Back Story – Scroll to skip to The Birth Itself
People get pregnant and give birth and have babies and make their version of a family for all kinds of reasons. They have different ways they get there, and different stories to tell along the way. After a decade of attending births myself as a doula, here is my own story:
I didn’t “come” a person who always wanted babies. In my teens and early twenties I often thought I may not ever want children. I wasn’t particularly drawn (or averse) to them, and I certainly wasn’t drawn to giving birth, an experience that was taught to me as a horrid, painful, and scary one by my culture and in school. Side note: why is the only thing biology class taught us about childbirth a feet-in-stirrups-and-episiotomy-cut video?! It was hardly a biological education on the matter.
When I found my career in birth work, it didn’t happen because of a love of babies. I got into it as a biology-loving feminist of sorts who got to combine my science-brained interest in the human body with my inner-activist-looking-for a cause. I always wanted to be the kid in an early scene of E.T. who set the frogs free from biology class, but it took a while to figure out just who it was that I wanted to see freed. Over ten years ago now, I discovered birth. I discovered the many misguided flaws and abuses sold as “care” within our obstetric system, that yes, can provide useful and life-saving treatments when used appropriately AND also can cause immense physical and social harm when, as they often are, used inappropriately. I also discovered an approach to birth that happened a different way. Respectfully. Sacredly. A way that honoured the physiological and instinctual process and led to both better physical outcomes and birth experiences that families described as amazing, incredible, powerful, life changing. I found my frogs – myself and others like me who could be set free from our cultural programming about our bodies and childbirth and learn to approach it in a powerful and instinctual way.
I started off my career loving women, evolved to expand what the definition of “woman” might mean and opened my eyes to the variations of folks and families who birth, of what it means to be human. I fell in love with what the biology and experience of birth can really be (and where the best health outcomes lie), when the human side of birth is honoured, when patience and nourishment and respect and a true understanding of normal physiology supersede the glorification of efficiency and control. I fell in love with the idea of having a baby through my work, and gradually started to really want the experience of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and having a bustling family for myself.
For me, pregnancy, birth and postpartum were not a means-to-an-end of having a baby. They were experiences I wanted in their entirety, in and of themselves in addition to getting to have a baby to add to my life and my heart. And I knew exactly what I wanted from those experiences.
When I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer early on in my pregnancy, the shock and grief I felt over a fear of losing my vision of a pregnancy and postpartum was strong. I didn’t want to spend my pregnancy considering tests and weighing options and advocating for myself. I wanted simple. I knew how to get simple. And now, a cancer diagnosis was threatening to rob me of all of that. I cried in my bathtub many nights, between 3-5am, a candle lit, reciting my favourite poem (The Peace of Wild Things), and processing. Later on in pregnancy, this would be the time where my pregnant uterus was most active – laying in bed with my hands on my belly feeling my baby move and my uterus tighten. Later still, this is the time of day when I would start the “active” (strong and consistent) part of my birth process.
While I was sitting in my GPs office listening to her tell me my cancer diagnosis and asking me with utter confusion why I didn’t want ultrasounds in my pregnancy unless I could be convinced the cancer diagnosis meant that ultrasounds would give extra info I could do anything useful with (the answer to this was no), I instantly knew who I needed by my side and I texted her from the chair in the middle of the doctor telling me the news. “Are you in town?” I typed.
“I am. Just home from a birth. Why?”, she replied.
“I want to come cry about something on your couch.”
And I did. I went over, and she made me tea, and I cried, and she drove me to pick up Gary (my husband) from work and tell him. And she became my midwife, the person who knew me well enough to support me in compartmentalizing my pregnancy and birth from my cancer treatments, who made sure I did not have to advocate alone. Who committed to Gary being supported alongside me. Who understood why I didn’t want to make unnecessary changes to my plans based on other people’s assumptions about what I would need for pregnancy and birth care but instead wanted to think everything through critically, step by step, to protect my baby and myself and keep us both as healthy as possible, and to not make things accidentally more complicated and harmful out of other’s fears as opposed to what was actually best for us.
