By Lori Mork
May 31, 2002, I became a mom for the first time. My life changed in what was a whirlwind birth. Trauma is an understatement. But I now know that this birth would mold me, shape me, teach me, test me, and also allow me to understand how so many other people are feeling in a very broken system. I didn’t know how back then it was broken. Sure, the signs were there. I thought I was broken! For years after this birth, I had questions about my body and its ability to birth. The insanity of what the medical system put me through almost made me miss out on being a mama the second time 4.5 years later. Yes, birth trauma is real. Birth trauma is something that we will carry with us and remember for the rest of our lives. It could stop us from getting pregnant a second time for fear of the system. I was so glad I learned that it wasn’t my body that was broken, it was a whole slippery slope of medical interventions that caused me to go down this spiral to almost needing that caesarean. I went down that lost dark hole of medical pressures and believed what I was told by the white coats. Thankfully when I learned better, I could do better. In my second pregnancy I got the dream birth I wanted. I didn’t allow the same nonsense to occur that went down that first time. As a doula I ensure my mistakes and missteps can be shared with my clients. I know about so much more in terms of how the medical system ruins birth. I can share this knowledge with my birth doula support clients and help them to see their birth vision and then achieve it. Ensuring they are heard when they advocate for their needs. Preparing them ahead of time for all that is in store for them if they choose the hospital to deliver their baby.
To note I birthed in Calgary, Alberta where I lived at the time. I moved a few months after the birth to beautiful British Columbia. I am a birth doula supporting Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey, Langley, White Rock, Delta, Abbotsford, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, and Mission. I have learned better in the mistakes from my first birth and can now share my wisdom as I help others navigate the medical system and have a better birth.
Sure, I got a healthy mama, healthy baby at the end of this birth, but at what cost? We forget that it truly is about so much more than this. Birth sticks with your esteem, your confidence and that trauma will impact you for life. That same traumatic birth entry will also stick with that baby for life. That being said I am very lucky to have the most amazing 22-year-old young woman as a daughter. Yes, 22 years ago she started her entry into the world. Although it wasn’t the choice of entry she wanted, she made it. She continues to amaze me as she grows from newborn, to toddler, to preteen, and now this amazing human being that is an adult.
So let me share my first birth story. The birth of my amazing daughter Brooklyn Avery Mork. What I hope you get from this is being able to see that once you jump on the induction train you need to know you can’t get off. You have to be ready for all that may be in store for your birth after that. Also to know there are other options always in birth. You just need to prepare, and stand strong in what you want, and what your gut and intuition tells you. So, as I tell Brooklyn’s birth story, I want to be clear and give other alternatives that could have been used or done. These things weren’t given to me. Knowing better means doing better. Sharing means helping you narrate your own birth story, without the detours and missteps that I was led on.
May 30th, 2002. DAY BEFORE LABOUR – I had walked a marathon of a walk that day. I was very active in my labour. Healthier than most people hitting the gym almost every day. Eating a very healthy and balanced diet. Taking great care of my body and my growing baby. I was beyond sick for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and then slowly came out of it and felt like a million bucks for the rest of the pregnancy.
I had gone to Walmart that evening with my husband and we had a full cart of goodies when I turned to him in a very busy store and said, “I’m going to throw up and we need to leave now!” We left that full cart and headed home. I wasn’t sure if I had the flu or what was happening, but I went to bed early.
May 31st, 2002. DAY LABOUR HAPPENED (or was FORCED). At 630am I was sleeping soundly on my side when I felt a POP and a gush. (Was it water breaking? Was it me peeing the bed because the baby was on my bladder dancing? Who knew!) To note – I was only 36 weeks along. My estimated due date wasn’t until the end of the 3rd week of June! So, this was an utter shock to me since most first timers go well after their estimated due dates.
Mistake #1 – Taking the hospital prenatal classes. This is biased information. Period! I do not recommend taking the cookie cutter “hospitals are amazing and ready to save your baby” kind of birth preparation classes.
Instead – Take the prenatal classes that will tell it like it is! Give all of the options surrounding your birth. A place where you can learn about the system, the good, the bad, the ugly. Not from medical professionals paid by the system, bathing in the bull of the system. Don’t take classes from someone who is afraid of birth! Take classes from someone who believes you know how to birth your baby and is there to tell you what you are walking into and how to hold true to the birth vision you have for yourself. I recommend Birth by Bloom prenatal classes Birth Classes by Bloom in the Lower Mainland (birthbybloom.com) in the Vancouver or New Westminster areas. They take place at Pomegranate Midwifery on Hastings Street in Vancouver (who also happen to be Midwives that I highly recommend if you are looking for great care providers!) I also recommend My Powerful Birth in Pitt Meadows Our Classes – MY POWERFUL BIRTH PRENATAL EDUCATION at Bellies inc. in Pitt Meadows Home of the Patented Ab Wrap and Ab System – bellies inc. They also have classes in Abbotsford. I also educate my clients in our own prenatal visits for those who don’t have time to take classes and want more one-on-one education surrounding their upcoming birth.
