Houston Birth Film Stories | Rocco

I cannot tell you how long I waited for this birth. I was going to get to witness Abby, a fellow birth photographer, welcome Rocco into the world AND I was going to be there to capture. Not just through images, but through film. Raw emotions. Raw birth. It ended in an emotional way for all of us as we saw Abby's dream birth fly further and further out of her reach and ultimately ended in a transport. Talk about raw emotions. She had an incredible birth team and she was stronger than she will ever know. Since I am used to portraying a birth story through images (and now video), I have grabbed Abby's own words as she pieces together that day. She uses fake names because it's an excerpt from a blogpost. There may or may not be choice words used, so if you feel you will be offended, simply don't read it. You can see her story at the very end of this post.

Thank you Abby for trusting me and for sharing Rocco's story. You are amazing.

Houston Birth Film Stories

April 12, 2015 at 12:19 am

Midwife: Shannon Stellhorn with A Sacred Journey

Doula: Rowan Twosisters

Hospital: Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center

Please check out my Investment Page to find out more information on booking a birth session. I am currently booking into the Winter of 2015-2016, so please contact me soon if you would like to schedule a client consult since I only book a certain amount of birth clients per month.

COMING SOON!!! Did you fall in love with this birth film story? I am pleased to announce that this new option will soon be offered in capturing your birth story. Be on the lookout for information on birth film stories (birth captured through video). Do you think you need the information NOW, feel free to email me at info@stephanieshirley.com. I am so excited to to adding this option in the near future!

I look forward to being able to capture and tell your birth story!

"My birth story, is real talk. So if language offends you, dont bother. (Names were changed for blog.)

