Isla Wilder: A Birth Story
**This story also tells the story of our delayed fertility and miscarriage.
This is really a story of two births; the birth of my daughter Isla and the birth of myself as a mother.
I truly feel that the birth of Isla and myself doesn’t just begin when the first contraction started, but was being written years before she was even conceived. And so it actually begins about two years ago, the spring of 2018 when Josh and I decided we were ready to welcome a life into this world. We stopped “preventing” and just let things happen. When you spend almost 4 years of marriage trying *not* to get pregnant, you think that the moment you stop it’ll happen. But I’m here to tell ya that sometimes it just doesn’t work that easily haha. Month after month went by and, well, nothing was happening. April, May, June, July, August went by and nothing. I was starting to become more invested, each month getting more and more disappointed to see my cycle come back, and decided that in September I would start actively tracking ovulation to optimize fertility. I spent *hours* upon hours researching everything there is to know about hormone balance, fertility, each detailed phase of my cycle, and all the tricks on how to get pregnant.
After 9 months of trying, we finally became pregnant only to lose our little bean a few weeks later. We were able to see her heartbeat flickering before discovering a week later that there was no heartbeat. I was 10 weeks along.
On Mother’s Day, I got my first cycle back after the miscarriage, and in June we bought and moved into our first home. I started a new job and we were busy unpacking and settling in. I knew I wasn’t ready to be tracking my ovulation, but we were open to whatever was in store for us so we weren’t preventing. Then in August I decided I needed a break from worrying about fertility…but the next day I took a test and it was positive!
Fast forward to my “due” date, May 2nd. I had a feeling she would probably be a week late, so when my due date came and went I wasn’t that surprised. Even though I trusted my body and knew she would come when she was ready, it was so tough to be overdue! Plus I was pretty uncomfortable and feeling laaarrrggee.
I was feeling mentally and physically ready for birth…I had spent all 9 months speaking positive affirmations, meditating, and being physically active. I knew my body was strong and capable. I almost constantly experienced Braxton Hicks contractions the last few weeks but nothing ever progressed to the real thing. At my 41 week appointment, baby girl gave us a surprise: she had flipped breech! I was devastated. This meant that my plan for an all natural birth was in jeopardy since the hospital would automatically schedule me for a C-section if she was breech. We scheduled a version procedure (where they manually turn her from the outside by pressing on my belly) and I went home and tried every natural way possible to try and get her to turn. The next day we went in for our appointment and discovered she was still breech, so we went ahead with the version. It only has a 50-60% success rate, so to increase the likelihood of it working they gave me an epidural (the procedure is extremely painful) and a muscle relaxer. The drugs made me feel horrible and I honestly felt like I was going to die. We were in the OR for the procedure so it was cold and bright and I had about 10 nurses around me. Josh was by my side through the whole thing, holding my hand, rubbing my back, speaking encouragements over me. It was the best and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him. After maybe a half hour I was told that they were able to flip her head down and my doctor had started Pitocin right away so that labor could be started and we wouldn’t run the risk of her flipping back to breech.
We went back to our room around 8pm and as the drugs wore off I started to feel so much better. Contractions started right away but I couldn’t always feel them and when I did they were just like mild period cramps. Josh and I settled in for the night with a movie and then went to sleep. My nurse kept coming in throughout the night to up my Pitocin so contractions would be regular and strong. Eventually I was on the max dose of Pit. The contractions increased in intensity so that at around 5am I decided I needed to get out of bed to cope with them. I hopped on the birth ball for a bit and decided to try to get in the tub. At 5:30 I woke Josh up and said contractions were getting more intense and I needed him to help me through them. He sat with me in the bathroom while I was in the tub. I only stayed in there a little bit because honestly it wasn’t as magical as I imagined it would be. The water started getting cold right away and it just wasn’t relaxing. So I got out and continued to work through contractions. At this point I had started to vocalize through them and needed to lean on my IV pole to get through each one. By 6 am I wanted to be checked to see how much progress I made. My nurse told me I was only at 2cm! I was kinda disappointed because my contractions had started to be pretty strong. I started thinking about an epidural at this point because I knew Pitocin makes contractions unnaturally strong and intense, and I was on the max dose you can possibly get. My contractions were also coming every 2 minutes. I also knew that if they were as strong as they were at a 2 I wasn’t going to be able to continue coping with them until I reached 10 cm. Even though I had really wanted a natural birth, I gave myself grace and opted for the epidural at 7am, as long as it was the smallest dose and I would still be able to move around. The anesthesiologist came at 7:30 and administered the epidural, but it only worked on half of my body! I was still able to feel the full force of each contraction in the right lower side of my uterus. I was also vocalizing pretty loud at this point, keeping my voice low and my throat open. At 8:30 I was ready to be checked again…I had progressed to a 7! I was surprised how fast I dilated but based on how I was feeling I wasn’t that surprised I was far along. After that I started having some intense contractions, a few double peaking ones, and then I went through the “transition” phase of labor. I threw up and suddenly felt SO strongly that I needed to change positions. A few nurses and Josh helped me to get on all fours on the bed. As I was in the process of changing positions, I remember saying “I can’t do this, I can’t do this,” the only time in labor I voiced anything negative. This is a typical sign of transition, right before women are ready to push they feel like giving up. At this point my doctor decided to check me because I stated that I was feeling pressure, and as soon as she did I heard her say, “Oh I feel a head!” I got the go-ahead to push and man….let me tell ya. I loved pushing! It was such a relief to be actively participating in getting this baby out instead of just needing to mentally and physically ride out each contraction. Because I could still feel my contractions, I knew exactly when I needed to push so I was actually really thankful for that half-working epidural. The atmosphere in the room seemed so chill to me because everyone just seemed to step back and let me push whenever I felt I needed to. No one was yelling or counting or telling me when to push or not push and I loved that. My doctor gave me some gentle guidance so that eventually I ended up on my back pushing. I pushed for 25 minutes and out she came!
I still vividly remember the look of her as they placed her on my chest…pure magic!
She was (and still is!) PERFECT. We waited until the cord stopped pulsing and then Josh got to cut it. She never got a bath so that all the vernix could hydrate and moisturize her skin. We got our “golden hour” of skin to skin time where we breast fed and just got to gaze at her and bond. Isla Wilder Gazelka was born, someone we had waited so long for. It was such a crazy adventure getting to this point I couldn’t believe it had finally happened. PURE MAGIC!
I wouldn’t have been able to labor without Josh. The emotional support he poured over me was just what I needed. Going through something so intimate with him makes me feel SO much closer to him it honestly brings me to tears just thinking about it!
It’s honestly taken a while to sink in that I’m a mom….even though I’ve had so many months of trying to get pregnant, losing a baby, 9 months of prepping…it still was such a huge transition for me. Honestly, pregnancy and motherhood has not been this magical beautiful easily natural thing for me. I will say that it truly has been all worth it for Isla (and I wasn’t sure I would ever feel that way). I fall more and more in love with her every day and she seriously is my little BFF. I love spending my days with her, I love caring for her, I love teaching her and watching her grow. She has SO MUCH LIFE ahead of her and that excites me to no end! I absolutely am so excited, humbled, honored that Josh and I get to be the ones to guide her and watch her adventure through life. She reminds me to live my life every day to the fullest as I teach her to do the same.
