What Christy Turlington and I Have in Common

I got pregnant on our second try.  After three months of nausea, I had a pretty fabulous pregnancy.  Toward the end of it, my blood pressure rose and I had unexplained headaches so they delivered our son three weeks early.  We had asked our families to come visit a few weeks later (when he was supposed to be due) so it was just my partner and I in the room with the doctor.  The nurse came in to set up our son’s “station”, but other than her infrequent visits it was just the three of us.  Soft music was on, the lights were dim and we were calm.  After my sister’s delivery I had witnessed the year before with the Staying Alive soundtrack on and six of us in the room with her, my situation seemed unusual.  It was quiet.  It was sweet and very purposeful.  Our son was born and he was pretty perfect.  I was famished!  I had my first Diet Coke in months and a turkey sandwich while being wheeled to the Mother/Baby Unit.   We couldn’t have been happier.

Once in the other room, I was told to go to the bathroom frequently to help my uterus contract.  Unfortunately, I kept passing out and bleeding profusely.  I woke up to several nurses yelling my name and some yucky smelly stuff under my nose.  I remember saying with an exacerbated tone, “WHAT?”  What happened next was a blur.  I was given more pitocin to cause contractions and some sort of pain medicine – then I tried to make myself disappear.  We think they performed a D&C in the room although my records are spotty.  Then I slept and slept.  I had lost a great deal of blood and was pretty sick.  I’ve asked my partner to write about this from her perspective, but even after five years – it’s still too close, too scary.

It took weeks to feel better and my milk really didn’t “come in.”  I was a snack for our son for six weeks, but that was about it.  He was fine and eventually so was I.

After a few years of wondering what really happened to me, I came across a foundation that the amazing Supermodel, Christy Turlington Burns, began.  It’s called Every Mother Counts.  In 2003, she also experienced Post Partum Hemorrhage (PPH) after the birth of her first daughter.  Ah, so it did have a name and Christy Turlington and I have something in common!  I love it.  Like Christy, because of the wonderful care I received, I survived.  It can, and often does, mean death for thousands of girls and women around the world. In fact, PPH is the leading cause of pregnancy-related death in the world, including in the US.

Christy wrote, “Once I learned that hundreds of thousands of women around the world were dying each year I needed to know why. And when I learned that almost 90% of these deaths are preventable I committed myself to doing all that I could to stop these senseless deaths.”  Her foundation makes people aware of the condition and helps them do something positive with the awareness they now have. 

As I grow with The Parenthood Journey, I learn new ways that we can support each other and support parents around the world.  I hope you will join me in this journey.

Lauren Boyd
Director of Programming and Membership at PHUMC
Partner to Candi and Mother to Miller who is 5

Decisions and Resolutions

Yesterday, I received a phone call.  “Do you want to have another child?  You have 48 hours to decide.”  Well, that’s not exactly what she said, but she did tell me that there was more “stuff” available from my son’s donor if we wanted it.  We had 48 hours to decide.  Wow.  What do you say to that?  We love our son so much.  He is amazing!  Would we love to have another Miller? Yes.  Would we love a daughter?  Yes. Yes.  Do we want the chaos that comes with more children? Um.  Do we have the funds to support another child?  No. 

I always wanted at least two children.  I wanted a table full of muddy, sticky, funny faces.  I wanted a big car and big car trips.  I wanted enough money to take care of all of us in style.  I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.  I met the love of my life in 2001.  We committed to be forever and start a family.  We love our careers and we love each other.  We chose to take parenthood one step at a time and we continue to do that.  We had one successful birth (although I could have died a few hours after when I was bleeding out) and a healthy, fabulous child.  We didn’t want to rush into another pregnancy and child until we got to know this one and figured out this parenting thing a bit.  Well, two and half years later we did try again. Twice.  It didn’t “take” so we had a serious conversation about our future.  Did we want to spend money we didn’t have and take emotional time away from our child and each other trying to get pregnant?  We decided – no.  It was a really hard conversation and decision, but we love being a family of three.  Now that he can ride his bike, tie his shoes and entertain himself on a Saturday morning when we are still in bed – we can take him anywhere!  We just flew to DC for five days and had a blast together.  Have one child – will travel. 

We are so content, well I was until yesterday’s phone call.  It made me remember my dream of a big family and the picturesque life I thought I’d have (secretly, no one has that, I’m just saying.)  I spent much of the day reminding myself of our decision two and half years ago and why we made it.  My partner sent me a text when I told of her of the call, “We’re good though, right?”  I replied, “Totally.”  We are good.  We’re really good.  I get asked, “When are you going to have another one?”  or “So this is your first?”  For a myriad of reasons, he is our first and only.

So my New Year’s Resolution or one of them is to continue to love, embrace our family of three and to not put us back on the waiting list if more "stuff" becomes available at a later date.I believe God will give us a table full of muddy, sticky, funny faces – they just won’t live under our roof. 

Jeremiah 29:11 – I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.

Lauren Boyd
Director of Programming and Membership at PHUMC
Partner to Candi and Mother to Miller who is 5

A birth story

In this holiday season, here’s what I’m thankful for: my daughter is alive.

Every parent of a biological child has a birth story, and I am going to tell you about the birth of my daughter. I imagine that every birth story reflects what it feels like to be a parent, no matter how “smooth” the birth. I imagine that most birth stories aren’t the ones that the parents involved expected to tell.

My baby almost died. But she’s here, she’s alive, and now she is almost six months old.

Our daughter was due June 6, but by our last checkup (on June 7), there was no sign that she was in any hurry to come out. By all accounts (ultrasounds, fetal heartbeat monitors, etc.), she was perfectly healthy in there, but Katie (my wife) was showing no signs of labor.