Birth, has a mind of it’s own. Of course it picked the night it did, because birth, can have a sick sense of humor. I guess I need to mention that this labor started days before it did. As my due date approached, I became restless. I decided to fill each day with something fun to look forward to in the last three weeks. I just so happen to plan a girls night out to the strip club the following Thursday. What better way to get the oxytocin going and labor started than a bunch of hot sweaty men doing pelvic thrusts to awful music, surrounded by a bunch of girlfriends, two others of which, were also pregnant and due within a week of myself. I thought for sure, planning something of such epic proportions, I would probably go into labor before then. Sure enough…On a whim, we decided to join some friends for dinner Friday night. We hadn’t been going out too much lately, let alone partaking in libations, but what the hell, The Professor cut loose and had a few margaritas. A few as in, four. I binged on chips in queso. We had a great time. Lots of laughs. We get home and turn on Netflix. The Professor begins the doze-and-margarita-snore while I try to stay awake to finish a Sherlock Holmes episode. Close to midnight, a craving strikes. Tator tots. Just like that. I had to have them. I just get up and leave The Professor sleeping on the couch. I get to Sonic as they are closing. “Family Box?” Sure! Holy shit. So. Many. Tots. I get home and wake The Professor up to this giant greasy treat and we munch. Gross. We go to bed after 1am. I wake up to the shits. “I might as well have taken caster oil” shits. “Hold onto the bowl” shits. Wtf. Little did I know, these were, “your labor is starting” shits. I return to bed and as soon as I lay down, I feel a little gush of fluid. Great! I pissed myself. A new pregnancy low. What an eventful night this is becoming. I get up and go to the bathroom to wash up and another gush of fluid comes out. A nice bit of fluid. Although very unlikely, the thought crossed my mind that it could possibly be my water breaking, so I squat in the white tub to examine the color of the fluid. Little white flecks. Vernix!? Baby time!? But, there’s no mucus plug! No bloody show! No long hours of mild contractions leading up to it. And why tonight!? Why on the night I got two hours of sleep? Why not any other night where we go to bed at 10. Regardless, I was excited. Right from the start, I had tightness in my belly and back but just figured they were evil stomach cramps from the nasty tots. In Bradley class it was advised to not get too excited in early labor. Take it easy. Rest. Relax. I was looking forward to Saturday being light and fun. Taking it slow. Possibly go see a movie or go to the park. No. Nope. Eh uh. I text my midwife at 3:06am. It was advised that I monitor the leaking and contractions/waves. I rocked on my birth ball. Rushes were coming less than 5 minutes apart and were surprisingly pretty intense. When I had contractions over the past few weeks at random, they were maybe a 3.5 on the pain scale. Sometimes a random 5ish. The rushes I was having an hour after rupture were already a 7+. Fuck. I decided to get in the bath to see if that would take the edge off the pain or calm things down, ya know, since this totally couldn’t be real labor. I tried to relax in the tub from about 4-5am. I tried to lay down and rest before that but that lasted a long 60 seconds tops. Too intense. Rushes were much more intense out of the tub and I asked my midwife, Mary, to come over and check me because if I was still early, I needed to mentally prepare myself for this. Mary arrives about 6am and I’m already moaning through rushes and having The Professor provide counterpressure. Rushes were about 2.5-3 minutes apart and lasting 30-45 seconds. A cervical check revealed that I was 3cm, 80% effaced, and 0 station. My blood pressure was also a little high but still in normal range. I had my membranes swept in hopes of picking things up. And, things start to become a blur from here till after dark. Only a few snippets I actually remember. I know my doula, Pheonix, was called soon after Mary arrived. I believe Pheonix got there between 7-8am. No other doula, could have handled my labor. Their arms would have literally fallen off. Or just stopped working. Or their fingers would have broke. Or seized. Their wrists would’ve snapped. Pheonix, and her amazingly big strong hands, were giving me counterpressure all day. Sometimes Pheonix on one side, The Professor on the other. Sometimes The Professor, or Aceso, or Achelois, or Mary would take over. But none of it was close to the relief or strength that Pheonix provided. My favorite position to labor in was leaning on the yoga ball on the bed, while standing to the side of the bed. Swaying through rushes help. I had Valor and Sacred Mountain in the diffuser all day. I remember alternating between laboring next to the bed, the bathroom counter, the shower, and then eventually the birth pool. By 9am rushes were every 3.5 minutes lasting 75-100 seconds and were much stronger. Another check showed I was 4-5cm, 100% effaced and 0 station. Labor land. Not many memories between 9 and lunch time. I have no idea when Achelois the birth assistant/friend, and girlfriend Aceso showed up. I remember eating some honey. A few bites of yogurt. Sipping lots of magnesium to keep blood pressure down. Coconut water. Alternating between shower and bedroom. At 1pm I was 6cm. Appearantly I was refusing to get in the birth pool because I didn’t want things to slow down. Ya know, cause this wasn’t real labor, right? I finally agreed to get in the tub. I remember wanting it to be so much warmer. And slightly smaller. I remember things getting pretty intense in the