That time we made a plan and then everything went according to it. Just kidding!
Our birth story
Shortly after finding out we were pregnant, Ali decided she was really excited about birthing at a birth center, a non-hospital facility staffed by midwives and offering less-medicated births. They have big tubs and beds and soft lighting and just generally really good vibes ✨
We signed up with the San Francisco Birth Center and took all the classes, went to the visits, and were very excited about this new experience.
Our due date for the baby’s delivery was December 11th but Ali was convinced baby would come 10 days early (just like her) and pop out like a cute little dolphin, whale, or other sea creature still to be decided. We made a detailed birth plan and great birthing playlists and Ali spent lots of time on the birth ball preparing for baby’s appearance.
On Dec 20, after two weeks of “practice” or “warm up” contractions, and 5 days of increasingly intense induction methods, Ali finally went into labor during savasana at her favorite prenatal class! She managed to make it home where she and Seth excitedly began to apply all of the coping strategies they had learned in their birth classes. However, while other new moms discussed walks they were taking and meals they were cooking in early labor, Ali was experiencing pretty continual contractions that brought her to her knees and made it hard to do, well everything!
We called our doula over around 6 pm. Around 8 pm the Birth Center, after listening to Ali on a phone call go through 2 of her contractions, recommended we come in to get checked out. We were only 3 (of 10) centimeters along. But labor seemed to be progressing well with increasingly fast and intense contractions so she told us to hang out for two hours and gave Ali more coping techniques for the contractions (these included a lot of group deep humming, quite the experience!). Two hours later, we got checked again and we were at… 3 centimeters! Not the news you want to hear. We were given three options, get a shot of Benadryl at the Birth Center and then go home to attempt to sleep, get a shot of morphine at the hospital and then go home to actually sleep, or just go home and “sleep.” After some discussion, we chose to go to the hospital to get a shot of morphine so that we could actually sleep and be recovered for another day of labor. Our doula went home and we headed to CPMC hospital.
In the waiting room at the hospital, Ali made the security guards and attendants a little uncomfortable by having some intense contractions on her hands and knees and doing some group humming to try to work through them. We were brought to an ER triage room by two lovely nurses, whom Ali promptly thanked by throwing up in the soiled linens bin and peeing all over the floor.
Before the hospital would give Ali the morphine shot, they needed to monitor baby to make sure all was well. Unfortunately Ali was now dehydrated and not doing very well and baby’s vitals weren’t quite as robust as everyone was hoping for, so she got an IV to rehydrate her and some fentanyl to ease the pain. We had a conversation with the ObGyn between contractions and she strongly recommended we stay and get admitted, but told us - once you’re admitted, we really won’t want you to leave until you have this baby. Ali continued to have very intense contractions that she insisted on being on hands and knees for (the IV and monitoring leads were a lot to manage as she spun around every few minutes). Since the fentanyl wasn’t really doing much, the doctor told us the morphine probably wouldn’t let her get to sleep either. So with our birth plan out the window, we made the decision to stay in the hospital around 12:30am Thursday morning. Around 3am Ali opted for an epidural with the objective of getting a night’s rest, so we could wake up and push baby out.
After approximately 2 hours of sleep Ali was woken up by a nurse pulling out her ear plug to tell us her contractions had slowed and that she needed Pitocin NOW. We groggily refused because we wanted to sleep, but we didn’t really manage to get back to sleep and were exhausted when a new nurse came in at 7am to sit us down and tell us that baby was going to come out today, we needed to stop listening to the mommy blogs, get Ali on her back and crank the drugs.
We took offense to this lecture, (Ali may have told the nurse and Seth that they needed to stop yelling or leave the room) but eventually everyone calmed down, Ali started on Pitocin and we had a drowsy day, playing cards and having some great dance parties (for once Seth was the better dancer, since Ali could only really dance her upper body). We thought positive thoughts but by the evening it was clear that the baby would not be a solstice baby, joining us on the darkest night of the year.
We had an incredible nurse that night who let us sleep (!!!), helped do a bunch of moving around and positions for Ali (which, shocker, really helped her comfort) and gave us the great news that we had made it to 7 centimeters by 7am on Friday. So we were in super optimistic moods! Our baby was going to have a cool birthday (122223!) and we were about to be parents! Unfortunately with all this great news came a little rough news - baby was in a funky position (asynclitic) and was refusing to move down. We did some of the positions we learned in birth class (including an inversion - Ali’s suggestion!) to try to get baby in the right position. Our doula came to the hospital and helped Ali move around and make it to 9 centimeters! Very very exciting news. And then… despite our best efforts, baby stopped dropping, showed off some decelerating heartbeats, and everyone got a little worried. We were told that c-section was becoming more likely. 30 minutes later, we were told that c-section was strongly recommended. We had a plan, THIS WAS NOT IN THE PLAN.
We agreed to the c-section and very quickly were whisked to the operating room. After 48 hours of labor Seth got a cute little gown and Ali got plopped on the table. About halfway through the operation, Ali showed everyone what she thought of the situation by starting to throw up everywhere, and then repeated that trick over and over. The anesthesiologist stationed at her head recommended sedation, possibly so he didn’t have to watch her vomit into her hair anymore. She agreed, and took a little nap.
At 12:59pm on December 22, 2023, Cedar Thomas Herr Higgins joined us earthside! He was making some little baby cries and quite plump at 8 lbs, 12 ozs and 19.29 inches long. But unfortunately he wasn’t quite pink or loud enough, so got whisked away to the NICU for some oxygen and monitoring.
Seth went with him and did some skin to skin contact which calmed Cedar down. He was able to come off the oxygen in less than an hour and move to just monitoring - but he kept the stickers that the nasal cannula velcroed onto, in case there were issues (which is what you see in some of his first baby pictures).
Ali went to the recovery room with the doula and got her to tell her great delivery stories for some distraction. The amazing daytime nurses eventually took Ali in her recovery bed to the NICU for a quick visit with Seth and Cedar before going to her own room, where she waited anxiously to actually get to hang out with her baby.
Cedar and Seth made it upstairs a little after 1am. In the morning, Seth ran home to pick up some things, since we’d packed for an overnight at the birth center, not a 72 hour extravaganza - and his shirt was pretty stinky.
Everyone is healthy and happy and Cedar can’t wait to go on adventures with all of you.
We loved San Francisco Birth Center and would unreservedly recommend it. Birth center’s are amazing! The New York Times had an article about how they can face opposition, but can lead to better outcomes.