Mae’s Birth Story

The birth story of Mae janavice Mackenzie

It's been heavy on my heart to share my birth story, not only to continue to release the experience but to also share how I still truly believe in natural child birth and the beauty of having an unmedicated experience. Before being pregnant, I knew I wanted to have a natural, intervention free birth. I also loved the idea of having our baby at home and having Ribbie by my side throughout the whole experience. Pat and I decided to work with a midwife and doula, and we dove right in learning everything we could about natural childbirth. I started going to the chiropractor weekly and continued to get acupuncture and the occasional prenatal massage.

Fast forward to the end of my pregnancy, and I was mildly anemic at 36 weeks. In hindsight I think I struggled with low iron throughout pregnancy because I was extremely fatigued the whole time. At this point, if my iron didn't increase, I would risk out of home birth because of the potential to hemorrhage after birth. We worked with our midwife and naturopath to figure out a supplement regime to boost my iron, and prayed that it would increase relatively quickly. I really focused on my diet and completely cut out all caffeine and dairy since they inhibit iron absorption. Well, God must have known I needed a little extra time to make sure my iron levels were just right, because 40 weeks went by, 41 weeks went by, and then 42 weeks went by and still no signs of labor. I did get my iron checked again at the end of my 41st week, and to our surprise and delight, my levels were up to 11.1 - praise God! I knew what we were doing was working and we could have the home birth we had planned.

The mental game of waiting was tough though. Pat and I tried all different types of natural induction methods. I drank a castor oil shake at the end of week 41, and ended up just throwing it all up and feeling nauseous all day. I got acupuncture, I ate a Nashville Hot chicken sandwich from The Southerner, we did so much walking, and all of the other things to try to jump start labor. I had asked for a membrane sweep but when my midwife checked me, my cervix wasn't dilated enough at that point for her to do it. The pressure to get induced, not from my midwife, but from the way we as a society think about birth was intense. Induction was always brought up, but I knew I wanted so badly for my body to go into spontaneous labor on its own. I had anxiety through the roof that I was making the wrong decision, and that it would all be on me if something went wrong. Risks do go up after you hit 42 weeks, although not by much, but thats all I could think about. On Sunday the 17th, at 42+1, Pat and I tried to calm my anxiety by writing all my fears down and burning the paper, which really did help ease my mind, because anytime I started to feel anxious I just pictured that piece of paper burning. I really struggled that day, and kept praying for God to give me some sort of sign if I should go get induced or not. Mae still had her normal activity in the womb, but mentally I was starting to break. On Monday we called our midwife and told her we didn't think we could do it anymore, and I packed all our hospital bags as if we would go get induced that night. My midwife recommended that before we make that decision, she come to our house and check my cervix to see if I had made any progress so we could make an informed choice. I agreed, and when she checked me I was 4cm and 60% effaced! I couldn't believe it, and felt like this was the sign I had been looking for to stick with it and that my body was making progress, Mae just wasn't quite ready yet. So we decided to continue to wait and prayed I would go into full on labor soon. She also performed a membrane sweep. At this point I was feeling tightening and the occasional crampy feeling, but really just early labor contractions.

So we waited, 42+2, +3, +4, finally on Wednesday the 20th, I started having contractions that were noticeable, I could time, and I eventually had to breathe through them. At 2pm they started to get to a place where I was tracking them on an app, and Pat and I watched TV and tried to relax as my labor truly began. I was elated that my body was doing it's thing, I was going to experience what labor felt like--finally!! We had been texting with our doula and midwife all afternoon, and they told us to just try to rest and to let them know when things picked up. Well it was around 10pm when I started to really need to breathe and vocalize through contractions, and started to feel like I needed support. Our midwife and doula decided to make the trip to our house, and I wanted to see how much progress I had made so my midwife checked me when she arrived. At 11pm I was 5cm and still around 60% effaced. Progress, I knew now that I was in active labor, and things would only pick up from there. I was excited, we would maybe meet our little girl hopefully by morning! I started to really have to vocalize through contractions and I headed to the birth pool we had set up in Mae's room. We listened to music, I got in and out of the tub, and Pat was the best labor support person. I kept trying to switch positions, helping Mae move lower and lower as my body prepared for birth. I walked up and down the stairs a few times, and my midwife's assistant and doula would put pressure on my hips and back to help me work through contractions.

I labored all night, with strong contractions that were around 4 minutes apart. I will say that time in-between contractions was glorious, and really helped me relax and gear up for the next. Patrick stayed up all night with me, holding my hands through contractions and letting me know I could do it, we were so close to finally meeting Mae. The sun started to come up, and by that point I didn't feel too tired but it felt like a dream that I had stayed up all night. I think it was around 7:30/8am where I asked to be checked again, I wanted to know my progress. My midwife checked me - 9cm and 80% effaced! I was so close!! Mae would hopefully be here soon, I just had to make it a bit longer!

9am rolled around, and by this point we were expecting I could push soon. My midwife checked me again, but no progress. She offered to break my water to see if it would speed things up, but did let me know it might make labor even more intense. By that point, I just wanted to meet Mae, so Pat and I agreed to her breaking my water. Things started to get more intense, and I labored in the tub for a while and started to feel "pushy" during contractions. We walked up and down the stairs a few times, tried to move around, tried different positions that made contractions more intense. It must have been around 10:30 or 11am, timelines are a little fuzzy, when she checked me again to see if I could start pushing, and still I hadn't made progress. We thought maybe it was Mae's position, where her head wasn't able to put enough pressure on my cervix, so my midwife offered that she could try to reach into my cervix during a contraction and tip Mae's chin to try to tuck it and put more pressure on my cervix. At this point I was starting to feel desperate, and if there was something that could be done to help me get to pushing, I would do it. I agreed and let me tell you, if you don't have any pain medication, I would not recommend this to anyone. It was the most intense pain I think I have ever felt in my life, I was in shock afterwards to be honest. It was after that, that Pat and I both started to get emotional. I was in labor land, but he had to see me go through that pain with full consciousness. Shortly after that, it took the midwife's assistant a little longer than normal to find Mae's heartbeat, and I just broke down and sobbed between contractions. I kept vocalizing "I can do it" while contractions were hitting, sometimes even double peaking, to stay mentally tough.

