moses thames: a birth story

our tiny son is three and a half weeks old. mothering a newborn is quite a bizarre time warp - time rushes and time drags, and time is so so sweet, and time is so so grueling. the past twenty six days have been more wonderful and more difficult than i possibly could have imagined (even though i very much expected a lot of happiness and a lot of challenges). i am sore and exhausted and sweaty and uncomfortable and haggard. but i am thrilled by the new height of joy that has been woven into my life, and most of all, i am absolutely in awe - astonished that this little boy is ours and that i can love this much.

the way our moses came into the world was miraculous and amazing and awesome, and also pretty traumatic. the experience was immensely powerful and beautiful - more than i could have ever expected or hoped for - and it was also quite harrowing and a bit heartbreaking. the sentiment of "all that matters is that you have a healthy baby" has been shared with me several times, and frankly, i disagree. of course the thing that matters most, by a gigantic margin, is that we have a healthy baby, but the way he came into the world is not inconsequential - it has affected all three of us in significant ways (both positive and negative). and i believe that it's perfectly okay - right even - to mourn the loss of the kind of birth i came to passionately believe in, that i zealously worked to prepare for, and that i ardently hoped for. both ian and i were so looking forward to birthing together without intervention, believing heartily that keeping things as natural as possible was what was best for our family.

indeed, we knew very clearly what our preferences were for our son's birth. we also knew that one of the most important ways to prepare for labour and delivery was to expect the unexpected and embrace that there was a good chance we wouldn't be able to see all (or any!) of our preferences through. as part of our conversations and preparations leading up my due date, we constantly referenced the need to be flexible, and talked often about how no matter how things played out, we would recognize and celebrate the miracle and the beauty of our son's birth. together, we created a document we called a "birth guide" (as opposed to a "birth plan," knowing that we couldn't really plan on anything), which included, in addition to our "ideal scenario" preferences, some notes on contingency measures should things happen to go differently than we hoped.

within ten minutes of arriving at the hospital on our baby boy's birth day, we had to profoundly petition that flexibility we'd discussed and worked on. we went on to experience some of the very things we were most hoping to avoid (and thought we were dodging by having a baby in england - where, in our experience, the culture around birth is much less interventionist and fear-driven than in the states - and in a hospital birth centre known to be very pro-natural). an hour or so after moses was born, the midwife that attended the birth came to my bedside and said, "so, i've just read your birth plan......sorry!" we all chuckled - because almost none of our preferences were seen through.

but!! just after our little laugh at the irony, we all straightaway agreed that we had experienced a miracle in how moses's entrance into the world unfolded. it was an incredible experience that was right for us. this birth story taught us valuable lessons and bonded us together as a husband and wife, and as parents, in a really beautiful way. and yes, most importantly, the story ends with a healthy baby, a perfect tiny boy straight from heaven who has expanded our hearts beyond what we could have ever planned.

{click through to read moses’s birth story}
five days before our little moses was born, my mom arrived from the states. the minute she got to our flat, i felt good and ready to have a baby. since she had to return across the pond less than two weeks later, i was really hoping baby boy would make his entrance soon after her arrival so we'd all have a good chunk of time with grammie around. mom and i gallivanted around london, trying to not get too obsessed with the hope of labour starting. we went to art exhibits and a west end play, on walks through the parks and out to eat at lovely places together, while ian put in some long hours at the office preparing for paternity leave. tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday passed and ... no baby.
on friday evening, ian came home a little bit early and the two of us took a walk at golden hour through a favourite neighborhood route across and along the thames river. the city was glowing under the sunsetty sky, and we shared some tender moments of love and excitement. for the first time that week, my body was totally relaxed and my heart was absolutely at peace. that night, before we snuggled in to bed, i said an extra little prayer. i offered up a hope to heaven that our baby boy would be born the next day.
five hours later, i woke up to some cramping and soon after noticed a bloody show when i went to the bathroom. i laid in bed, with the soft light of early morning seeping in the room from the cracks in our window blind, and googled my symptoms on my phone. within an hour, the cramping started to feel more patterned - in waves rather than quite constant, and so i gently woke up ian and told him "i think we are having a baby today." it was about 7am, and before too long i went into the other room and knelt next to the air mattress my mom was sleeping on. she awoke, and when i told her i thought i was in labour, her face instantly lit up with excitement and she positively leapt out of bed!

