When Your Home Birth Doesn’t Go As Planned

Everyone who follows my blog knows I planned a home birth. “Plan” is the operative word. Even though a home birth was my first choice, my birth plan included backup plans in the event I transferred to the hospital (separate plans for hospital vaginal and C-section deliveries). I imagined the major scenarios, so I wouldn’t be forced to make difficult decisions under the duress of labor or in an emergency.

On Thursday night, I started dripping water, no gush like you see in the movies. An hour later, I started to feel light contractions. I continued to labor. It wasn’t bad either. Kind of fun. We had the lights off except for the orange glow of the salt lamp. I had soft ambient music playing. In addition to my husband, I had a crew of women there: mom, mom-in-law, three midwives and two doulas.

In hindsight, I’m not sure it was best to have so many people attending my birth. I wonder if having so many eyes on me was unnerving and delayed my labor. I was excited for everyone to arrive, but I noticed that my labor slowed down once it wasn’t just me, Greg and my mom. I’ve read this can happen in the hospital because of bright lights, rotation of doctors/nurses, etc., but I didn’t expect it with my birth team, in my own home.

Before I knew it, many hours passed. But during that time I was cruising right along, doing hypnobirthing, handling the contractions. Then something changed. The labor became agonizingly, torturously painful. Friday morning turned into afternoon, and I was experiencing hour after hour of excruciating pain that was becoming impossible to handle. The hypnobirthing techniques?  Not a chance. I tried a bathtub of warm water … didn’t help. I tried different positions … didn’t help. I began to fear something was going terribly wrong. It was then that I started contemplating going to the hospital.

As my intuition continued to scream at me that I needed to go to the hospital, I hate to say this: I was afraid to tell my birth team. Afraid of looking like a wimp, of letting them down, or of making them think they had let me down. Finally, I got the courage to say it. (With the benefit of hindsight, I realize I should’ve never felt ashamed for wanting to go the hospital, but my home birth had meant so much to me, and such a radical change takes time to process.)

My instincts told me something wasn’t right. My birth crew tried to talk me out of transferring, told me that everything I was feeling was normal. My husband looked worried though; he knew how badly I wanted a home birth and that something was probably not right. At this point, my midwife checked my dilation and found that I was only four centimeters! In that instant I knew that I had to go to the hospital. Knowing that I might not even be halfway there, with many more hours of hell to go was all it took for us to switch to Plan B. My midwife seemed surprised by my lack of progress and supported my choice to go, but technically, this wasn’t an emergency transfer. Instead of transferring to the nearby hospital 15 minutes away, we opted to transfer to a hospital 45 minutes away, but much friendlier toward home birth transfers. Most of all, it had lower C-section rates.

At the hospital it was another agonizing hour until I received pain relief, which by then was an incredibly easy decision. At that moment, my concern was for getting my baby born and being helped to do it. Two days before, I would’ve never dreamed I’d accept drugs for pain, but when new information presented itself, I knew I had to be flexible. My overriding concern at that point was to have a vaginal birth, not a C-section. That would require all of my strength. After being relocated from triage to my comfortable delivery room and receiving pain medication, everything was better. I was able to relax a bit, to be myself again. I was able to focus on my baby.

In spite of my previous concerns about hospital births, this experience largely proved me wrong, and tells me that not all hospitals are the same … in fact, far from it! At the hospital, I started to relax, get rest, and I was able to eat. Yes, eat. The hospital did allow that. In fact, my doctor brought me food! My labor was still long once I was at the hospital (about 12 hours more), but it was more manageable. When the time came for pushing, the epidural had mostly worn off, and it was hard work, but without pain. When Kamea came out … that part wasn’t painful at all. It was super cool.

For the past year, I’ve been hard on hospitals for birth. I’ve learned that not every hospital deserves that. The hospital we chose was amazing. They explained the different options I had through every step. They encouraged breastfeeding. They answered my questions. They were patient. They accepted my birth team and collaborated with my midwife, who was my staunch advocate. They respected my birth plan. They didn’t pressure me with anything (except for one formula-pushing nurse). The attending doctor even said something in front of his staff that amazed me: “We doctors could learn a few things from midwives.”

