It's Ramadan (Loss mentioned)

I really love this time of year. Ramadan is the holy month of fasting for Muslims. It is the month in which the gates of hell are closed and the gates of heaven are open, the month of standing in prayer, the month of purification. Abdul Qadir was born/died during the month of Ramadan in the Gregorian year 2005. I want to explain that because the Islamic calender follows the lunar cycle Ramadan begins roughly 10 days earlier every year. Just wanted to put that out there since it is July and Ramadan but it was October and Ramadan when he died. And I can't begin to say how special it is to have my son born and die during the blessed month of Ramadan 8 years ago.

As I sit here reflecting and reading the Qur'an I came across some verses that I felt the need to share. You see I have always, for as long as my baby has been gone, been the target of cruel comments and hatred over the fact that I lost my baby but blamed no one and had no regrets about his birth. I have seen other loss mothers be ripped to shreds within hours or weeks of losing their precious babies because of the method of birth they chose.

Anyway I ran across this and it brought a lot more peace about the way I feel:

"...Say: 'Even if you had remained in your homes, those for whom death was decreed would certainly have gone forth to the place of their death,' but that Allah might test what is in your breasts; and to purify that which is in your hearts, and Allah is All-Knower of what is in your breasts." - Surah Al-Imran 154

And also this:

"O you who believe! Be not like those who disbelieve (hypocrites) and who say to their brethren when they travel through the Earth or go out to fight: 'If they had stayed with us, they would not have died or been killed,' so that Allah may make it a cause of regret in their hearts. It is Allah that gives life and causes death. And Allah is All-Seer of what you do." - Surah Al-Imran 156

Now I want to mention here that the verses were referring to some of the battles that were fought during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. (peace be upon him) However, the principle here is the same. It reminds me so much of all the people who question my decisions and try to assume that things would have been different if I had done things another way, etc. The principle is the same in that people attempt to make "if" statements with the intention of inciting regret. But Allah is the one who gives life and causes death. No one and nothing else.

One of the pillars of faith in Islam is belief in the divine pre-ordainment, which is mentioned in the first verse I quoted where it states if death is decreed for someone it does not matter where they are, death will reach them. So stop questioning me when I say I know that he would not have lived regardless of how I birthed him. Death was decreed for him while he was in my womb long before labor began. Stop acting like I caused his death because the only One who caused his death was Allah.

I continue to heal and grow. This grief process is not one that ever ends. It is lifelong, but today I feel strong.

My Homebirth Loss: The Birth

*** Disclaimer again:  Before I begin I would like to preface this post with a few things. First off, I have not shared the details of this birth publicly since he was born. This was largely due to the most insensitive and hurtful comments that I have ever seen a person make online regarding my loss without them even knowing the details. Please bear in mind that I lost my son and no one carries that burden of loss more than I do. If you comment with anything that is offensive, mean, or otherwise insensitive it will get deleted. Secondly I am writing this birth story in 3 separate blogs, the pregnancy and labor, the birth, and the hospital trasnfer. I am doing this because 1- there is just too much information to put it all in one post and 2-I want to separate my emotions from those three cycles of this process. The labor was amazingly beautiful, the birth was somewhat scary, and the hospital transfer was nothing short of infuriating.****

The Birth:

Here I was the moment I had been waiting for and missed with my first two babies. It was time to push! I remember just thinking how close I was to this being over and how I couldn't wait so that the burden of looming loss would finally go away.

I pretty much followed my instincts in regards to pushing. It felt best to stand in between contractions and push in a squatting position. I actually didn't even know at the time that squatting opens the pelvic inlet 30% more than normal. Instincts are such an amazing thing we have. I was in such a labor daze that I am unaware of exactly how long it took to push. I do know that my cervical lip was still there and that while pushing my midwife pushed it out of the way so that I could get the baby past my cervix.

There was a point in the pushing process that I was shown a mirror and I could see his head. I think the reason they did that is because they wanted me to see that I was so close to birthing. It helped to know that his head was literally right there.

It was not long after that things quickly changed. I recall hearing my midwife tell her assistant to check heart tones in between my contractions. I remember it like it was yesterday very very vividly. There was complete and utter silence. No heartbeat, not even the swooshing of the placenta. That feeling I had the entire pregnancy of a heartbeat not being found was happening. While I prepared for the worst at every prenatal, I never quite imagined that this may occur during my labor.