for an hour or so, ian laid with me on our bed and helped me relax through contractions that quickly became more intense and more frequent. we called our doula and talked through some things to remember from our preparations. my mom made us breakfast and then ian gave me a priesthood blessing. as i look back on these morning hours in our flat as something so life changing and beautiful was beginning, it seems like the air around us was dewey and quiet and lovely, heavy with golden anticipation. it was a sweet slice of time. by 9am i was experiencing minute-long contractions every three minutes, so ian suggested we go to the hospital. we gathered things together and ian went down to the street to get a taxi. it seemed like all of a sudden we were driving down whitehall towards big ben in the back of one of those iconic london black cabs. this is when time started getting fragmented for me and it felt like i entered a different zone of reality (what some call "laborland"). the cab driver, a middle-aged british man with a kind face, told us he had two kids of his own, and he wouldn't let us pay a penny for the ride.

upon our arrival at the seventh floor of st. thomas's hospital, we were sent to triage so i could be checked and monitored before we headed to the birth centre. i was hooked up to a heart monitor, and pretty immediately the midwife informed us that the baby's heart rate was dipping at the end of each contraction. she said it could be a fluke, so she would keep the monitor on while she checked my cervix. she told us i was dilated only to just one centimeter, which caused us to be a bit crestfallen. she checked the heart monitor again and i saw her eyebrows raise in concern.

before we knew it, a doctor we had never seen before came hurriedly through the curtain surrounding the space where i was laying. he did not introduce himself or offer any type of greeting, he simply glanced at the monitor and then brazenly said "we need to deliver this baby by cesarean section."

ian, my mom and i were all totally shocked. in that very moment i knew, somewhere deep in my bones, that our baby wasn't going to be born via c-section. some intense intuition told me that not only was that route not what was best for our baby, but also that it just wouldn't happen. (this is not to say that c-sections are not the right delivery mode some babies - they certainly are, and are miraculous procedures that save lives and provide beautiful, safe birth stories! i just felt very strongly that our baby didn't need to be delivered with surgery, and that he would be born vaginally.) this assurance was crowded into a corner by the waves of pain rushing over my body and the talking and beeping around me. i can't remember exactly how the conversation unfolded (i was trying to focus on breathing through the continued contractions), but immediately ian began advocating for us - he was such a rockstar at doing this throughout our entire hospital experience. he asked the doctor if we could wait for a while, monitoring the baby's heart rate, and see how things progressed. the doctor reluctantly agreed. our doula arrived and supported us in our decision to not rush to the operating room.

we were moved to a room in the labor ward, and i was supported in the sweetest ways by my mom, our doula, and ian as the contractions kept surging and our hearts ardently prayed for our little boy's safety and the right decisions to help him be born best. the doctor was impatient and a bit rude. ian held my hand, leaned over the bed and whispered a fervent prayer in my ear as i continued to ride the swells of contractions. i absolutely felt divine power keeping me calm and allowing my body to surrender to the pain and begin opening up. when several other hospital staff began to prepare me to move into the operating room (even though we had requested to wait), ian took the doctor out in the hallway and boldly asserted our intention to act and not be acted upon.