What I’ve walked away with is this: I had the chance to experience part of a home birth, as well as a hospital birth. The birth team believes that Kamea was presenting with her elbow in the up position, explaining the slow progress and extreme pain. I suspect if Kamea didn’t have an elbow up, my labor would’ve progressed faster and might not have been as painful. But she did. And as her mom, I made decisions that I didn’t expect to make, but I was happy to make them. They felt right in my gut. And the other thing I learned: Don’t be afraid of the hospital if that’s the route you need to go, yet you had planned a home birth. Choose a hospital that is midwife-friendly, if possible. Otherwise be sure to have your birth team there to advocate on your behalf.

I wonder if the labor was protracted because she just wasn’t ready to come out. Three days prior to my water breaking, I took measures to “support labor starting.” I underwent two aggressive acupuncture treatments. I now wish I hadn’t done that. I wish I had let Kamea come on her own time. I did it because she was almost two weeks past due, after which my midwife technically wasn’t allowed to do the delivery. Because I wanted a home birth, I was willing to speed things. I wonder if this contributed to my long labor.

In the end, I have a happy, healthy baby (that’s what matters), and I love her so much!

Is Your House Ready for Guests?

My son — a very important guest to us — was born last month. For nine months, my wife and I had been asking ourselves: Will our house be clean and ready for his arrival?

Before this, I’ve been working at cleaning the planet (one person/body at a time) telling anyone who would listen that what is making everybody sick isn’t bad genes, bad luck or bad karma. It’s bad food and lots of toxins. And while this is all true for normal day-to-day life, there was suddenly added urgency because such a precious guest seemed to require some extra special cleaning.

These are some of the questions we asked in preparation of our son’s birth:

-What is clean nutrition during pregnancy?
-Should Mama take supplements; which ones?
-Are there any toxins in Mama’s body that need our attention and/or action; should either of us do a detox   program?
-Should we have sonograms?
-What cosmetics should Mama use to avoid toxic chemicals absorbed through the skin?
-Should we get induced if we are past the due date?
-Should we get an epidural?
-Where should the birth be, how and with whom?
-What clothes should we get him?
-What vaccines (if any) should he get?
-Should we breastfeed?

The list goes on and on. This is what we ended up doing:

Mama ate mostly from the Clean Program’s Elimination Diet: mostly vegetarian (99% organic, 60% in season, local and 50% raw), some free-range, organic chicken, occasional grass-fed red meat and no fish (to avoid mercury and parasites).

We decided on absolutely no full-blown cleansing while pregnant or breastfeeding to protect our son from exposure of re-circulating toxins, which is common when the body is detoxing. Mama may have had toxins in her system, but she had no symptoms and never really gets sick, so we decided not to test for anything.

We had only five sonograms during the whole pregnancy and did not “need” any more because everything was always perfect. Mama nagged me about turning the Wi-Fi off when not in use (I don’t know enough about those effects to disagree or give it that much importance).

She only used cosmetics without petrochemicals, preservatives, coloring agents or anything remotely processed. We filtered our kitchen, drinking and shower water to avoid chlorine and many other toxins commonly present in tap water today (medications, sediment, toilet paper particles, heavy metals).

We went one week past our due date, refusing any form of inducing intravenously, even a swipe. Instead, Mama had acupuncture a few times, exercised as much as her body said was okay, and we had lots of sex. Mama had one glass of wine during the lunch hours before labor started as our midwife said she could. We chose to have the birth in a midwifery room attached to a modern hospital with top neonatologists. The birth was natural, under water, without an epidural, but instead with Mama, Papa, midwife, and doula.

So far we have decided not to vaccinate him for at least one month and are only giving him vitamin K to avoid bleeding as he will be circumcised. (This is a tough decision and we are researching voraciously, so any tips are welcome!)