Many people assumed I would need to or should end the pregnancy. The doctors asserted that there was no need to do that if I didn’t want to – the treatments they proposed could cause future infertility, were safe in pregnancy and no different than if I were not pregnant. The truth turned out to be a bit more complex than that – while the treatments they suggested had been well researched in pregnancy and deemed to be safe, the caveat was that we would need to make a lot of hard decisions along the way about timing and order of treatment that balanced protecting the developing baby with creating the best chance of her getting to keep her mother. I was fiercely committed to protecting her, and made choices that I believed prioritized doing so while not unnecessarily increasing her risk of losing me. My care providers reminded me in various ways that I was important too, that she needed her best chance of keeping me as much as she needed to be physically and developmentally healthy. My midwife said to me early on, in deciding whether or not to treat at all, “If you aren’t going to treat, I need you to think about who you would want to help raise your baby instead of you.” And I did. I thought about it hard. The answer was “No one will parent her like me. I want her to get to have me if she can. I want for her to get to have her mom.”.
After so much research (Gary and I became fast experts on the research on cancer treatment during pregnancy!) and consulting and asking questions of a variety of providers and specialists about options and risks, as well as tapping into my own experience and knowledge from attending births, I got clear on what I needed and how to approach my pregnancy and cancer treatment. We moved forward inch by inch from there, always careful not to cloud other people’s assumptions about what might be needed with what was actually going to give us useful information we could do something with in terms of testing, or treatments that were going to be healthiest for us.
Cancer in pregnancy CAN be associated with a bit of in increased risk of preterm birth, so I spent time discussing what I would do at different gestational ages in case my baby came early, about what outcomes for babies are like at different ages, about what care in the home and hospital looks like at different ages, and what I would want to do in each case to make sure I would do what felt like the healthiest choice for my baby if she came at a time where she was old enough to live, and what would feel like the most sacred and caring and healthy experience if she came too early to be able to.
At the same time, I know that most first babies come well past their “due date” (a date I didn’t share with anyone except my husband, my midwife, and my oncology providers for purposes of timing initiation of cancer treatment appropriately – I didn’t want all those end of pregnancy texts asking me if there was any news!), and was preparing for a nice strong 42 weeker and a long birth, since those are more the norm with first-babes.
I completed my in-pregnancy chemotherapy and moved on to a surgery that took place at 33 weeks. A few short weeks later, I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon, midwife and husband to discuss the pathology from the surgery, and it wasn’t great. My surgeon said “I’m sorry.” Sorry the news wasn’t better. Sorry we couldn’t cure you. Sorry your prognosis is now much more poor than if the pathology was great. I said, “It’s okay, I’m getting used to bad news. At least I didn’t have a preterm baby.” I looked at my midwife: “I mean, it’s still a bit too early technically, but it would be fine for her to come now. She’d be fine.”
After the appointment, we drove my midwife to the airport (she lives a bit out of town) and went on with our day, not knowing that within 24 hours I’d have a baby in my arms.
The Birth Itself
*I’m going to switch back and forth a bit between my perspective, and my doula Talia‘s perspective here, as in my postpartum months it’s been hard to get everything written down and she did a great job writing her memories of my birth as I requested her to! Talia’s writing in italics.
I went out for dinner for my Aunt’s 60th birthday, and ate a delicious meal and had some lovely conversations with her friends, and headed home to bed, no thoughts at all of birthing on my mind. Gary headed off to work the graveyard shift and I crawled into bed with my dog.
At around 1am, I started feeling restless, tossing and turning in bed, eventually becoming a bit crampy. This was nothing new; I’d been getting mild cramps at night on and off for weeks so I thought nothing of it. By 3 am they were strong enough to be keeping me awake, and I got up a few times to use the washroom, back and forth between toilet and bed. By 4am, their strength made me want one of my witching-hour candle-lit baths. I wasn’t admitting anything about labour to myself yet, just running myself a nice bath. I hopped in, breathing deeply, soaking in epsom salts and waiting for the cramps to calm down. They started getting really strong; constant, menstrual-like cramps with stronger and milder periods. Every time they became more mild, I would think that was the end of them, “This can’t be labour, it’s too early to be labour. Oh good they are lightening up, they will stop now.”
At one point I thought to myself, “Man, I’ve sure been downplaying the end-of-pregnancy cramps when I describe them to clients!”, still in denial that this was actual early birthing and not simply third trimester cramping. Breathing deep and focused with them, focusing on accepting the sensation and letting it move through.
