This is the second version of the photo gallery after we lost our website in the great disk crash of July, 2000. The photos were taken in April, 1995 and are of the birth of my son, Phelan. While I have rarely given permission for these photos to be included in teaching materials, please do not take them without my consent. If you want them for your website, I would rather that you just link to this page. If you would like to translate the captions into another language, I would welcome this and would give you full credit - what I would do is make an alternate page that people could click to on my site.
My story: After having 24 hours of labor with my first child, high blood pressure, and "the works" at the hospital, ending in a cesarean at 9cm, I planned a home birth with my second child. After an easy pregnancy and no signs of health problems, I went into labor. After a few hours, it was clear that my labor was not progressing as it should for the intensity of contractions I was having. To make a long story short, we tried everything and could not get Phelan into a good position for birth. He was "asynclitic", meaning that he had his ear on his shoulder and was presenting his head in a position that would not fit through my pelvis. This is the reason for the cesarean. Unlike my first birth, in which I felt railroaded into surgery, this birth was peaceful and as gentle as a cesarean could be. We tried everything we could all think of for 36 hours, and I made the choice to do the cesarean after I pushed for 2 hours with no progress. I am very much at peace with this choice, although I would choose to attempt a home birth again in a heartbeat - if I were pregnant again!
This is the Labor and Delivery operating room at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, CA, USA. The staff are preparing the room, putting on sterile clothing, and getting me ready. The surgery was done by Dr. JD Hoff, with Dr. Kim assisting. You can click on each group of pictures to get to larger versions.
This next group is the actual surgery - from my perspective. My husband took these pictures from right over my shoulder, so you can see what I could have. I actually couldn't see the first two shots over my big orange tummy, but I did see my son coming out of my body from a perspective very similar to that of a vaginal birth. It's a boy! I was the first one to say it - and my husband and I got this great view to find out by...
My husband stayed by me while our doula (labor assistant) went over to the warmer with Phelan. This is a testament to the trust between a doula and her client - misguided as some folks seem to think. My doula was the only person touching my baby without gloves. She had seen my medical history and also practiced good hand washing both before and after touching the baby. As Phelan was given his initial check, she is the only person who is working to comfort him.
Mike (my husband) brought Phelan to me to see and touch on the table as I was being sewn up. Because this was not an emergency cesarean and my baby was not sick, he stayed right with me during the repair. Mike took his shirt off and put Phelan against bare skin for the walk to the recovery room, where I was able to nurse my baby immediately. My daughter was two at the time and she was able to see her new brother in the recovery room. We worked hard to maintain a gentle and family centered birth for this child, surgery or not! It was very important to me to see my baby come out of my body this time. The first time I felt a sense of disorientation that perhaps my daughter wasn't really mine - I didn't see her come out of my body and we were separated most of the time for the first four days. This time, my son stayed right with me for the two days I stayed in the hospital. While we did decide to immunize him, do the neonatal blood work, etc, we refused to allow him to be stuck with any needles while in the hospital - putting off things that could wait.