We are avoiding any clothing made of synthetic fibers and not using fire retardant mattresses, which may very possibly increase the chance of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Mama took prenatal vitamins, fish oils, probiotics, calcium, magnesium, selenium, lots of green juices, and yes, we are breastfeeding for at least nine months.

We welcomed our son into as clean a world as we could provide. Through this example of the arrival a very special guest (arguably the most special), you get an idea of how complex it is to be a good host in our modern world.

But, even if you weren’t expecting guests, wouldn’t you want to answer these questions for yourself?

The Final Stretch of My Magical Pregnancy

Update! Congratulations to Kristen Suzanne and her newly expanded family. Crazy Sexy Life welcomes baby Kamea into the world! Here are Kristen’s reflections during the last month of her pregnancy…

I’m full-term in my pregnancy now, so I can go into labor anytime over the next 2-3 weeks. Talk about exciting! The past month was spent preparing by doing things like interviewing pediatricians; setting up our home for a homebirth; touring the hospital where I could end up in the event of an emergency transfer; getting our car seat installed; washing my baby’s clothes and cloth diapers (we’ll be practicing EC – elimination communication – but we’ll still need some diapers as we do this); resting; rereading and printing out my birth plan for my midwife, doula, mom and mom-in-law… among other things.

This pregnancy has been magical… I wonder often, as the days count down, “Precious baby, will you be born under the warm sun or under the glowing moon? Will you be born in the water or our bed? And, the big mystery that surrounds us all… are you a boy or a girl?”

All my life, I’ve been the type of person who “wants to know.” As a girl, growing up, I always wanted to know what my birthday and holiday gifts were, days in advance. What patience has maturity brought? NONE—now I want to know months in advance! My husband takes pity on me, gives me my birthday present a month early, and then takes pity on me again by giving me something else on the actual day, insisting that every girl should get to open a present on her birthday.

My impatience goes both ways. When I give gifts to family or friends, I want them to know what it is, and I invariably make them open it early. I’ve never been patient to know the answer. Ever.

But something is different about this baby. When it comes to knowing its sex, there has been something magical about not knowing. One of the biggest gifts I’ll ever receive is finding out on the day of the birth. The cute thing is that every time someone asks me the sex of the baby and I tell them that I don’t know, the response is always the same: “Oh, how cool! No one ever does that anymore!” It’s really odd in a way, because everyone’s eyes light up when they hear that I don’t know. The response has been excitement across the board – yet almost no one else does it. Strange, that such an appealing idea is rarely considered an option anymore.

Or perhaps not so strange, in a day of such routine ultrasounds, which provide, after a certain point in baby’s development, more looky-loo photo ops for giddily curious parents than actionable medical diagnoses. You want giddy? Not knowing is the mother of all giddies.

Originally, our decision to forego ultrasounds after 13 weeks had nothing to do with keeping the sex a surprise. It was due to our desire, especially after one miscarriage, to avoid anything even remotely invasive whenever possible. Not knowing the sex emerged somewhat as a byproduct of this medical decision, and ended up becoming an unexpected source of constant, wide-eyed speculation and daily imaginings of possible futures.

Not knowing does funny things. We find ourselves imagining alternate futures. On some nights, I dream that baby is a boy; on other nights, a girl. My husband finds himself daydreaming about the distant future. Years from now, will he have a teenage daughter or a teenage son? Our minds try to guess about possible personalities, imagine scenarios like teaching him or her to drive a car, going on a first date, or seeing them off to college – without knowing the sex! The unknown stops the fictive dream abruptly, jumping back and forth between the boy version and the girl version, like alternate realities that haven’t been cast in stone yet… except that they have; we just don’t know which one it is.