after thirty minutes, the baby's heart rate had normalized quite a bit. still, the doctor professed that he was worried and acted very rushed. (our doula later told us that she overheard him telling other hospital personnel that he had a busy labor ward that day and so he wanted to get things moving.) he suggested that he manually break my waters to see if there was meconium in the sac with the baby, causing our little one distress. (meconium is newborn poop, which is meant to be passed only after birth but sometimes escapes in utero and can be dangerous if ingested by the baby.) we agreed that this was a good route forward, and that if there was meconium in the waters, we would go ahead and move forward with the cesarean immediately. the doctor felt that i was three centimeters dilated and then, after i felt a huge gush of fluid coming out of me, i heard him say "lots of meconium," and instantly everyone started prepping me for surgery.

somehow i still felt strongly that our baby would be born through the birth canal, but it was really hard in that moment to completely trust that feeling. while my body was working so hard to move through the crazy sensations of my uterus contracting, my spirit was reeling in an attempt to distinguish between my personal preferences (by far the least important factor, but definitely still present in my mind!), impressions from the spirit of god, and my strong mother's intuition teaching me how to best birth my baby. the whole world seemed to be buzzing around me, and there were so many people and voices and elements ... but somehow in the deepest part of myself i felt at peace. i absolutely attribute this to my practice with mindfulness, meditation, and relaxation during pregnancy, coupled with the priesthood blessing that ian gave me before we left home. the whole childbirth experience was hugely spiritual for me – but i will not share too many details of that part of the story, because it is very personal and sacred. but i will say that i am positive heaven was helping me - and ian and our baby - throughout the whole adventure.

as i was signing a consent form for the c-section and having an iv put in my arm (while my body was shaking uncontrollably), i heard my mom's voice above all the chatter and clatter around me. "i just have to tell you," she said to the doctor, "i have had nine babies, and every single time i dilated fully within thirty minutes of my water breaking. this could happen really fast." i caught a glimpse of the anesthesiologist (who had rushed in at some point) when she said this and he shook his head and flashed a "yeah right, not gonna happen" face at his colleagues. the doctor brushed it off. we had to say goodbye to my mom and our doula, as only ian and i were allowed in the operating room. they sent me off with so much love and helped me feel really safe. it was about 11:45am.

pretty much instantly after my waters gushed out (along with all that meconium!), the intensity of my contractions escalated greatly. it seemed like there was no break at all between the surges. everything was blurry around me in the operating room, but i always knew that ian was right by my side. there were so many people buzzing around, and i knew i had to be the eye of that storm and stay calm. i breathed deeply and let go. i felt a strong impression to vocalize everything i was feeling, and before long i was saying "i feel a lot of pressure in my bum." the anesthesiologist responded multiple times with "don’t worry, that's normal." he also said "i'm going to take away all that pain!" several times, which was ironic because that was exactly the opposite of what i wanted him to do! i wanted that pain so badly, and was sad that my unmedicated labor was about to end. i sat up and my back was cleaned so the anesthesiologist could administer a spinal injection in preparation for the surgery. at that point i said, "i feel a lot of pressure in my bum! a lot of pressure!" deep inside i knew i was in transition. i knew my body was wanting to push.

the spinal went in and out and the lower half of my body started to numb. i could still move my legs, which surprised the anesthesiologist. as he did several checks to determine where and how much i had numbed, the midwife - bless her forever and ever!! - suggested to the doctor that he perform a cervical check before beginning surgery. he seemed reluctant and a little annoyed, but agreed. with my gradually deadening legs in stirrups and ian holding my hand and strangers scurrying about, i heard the sweetest six words imaginable in that moment from the lips of the doctor: "the baby's coming out the bottom." i was fully dilated, baby was well on his way down the birth canal, and the surgery was off. it was about 12:15.

in preparation for giving birth, i learned a lot about the way that a woman’s cervix responds to different circumstance. stress, fear and lack of privacy fundamentally cause the cervix to close. in that chaotic cold operating room, when all things should have closed my body up, it opened. rapidly. fully. i went from three to ten centimeters dilated in less than a half an hour, in the midst of an incredibly stressful situation. i absolutely count this as a miracle and i am grateful every day that our baby boy was born vaginally (for many reasons, of which i won't go into here). i always knew this was the way he was intended to come into the world. our fervent prayers were answered and promised blessings from god were fulfilled.

