Amy and Eric are three-peat clients of mine! So, they are special to me. Amy’s first labor was long and complicated, resulting in an epidural she had hoped to avoid. Her second labor was more difficult than she expected and had Amy requesting an epidural only to be pushing shortly after. So, this time was it. She was determined and knew in her heart she could give birth to her third baby girl without an epidural. Of course, I believed she could too, as did her steadfast husband, Eric. We were excited to see what her third baby, with the third baby reputation of a wild card, would throw her way.

New van purchase on 8/29 - 3 weeks before the birth

There were some concerns about position in the third trimester, and Amy’s midwife and I advised her to do some posterior pelvic tilts to get her baby more properly positioned to drop into the pelvis. Amy was diligent about the Miles Circuit as well as the posterior pelvic tilts. She had tools and she was going to use them. She was also healthier this pregnancy and gained less weight than her previous two, a difference that certainly can’t hurt. She grew comfortable with contractions, knowing there would be a difference between contractions of labor and contractions for other sorts of things. She was careful not to raise alarms for nonlabor contractions and instead kept herself busy and distracted which was easy with two busy little girls at home.

Belly shot taken 9/6 - about 2 weeks before the birth

Amy’s third baby proved the wild card reputation in many ways. The first being that Amy made it a week beyond her due date! She birthed her first two girls before her due date. There was discussion of an induction on the horizon but surely her baby wouldn’t wait that long! Amy decided to have her membranes swept at her 41w appointment to see if it might jostle up some labor. Nothing but Braxton-hicks contractions resulted from that, unfortunately. Amy had pretty much consigned herself to the fact that her third baby had her own plan. And that she did!

This photo taken the day of the membrane sweep, 9/16

Amy woke with contractions around 2:30 am on Sunday, September 18. She got up and paced around the room to get a feel for whether they were the same old Braxton-hicks contractions, or perhaps she had to go to the bathroom, or maybe, just maybe they were labor. The contractions persisted so she called me an hour later.

That call came to me at 3:33 am. Amy said, “I’m having contractions that seem close, but they are short. I think this is it but I’m not definite yet. I’m wondering if I should go to the hospital or maybe call Eric’s mom to watch the girls.” Then through one of the contractions she confessed to me, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I reminded her that she DID want to do it, especially this time. I also reminded her to soften her jaw, shoulders, and hands, so as not to clench anywhere. She breathed through a couple of contractions during that short 5-minute phone call, and I reminded her that her midwives had advised her to call if she had three contractions that were strong and required her focus. She was on speaker phone and Eric said, “These are bringing her to her knees,” and that’s all I needed to hear. It was time to call her midwife and head in. Eric called his mom so she could come to the house to watch the girls so they could leave for the hospital. They would call me when they were on the way, and I would leave to meet them since our drives were about 10 minutes different.

That second call came from Eric at 4:12 am telling me they were in route to the hospital. I could hear Amy vocalizing LOUDLY through a contraction in the background and thought UH OH! I knew I had to hurry out the door! That call was just 15 seconds long. I was on my way to the hospital in under 10 minutes.

My eta to the hospital was 4:36 am, this time will be significant later. I was held up by two red lights but still managed to get to the hospital in a speedy 15 minutes. However, when I turned into the parking lot, I saw a car parked in the circular drive outside the main entrance. This almost always means a laboring woman was let out as close to the door as possible and walked in with her partner because the walk from the car to the door was just too much. I knew Amy was laboring HARD.

Then I jogged my way to the front door and paused in the foyer to hit the button to summon security to open the door. As I waited, I looked up through the glass door to see Ericka, Amy’s midwife, jogging down the stairs from the Family Maternity Center. UH OH! I felt panicked and a sense of urgency to GET IN THE DOOR. The security guard, I would later learn it was Security Guard Mike, walked up and let me in saying as he gestured to the car parked out front, “Are you here for them?” I think he knew I was because I was holding an inflatable birthing chair. I said I was, and he remarked very matter-of-factly, “Because I think she just gave birth in the lobby bathroom.”