I thought, “This is a good experience. It’s a good reminder to me that birth will be hard, and that is’s okay for it to be hard.” Breathing, moving my body in the tub. My dog Piper lying on the floor beside me. In hindsight I think she knew what was happening long before I was ready to admit. Normally when I took my mid-night baths she might come check on me once but then she’d head back to bed. This night though, she was barely leaving my side.
“Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet,” I whispered to my uterus, hands on my belly. To my baby, “It’s not time to come yet.” Visions of labour but staying firm in my denial.
Around 5am, I think about texting my midwife. I want to say something funny about the dumb comment I made in my surgeon’s office, and I guess give her a heads up but without admitting labour might be happening. But 5am is too early to send someone a silly text message, so I wait.
At 6:30, the cramps are really strong. I lean forward in the bath and grab the faucet, adding hot water, squatting, breathing, thinking to myself, “I better send that text.” As I do, I feel a distinct pop and gush of fluid. I grab my phone and send the pre-drafted text I’d composed earlier and send it, not mentioning the released membranes and thinking to myself, “that wasn’t my waters, was it?!” (I knew it was – it couldn’t have been more obvious! – but was still not ready to admit it).
6:37am text to midwife: “Remind me not to say stupid things like at least I didn’t have a preterm baby. I’ve been soooooo crampy since 3am. Tell me there’s no way this is going to be labour yet. I didn’t mean it baby! More time needed!”.
I get out of the tub, warm amniotic fluid running down my legs. I sit on the toilet, fluid leaking steadily into the water beneath me. “No, that wasn’t my waters. It can’t be. No, it’s too early. Baby, it’s too early.”
I walk swiftly to the bedroom, dripping clear amniotic fluid on the kitchen floor en route, going to grab a towel to put between my legs to “check” if I’m really leaking fluid, as if there was any doubt. Back to the toilet, passed the splotches of fluid in the hallway. Bathroom light on. Red show in the tub, and pink tinged amniotic fluid on the floor and Piper’s paw. No denying it now. I’m focusing hard on my breath. Breathe into it, deep and strong.
6:46am: Phone Gary, no answer. Phone midwife no answer. She calls back promptly, and I hear a crying baby in the background. I know she must be just finishing up a birth with someone else.
“Umm, I think my waters just broke. I think. No, they did. They broke.” I’m back and forth between clearly knowing what’s happening and avoiding accepting it.
“No!” she replies, knowing it’s a bit early. “What do you want to do?”.
Me: “Well. You better call some people to help you.” She was prepared for me to say that from our pregnancy discussions, on top of her years of knowing me and how I think. She knew I would trust a select few midwife friends to assist me and my baby at home if needed in nearly all circumstances, that I would choose that over a hospital setting where I’d seen help be less smooth, more chaotic, and even harmful in many scenarios. The hospital is always an option if needed, but the circumstances were few that I would feel it could offer something more helpful than I could get at home, and she knew this. I rattled off a few names of trusted friends she could call to be close by for me if I needed them but who would not come into my space unless I asked.
Her: “Yup. I’ll need a team. But don’t think about it. I’ll organize it and get on a flight.”
6:51: I call Gary again and he answers. I tell him my waters just broke, and he, because he is so well birth-trained and knows birth usually takes a long time with first babies, even with amniotic fluid leaking, responded, “What?! Are you serious? Baby times?! Okay, so, this means the baby could come any time in the next few days?”
Neither of us remember exactly what I said in response to that, but the sentiment was “Not this time, you better get home!”. His relief was scheduled to come at 8am. I texted him to be extra clear at 6:57am: Hurry up, okay?! Don’t wait for Keely!. He replies at 7:01am “Heading out!”.
Meanwhile, my in-town midwife pal lets me know they are on standby. At first I tell her not to come yet, but deep down I know things are happening speedily so decide to accept her offer to hang out at a coffee shop close by and wait for me to let her know if I want anything from her.
I call my doula, Talia and tell her “I think” my membranes have released, even though I 100% know that they have. I wasn’t ready to say out loud that I was indeed obviously in the birth process. Big sensations coming in waves now, getting stronger and stronger and SO close together! I ask her to come help me get the house set up and deal with the stripped down Christmas tree in the living room where the birth pool (that I wanted the option of but didn’t think I would want) would go. I tell her I can’t think straight.