Every day, multiple times a day, I place my hands on my belly and feel my baby moving throughout the day. He or she is definitely an energetic baby—our little back-flipping ninja—perhaps from all of the nutrient-rich, raw, vegan foods I eat. It’s an exquisite sensation, and it’s during these moments that I have finally learned what it means to be truly present. My baby draws me into his/her inner world, and I can’t help but tune out everything else going on around me and join my baby in what feels like his or her special form of thoughtful, deliberate communication. Yes, deliberate. It may sound crazy, but it feels like baby is actually trying to say something between all its thumping, stretching, and occasional ninja back-flipping.

I’ve enjoyed a super healthy organic vegan diet throughout my pregnancy, which included plenty of raw food. My choice of exercise has been walking, and I weigh 160 pounds as I round out 38 weeks (we estimate that I’ve gained 30-35 pounds). I look at my body in the mirror, and I’m proud of my growing belly and the healthy weight I have gained, even if there are brief moments when I don’t recognize myself or when I feel my thighs rubbing as I walk (ha!). But then I remember, and tell myself frequently, that my body is concerned at present with making a little person, and it needs supplies. I consider my booty a convenient storage place for baby ingredients.

And, courtesy of the raw vegan diet and my love of walking, I also know… the weight gain is not permanent. I miss rigorous exercise and really can’t wait to get back to it – all in good time. Being pregnant has been a gift and a joy. I’m eager to give birth, and ready whenever baby is.

Photo Credit: _Nezemnaya_

Regaining Energy During Pregnancy

As many of you know, I love adding E3Live to my green smoothies for an extra boost! I pour the bottle into ice trays and throw a few cubes into the blender with my favorite smoothie ingredients. Today, Evita shares her experience with E3Live and describes how adding it to her diet helped her maintain energy and vibrancy during her pregnancy. Thanks, Evita! Peace & veggies- Kris Carr

Ever since I healed myself of ovarian cancer in 2000 by natural means, I’ve been promoting a holistic lifestyle in media. It was my little private health-awareness campaign. I gave interviews in media and my before and after photos appeared in magazines. In my before photos, I was 180 pounds, sad and chronically depressed. In my after photos, I was slim, joyful, youthful and full of energy. On radio and tv, I shared about cleansing, healing and weight-loss on a physical and spiritual level. Shedding the toxic kilos and fleecing toxic beliefs, I underwent a major cleanse in the kitchen and in the Mind.

However, all this was tested when I conceived a child. The swing of hormones is unbelievable. A woman’s body suddenly shifts 180 degrees and becomes a baby incubator producing brain cells, bone cells, muscles, eyes and ears. You can hear the heart beating like a choo-choo train speeding to deliver on time, and it all happens inside you with one heck of a Divine Intelligence.

I felt dizzy, sleepy, craved all sorts of weird foods and woke up each morning bigger than the day before. I felt heavy like a whale and vulnerable. Nothing was familiar in that state. It felt as if I was traveling to a foreign land. I craved cooked food and carbohydrates, so I started to eat those again. I was looking for guidance and listened to advice that was given. I was told I needed to take prenatal vitamins, so I did. They were supposed to increase my blood iron, not that it was low in the first place, but just in case. All they did was make me constipated, sleepier than ever, and more nauseous.

I missed that feeling of beaming energy I used to have before I got pregnant. I drank coffee to get my mind clear. A doctor told me that one cup a day was okay. Well, I felt worse and worse. I was vomiting a couple times a day. I was told it was normal, but I knew something was wrong. Radically wrong.

In the mean time, my husband (a filmmaker) took his camera and we interviewed many holistic experts: midwives, doulas, ob/gyns, chiropractor, acupuncturist, watsu therapist, hypnobirthing, etc. They all do amazing things for pregnant moms, helping in alternative ways to create a great experience for a mom and her baby preparing for natural birth. Besides filming them giving us sessions, we organized events with hundreds of pregnant and nursing moms in attendance with our experts as guest speakers. It all required my mind to be clear and focused. I was working 14 hours a day, to pull it all together.

