at this point I had no idea what was coming next!) I walked in Summer’s door at approximately ten after 1pm and looked around for her. She was downstairs and up, moving around way more than one would imagine a pregnant woman at 35 weeks and four days could move. While she showered, she explained, she began feeling contractions and they weren’t going away no matter what she did.

We then spent the next 40 minutes or so getting her hospital bag completely packed and talking about her (as of yet) unwritten birth plan. We left her house and made a quick stop at 8th street McDonald’s since Summer hadn’t eaten anything all day before heading to the hospital. I made the mistake of getting a large Iced Coffee, which pretty much resulted in about ten bathroom pit stops for me. At one point I swear I was tied with Summer for the amount of bathroom trips we each made.

She was still having regular contractions, but we hadn’t really started timing them exactly. They were approximately between 4 and 7 minutes apart and lasting less than a minute. She walked herself upstairs to the Nurse’s Station in the Birthing Unit and they led us to a room. Summer disrobed and the RN got her registered. Because of the bleeding, she didn’t want to check to see if Summer was dilating so we sat and waited to hear what the doctor on duty wanted to do (since Summer’s actual doctor was in Peru!)

Then we waited…and waited…and waited. They did an ultrasound and everything looked good: baby girl was head down, placenta was still good, and vitals were fine. Summer’s contractions were coming regularly but not too strongly and after the ultrasound the RN did a cervix check (after waiting for Summer to get off the phone with Kevin) and Summer was dilated to a three. Since she was only at a three they sent us home.

At this point I’d say we were both confused. Since Summer was under 36 weeks, we were thinking they’d want to do something to stop labor, but them just sending us home was perplexing, to say the least. Neither of us thought to ask about effacement or station, but my thought was that she was too far effaced to effectively stop labor. I’m not a doctor though, so I had no idea. Since we weren’t sure, I mentioned possibly leaving for a little while to get my new consultant set up and stuff but I’d wait till we got to her house to figure anything out.

We left the hospital at approximately 4:15 or 4:30. While walking to the elevator Summer’s contractions began to get noticeably stronger. I asked if she wanted to maybe stay at the hospital and perhaps just walk the first floor. She decided to go home and labor at home a little. When she began to grimace before even getting to her house, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere!

Back at Summer’s house I got her tub ready and helped her in. While she was in the tub I made a few more phone calls to people that I had forgotten I had plans to meet with that evening. Summer was really not feeling well and her contractions were getting closer together, they were approximately 3 minutes apart and each lasting a minute. She also began to moan through them and got very concerned about how tired she was and she was worried she’d be too tired for the long process of labor and pushing. It did not help that she really was feeling crappy on top of being in labor. We got her out of the tub and she decided to try laying down for a while. While she did that I played Chutes and Ladders with little Kevin (and Kenny, but he wasn’t too interested yet).

Laying down didn’t help and Summer came rushing out of the bedroom in agony and nearly jumped in the tub. That didn’t help either and she was having a hard time concentrating. The contractions had gotten closer together and were definitely more painful (and Summer was NOT laughing at my jokes anymore) so I went into “Cheer her on” mode helping her breath and telling her how awesome she was doing and that she definitely could do this. Since the contractions had gotten so close together, we then headed back to the hospital. We got there at almost exactly 6pm and I dropped Summer off into a wheelchair while I parked my car. She wasn’t going to be able to make it to the elevators on her own.

We got up to the Nurse’s Station and they all looked at us wide-eyed (I’m almost positive I saw some disbelief, possibly even irritation, but who knows) before bringing us into a teeny little room with two sections and two beds, one bathroom, and a computer (they should have just put her in a room right away, for crying out loud she came in a wheelchair!). I helped her get into the bed and they checked her cervix again. This time she was at 5cm and when asked about effacement the nurse got a bit snobby but told us that Summer was 100% effaced (again forgot to ask about station). When she heard she was only at 5cm, Summer broke down.

“It’s sooo long.”
“No honey, you are 100% effaced, it is going to go very quickly now!”

They wheeled her into a delivery room and at ten after 6 I called Autumn (Summer’s sister) on her cell phone to tell her what room we’d be in. When Summer got into the bed the nurse told her to put a gown on but that was one thing Summer didn’t want. At first I said “She doesn’t want to wear the gown, she wants to stay in what she is currently wearing.” The nurse tried insisting that she needed to wear the gown because she had to put the belly band on for constant monitoring and I dismissed her with a wave of my hand and said “No, she doesn’t have to wear it, she is fine.” Summer did take off her birthing skirt (I’m so sorry, I would have fought that too ). The nurses did want to monitor the baby though so they put on a smaller monitor belt for the two monitors.