Tal: On January 9th at 6:45am my alarm went off for work. Within about 10 seconds my phone buzzed with a text from you that read: “You available if I need you? My waters might have just broke. I’m 36w on Sunday.” I responded that I was and asked if Gary was home with you. Within less than 10 minutes I got a call from you asking if I could just come over. You asked if I had a pool, liner, hose and pump. You sounded calm on the phone, no vocal indications of actually being in the birth process other than saying “I don’t feel like I can think straight.”
I spend a few minutes pulling out supplies between rapidly coming waves. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, swaying, rocking, moaning extremely loudly through the big sensations. “This sure LOOKS like active labour,” I think to myself.
As I write this, it comes to mind that I’ve often told clients “It’s okay stay in denial in for as long as possible so your mind doesn’t make you work harder than you have to. When it’s strong and active, you’ll know.” This is mainly because first births are usually so long, and it helps to just accept things and ride them out in the early phases instead of waiting on the edge of one’s seat. I suppose I was subconsciously really committed to following my own advice.
7:03am: I group text my midwife, my in-town midwife, Gary, and Talia so they all have each other’s numbers.
7:07: Gary to group: “I forgot everything!”
7:07: Midwife friend: “It’s okay, just be there.”
7:08: Me to group: “In labour guys.” Finally admitting it out loud and saying-without-saying “I’m checking out of communicating now! Bye!”
Talia: I quickly got dressed and drove over to your apartment and saw Gary pulling up right behind me. I pulled out my phone and saw a flurry of texts connecting me, Gary and the midwives. The last of which was from you saying “Guys, I’m in labour.” When I buzzed your apartment, all I heard through the intercom was a deep, powerful moan and then the sound of the buzzer opening the door.
I look at Piper, who keeps coming to check on me and say, “Well, I guess it’s just me and you, Pipes!” Just like I’d spent so many nighttime baths envisioning… labouring in my bathroom on my own with my dog.
Talia arrives, peacefully, calmly. I tell her my midwife is waiting for her flight and that I’m having some in-town midwife friends on standby in the meantime since it’s technically a bit early for the baby to be coming. I reassure her that while it’s a bit early, it’s fine for the baby to be coming now, and I do the same for Gary when he arrives a couple minutes later. Neither of them needed this reassurance, but I couldn’t help trying to midwife them for a second upon their arrival. It was clear they were both confident and comfortable and didn’t need any care-taking from me.
Talia: When I came into the apartment, you were in the bathroom, candle lit, bath filled but you weren’t in it. You were moving between sitting on the toilet and standing over the tub, clearly following the rhythms of your body and settling into the breaks when they came. There were moments of stillness followed by movement and moaning. When words came, they were usually a quiet “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” or “You guys, you guys, you guys, you guys,” at a volume that seemed to indicate that you were talking more to yourself than to anyone around you. At some point I tried to ask you if you had been having sensations all night and all I got was a headshake. It wasn’t so much a “no,” as it was a reminder that whatever happened in the night and whatever was going to happen an hour from now wasn’t really what was important. See the person in front of you now and you’ll have all the information you need.
Tals and/or Gary says something Jess-like in support of me “Just keep letting them come.” Me: “Don’t need reassurance.” Waving them off. They say the right things, but I found eyes and words distracting, pulling me out of the extreme focus I was in and the dialogue I was having with myself. I’m reminded now of advice I’d given my sister once to pass on to a friend during labour “it’s the internal dialogue that helps most.”
Talia: Gary came in carrying a cardboard box that he quickly began to open. You asked him to move more slowly and eventually he came into the bathroom to be with you while I went out into the living room to blow up the birth pool. I had just finished filling the bottom section when Gary poked his head out and let me know to stop as the noise was too distracting. The pool would remain in the middle of your living room for the rest of your birth, a quarter blown up and unfilled.
Talia and Gary heard me say I didn’t want coaching or comforting words or questions, and picked up without me saying it how much I didn’t want to be looked at. Tals faded into the background, supporting Gary with her calm presence and keeping the midwives updated so that Gary and I could just be.