At this point the mood seemed to completely change. I could hear a lot of hustling behind me and encouragement for me to get the baby born. I remember hearing my midwife say "call them" telling someone to call 911. When I heard that I pushed with every single thing I had in me. I could feel the infamous ring of fire and hoped this meant it was almost over. In reality it had only just begun.

Once his head was born I could not push anymore and he was not moving out. I could tell by the look on my midwife's face that something was really wrong. She gave me a stern yet gentle stare and said " I need you to push. This baby needs to come out now!" Only I had no energy to "purple push" as they call it. I had no contractions and I had no energy left. So there I was with my baby stuck and nothing anyone could do.

It took 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Police and EMT volunteers were there within minutes and NONE of them did anything. Not one single thing. They stood around and stared at me like I was in the circus. Once the ambulance finally arrived they kicked everyone out of the room. They were completely and utterly clueless about what to do. They were on the phone with the hospital asking what to do and while they were looking at each other trying to figure out what they needed to do the urge to push came back really strongly. I said more than once I need to push and my (ex) husband got their attention and with that push the rest of his body was born.

I remember saying how good that felt to be done. I looked up and saw that it was a boy and saw that he was totally lifeless. We asked them not to cut the cord they did it anyway. They never even attempted to resuscitate him AT ALL. No CPR, no oxygen, and I am not even sure they checked for a pulse.  Not only did they do nothing they didn't even let me see him.

I plan to continue the transfer part of this story in the next blog but before I do I want to address a few things about this part of my story.

First I would like to say that there have been many times where people have questioned or assumed that this happened because I was at home and being in the hospital somehow would have changed things. To that I would like to point out a few things:

1- Continuous fetal monitoring does not improve birth outcomes at all.

"Admission electronic fetal monitoring did not decrease neonatal morbidity and mortality compared with intermittent auscultation. Patients in the admission fetal monitoring group were more likely to receive continuous electronic monitoring and fetal blood sampling, but there were no significant differences in the rates of operative deliveries or episiotomy. Institutions not routinely using admission electronic fetal monitoring should not start; those that do may not be benefiting their patients." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12791223/

So while yes in the hospital I would have had continuous fetal monitoring, the intermittent monitoring of the baby was sufficient enough to show if there was issues. In my case whatever occurred happened quickly and the outcome would have been NO different in the hospital.

2- The shoulder dystocia.  I have processed my birth in many ways and often over the last 6 years. I know that there will be some that say "well see your pelvis was too narrow". He was very large ( will get into that on the next blog) and I gave birth twice after that vaginally to babies that were 2+ lbs bigger than my c-section baby so, no my pelvis is just fine thank you very much.

Also I am pretty sure that my baby passed away before his head was born. Now Allah only knows for sure when He took his soul but from what little I do know I think he was already gone. Babies must be active participants in the birth process. It is a team effort. Once the head is born the baby usually rotates itself to allow the shoulders to come out. My baby was no longer actively particpating in the birth. I am not sure if the shoulder dystocia I had was due to his size or due to the fact that he was not rotating or moving at all.

Also this is NOT a predictable situation. Shoulder dystocia can happen with babies of ALL sizes. This is not something that anyone could have seen coming ahead of time. And the situation would have been the same in a hospital.

3- This is more about my religion than anything else. One of the pillars of Imaan (faith) is belief in the Divine decree of Allah. In other words what is written to occur in ones life cannot be changed. The pen has dried. Our entire life is written out while in the wombs of our mothers.

" Narrated Abdullah: Allah's Apostle, the true and truly inspired said, "(as regards your creation), every one of you is collected in the womb of his mother for the first forty days, and then he becomes a clot for an other forty days, and then a piece of flesh for an other forty days. Then Allah sends an angel to write four words: He writes his deeds, time of his death, means of his livelihood, and whether he will be wretched or blessed (in religion)....." Sahih Bukhari

So my sons life as short as it may have been,  was already decided upon and written out long before the labor pains began. It didn't matter what I did or where he was born or any of that he was meant to die a sinless person and return to Allah with a pure soul. And for that I am honored and eternally blessed to have been able to be a part of that little life even if it was short.

The transfer to the hospital part of this birth story will be soon coming.....