This is where things began getting tricky. Autumn had arrived and we were both coaching Summer through her contractions and rubbing her back, legs, and feet. The problem is that Summer’s group B strep test came back positive (supposedly), meaning she needed an IV in. We both pretty much knew they would have trouble getting the IV and then we heard that they didn’t even have the antibiotics in the Birthing Unit. She was also having a really really hard time with the contractions. They were painful and she was getting tired.

“Just cut the baby out of me!” she said.

I told her we weren’t going to let her have the same regrets I did. She was in transition, which is the hardest, most painful phase of labor. I told her she just had to wait a few minutes and the pain would lessen.

To get Summer more comfortable, we got her out of the bed where they attempted way too many times to get the IV in, and they also did checked the baby’s heart rate.

At this point Summer began saying she had to use the bathroom. *TMI Alert* The nurses asked if she felt like she needed to have a bowel movement, and when she said yes, they wouldn’t let her go (that is because the pressure of the baby feels like you need to empty your bowel, when in reality it is your body beginning to want to push). Finally they got the IV and Summer said she had to pee so they let her. Autumn and I maneuvered the IV and all the monitors into the bathroom so Summer could go. We also realized that we never got a final belly shot so Autumn grabbed her camera and after she left the bathroom I saw Summer bear down just a little and her water exploded with a gush! It was a good thing Autumn wasn’t standing where she was originally or it would have splashed all over her legs.

“There goes her water! It is clear!” I announced (for those who don’t know, if it isn’t clear that means the baby passed meconium which is bad for two reasons. The first being baby was stressed and the second being it can then be inhaled into the baby’s lungs).

We quickly helped Summer back to the bed and the nurses (there were lots at this point) began shuffling around and talking frantically. I was concentrating on helping Summer breath and one of the nurses asked me to push the red button on the bed. I did and since I wasn’t paying attention to anything else I asked “How far is she?”

“She’s all the way!” a nurse exclaimed.

I looked down and could see baby girl’s head begin to come through, complete with lots of black hair! The doctor wasn’t there yet and the nurses were panicking and yelling at Summer not to push.

“Summer, you are so close, I can see her head! Do you want to feel it?”

I could see she wasn’t sure and she was also in the middle of a contraction. When she was able I guided her hand down and she was able to feel her baby girl!

The doctor was still not there but when your body says to push, that is what you must do! I told Summer not to worry, someone would catch the baby, just follow your body and what it is telling you. Autumn had moved to Summer’s left side, I was on her right (and at some point daddy Kevin slipped into the room and was behind me) and we helped her get into more of an upright position. One big push later, Sofiya Marjean was out and the doctor barely had time to grab her before her body followed. It happened so fast that I actually didn’t look down in time to see her crown, but I did see her body slide out and see the doctor just barely get a hold of her.

Sofiya was born at 6:47pm (though I had incorrectly looked at the clock and thought it was 7:44pm), less than one hour after returning to the hospital, and under six hours after contractions first began.

I stated Summer’s wishes about not cutting the cord until it stopped pulsing but was shut down immediately due to Sofiya being 4.5 weeks early. They didn’t even put her up on Summer’s stomach, but immediately put her on the newborn station. While Sofiya was being taken care of, Summer pushed out the placenta and got stitched up for a 2nd degree tear (no episiotomy!) I then noticed that they were swaddling Sofiya so I intervened and asked if she could have some skin to skin contact with mom before getting covered up. Again, they completely shut me down though the nurse doing the swaddling did stop swaddling her and brought her to Summer unwrapped so Summer could see her and hold her for a minute.

Sofiya then went to the NICU while Summer recovered from the immediate drop in hormones. I stayed in the hospital room with her, Kevin, Autumn, and then Summer’s mom Jodi, until later when Summer was able to move from her bed and head to the NICU to visit her precious baby girl.

Unfortunately, due to Sofiya being 4.5 weeks early and not spending much time in the birth canal, she did have breathing issues. As of my writing this, she is on day 6 of her NICU stay for an Apnea issue but I just read good news that she may be coming home as early as Sunday, March 15th.

Other than the birth of my own son, this was by far one of my very top memories. I have not stopped talking about the experience, nor have I had a moment go by where I haven’t thought about that day and that little girl. I cannot tell you how honored I was that Summer asked for me to be there with her as her coach and support. It is something that I would do for her again in a heartbeat, and this time I would hope that I had time to read all of the Birth Partner book.