I wanted Gary near me, and only Gary, and just close by. He did just that, avoiding looking at me, occasionally holding up a drink or a cold cloth near my, waiting to see if I’d take it. Up during sensations to rock and moan, down on the toilet in between. Roaring, swearing. Talking to myself. Midwife friends are in the hallway outside the unit in case I wanted them. I knew they were out there and went to the door between waves once, stark naked, cracked it open and said to them, “This isn’t supposed to be so fast!” and shut the door back in their faces.
Later one of them told me that as soon as I did that she thought to herself, “Oh, good, Jess is here, this is going to go so smoothly”, I guess the feeling she gets when she attends other people’s births with me, and attending my own birth was no different it seemed. I got a good laugh when she shared this with me weeks later.
Talia: you moaned through each sensation, sometimes accompanied by words and at other moments just sound and movement, rocking back and forth on the toilet or standing then sitting and standing again.
It’s all happening so fast and my mind is going a mile a minute. Trying to slow it down (as if I have any control), I’m distracted by wondering what the midwife pals are up to in the hallway and whether or not they are cold (it felt freezing when I opened the door!). By this point I knew without a doubt that I was not going to leave the sanctuary of my bathroom to birth, so I told Tal she could invite them in to sit in the living room. They quietly snuck in and discretely made themselves comfy on the couch, but they knew I didn’t want anything from them, didn’t want them near me, didn’t want to see or hear them and entered the space accordingly.
Once they were inside I was able to stop thinking about logistics and go back to being completely focused inward.
“Fuck.”. “Okay, I’m okay.” It took huge and intentional focus to shift my mindset from the denial of earlier, of my attempts to will it to stop because it was early, and towards accepting that it was okay for by little baby to come.
Talia: Through each sensation, you continued to talk yourself through them, quietly uttering one-to-two word phrases. “Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.” “You guys, you guys, you guys, you guys.” You would sink deeper into a layer and slowly re-emerge just long enough to tell Gary and I “You guys, the breaks are so nice,” before sinking back into a place that you had told us all about so many times before in your teachings.
Your moans began to change in quality as a recognizable grunting sound came at the peak of each one. And then stillness. As Gary sat at your feet, me in the doorway, you calmly said “Guys, I’m pushing.” And then went back inward and quietly breathed through each wave. No more moaning. Just the sound of your breath- strong and powerful- mixed with occasional words as you talked yourself through every second of the experience.
One of the most profound moments from the outside was hearing you whisper to yourself “I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready…..” followed by a calm and sure-footed “Ok.” Just that. Simple, concise, quiet. “Ok.” No words from the rest of us. Just you knowing exactly what you needed to hear, gently telling it to yourself- a single word of self-assurance as you followed every rhythm, impulse and instinct.
I can feel the changes in my body. Pressure in my pelvis, and then on my perineum. Stretching. So intense. Wild. I reach down and feel the crown of my baby’s head slowly beginning to appear as my body stretches. I look at Gare and say “We are going to have a baby soon.”
You sitting on the toilet lit by a single candle and Gary at your feet. You rocked back and forth, occasionally reaching down to support your tissues. Rock back and forth, reach. Then back and forth again. Your movements were gentle and rhythmic, cyclic even until you gently leaned to your left side. I could hear your arm touch the water in the bathtub but couldn’t see, your right hand reached down as you spoke softly: “You better come take a picture.”
I remember this moment. I had reached into the bathwater beside me, feeling the temperature, considering getting back into the bathtub but deciding to stay put where I was. The sensation of the water on my hand was comforting, grounding. My other hand fully supporting my baby’s head, eventually and gradually and gently easing her full head into my hand. Here she comes.
Talia: The light gave way to new life sitting in your right hand. Her head gently resting there, patiently waiting for the next sensation. I snapped three quick photos and then you eased yourself to the floor into hands and knees, gently holding her head in your hand. Gary settled in behind you and reached his hands forward, ready to gently catch your new baby with you when the body emerges. You reminded him “It’s coming, it’s coming just wait,” your words a call for patience from all of us. And then your deep sigh and a gentle cry from the new life that had just entered the room, her head into your hand and her body sliding into Gary’s patiently waiting ones. You and Gary maneuvered together to bring her up to your chest, your eyes connecting as you asked him to hand you a towel to cover her up to keep her warm.
