My Labor and Delivery: Aubrielle’s Birth Story
To start, I want to say how important it is that we normalize that not every birth story is meant to be shared or considered to be a happy experience. Although most of us leave the hospital with a beautiful, newborn baby, some of us leave with much more than that, including postpartum depression, second degree tears, swollen feet, a hematoma the size of a grape in your vagina, sleep deprivation, and the uncertainty of what is yet to come.
Every birth story is different for every woman, which is why it’s almost impossible to give any advice on how to prepare for it. Personally, before I gave birth, I wanted to know what to expect, how painful it would be, and how long my recovery would take. I was constantly asking questions and leaning on the stories of family and friends to find some solace in what my labor and delivery would be like.
Now that I’ve gone through the experience myself, I have so many emotions and thoughts about giving birth. It’s hard to put to words, but if I could, I would describe it as being one of the longest, hardest, and fastest days of my life. First, giving birth is nothing like the movies; and second, epidurals do not eliminate all labor pains. This is important to know because I was fooled into thinking they did. With that, I hope that by sharing my daughter’s birth story that it can help empower the next expecting mother as they navigate their own birthing experience.
Even though I wish my labor and delivery had gone better, I am grateful to have a healthy, energetic, beautiful baby girl. On January 30, 2021 at 8:22 p.m., I became a mama to Aubrielle Rose Pelt. She came into this world wide-eyed and alert, weighing six pounds and seven ounces, stretching to be 20 inches long. She is so precious, and sweet, and my husband and I are so deeply in love with her.
So, here we go. This is how the day unfolded.
It all started on a cold Saturday morning, at 4:26 a.m. My husband and I fell asleep on the couch after watching a movie, and then decided to move from the couch to the bed, so we could get a better night’s sleep. Little did we know, it would be awhile before we would ever experience real sleep again. As soon as I slid underneath our bed covers, I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdominal area. Holding tightly onto my stomach, my husband notices and asks, “Is this it?” Anxiously, I look back at him and say, “I think it might be time.”
Like everyone says, when it happens, you just know. Soon after, that same pain came five minutes later and that’s when I knew I had to start counting my contractions. Based on our birthing classes, the standard rule of thumb was to follow 5-1-1. This means your contractions should be five minutes apart, last for a minute long, and be consistent for up to an hour before heading to the hospital. Surprisingly, this happened like clockwork. My contractions were consistent, and the pain came and went every five minutes.
My hospital bag (i.e. suitcase) had already been packed for weeks, so my husband quickly packed his, took a shower, and then we hopped into the car and headed on our way. Since we were already pre-registered at our hospital, we entered through the after-hours entry point (the emergency room), and then we were immediately checked into triage. From there, I was given a cervical check, a COVID-19 test, and then hooked onto a machine to help monitor my contractions.
If you’re not familiar with cervical checks, it’s essentially a procedure where a nurse or doctor will insert two fingers into your vagina to check the dilation of your cervix, which is where the baby passes through to make its way down the birth canal. Due to my cervix sitting high and me being ultra-sensitive down there, each cervical check felt more painful than the last. Unfortunately, cervical checks are frequently part of the labor and delivery process and are impossible to opt out of once you’re in active labor.
So, after my first cervical check, my nurse informed me that I was only a centimeter dilated. This was disappointing since nothing had changed from my last prenatal appointment. She then told me that I would be given another cervical check in an hour to see if my contractions were progressing. If they were (which they did), I’d be checked into labor and delivery, and could soon receive an epidural.
As far as an epidural, I asked everyone I knew what it felt like to get one, and many described their labor and delivery experience going from a sharp, unbearable pain to a subtle, intense pressure. Knowing this, it was a no-brainer for me – I was getting the epidural.
I decided to get an epidural as soon as I could, because I spoke to a lot of friends that recently gave birth, who said it was best to get your request in as soon as you can. This is because you never know if your anesthesiologist will be available right away or if it’ll be an hour later from then, so it’s best not to chance it.
When I was finally given my epidural... to my surprise, I didn’t feel the intense pressure that everyone described. I still felt contractions. The only difference between what I felt before the epidural and what I felt after was that my lower body felt heavier and I could no longer get out of the bed on my own. For some reason, my epidural was only working on the left side of my lower body. When I requested for an adjustment, I was told to give it time and that it would soon start working. Oh, and did I mention that I also had a catheter up my urinary tract? Getting an epidural means there are tubes and cords everywhere, and you can’t go anywhere (not even to the bathroom) until the baby arrives.
After giving it time and having my body shifted from one side to the other, I asked the nurse if we could call back the anesthesiologist. Although, she didn’t believe there was anything else that could be done, she called him back. When he arrived, he asked me to describe my pain and then decided to pull out the epidural about a centimeter, and only then did I start to feel some relief. Although it took a few hours of trial and error, and with my contractions growing in intensity, I never gave up on myself to push for my care. It was truly a night and day difference and I was happy my body could finally get some rest.