Okay, back to the GUSH. I went to the washroom and continued to trickly water for about 20 minutes or so when I decided to wake my husband and scare the crap out of him by telling him I thought it was time and that my water had broken. I didn’t have any contractions though.
Mistake #2 – Rushing to the hospital just because your water broke. This is a myth that you have to head there right away, or you are on some timeline or countdown for safety. I won’t go into the research and numbers around it in this blog but will say you have more than 24 hours usually.
Instead – Stay the heck home! If I could see myself back in 2022 getting ready to drive to that hospital I would yell “Stay home!” It was this huge mistake of heading to the hospital that would derail my birth.
Mistake #3 – Going to the hospital when you aren’t having contractions or are in active labour. They start the clock as soon as you show up! (Friedman’s Curve!)
Instead – Stay the heck home as long as possible! If you have no contractions don’t worry, they will probably start naturally soon enough. Even if they don’t, I wouldn’t go to the hospital and let them “help me ” start labour with a bunch of interventions. In early labour I also recommend you stay the heck home as long as possible, since that time clock that gets set as soon as you arrive at the hospital can be a ticking time bomb if your labour doesn’t progress on that same timeline as Friedman’s curve nonsense.
Mistake #4 – When I got to the hospital, they gave me Cervidil to get my cervix moving along, and then of course I also needed Pitocin. Letting them put me on this constant drop of fake oxytocin that would then shut down my own natural production of this much needed love hormone would also be the death of me and my birth story!
Instead – Say no and go home and let labour come on naturally. Or just say no to Pitocin! Let labour happen when it’s supposed to happen.
Because of the Pitocin the contractions are insane! So tough to manage and hit me like a ton of bricks! Looking back and knowing the numbers and gradual increase they are supposed to do (slowly) I now realize why it was so intense. Their timeline was quickly passing and so the numbers kept being increased in terms of dosage. This will also impact me so much later and I am lucky I didn’t die from this insanity!
Insert the need to Laughing gas which made me vomit all over the place, have anxiety, and didn’t work for me. So that wasn’t going to work for me! Then I got talked into Morphine/Gravol which also made me vomit everywhere like my insides were coming out! A few years later I would come to realize I was allergic to gravol, so this really wasn’t a good choice at the time back then!
Pitocin keeps increasing and making contractions even more unbearable – insert the Epidural – which didn’t work! I remember thinking this big rest was coming. It was after midnight when I tried to Epidural from sheer agony and exhaustion, and with that promise from the medical providers it would “help me rest and take the edge off those intense contractions!” So now I was bedridden and hooked up to even more monitors. Blood pressure for me. The continuous fetal heart rate monitor they had already kept on me once Pitocin was started.
To add to this nonsense, I am also told I “Have to be on antibiotics because the results from my GBS test didn’t come back!” They do this test at 36 weeks, and I had just done the swab a day earlier so of course results haven’t come back. This was them being proactive IN CASE I was positive. Which it ended up being negative I found out a few weeks later.
So now you can picture this – I’m hooked up to Pitocin drip to push contractions on me, antibiotics tv which they administered every 4 hours. Continuous fetal heart rate monitor for baby. Blood pressure cuff for me.
Mistake #5 – Say no to antibiotics when they tell me I had to. This is not mandatory, and I have my feelings around even testing for GBS to begin with. Again, I will leave that for another blog.
Mistake #6 – when the Epidural didn’t work, I should have been trying to move around more and not be kept on my back. Back then they didn’t have peanut balls or all of these options to get birthing women to move the heck around once they get the epidural!
Mistake #7 – Not having a doula to stop me from having this whole slew of nonsense and interventions happening to me. By having a doula to help educate me beforehand none of the above would have been happening.
I am now hitting around 1am and the Pitocin has increased well above what is allowed now. You see even the medical system knows Pitocin has many risks to it! My blood pressure was higher than ever (after a pregnancy of perfect blood pressure). I have a fever now as well. From my water being broken and the next mistake that was causing infection.
Mistake #8 – Getting Cervical checks/Vaginal Exams. Every 2-4 hours they were checking my dilation. My water was broken so this was causing a whole bunch of issues in terms of infection, which of course I now had.
Instead – Say no to all vaginal checks and use cues of the birthing person (I help clients use this method who have physiological births – void of all interventions. Once they add the epidural you get rid of the ability to see these cues. You can see, hear, and just know the stages of labour well beyond the cervix checking that means nothing and tells us nothing in terms of progression.