If you missed it---- Part One: The Beginning, and Part Three: The Aftermath

My Homebirth Loss: The beginning

*** Before I begin I would like to preface this post with a few things. First off, I have not shared the details of this birth publicly since he was born. This was largely due to the most insensitive and hurtful comments that I have ever seen a person make online regarding my loss without them even knowing the details. Please bear in mind that I lost my son and no one carries that burden of loss more than I do. If you comment with anything that is offensive, mean, or otherwise insensitive it will get deleted. Secondly I am writing this birth story in 3 separate blogs, the pregnancy and labor, the birth, and the hospital trasnfer. I am doing this because 1- there is just too much information to put it all in one post and 2-I want to separate my emotions from those three cycles of this process. The labor was amazingly beautiful, the birth was somewhat scary, and the hospital transfer was nothing short of infuriating.****

The Pregnancy:

From the moment I got a positive pregnancy test I knew this was going to be a different experience. I cannot explain it in a way to make anyone understand but I never felt like this baby was meant to stay with me. I made my first appointment with the OB office to confirm pregnancy and get dates ( my period had just returned and was irregular). From the minute I saw him on the ultrasound I had this sinking feeling I would never hear him cry, never see him smile, never hear him laugh. With this heavy on my mind hearing the doctor tell me she wanted to tie my tubes really bothered me. All I could think about is if this baby dies I would never be able to have another one and I would be devastated. She clearly wasn't supportive of my desire to VBA2C either, so when I got home I posted a message on the ICAN-online (http://ican-online.org/) email list asking for help. I needed more options.

The ladies there were very helpful and threw out the idea of a birth center as well as homebirth. I contacted the birth center a few hours from me but was pretty sure they would not take me as a client. I was also given the name of a traveling midwife that was living in my state and told to contact her. After researching more on homebirth and the statistics of homebirth I decided to contact her and just see what happened. I told her my history and my desire to VBA2C and asked her would she be willing to attend my birth. She responded enthusiastically that even though she had retired she felt that fate had brought her and I together. The feeling was mutual especially when I realized the house she purchased to retire in was 2 streets away from me.   Dr. Wayne Dyer says "In  mathematics, two angles that are said to coincide fit together perfectly. The word coincidence does not describe luck or mistakes. It describes that which fits together perfectly." She was perfect for the journey in every way.

What I needed this time was to be able to gestate in peace without all the scary "OMG this is wrong with you!" ideas. I did not want any tests done, no ultrasounds, no nothing. It was important for me to embrace the fact that pregnancy and birth and a humans ability to do this was natural and normal. The only thing that was checked was blood pressure, urine for sugar, heartbeat and fetal growth. My entire journey was nothing but submitting myself to the will of Allah and believing in my ability to birth my baby which for me started with belief that my body could appropriately take care of the growing baby inside of me without unnecessary tests.

This baby was so unlike my older two. There was something about him that was so peaceful and so calm. I worried much of my pregnancy that when my midwife came for check ups that the heartbeat would not be found. The intuition that he wasn't going to stay was just that strong. I remember thinking many times that if he doesn't stay with me I want to at least give birth to him if nothing else. I wanted to have that at least. But every prenatal he had the most beautiful heartbeat ever. He sounded perfect. He was perfect. I never shared my feelings with anyone until the aftermath. Sometimes I feel like it was a Mercy from Allah to prepare me for the loss. I want to make it clear that this feeling I had was there long before I chose to homebirth.

The entire pregnancy my baby measured behind by a couple of weeks. When my "due date" came we had a prenatal and he measured at 38 weeks. I went 2 weeks past my due date and at my 42 week prenatal she measured him and he measured 2 weeks ahead. At this point she stated that I may want to think about doing some natural inductions as the baby was getting big and she wanted me to have the chance to birth.

In many ways I felt a little defeated by that idea. It was extremely important to me to not have any intervention especially an induction. I needed to know that I wasn't broken that my body did know how to labor on it's own. In some ways I think mentally I held on to him. I knew where he was he was alive and I was afraid to let that go. I spent that night thinking and asking Allah to make it possible to avoid any type of interventions. I agreed to allow her to check my cervix in the morning (which was something else I wanted to avoid)and then we would discuss where to go from there. As fate would have it after an excellent nights sleep I woke up on Jummah Friday at Fajr( morning prayer for the non-Muslims reading) October 21st 2005. It was also the last ten days of Ramadan which is a very significant spiritual time for Muslims.