Unfortunately, about an hour into my relief, the machine that was connected to my epidural started to make noises, and suddenly the numbing sensation slowly started to fade. I called the nurse, who looked at the message prompt on the machine, and she too was confused by what was happening. I told her that I could no longer feel the effects of the epidural working, even when I pressed the button for more. She then said what I was describing was impossible, because it takes two hours for the effects of an epidural to wear off.
Again, I insisted something was wrong. She then looked at the catheter in my back, informed me she didn’t see anything wrong, and dismissed my pain as being normal. Although, it didn’t feel right, it was the first time that I thought I may have been overreacting. After about a half hour, I called this same nurse back to my room, and told her again something didn’t feel right. She was adamant that nothing was wrong and that being in pain is part of the labor and delivery process. At this point, I was irritated and insisted she call back the anesthesiologist to take a look. She then told me a new anesthesiologist was on-call and that they would stop by my room when they had a chance.
Once the anesthesiologist got there, her and the nurse started to look at the insertion of my epidural, and then they both noticed there were multiple air bubbles in different parts of my catheter. But of course, instead of an apology, I was met with, “Oh, we’ve never seen this before.” After they had a good laugh and removed the air bubbles from my tubes, I soon started to feel some relief, but not the same as I did before. From there, I decided to just let it be. At this point, my body was exhausted, and I didn’t have the energy to go back and forth with the nursing staff. After a few hours passed, the next nurse who was taking the evening shift checked in with me and told me she would be doing another cervical check.
Knowing what was to come, I laid my legs flat on the hospital bed, moved my knees up into the shape of a diamond, and then started to inhale and exhale deeply so I could prepare for the pain. As she began the examination and inched her two fingers into my body to find my cervix, I knew I couldn’t take the pain any longer, so I cried out for her to “stop.” I felt embarrassed because I hated how much cervical checks pained me.
But she didn’t stop the examination and kept going. So, I said it again, “stop,” but it fell on deaf ears. At this point, I’m screaming, trying to lift my half-numbed body into the air to make it even more difficult for her to keep going, but she persisted. I can still feel the pain of her two fingers inside me, while I’m squeezing onto my husband’s hand, yelling for her to stop, but she never did. She said, “I have to keep going.” Her words after the exam, “You’re 8-9 cm dilated.”
Although, I was relieved to know I could soon start pushing, I felt emotionally numb and physically violated. Afterwards, the tears that fell down my cheeks represented both the pain of her presence leaving my body as well as the relief that it was finally over. As a patient, if you request someone to stop a medical procedure (like a cervical check) they are required to stop, and if they don’t it can be considered assault. I learned that from my triage nurse because she stopped mid-way through my first cervical exam after I said, “stop” and she was the one who explained that to me.
So, as I was heading into 16 hours of being in active labor, my body felt like it was on its last leg. I was about to pass out and I needed to act fast. Based on my dilation, I was expecting my doctor to be close by, so I was surprised when my husband called the nurse back into our room and she told us they hadn’t followed up with the doctor yet.
Based on my pain levels and dilation, I assumed they would have been proactive about communicating my progress. Plus, I had a feeling that this baby would be here any minute. But again, I was treated with the assumptions of what to expect from a first-time mom, which was ironic because so many nurses kept telling me how many rarities I had as a first-time mom. For instance, it was rare to not be induced as a first-time mom; it was rare to dilate from one centimeter to 10 cm in a day as a first-time mom; and it was rare to push a baby out in less than three hours as a first-time mom... but spoiler alert – all those instances were me.
Personally, I was just listening to my body, but because the nursing staff only saw me as a first-time mom, a young mom, or a Black mom (who knows), they assumed they knew better than I did as it related to my care. After complaining to my husband that I could no longer hold onto these contractions, he called my nurse, who then called the doctor-on-call, who then informed us that she was 30 minutes away. At this point, I was frustrated, annoyed, and tired. All throughout the day, I felt like my voice was ignored and I knew I didn’t have 30 minutes. I knew our little girl wanted to come out now. So, I asked the nurse what my options were if I wanted to start pushing now. She then offered me the opportunity to test a few methods for pushing.
Immediately, I wanted to get started. So, I followed her prompts. I lowered my body to the front edge of my hospital bed, pulled back both legs with my arms, and started to breathe in and exhale through each contraction, pushing my chin to my chest each time. We did this while she kept calling me “sis.” It was “sis” after every comment she made to me. Although I believed she was trying to be endearing, it wasn’t. As a Black woman, I felt she (as a White woman) was trying too hard to make me feel comfortable by doing this, which ultimately made me feel uncomfortable – especially since we didn’t have that kind of relationship.
