07/07/2020
Alright friends... The time has finally come for me to share Delilah Joan Coltrain's birth story. I tried to type this out yesterday and wound up shutting the computer and walking away. The tricky thing about trauma is the reaction to trauma is different at times, from anxiety to depression.
***Trigger warning: this story does contain graphic details***
Welp, that being said, let’s get to it.
September 23rd at exactly 42 weeks, Brian and I made our way to the hospital for our scheduled induction. Although I was scheduled for 2 pm, the call didn't come until 8 pm for us to make our way in. The hospital was sterile in every way, indeed clean but also cold and stale. We were here in this exact spot after a series of exciting and life changing decisions.
Let's back track, a little back story about us. I'm sharing this so you can better understand how the story progresses and defines our experience as parents from the get-go. Brian and I are both chefs. At that time Brian was a chef and I was a pastry chef at a restaurant in the city. Working together at that point was a blast. Working hard all day and partying at night was the usual. While we were crazy about each other, neither of us had considered a baby. We were 23 and 25 when we that pink line appeared. Exciting times! Suddenly our conversations shifted from what would we do that night, to how would we raise a baby??
Back to the birth story....
Once I was admitted to the maternity ward I was hooked up and strapped into all the machines and gadgets they had. The nurses spoke at me as they prepared me for the next steps in induction. When I say "spoke at me" I literally mean, the conversation was oddly one sided and uncomfortable. The anesthesiologist popped in for a consult to do my epidural. I had not researched epidurals and knew little about the procedure and possible side effects. Most women I knew growing up had an epidural, it was a very normal thing based on the conversations I had with them. Brian and I agreed, we would go ahead with the epidural for a "pain free" labor. I wish I had done more research specifically on epidurals and the risks that associate with this style on anesthetics.
The rest of the labor was on course with a normal induction. I was prescribed Pitocin, synthetic oxytocin, and a prostaglandin to soften my cervix and start contractions. My body was no where near ready for birth at only one centimeter dilated and 0% effaced. At the time, these terms meant nothing to me. I was just going with the flow. Several nurses popped in and out of the room throughout the day.
During my pregnancy I had signed up for two studies; one that focused on the effects pushing vs. not pushing to see the effects in moms in labor and the other on brain development in the womb and out of the womb.
When I finally reached ten centimeters dilated and was ready to push, a new nurse came in to help with the delivery. She grabbed a sheet, handed me a side, and next thing I know we were playing tug-of-war during the big waves of contractions. I pushed for roughly two hours, one mighty contraction to the next. Then the moment came, baby Delilah was crowning!! I pushed and cried through transition. As our doctor pulled Delilah out, and I mean pulled, her umbilical cord burst, shot blood everywhere and Brian caught her. Our room looked a bit horrific, blood on everything including the ceiling. All of that craziness faded into the background as they laid Delilah on my chest. She was warm and plump. Her black hair was matted down but feathering out bit by bit as the moments passed and she awoke earth side. I gazed back and forth from Delilah to Brian. I felt high, legit on a trip where everything was spinning and my body was lightweight, eyes only focused on these two humans that I actively chose to share this life with. I was in love.
After the show was over, the staff left us alone for a moment, and I had a chance to clean up, our family visited us and met our sweet bundle that we had all waited so long to meet. The room was full of tears and love… so much love.
The week that followed Delilah’s arrival was heartbreaking. That week after moving our family from the city to a small apartment I started feeling terribly ill. I assumed I had mastitis after trying my hardest to nurse Delilah. I had a high fever and felt weaker each day that passed. We decided it was time to go to the maternity triage once my fever hit 103.6. I felt as though I was boiling from the inside. Once admitted, I was quarantined to a room at the end of the hallway and told that until they found the cause I could not see Brian or Delilah. As a very hormonally charged, tired, and sick mama, I sat alone in my room and cried for literally 4 days bouncing in and out of awareness. My fever never dropped below 102 and at one point hit 105.7. I was treated with ice packs and an IV drip with a pain medicine in it, I can’t remember what they said it was. I was taken back and forth to MRIs, blood tested, and visited by the CDC with no lead on what was going on. During this time, I was pumping with a hospital grade breast pump. Pumping is already hard but managing to do so in a fever manic state with the start of postpartum depression was almost impossible. I kept pumping each day, rawer than the one before and eventually got mastitis while in the hospital. Little did I know, the hospital had sent home breastmilk with Brian…. it was not mine, but another mother’s milk. I was devastated and felt like I was already failing my newborn baby. As another 2 days passed after a bad reaction to medication and a panic attack in the final MRI, I was diagnosed with spinal meningitis from my epidural. I was prescribed medication and sent home 2 days later with no indication of why or how this happened.
I want to be clear this is from my memory and what Brian has told me. I struggled for years with memory issues from the high fever and did not fully process the trauma of Delilah’s birth story until I trained to be a doula. Most people do not want to share the hardships of labor and delivery, but without an open and honest conversation we can never fully understand what steps to take to change the future for mothers and babies.
I know this post is incredibly long and graphic. If you made it this far, I appreciate you sticking around. Eventually I would like Brian to share his perspective of the story, as he was a chef working full time with a newborn baby that he packed back and forth to work each day that I was hospitalized. The doctors had him seriously concerned that I would not make it home. He lived his own traumatic experience through this. I believe validating father’s experiences as they become parents is crucial. We did not understand how much weight we carried after this until years later.
Welcoming Delilah into the world was difficult and beautiful. She is and always will be my inspiration. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be a mother or an advocate for women’s rights in life and in labor. Thank you for that, my darling girl.
Delilah Joan Coltrain
September 24, 2014
2:00 PM