Mistake #10 – Not eating in labour. I had been told I ‘Wasn’t allowed to eat’. By the time my daughter came it had been almost 48 hours without any food. I tried to eat some grapes and have some lemonade earlier in labour and threw it up, and then once Pitocin was added was told I wasn’t allowed to eat.
Instead – EAT!!!!!! Just eat! You can eat in labour. Stop letting the medical system be the boss of your birth. They tell you that you can’t eat because they are assuming you will need a c-section. What does that say about the choice of location and care providers when they don’t believe in your ability to birth your baby! this is why our c-section rate is almost 50% and close to completely derailing so many births it makes my heart hurt!
At 2am I was told I was at 10cm and can start pushing now. Having the epidural meant I didn’t feel the urge to push that I was told about in physiologic birth. I didn’t have the fetal ejection reflex. Which I have learned just because you are at 10cm you don’t need to start pushing until it’s truly time (labouring down). I had to be coached to push. It was horrible. Counting to ten, nurses and medical staff screaming at me to push, push, push, push. I was exhausted and now completely annoyed at not being able
Ineffective pushing is now the next issue. Yep, I was told my body wasn’t properly birthing my baby. I wasn’t “doing it right”. I wasn’t “pushing hard enough”.
I needed help! Let us help you! I remember hearing this for years after the birth. We need to help you! Then I heard the next two words – forceps and vacuum. I actually yelled no way. Then just to push me to the brink of anxiety and stress they said, “then you can get a c-section instead!” Yes, threatening a birthing person is a great idea! They aren’t vulnerable in any way, are they?! I kept pushing until the 2-hour mark and of course Friedman’s curve gets mentioned again that I was “out of time”. Time’s up! That’s something that should never be said during birth! They were now concerned with my blood pressure, the baby’s heartbeat dropping (which I learned later is normal in birth!) and of course the time clock told me my time was up! I remember hearing “you have to” a few times. I allowed them to get the vacuum which wasn’t working. Just as they were sending me on my way for the c-section the next contraction I said in my mind “get this baby out now!” In the next birth the head was out – and what do you know, the baby was posterior that whole time. How had they not known this with the slew of cervix checks they had been doing the whole time.
This explained the back labour I was having as well. And the intense contractions. But what I also learned is that often during labour stalls, or labour taking longer it’s because the baby it’s in the optimal position and just needs time to turn. They will turn! But they can’t if they are on the timeclock of the hospitals which do not allow them this luxury. They also can’t turn when contractions are being forced on the body to push the baby down. You see the body would naturally stall or slow things down to allow the baby to turn. Baby and body communicate during birth. But when Pitocin is added it forces contractions and doesn’t talk to the baby at all.
So as the head was out, I honestly didn’t wait to push again, and of course tore from end to end. That baby flew out! INSERT 3rd degree tear —– yes, it was bad! I will leave it to your imagination for that one.
INSERT insane amounts of blood – active management wasn’t working to get uterus contracting and placenta out. I will let your imagination run wild here. Active management is them giving me even more Pitocin in a “little shot” which is how they describe it. To “get the placenta out faster”. Then of course because of the Pitocin being forced on my body in the first place my own body wasn’t making any natural oxytocin. My body was done.
INSERT – almost bleeding out on the table. Hemorrhaging. Bad! Specialists all running into the room. I didn’t have skin to skin with my baby (since back then they didn’t do that. I didn’t even hold my baby before they took her back to the warming table).
My husband is with the baby but looking over at me in the bed and seeing the gong show of doctors pushing on my stomach. My doctor told me everything was good and handed me my baby (wrapped like a burrito) with a hat on, no skin to skin anywhere to be found!
No delayed cord clamping. In case you wondered about that. But that wasn’t even a thing back then. We didn’t have the great research we have now about the benefits of waiting to cut the cord!
I didn’t know anything was wrong as I bled-out on the table, since my husband was just a ghost and staying quiet. None of the doctors were talking to me. I was in complete shock, so I think most of this is a blur for me. My husband said he remembers the custodial staff coming in after they finally stopped the bleeding to “mop up the insane amount of blood that had pooled so much on the floor the doctors had nowhere to walk!” So, there is the cleaning staff mopping a nice path for the specialists to exit. lol
Other horrible things I had post baby delivery – Anemia, baby jaundice, Postpartum depression, breastfeeding issues. The list can go on and on.
You can see the moral of the story though.
Prepare ahead of time and get equipped with all of the knowledge you can surrounding your birth.
Know that it’s your birth! Not the medical systems. You are the boss!
Don’t get on the induction train – walk instead! It might take longer but it’s worth it to be able to do it yourself!
Avoid all interventions at whatever cost! Also note that each intervention can and usually does lead to many others.
And while the trauma caused to me, and my baby can’t be undone I know better and can help my birth doula clients demand better for their births!
Don’t worry, I got my 100% physiologic birth the second time around!
Happy birthing!
Lori
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