Remembrance: October 2, 2008 My Birthing Day

One year ago today, my sweet and magical daughter Hunter Rose came into the world. And yes, my life has changed completely. The lessons of this past year have been so many that I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around them. I do know this: Children are a gift from God. And I don’t only mean your own children, but children in general. They are a conduit to make us grown ups better and better people. I say this as the moments that are clearer in my head when I look back at this year are those that were the most challenging. The ones where what I wanted DIDN’T happen, as HER will overrode my control. The moments where I was on the brink of giving up, as I felt I just didn’t’ know how to do this mothering thing. Every day I’m reminded that “I am enough” and  I am not in control. My will power is at its optimal when it is aligned with something Bigger and it ebbs and flows to find it’s optimal expression in our lives. If I cling to an outcome or ‘want’ a specific result, I’m invariably reminded at times sweetly, but often times by loud crying or screeching 😉 that I need to let go, soften and allow.

It all began that way. I had all sorts of plans for what I wanted my birthing day to be. What I actually experienced was the exact opposite of what I planned. Hunter was born, in the way that was best for her AND for me. This humble let go is a lesson I learn and relearn at every moment of every day. In this often times uncomfortable challenge I say ‘Thank you my daughter, for you are casting light on our family every day. I am grateful for gifting us the refining process of becoming ever more clear at living ausipicious lives aligning with the Highest Divine Will’.

Here is her birth story, as her Daddy shared it a Year ago.

So here’s the skinny: Hunter Rose Miyan was born at Allegheny General Hospital, in the North Side of Pittsburgh, on Thursday October 2nd, at 2:16pm. She was 5 pounds 15 ounces, and 19 inches long right out of the love oven. She was born via cesarean. Shock and awe! That’s how it went down!

Here’s why: Hunter wasn’t due until October 21st at the earliest. For those of you who know a little bit of pregnancy theory, first babies cook a bit longer. So Hunter wasn’t due until week 39 or 40. However, in the greater scheme of gestation, she was good to come out at week 36, which was the end of Sept. / beginning of Oct. Elsie and I are both organic, green, healthy people. So, we arranged with the mid-wife center of Pittsburgh to do a natural birth at their center. We had birthing classes there, made good friends, connected with really knowledgeable and experienced nurse mid-wives, and learned an incredible amount about the birthing process. We both believe that the experience of naturally birthing a child, if possible, is one of the most, if not the most empowering experience of a woman’s life. We were natural all the way, and because of our health practices, we were awesome candidates for a great natural birthing experience. Everything was going as planned. However, we had one small glitch: the baby was breech.

As a matter of theory, the baby was actually “Frank Breech”. That is where the bum is down, the head is up, and the legs are jacked upward so the feet are in front of the face. Frank Breech…I want to steal that name for a Phillip Marlow type detective novel! Anyway, there are a lot of techniques and practices that one can use to try to help and turn the baby head down: chiropractic (Webster technique), Moxabustion at an acupressure point on the pinky toe (don’t laugh, New England Journal of medicine published clinicals that showed serious results), Yoga techniques, and this thing called External Cephalic Version or “Version”. A Version is where an OB tries to manually turn the baby from outside the belly. Pretty good success rate on that one as well. We were doing the Webster thing, doing the yoga thing, considering the moxabustion thing, and decided to go to an OB and try the Version.

When you go for a version, you have to try it around 37 weeks, because there is an incredibly small chance that the baby might have a big time distress, forcing an emergency C-section. So, the baby has to be cooked enough to come out. Well, we scheduled our Version for October 2nd. We went in figuring we would give the baby a nice toss-about, and then head to Whole Foods for a celebration. That didn’t happen. Here’s what happened: Hunter’s bum was way down in Elsie’s pelvis, so Dr. Thomas told us that there wasn’t a large chance that he was going to be able to turn her. In order to get a good turn, the butt has to be out of the mother’s pelvis – there has to be daylight between the bum and the mommy pelvis. So, what Dr. Thomas was going to attempt was to try to lift Hunter’s bum out of Elsie’s pelvis, check under-bum daylight with the ultra sound, and then give a spin. Dr. Thomas was able to get Hunter’s bum out of Elsie’s pelvis, but when he checked daylight with the ultra sound, he saw something else. Dr. Thomas saw something that he had never seen before in all of the decades that he had been practicing. Elsie had 3 accessory lobes to her placenta. That is, she had a big oval of a placenta with three small ovals growing out of the bottom of it. The main placenta, itself, was high in Elsie’s abdomen and in front of the baby. This is a good scenario as far as birthing goes. The placenta proper was out of the way. However, one of those vestigal lobes had managed to tuck itself under the baby, and was blocking Elsie’s cervix – the gateway out.

When the whole placenta covers the cervix that is called placenta previa. Placenta Previa is a very dangerous situation because labor will push the baby into the placenta, which will stuff itself into the cervix and block the way. The placenta then tears, and starts massive bleeding. So, in placenta previa, the mother bleeds massively and the baby is blocked. Over a century ago, if you had a placenta previa case, it often resulted in the death of the baby and the mother. Our previous ultrasounds showed no example of placenta previa, because the placenta proper was up high in the abdomen. In the previous ultrasounds, Hunters bum was blocking the view of the lobe blocking the cervix. So, it wasn’t a pure case of placenta previa. But it definitely was a distant cousin at best. There was still danger that labor could cause the bleeding/block phenomenon, so, once the lobe was verified, Dr. Thomas told us, out of the need for safety, we were having the baby that day, via cesarean.

We were, of course, shocked as hell and totally unprepared. Dr. Thomas scheduled us for 4pm in the afternoon (It was about 1pm when we were told we had to have the baby that day). While we were getting our plan together for dealing with everything, Elsie started bleeding a little bit. It wasn’t a big deal – probably due to Dr Thomas bumping the lobe when he pushed Hunter upward. Dr. Thomas’ take was that small spotting was how, in the old days, doctors could tell it was a placenta previa case. Anyway, once Elsie bled a bit, Dr. Thomas called an audible, moved the schedule around, and told us we were up next in the delivery room. It went from “We have 3 hours” to “We have 20 minutes”. Again, there was no panic, but we had ZERO time to absorb and process. Before I knew it, Elsie was getting taken into the delivery room and I was being handed some undersized scrubs. 20 minutes passed, they brought me into the D-room, I held Elsie’s hand for about 10 minutes, behind a curtain, as they pulled the baby out.

It was that fast.

So, Hunter is here. She is gorgeous like her Momma, and all is well. Oh…the name. Hunter? for a girl? yeah, we know, not really typical. Well, October is immensely powerful for us. We met in October and had incredible powerful experiences together. Especially around the full moon. The baby was also due in October. The moon in October is known as the Hunter’s Moon. That’s where the name originates. 🙂

Powerful huh?

I’m still recovering! 😀

Happy Birthday my darling daughter!

Oh, and by the way. I would LOVE for you lovely folk to share wisdom that you have gained as you were gifted with the title of ‘parent’.

Tagged as: birth story, birthday, cesarean, daughter, family, frank breech, Inspiration, love, placenta previa, remembrance, support, Yoga Advice, yoga teacher cesarean