Our OB-GYN said she didn’t want to take any chances with complications, so she asked us to check into the hospital on Sunday, June 10, to start inducing labor, with the expectation that our daughter would be born on Monday. It was also the expectation that inducing would take long enough that our OB-GYN would be able to attend the birth. As you are about to find out, that didn’t happen.

We checked into the hospital on Sunday night, at about 7:30, and they started the induction at about 10:30. An ultrasound, conducted by an exhausted doctor who happened to be the mother of a six-month old herself, indicated that everything was ok.

Everybody left the room. The only sounds left were the fetal monitor (like listening to a heartbeat on speakerphone) and the low sounds of The Philadelphia Story, the comfort food movie Katie wanted to watch while we waited for labor to begin.

We waited. And we waited. Katie fell asleep. I didn’t.

After a couple of hours, that’s when things started happening. At first, as I laid on the world’s least comfortable couch “bed,” I noticed that the monitor heartbeat started to drop and get really irregular. I thought this was odd, but I ascribed it to our daughter just moving around in the womb and Katie trying to get comfortable by shifting in bed. A slipping monitor seemed like a reasonable explanation.

And then three nurses and the on-call OB-GYN and burst into the room, flicked on the lights and started fussing over Katie, moving her, checking the monitor, readjusting it. Then an anesthesiologist waltzed in and asked, “So, are we doing this now?”

The OB-GYN, a preternaturally calm woman in her late fifties, explained that the baby’s heart rate was dropping intermittently, independent of Katie’s contractions (which were minor, at best -- she couldn’t even feel them). She said that if the trend continued, we “may” have to consider a C-Section. Oddly enough, this did not send us into a panic. They readjusted the monitor, Katie fell asleep again, and I listened really hard at that damn fetal monitor, waiting for something to sound wrong.

I didn’t sleep, and I waited. An hour and a half later, I started hearing a disturbingly different sound. That healthy heartbeat slowed down dramatically. (Science Aside: A normal, healthy fetus has a heart that beats between 140 and 160 beats per minute. Our daughter’s pulse slowed to 80 beats a minute).

The same five people (three nurses, two doctors) who I’d seen earlier that night burst through the door again, but this time it was different.

The anesthesiologist already had a clipboard in his hand, a consent form for putting Katie under if they couldn’t get her into the OR fast enough. The OB-GYN stood off to the side, keeping out of the way but making sure that everybody was doing their job. I walked over to her, and I asked her, “Does this mean we’re going to have to consider the C-Section?”

“It means that we’re doing this right now,” she said, with a calm urgency that I think only doctors are capable of. Katie signed the consent form.

They had Katie out of the room in less than five minutes. One of the nurses threw a set of scrubs at me and said she would come back for me. As Katie was wheeled out of the room, she asked me to call her parents, who were staying at our house.

It was 2:15 am.

So I’m pulling the scrub pants over my jeans with one hand and calling my in-laws with the other, somehow managing to multi-task despite being terrified. Katie’s mom answered the phone, said they were on their way, and I finished getting dressed.

No one came back for me.

I burst out of the room, and I saw a random hospital worker and demanded they tell me where I was supposed to go. This confused person stared at me with confusion until the aforementioned nurse came running down the hall. She said, “come with me, but you might not be able to come into the OR.” (Apparently, if they have to use full anesthesia, you -- meaning the partner -- are not allowed to attend the C-Section). I raced after her and stopped at the OR doors. The nurse popped her head in, and, thank God, she came back to let me in. I walked in, and they were just finishing Katie’s spinal block. I saw the needle withdrawn and they laid Katie down on the operating table.

They raised a sheet between Katie’s head/chest and her abdomen. I stood around, flittering about like a crazy person until a doctor I’d never seen before gave me a chair and told me to sit down next to Katie.

I held her hand and asked the doctors if I could watch. They said yes, and I stood up. I asked Katie if she wanted me to tell her what was going on. She said, “absolutely not.”

Ten minutes later, they pulled my daughter out of Katie’s uterus.

My daughter stared right at me. No noise, for three seconds. The longest three seconds of my life. I was afraid she would never breathe. I was afraid she was already dead.

And then she started screaming, and my knees almost buckled.

“Oh my God!” I stammered.

They took my baby over to a table to measure her. She pooped everywhere while scoring high on Apgar marks (the scale they use to determine a baby’s health at birth).

What they don’t tell you is that the birth through a C-Section is the shortest part of the operation. They gave Katie and me a choice. I could stay with Katie in the OR, or I could go with my baby into the recovery room. Katie, who was shivering (apparently, with the hormone withdrawal of birth, that’s normal), told me to go with my daughter. So I did.

It was all so fast, I didn’t know what to think. The whole process, from labor room to OR to recovery room with my brand new daughter, lasted about 20 minutes.

After it was over, that’s when I found out how dire the situation really was.

“You must have had some angels watching over your daughter,” said the head nurse. “If your wife had gone into labor at home, your daughter wouldn’t be here.”

You see, my wonderful, beautiful, active daughter had managed to wrap the cord around her midsection and around her neck. In fact, she was moving around so much that she had even managed to tie her umbilical cord into a true knot.

Imagine that for a second. A baby that had moved so much in utero that she tied her cord in a knot.

Our doctor explained later that the drops in pulse were due to our daughter pinching the cord, (via movement, via the knot) slowing the blood/nutrient flow from the placenta to my baby. Less blood, less work for the heart. And eventually death, had Katie gone into labor naturally at home before the doctors could figure out what was going on.

There’s more to say about this journey, about being a parent. But I need to tell you something important.

I thank God every day that my daughter is alive.