Obviously, it would not have been possible, if I stayed in that foggy, dizzy state of mind. It was so unlike me that I had to do something. I wanted to go back to raw, but I didn’t know how to do it during pregnancy. Every time I drank a veggie juice, it would be in the toilet within the next 15 minutes. I ate a salad and threw up. I prepared a green drink and threw up. “What’s the point!?” I asked myself. Perhaps my body needed the carbs I craved? They tell you to EAT when you are expecting, even though your stomach is getting smaller as the belly grows. You need to EAT and EAT to produce a healthy baby, and when you look at what is recommended your hair shivers – the Standard American Diet times four! You are told to eat meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, pasta, milk and yogurt. And if you wonder about your sugar cravings, the doctor will just say, “When you are pregnant, you can eat whatever you want.” I just couldn’t buy it.

I called Jinjee Talifero, a raw vegan mom of four, and asked her, “How did you do this?” She recommended, “Stay on raw for three days and go through this. You will be feeling nauseous. On days four and five, you’ll be feeling better and better.” And so I did. And it would not be possible without E3Live. Ever since then, I would wake up, make a veggie juice with kale or beets and have a shot of E3Live Enhanced with BrainOn. That woke me up! My energy shot right through the roof! Way better than coffee, and GREEN! I would also have a shot of ginger juice and that definitely kept me from feeling the dizziness again. On the contrary, I felt clear and powerful like never before. Responding to e-mails, handling phone calls from all the vendors in the maternity industry, coordinating video interviews and events. I worked even in the ninth month of my pregnancy, fully alert, raw and vegan. Crazy, sexy and alive!

We interviewed moms about their birth experience and diet. Some of my pregnant girlfriends felt like whales all through their pregnancy. They could hardly walk in the sixth or seventh month. Their legs would swell and sugar cravings would not cease. Those moms who went raw through pregnancy usually had an easy delivery, and the babies seemed calm and peaceful. They told us about E3Live. I followed the inspiration they gave me and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, who immediately gained weight after the delivery by drinking his mama’s milk.

Soon we’re going to start feeding our baby, Jonathon. Guess what’s going to be his first food? If nature created algae as one of the first forms of life on the Earth, it would seem logical to give this food first to the baby before anything else. What could be better for his brain development than the blue-green algae that first created oxygen on the planet? It will be fun to see people’s faces in the park when we add E3Live to the bottle. The milk is going to turn GREEN!

Evita Ramparte is a European wellness reporter, holistic coach and motivational speaker. In 2000, she healed her ovarian cancer through natural means. Ever since then she’s been promoting healthy lifestyle in media. Today, she’s a launching TigerMama.com – empowering moms to rule the world!

Part 2: Seven Tips to a Blissful Birth

Photo credit: Timothi Graham

If you are pregnant or want to support someone who is please take these 7 tips to a blissful birth journey and add them to your arsenal. Remember to practice what you preach and that will make you even more effective in assisting the mother-to-be.

Ways to Support the pregnant goddess:

1. Holding sacred space- a woman must feel safe in order to give birth, if the conditions are such that she is anxious or afraid, the labor will be stalled. This is often the case in hospital settings where the medical providers do not allow time, space, and ancestral ritual journey in birth to take place. If you are hooked up to monitors and getting poked and prodded under florescent light in a cool and sterile room every 5 minutes, it’s not likely you would feel safe. Create a setting whether you are birthing at home, in the birth center, or in a hospital where the mother can relax and feel safe and carry out her birth ritual.

Ways to create sacred space include: lighting candles, burning incense, playing soothing slow music, run a warm bath, chanting, kissing your partner, putting a sign on the door- knock before entering.

2. Encourage Sound- we spend so much of our lives focused on being quiet, in school, in church, at work, in transit. We are constantly being told to shut up. When are we ever given permission to make noise- during sex and birth. It is every important for a pregnant woman to make sounds to connect with what is happening in her pelvic bowl. Sound amplifies sensation and really helps during labor. The hardwiring for our mouth and throat is directly connected to our pelvic floor and sacred passageway (birth canal). When you open and relax the muscles in the mouth and throat and make low and deep bellowing sounds, you also relax the muscles of the pelvic floor and make birth easier for both mom and baby. Conversely, if mommy tightens her jaws, scrunches up her face and closes her throat, the pelvic floor muscles will follow. Sound is a gift so use it.