Kaedra was born at 8:29am, less than an hour after Gary and Talia had arrived. Not quite the days-long birth I’d been preparing for as a first time birther!
Myself and the midwives hugged quietly outside the bathroom, tears in all of our eyes while you and Gary met your baby. With the bathroom door closed, we all walked around your apartment suddenly task oriented. Cleaning. Making tea. Cooking breakfast. After about half an hour, Gary emerged letting us know you wanted to move to the bedroom.
I walked into the bathroom as you slowly stood up holding your baby to your skin, walking slowly and intentionally with each step and eventually curling up in bed with your baby on your chest. Gary followed and closed the door behind him.
Another 20 minutes and then Gary opened the door again and asked if I could go in and be with you. As I entered, you were crouched over your baby, speaking gently to yourself. “Be patient. Be patient. Be patient.” Deep breath. “Be patient. Be patient. Be patient.” Small movements from one knee to the other and then soft words of encouragement to yourself and your placenta. “It’s ok. It’s ok to come placenta. It’s ok to come.” Communing with your body and following its rhythms all the while crouched over your baby, reminding her that you were right there. And at 9:38am, you birthed your own placenta into your hands and placed it next to you as you curled back up next to your baby.
Shortly after, Gary crawled back in to bed, and you both started to recount the story of the morning from each of your perspectives. You waking at 3am to a crampiness that just felt different and wondering if this was it? Gary getting your call at work and quickly scrambling to find someone to cover the end of his shift. A back and forth banter as each of your stories painted a picture of your birth.
I remember looking at Tal at one point and saying, “Well, it’s exactly as hard as it looks like it is. It feels exactly like it looks like it feels.” I kept saying “Oh you guys, that was a wild thing.” So wild.
Talia: Your midwife arrived from her flight shortly after this, and as she entered, you each gave the other a deeply knowing look, no words needed.
At some point, someone told me that my friend Dawn, another midwife friend and the one who had orchestrated so much community support for me from day one, was parked across the street with her meal train delivery she was scheduled to drop off that day. In my loving post-birth high I said she could come up, but she knew what I really wanted was an intimate space and she made sure to keep it that way for me despite my invitation. The crew went out for breakfast to give me just that while giving themselves space for their own excitement and joy for us. Andrea (my midwife) and Tal returned peacefully a while later to check on us all and make sure I was feeling settled, keeping our space a sacred one. We burned the umbilical cord together, taking time to slowly separate babe from placenta in a ceremony-type way, honouring this incredible organ that had nourished and protected my baby all throughout pregnancy, cancer treatments and all.
The high from the birth was profound, wild, mindblowing. It was the birth that I wanted, autonomous, instinctual, primal, background-supported by folks I trusted truly knew what I wanted, there for logistics and if I needed them but not stepping in to “help” or “direct” me to fill their own need to feel needed or in control or distract me from my own process. I loved feeling every stage for its raw and wild intensity and recognizing it in my body, the shifts, the changes, the sounds. I am so grateful to have had a career that taught me what was possible about birth, to have witnessed so many primal and undisturbed births myself, and to have built a community of folks who could show up for me the way I wanted for myself. At one point in pregnancy Andrea had said to me, “It’s like you spent your whole career teaching us all how to take care of you” and I’m so lucky to have people who were listening, and to have built a confidence in myself and in birth that allowed me to set myself up for my best chance of getting exactly what I wanted. I was able to become Elliot from E.T. like I always wanted, and I set myself free.
Oh you guys, it was a wild thing.
**Kaedra is now nearly 9 months old, and because the cancer has spread since giving birth, treatment will be ongoing, until it’s not (hopefully a much longer time than is medically / statistically expected!). For now, the drugs I am on seem to be doing at least some good, and we are soaking in our days together as a family and I am not taking a second for granted. If you haven’t heard our latest update on that, you can read I was made for Birth and Life and Death to read how we are approaching things and how to best support us or reach out.
Photos in video by Kristie Robin Photography and Common Heart Photography (Talia Kleinplatz, Birth Takes a Village doula and birth photographer) and by me, Jess (you know, the non-pro ones!).