So instead of getting upset by it, I decided to drown it out and push through it, because I needed to focus on what truly mattered, which was bringing my baby girl into this world safely. Before I gained a clear focus on what to do next, I screamed a lot. To be honest, it was hard not to scream. There was an increasing amount of pain and pressure that I wanted immediate relief from, and I knew the only way I was going to do that was to push this baby out as hard as I could and as fast as I could.
So, I did what any strong woman would do – I embraced it. I embraced the pain. I felt that ring of fire, and I pushed as hard as I could without letting up. Three contractions later, with the last one being two hard pushes, our baby girl was here. A sigh of relief swept my entire body as she quickly came out to everyone’s surprise. My husband said he looked away for two seconds and the next thing he knew she was in the nurse’s hands. Soon, I heard the sweet cries of my beautiful baby, and felt my own tears stream down my face.
Swiftly afterwards, a swarm of nurses entered our room, my husband quickly cut the umbilical cord, and an oxygen mask was placed over my baby’s face, while two nurses began to stitch me up. I felt my heartbeat dropping and I heard the nurses whisper to one another that I was losing an extensive amount of blood, while also asking each other where the doctor was, who had just arrived. My husband was with our baby, who was being monitored under a heated lamp, while also getting fluid sucked out of her lungs, and I’m on the verge of blacking out.
From all of that, I vividly remember trying to search for just a square inch of clear space so I could see my baby past all the bodies that surrounded her heated cubicle. It all happened so quickly, and I was losing focus. But as the excitement began to settle, a nurse soon carries her over to me and we have our first skin-to-skin interaction.
I grab her close, comforting her in the warmth of my body and her newborn blanket. Keeping her close to my chest, she greets me with a sudden squeal and then later a soft coo. Although, I’m exhausted and I can barely keep my eyes open, I look over to my husband who’s wiping the tears from his eyes. He then kisses me gently on my forehead and tells me how proud he is of me, and how much he loves the both of us. The whole moment was surreal, but I was most relieved that the contractions were over.
Even with everything that happened with the nurse earlier, I had no idea that I could resent her for how she made me feel, but also thank her for helping me deliver my first baby safely. To see and physically hold my baby for the first time, who I had carried for the past 38 weeks, and five days, superseded the pain that took place earlier that day.
Unfortunately, the inappropriate behavior didn’t end there. It crept into my recovery as well. After the swarm of nurses left our labor and delivery room, and when the doctor-on-call completed my stitching due to my second-degree tear, the same labor and delivery nurse was then assigned to transport my husband, newborn, and myself to our postpartum room.
Before we left the room, she filled a hospital glove with ice to place on my hematoma inside my vaginal wall. Once she placed the middle finger of the glove (which was filled with the most ice) against it, I instantly felt relief. But what happened next was not only embarrassing but demeaning. When she and another nurse lifted me onto my bed, and then soon pressed against my stomach to check for hemorrhaging, this same nurse then humored the other nurse on what she did (placing an iced middle finger up my vagina), and then laughed about it.
It was all inappropriate, and again I felt violated in the presence of my husband and now newborn daughter. Throughout my labor and delivery process, I felt helpless, violated, and misrepresented when my care was handed off from one shift of nurses to the next. Before having a daughter, I would have brushed off this experience as a painful memory for me to deal with, but because this nurse has access to other women who are expecting mothers and may be giving birth for the first time, I felt the need to speak up and report this behavior to the hospital.
I spoke with the labor and delivery nurse manager, the hospital midwife, my OB, and two other hospital staff members on my experience. With this information, they addressed the situation with that nurse, but also informed me that they were taking action to address communication as it relates to patient care. Although they do this work every day, a first-time mom is going through this experience for the first-time and they need to feel supported and safe. Although I wish that could have been my experience, I do feel reassured that the next woman will be taken care of because of my follow-up.
With that, I want to acknowledge that I truly appreciated the postpartum nurses who helped care for me and my family during our stay. I was blessed to have a better experience because of them. The postpartum nurses helped console me in the late hours of the night, carried me to the bathroom when I could barely feel my legs due to the lingering effects of the epidural, and swaddled my baby a million times to help her (and us) sleep better at night. These women helped me through the hardest 72 hours of my life, and I will forever be grateful for them.
They were the true heroes of my daughter’s birth story. Due to the global health pandemic, there was a lot that was taken from me and other expecting mothers during this time. This ranged from not being able to have spousal support at prenatal doctor visits to only being allowed one support person during and after birth – but one thing COVID-19 did not take away from me or any other woman, who had a baby during these past few months, is that we continue to be way stronger than anyone expects or thinks (including what we think about ourselves).
So, here’s to strong women – may we know them, be them, and raise them. Thank you, Aubrielle, for choosing me to be your Mom. I love you, always and forever.