Ways to incorporate sound include: taking deep breaths and sighing long on the exhale, deep Ahhh sounds, Oohhh sounds, the birth sound- Om can be chanted as well.

3. Practice Deep Breathing- your breath is an amazing bridge between the conscious and unconscious because the respiratory system is both voluntary and involuntary. You don’t have to remind yourself to breathe, it just happens. But when we are mindful of our breathing we can tap into an energy in the unconscious realm. What ever state you are in, your breath will follow. If you are anxious your breath will be quick and shallow, if you are calm and relaxed your breath will be long deep. You can also breathe to encourage different states. If you want the breath to take you to a relaxed state you can start breathing long deep full breaths and it will send signals to the brain to calming you down. This is so helpful for birthing women because the deep breath along with the sound enhances the trance state during labor. Women can not journey into their labor in a Beta brain wave state, or regular consciousness. They must enter an altered state of consciousness for the cascade of hormones to descend and the primal state to turn on.

Ways to incorporate deep breathing include- bringing soothing familiar scents into the room and taking long slow deep full inhales through the nose and exhaling through the mouth(as it releases some of the internal heat energy)

4. Get Moving- Staying in a static position is a sure way to slow down the labor process. Moving around during labor is primal. Its part of how we manage the intense surges of energy in the body. Finding ways to move the body to promote comfort and and opening is key during labor. All of those prenatal yoga hip opening exercises, spinal flexions, rolls. Movement not only encourages the baby to move down it feels good for mommy too. Walking and hip swaying are especially helpful as women create more wiggle room in their pelvis and squatting increases the pelvic opening by 30%, which doesn’t sound like a lot but when you are pushing out a baby, it’s tremendous.

Helpful ways to get moving include: slow dancing, walking, hip rolls, cat/cow, squatting, showering,

5. Practice Visualization Exercises- Visualization exercises are a part of every major spiritual practice as a tool to support entry into an altered state. I mentioned that women can not give birth in a normal state of consciousness- when thinking about their dry cleaning, their phone bill, or whether or not they look fat, etc. This sort of jumpy linear thinking is our brain operating on beta waves and when we are in that state we are not producing the cocktail of hormones that we need to progress in labor. The mundane has to be transcended for a mother to begin the ancestral ritual journey that takes her into her birth trance. This also includes fear. Fearful thoughts will shut labor down, so powerful visualizations are key. The shift from Beta waves to Alpha waves where the mother enters an altered state is much like when we enter into meditation, or a good daydream, that’s the place where labor begins and from there the brain waves can lead to deeper altered states. Why this is important to know is because there is so much distraction around women these days no matter where they are birthing. Having a set of tools to transcend the mundane and the fear will help labor progress naturally.

Tools for visualization exercises- practice envisioning the baby moving down the birth canal at each contraction, find a few symbols that can help anchor you into the space ie, lotus blossoms, the ocean, candle light

6. Offer TLC through Touch- Touch transmits feeling and intention. If you can place loving hands on a woman and also know when to not touch her it is a huge asset. At certain stages of labor touch is very helpful. Caressing while sharing calming and affirmative words of support are very helpful at certain stages of labor. Be observant and see what the moment calls for: foot rub, sacral massage, caressing the forehead, etc. Our emotional energy field will transmit what we are experiencing onto others. Pregnant women are so sensitive in labor and can pick up on any frenetic, or ungrounded energy around them. Make sure to calm yourself and be prepared to learn and serve.

7. Practice Affirmations- Courage is feeling the fear and rising to the occasion anyway. When we encourage with loving words we help others move beyond fear, inspire them to keep the faith, and keep on moving. Affirmations are positive phrases. Speak in this love language of encouragement to help support the mommy-to-be.

Some affirmations include: Your body is wise and can birth your baby. You are beautiful and strong.