Labor:

I wasn't actually sure I was really in labor until after a couple of hours of contractions. I cannot express to you the amount of relief I felt that labor started on it's own and that intervention wasn't needed. I called the midwife and let her know and a few hours later she was there. We started to fill the birth tub and I just followed my body's cues. I stood up during contractions and moved my hips back and forth. The contractions were pretty regular at 5 minutes apart. I was surrounded by peace and love. I was able to move the way I wanted. No machines tying me to a bed, no one there that I didn't know or didn't care about me as a person. My midwife was like my family. I loved her, enjoyed her company, and trusted her.

After 12 hours of labor or so the contractions were getting a bit more intense. I decided to take a hot shower because I wanted to be in the water but I did not want to get in the birth tub to early and delay labor progress. The shower was comforting and helped me relax a little. At this point I was sitting on the birthing ball for contractions. Shortly after my midwife wanted to get some rest so she asked if it was alright to check me so that she at least knew where I was. I hesitated a lot about that cervical check because I was labelled a failure to progress in my previous labors. I agreed to the check and knew that it would likely be the only one I got. I was about 5-6 cm baby was really low and my cervix was pretty thin. In a lot of ways I felt triumphant. My body DID work. I went into labor on my own and now I have dilated halfway there all on my own. Trusting in nothing but Allah and the perfection of His creation.

The midwife left and I spent a few hours with my then sister-in-law and my doula. I would kind of hang onto one of them while the other applied pressure to my back. Something about my relationship with my midwife is just indescribable. It wasn't long before I just needed her presence there with me. It wasn't that I felt like birth was soon coming. It was that her presence in my labor was overwhelmingly comforting. I refer to her often as my "birth" mother. The type of love and comfort she gave me was unlike anything I had ever experience during a pregnancy. She wasn't just my midwife, my care provider but she was my friend.

It wasn't too much longer after she arrived that I decided to get into the birthing tub. The warm water was exactly what I needed to make labor more manageable. It was probably early in the morning on October 22nd 2005. I honestly had no idea what time it was because the clock was not in my view. And honestly I think it was better that way. I didn't need to be on a time constraint or feel pressured to hurry up and have a baby.

As I entered the transitional stage of labor I began to feel really emotional. I still had that nagging feeling about the heartbeat not being found and got nervous every time she wanted to check his heart-rate, yet every time it was a beautiful healthy sound. I remember sitting on the side of the tub being overcome with silent tears. I don't even know why I was crying other than transition releases a certain type of hormone that may have caused me to be overcome with emotion. Or maybe it was that I was really doing it. I was laboring on my own. I had started to feel a lot of pelvic pressure. I could tell baby was moving lower. I wasn't broken after all. At that moment with tears streaming down my face my midwife came to me and got eye to eye with tears in her eyes and told me that she knew exactly where I was at and that she was with me 100%.

At some point I began to feel really pushy and I am not sure if it was suggested that I get a cervical check or if I asked for one. Either way I got out of the tub in order for her to listen to the baby and check my cervix. The baby sounded great and I was dilated 9.5 cm. I had a small cervical lip so she suggested I wait before trying to push. I got back in the tub and she came to me and said that she didn't want me to be mad at her and she knew that I did not want any interventions but she thought breaking my bag of waters may help get rid of my cervix faster. I was very hesitant to agree and argued even. In the end she made a valid point that breaking my water at 9.5 cm was not the same thing as my water being broken at 1 cm. I was close to giving birth. This was not going to make me a failure to progress. I finally agreed since by this point I was ready to give birth and knew the cervix needed to be moved away.

So I got back out of the tub, water bag was broken, and heart rate was checked again. Again everything was perfect. Everything was going smoothly. My labor had been smooth sailing consistent and progressive. The baby had been perfect the entire time. I still felt like I couldn't wait to birth him so that the feeling I had carried for 10 months would be laid to rest as an unfounded fear. Eventually I got to the point of "ok I have to push I can't fight this feeling any longer." At that point I got out of the tub in order to give birth. I did not want to be in the water for the birth. I needed to be out of the water instinctually.

The rest of this birth story will be continued in the next blog so stay tuned.....

Part Two: The Birth , and Part Three: The Aftermath