the doctor insisted that he would need to perform an episiotomy and use forceps to get the baby out quickly. since i was numb (sure, there was pretty sweet relief from pain, but i absolutely hated that lack of feeling!), i needed help to know when a contraction was coming and when i should push. the midwife told me she would prompt me at the right time and i should push as hard as i could. the anesthesiologist told me it was "time to get angry." ian responded quickly - "no, no, wife, just send love down." i summoned power and love from the deepest part of me, and then i pushed twice as prompted. on the third push, i felt my baby's head come out of me - such a crazy sensation. one more push and i felt an exquisite slither, gasped and then exclaimed "is he here?! is he here?!"

the room was busy and loud, but ian's sublimely tender and sweetly teary voice cut through all the noise. "oh my gosh! he's here, wife. he's here!!!" all of a sudden i could see the back of a tiny, round head glossed in blood on my abdomen. there was our baby! it was the most insane moment. i've never felt anything like that, and will never be able to describe it. i birthed a baby boy! he was here!

the most difficult part of the whole ordeal came next, on the heels of that euphoria. within seconds, the baby was whisked away from me over to the corner of the operating room. i had been warned that this would happen, so they could make sure he hadn’t pulled any meconium into his little lungs. but nothing could have prepared me for how long and hard those five minutes were, as i was separated from my barely born child. i asked ian to stay close to the baby and as the doctor stitched me up (due to the force of the fast forceps delivery, i had a pretty large perennial tear in addition to the episiotomy cut) i repeatedly and desperately asked, “is he alright? can he come here with me??” i pleaded that they bring him to me and after what seemed like an eternity, i was at last skin-to-skin with my son.


immediately he opened his big bright eyes and peered up at me. the first thing that came to my mind was “moses” – i knew that was his name - and my heart filled and filled and filled with wild love. someone in the operating room took the camera from ian and snapped some photos of us, but we couldn’t look at the lens because we couldn’t tear our eyes away from that little creature on my chest, in awe that he came out of me and that he was ours.
 

it was so, so fun to see my mom and our doula right as we were wheeled out of the operating room, and to tell them triumphantly and jubilantly that the baby had “come out the bottom.” they were so excited. over the next couple of sweet, surreal hours, the baby was weighed and measured, we told my mom what we intended to call him and started using his name to make sure it fit, the baby latched onto my breast for his first feed, and both ian and i got to snuggle him skin-to-skin, left alone as a brand new family of three. i’ve never felt a high like that. i was completely oblivious to the numbness wearing out on my bottom half, or my bleeding, or my near nakedness, or anything at all besides the perfect face and features of our baby, the profound affection and tenderness radiating between the boy and i, and the huge amount of joy in my heart.
  

things got a lot less dreamy as i began to react negatively to all the meds and threw up violently several times, and as our teeny little curtained-off corner of a random hospital room started to get crowded with different people poking and prodding me and asking questions – it just got really chaotic and tears were shed. finally we were brought downstairs to our bed in the postnatal ward.
   

our space there was really cramped but our views were spectacular! and there was just so much love. the heavens opened to show off a stunning sunset – the best we’ve seen in london by far – over the river and westminster bridge and the houses of parliament. one of the new mums sharing the room with was playing vivaldi’s four seasons on her phone as i breastfed our little boy under that colourful sky. that night, after big ben had lit up and then the bells struck midnight, ian slept in a squishy maroon armchair next to my hospital bed, and baby moses slept on his daddy’s chest.


i am so glad about and grateful for our baby boy’s birth story, despite it all or actually because of it all. the experience was miraculous – not only because my body opened so quickly despite the circumstances, but also because the ordeal taught us super valuable lessons, drew us closer to god and to heaven, bonded us as a family in really beautiful ways, and yielded a perfect tiny son.