I ran to the bathroom door, dropped my things on the floor and entered to find Eric sitting on the bathroom floor against the wall breathing hard in a bit of shock, and Amy standing outside the stall with a bright-eyed look of accomplishment on her face, surrounded by about 8 people in scrubs. She saw me and said, “Well, Amara, I did it! I got my natural birth!” I told her, “Yes you did! And you did it with flair!”

I snapped a few pictures and then took a seat beside Eric who seemed to need more attention than Amy in that moment. I praised him for getting Amy to the hospital in time, knowing that drive must have been stressful. Then so they could help Amy go from standing to sitting in the wheelchair to head upstairs, they handed Eric his baby girl. And he looked down at her and wept big daddy tears. It was priceless.

Getting upstairs was an event, from making sure the wheelchair had a pad on it, to walking in a parade formation to the elevator and then onto the unit. Amy was already the talk of labor and delivery, but that talk would continue for weeks following, if not longer. I will never think of that bathroom stall the same, that’s for sure.

Once in her labor and delivery room, Amy’s body started to shake uncontrollably. Her hormones took over, just as they had a short time earlier to birth her baby, and now were working on the placenta. Once it was out, and she was ready, Mary Rose was placed in her arms. She latched easily and Amy started to share the details she remembered. Eric sat upon the couch to continue to decompress and eventually hold Mary Rose again, this time on a proper couch and not on the floor!

Amy told us little bits that she could recall. Amy shared how counted breaths through her contractions, “just five breaths and it will be over,” she told herself. During her phone call with me the reminder to soften from head to toe also helped. In fact, it became her mantra through every subsequent contraction following our phone conversation. “Relax your hands, relax your shoulders,” is what Amy told herself. Soon even Eric was repeating it to her as he drove her to the hospital. And that reminder of “relax your hands, relax your shoulders,” is what Amy credits making the precipitous labor doable.

Once they arrived, Amy had wanted to stop in the bathroom because she wasn’t sure if she had to pee or poo. (Let me note here that had I been with them in that moment I would have discouraged the potty pit stop and insisted on a quick elevator ride upstairs to the unit first!) And when Amy wiped, she saw blood and got concerned, and then reached up to feel her baby’s head! Then there was a bit of back and forth to Eric about him catching the baby, and then Melanie got there. And when she pieced together the details by timestamps of phone calls and pictures, she was only in labor for 2 hours! And Mary Rose was born at 4:36 am, the same time I parked my car. And Amy pushed her baby out in one single push! And for the record, Mary Rose weighed in at 7 lb. 14 oz. and was 21 in. long.

Mary Rose was about as much of a third baby wild card as she could be. These are the many ways she was different: she was born after 40 weeks (8 days after her EDD!), Amy had a membrane sweep, this baby was the only one not OP, labor began in the middle of the night, Amy’s water broke during labor, not before (thank goodness!), she birthed unmedicated, and not in a labor and delivery room! Whew, that’s a lot of firsts!

Some of the first responders from the Family Maternity Center: Martina, RN, Melanie, CNM, and Stacie, RN

Everyone who assembled for the birth, went their separate ways soon after. I went on a mission to find Security Guard Mike and the Family Maternity Center staff who came to the bathroom/delivery room--Melanie, CNM, and the nurses, Stacie, and Martina. Even Ana, Amy’s nurse, made it down there. Plus, there were several extras in the bathroom from the ER too. Ericka, her midwife, did end up in the bathroom too. They all played a part in the crazy birth that unfolded that night and without a picture, Amy might not remember their faces since within minutes of meeting them, they were off.

There might have been a bag or two in the car to fetch and the car that still needed to get moved. I imagine Security Guard Mike wouldn’t let their car get towed. It was a crazy sort of birth, for sure. But at the heart of it, was a woman highly motivated to have an unmedicated birth. Amy didn’t need any of us! She did it. Even Melanie didn’t have to do anything but tell Amy to push. It’s quite a story. And one that shows in a dramatic way, that it’s the woman who delivers her baby! I have never, in 20 years and over 900 births ever had a client give birth in the lobby bathroom of a hospital. And that middle stall in the lobby bathroom of Sentara Leigh Hospital will forever be Mary Rose’s potty to me.

The Birth of Mary Rose 9/18/22