separated from her baby for nine hours after delivery, colleen was reunited and able to hold her baby.

separated from your baby is difficult, but especially after just giving birth. colleen shares her birth story. she was transferred to the hospital after she had the baby during a planned home birth. they were reunited nine hours later.

she is a first time mom, a school psychologist, a doula. she knows so much about the process of birth, but everything changes when you are going through it. her story is shared in two parts. here is part one written in her words and spoiler alert, she does get her fairy tale ending.

how things started

so it all started with cramping around 1 pm on the 7th and i just spent time watching tv and trying to relax. i gave my midwife (crystal) and doula (beth) a heads up around 3 pm that i might be in labor but didn’t call for anyone yet. about 6 pm i definitely knew it was the real deal with cramps starting to be longer, stronger, and closer together. my midwife encouraged me to get some sleep and rest. i also took a bath around that time since my contractions were lasting a while, but were still pretty far apart. around 7 pm i started vocalizing during contractions and called for my doula to come to the house an hour later. robert was helping me through contractions by doing counter pressure on my lower back and i spent a lot of time leaning over the bed, swaying and standing up. i never really got a chance to rest before things picked up around 9ish. beth arrived at about 9:30. i threw up for the first time at about 10pm and was looking forward to the rest of the team arriving to get the tub set up, which they did about 5 minutes later. throughout my laboring i don’t think i ever stopped analyzing everything and just let my body take over, the pros and cons of being a birth worker and type a person i thought a lot about whether what i was doing was effective or not and if i should change positions or do something different. around 2 am i was laboring on the bed and got up to change positions. as i stepped down from the bed, i knew something was happening and i honestly thought that baby’s head was coming through but it was my water breaking – and boy did it break i had often seen clients have a trickle or slow leak when their membranes ruptured, but for me, my bag literally exploded like a water balloon all over the wall and floor of my bedroom i had hoped that contractions would pick up after that but really they didn’t do much different for a while. being in the tub was nice too but i often felt like i was not making much progress there. crystal checked me eventually and found that i was complete but had a little lip, which she got out of the way so i could push.

the birth of nora

i started pushing and this is when things really became a blur because i pushed for almost 5 hours. we moved between the birth stool, toilet, and bed during pushing and used tug of war and knees together positioning with the peanut ball to help baby come down. what really helped me towards the end was using a mirror to see how effective my pushing was and what i was doing that was working. once we started using that i could really direct my pushing a lot better. robert sat behind me while i pushed on the birth stool using the bars to grip underneath. baby came down and i tried to go slow to get through the ring of fire which was so stingy! next thing i know baby was out and in my arms. the cord was wrapped around her neck twice but it was really long and didn’t seem to have impacted her at all. i had planned to catch baby and be in the water, but at that point i was just happy to be done! i looked down and announced that she was a girl and that i was right i had been saying it was a girl from pretty early on in my pregnancy. i sobbed just looking at her and realizing this was real. i felt so proud of myself that i had achieved the birth that i wanted at home, surrounded by people who cared about me. i was so overwhelmed by her face and how this tiny human was something i had made! everyone in the room was emotional and we all just spent time taking it in. nora was born and was doing well, although her poor head was very very molded and she looked like she had been put through the ringer. i later found out that she came through rop and military presentation, which is why pushing took so long. nora rose smith was born at 9:52 am on march 8th, weighing 9 lbs and measuring 22 inches long

separated. it began with an ambulance ride

after a little while, i wasn’t feeling contractions or the urge to push at all. crystal encouraged me to try and all that came out was blood and clots. this happened a few times with my pushing and i started to feel a little hazy. i was losing a lot of blood and was given meds and homeopathic remedies to help my blood loss. however, my placenta was still not coming and i was still losing blood. at that point, crystal decided we needed ems to come. she also told me my placenta was not detaching on its own and that she would have to manually remove it. she did that and it was not so pleasant, but i was still pretty out of it at that point so i don’t remember too much pain. pretty soon after that i recall hearing the sirens of the ambulance and fire truck coming up to the house. within a minute or so, there were what i remember being like 10 male first responders in my bedroom. lots of questions were being asked of my birth team and to me. i remember being hazy but looking over to beth and jokingly asking her why she wasn’t documenting everything. the guys kept trying to cover me up because i was only in a nursing bra at that point. we talked about who would be going with me to the hospital and who would be staying to take care of nora. we decided that robert would stay with nora and that crystal would come to the hospital. they then moved me from my bed to a wheelchair to take me downstairs to our main landing and then i was moved to a stretcher where they gave me blankets to cover me up. i had my cell phone with me and that was it – no underwear, no wallet, nothing else – just a nursing bra and my phone i remember being really worried that my cat had escaped the house since the door was open for so long. being separated from nora seemed the only option for me at that moment and it eased my mind that my husband was able to be with her at home. they rolled me out of my front door to the ambulance and i experienced my first ride in one ever. they talked to me on the way over to lewisgale and tried to keep me awake. i was shaking a lot due to the hormones and blood loss and i just wanted to be covered up with more blankets. it was sunny, but really cold outside and my shoulders were freezing. we got to the hospital and they put me in a room in the emergency department.

a lot of what initially happened at the hospital is a blur to me – they decided to give me a blood transfusion and iv fluids. i also was being given oxygen. throughout this time my blood pressure was low and heart rate was high, i also had a fever which was likely due to the cytotec they gave me to stop my bleeding. i had probably 8 blankets on top of me and i kept asking nurses to cover my shoulders because i had the chills. i also was not allowed to drink or eat so i constantly asked for something to wet my mouth. eventually they gave me ice chips to eat.

special thanks to colleen’s birth team both at home and the hospital.

stay tuned for the rest of the story! next week part 2 and they are separated no longer, but reunited as a family.

i have loved writing my birth stories and sharing them with my grown children. it awakened all sorts of feelings and more love for them and myself. it was a very powerful exercise for me. here is a birth story of my 2nd baby born in a car if you love reading birth stories. i used all my senses to recall as much detail as i could while writing about my last pregnancy. enjoy reading it here.

writing your birth story can be so healing as you process your experience. it can help with disappointments if things did not go as you hoped or planned and it helps with bonding to express these feelings, thoughts, and concerns. talk with your significant other, your midwife or doctor, doula, anyone on your birth team to help you process your journey. the group postpartum support virginia is also available to offer help as needed.

here is their warm line number (703) 829-7152 for postpartum support virginia

about grammie doula:

i am a full-time postpartum doula in sw virginia and my clients call me grammie doula. i have 25 years as a labor and delivery nurse and then 10 years as a birth photographer. during the pandemic, i was able to take doula training and now i can support clients in-person and virtually. i am a mom to 3 grown children, 6 grandchildren and 2 babies in heaven. i live in a cabin in the woods with my gray-bearded husband and two pets that prefer his company over mine! laura