It was around 1:00pm that day, as Pat was sitting holding my hands while I was in the birth tub going through contractions, that our doula softly reminded us that we had other options if we wanted to consider. I'm the type of person that would go through anything if I'm told I can do it, but her giving me permission to consider other options was really what I needed in that moment. Later, her partner doula who met us at the hospital, mentioned there was a difference between pain, and really suffering. At that moment, I was suffering with no progress and we weren't sure if I would be able to dilate to 10cm. I had some hardened spots on the outside of my cervix, that my midwife thought was scar tissue, that we think was preventing me from dilating all the way. So, after an emotional conversation with Pat, we decided it was time to transfer to the hospital to see if maybe getting an epidural would help me relax enough to dilate fully. Once we made that decision everything was a blur. My contractions were so intense, and Pat was rushing around the house to grab our just in case hospital bags that we packed. We decided to drive the truck so I had more room in the back seat, and my midwife rode in the backseat with me to help push on my hips and work through contractions. That 20 minute drive was a blur, and then I had to walk into the hospital and be taken to a room all while vocalizing through intense contractions.

The hospital sprang into action super quickly, which I was grateful for. One of my biggest fears for my labor was that I would have to get an epidural, and here we were. Again, the care providers were really great and talked me through everything. I had the epidural placed shortly after arriving, I didn't even have to go through triage. I handed the nurses a copy of my birth plan, which was already modified a little but I was more concerned about some of our preferences once Mae was born, but they were very understanding and got me the paperwork I needed to sign. Next up, was their Pitocin recommendations. My contractions had slowed a little with the epidural and to try to make any progress, I would most likely need Pitocin to speed things up again. This was another thing I really didn't want, but if I wanted to have a vaginal birth I knew this was my best option. We agreed to a slow drip of Pitocin, starting at 1 and only increasing every hour. So we started and I rested, finally not in pain anymore. Our doula was amazing, as she helped us make each decision and offered advice.

Three hours went by, and my contractions had picked up, so we had my cervix checked to see if I had made any progress. To our disappointment, I was in the same spot, 9cm, so we continued to increase the Pitocin. We had an internal fetal monitor placed on Mae so we would get an accurate reading of the heart rate since the external kept breaking the line. By about 10pm, Mae's heart rate started to drop during contractions pretty significantly, and Pat and I's anxiety around her being okay started to really go up. I also hadn't eaten since the day before, and now that I was relaxed I was starving, but wasn't allowed to eat anything solid because of the chance of a c-section. As we began looking at the clock and evaluating our emotional and physical shape, I began to be worried about having enough energy for hours of pushing if we got to that stage. Pat and I were exhausted, and we asked to have me checked again probably a little after 11pm. The news we didn't want to hear, still 9cm. As we looked at each other with tears in our eyes, we both knew the right decision was to stop Pitocin and get a c-section, we just wanted to meet little Mae and for both of us to be okay. So we made the call, and after that everything happened really quickly.

I was wheeled down to the OR and Pat went to a waiting room while they got me ready for surgery. Once I was ready, Pat was let in and within minutes, Mae was born. 7/22/22 at 12:28am, 7lbs 3oz and 20 inches long, we got to see our sweet baby girls face for the first time. It was so hard being strapped down to the table as they brought her over to get her checked and have Pat cut the cord. I was sobbing on the table as it was all happening, longing to hold my baby girl in my arms. Finally, after the longest I think 6 minutes of my life, they brought her over to me and we were able to have skin to skin time. I remember just sobbing as they placed her on my chest, it not feeling real that she was finally here. They then started to stitch me back up, and had to apply a lot of pressure on my uterus for it to contract down and that pain brought me back to the pain throughout labor. I started to tremble uncontrollably, and had to ask for them to take Mae because I started to feel nauseous. All the trauma from throughout the day came back to my body in that moment. They finally were done and as I was wheeled to the recovery room, they placed Mae on my chest and I got to fully hold her for the first time. It still feels like a dream, but she was so gorgeous and she latched on right away and was so alert. All the nurses kept commenting on how alert she was. We then had to spend a couple days in the hospital for me to recover, and I continued to feel better. The nurses took great care of us and I have nothing but good things to say about the maternity care at Spectrum.

My biggest fear through my experience is that others will look at it and say "see, homebirth isn't safe, you need to be in the hospital." That is so far from the truth. Birth is a natural experience and can be safely done at home under midwifery care, and I believe without a doubt that if I had been able to dilate to 10cm, 100% effaced, Mae would have been born at home. But when things don't go according to plan, it's important you have a midwife that is open to transferring care if necessary. Only 4% of homebirths end up in a c-section, so my experience was not the normal. There's a place where natural methods and western medicine live hand in hand, supporting each other when necessary to create the best outcomes. I am so glad I was able to experience a spontaneous labor at home, and am also glad to have nurses and doctors who were able to perform surgery when things didn't go according to plan. Happy Birthday Mae Janavice MacKenzie, we love you so much and would go through anything for you.