tub. I think I was in and out of sleep between rushes. I’m pretty sure I would start dreaming and talking gibberish, wake myself up, and be like, what the hell was I just talking about. Pretty sure that happened at least twice. I tried hands and knees. Side laying. Laying/floating on my back. I remember sobbing. Breaking down. Losing it. Getting lost in the pain. Digging deep down into a place Id never been. The Professor was my rock at this point. We cried together. I kept thinking about Ina May’s quote about how women in labor need to be strong for their men. Show courage. And I just remember thinking how beautifully failing I was at that. I was low. Low low. Lost. Out of body. I remember Summer, the photographer taking video at that point too. Labor Blue was “fuck, shes getting my ugly cry face,” birth photographer Blue was, “these are going to be gorgeously intense (and I’ll still hate my ugly cry face).”The pain, was something I didn’t expect. I consider myself to be a tough cookie when it comes to pain. I’ve seen so many woman labor and birth time and time again too. I had a kidney stone in December that everyone compared to child birth pain. No. This pain, was life changing. It was kidney stone pain, on steroids. Times 10. W.T.F. I just remember clawing at the walls of my brain. Trying to block out the train wreck crashing by body. I can’t put the pain into words. 3:20pm. 7cm. 3-3.5 minutes apart. 90 seconds. Soon after that I felt pushy. Very pushy. Rushes every 3 minutes, lasting 120 seconds. I was advised to blow through the rushes till the urge to push was unbearable. By 5ish, the pushing was unbearable to resist. My body was bearing down. 8cm. +1. But my cervix was swollen. I had to keep trying to blow through rushes or the swelling would get worse. It was increasingly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Going against the most primal experience you’ve ever felt. 6pm. Still an 8cm. Cervix more swollen. Defeat. Got out of birth pool to better manage blowing through rushes. It was decided that I could continue to try to blow through rushes, or Mary can try to manually move the cervix while I pushed. Trying to ignore the rushes was killing me so I opted for the other option. It was so so painful when I pushed and Mary tried to move the lip. I was in primal mode. I think I put my TOOL playlist on at this point. I asked The Professor and Summer the photographer to step out. I was at my weakest point. I didn’t hold back. I screamed. I cried. I held Aceso’s hand and cried in her lap while Pheonix ground her knuckles into my lower back to try to ease the pain. Cervix was 8-9cm and when I pushed, baby was at a +2. Eventually I had The Professor come back in and help support me push while I laid on my back. I got up and labored in the shower a bit. Blowing as best I could through rushes. I know it’s recommended to do horse lips when blowing through rushes but for some reason that didn’t work for me. So, I made loud wet fart noises instead by blowing/spitting my tongue out. It gave us all a good laugh every so often. I can only imagine what I looked like. Naked laboring woman, half grunting, half making loud fart noises while on hands and knees in the shower. 7:30ish I tried the squatting position. I squatted next to the bed, Pheonixx holding me up, while Mary tried to feel and move the lip as I pushed. It was the first time in the whole labor I felt I was doing something efficient. It felt amazing to bare down and push. I let out some loud primal noises while I pushed. I pushed, so hard. With everything I had. And it felt so good. Mary listened to the baby and next thing I know I’m flipped onto the bed on my left side being told to blow through rushes again. Rocket’s heart rate had dropped to 80-90s while pushing in a squat. Laying and blowing, Rocket’s vitals went back to normal. I felt so defeated. The only thing that felt good all day, was the worst thing for my baby. The only thing I wasn’t allowed to do. I was so upset. At this time I was starting to run a low grade fever as well. I was encouraged to drink as much fluids as I could. By 8pm, I was done. Just, done. The failure to progress, the pain, the inability to fight the urge to push, I wanted to go to the hospital. I wanted the pain to stop. It was just too much. I wanted an epidural to stop the pain, but in my gut, I knew that the chance of a vaginal birth at this point, was slim to none. The swelling cervix and rise in temperature, things just kept turning for the worse. I kept saying I was ready for the hospital. I remember The Professor and Pheonix asking me, are you sure? They know I’ve planned and dreamed about this homebirth for years and years. But, yes, I was ready. This was MY decision. Make the pain STOP. PLEASE. So much pain and no progress. I knew this kid wasn’t coming out at home before I died from the pain and exhaustion. By 8:45 my cervix had swelled down to a 7-8cm and was hot to the touch. Another sign of infection. At this point we indeed needed to transfer. By 9:40 we were on our way to Willowbrook Methodist. I told myself my whole pregnancy that hospital transfer could end up happening. I toured the closest hospital. I even contacted the Placenta Picker Upper in case I needed her services. I always had the possibility in the back of my head. Whenever people would ask, oh you’re having a home birth, my response was always, God Willing. I knew birth was out of my hands. Yet there it was. A transfer actually happening. Getting into the car to go to the hospital. My homebirth, that I dreamed of for years and years, being flushed down the fucking toilet. But I didn’t have time to think about it. I was busy surviving the rushes in the car. There’s not much to the hospital story other than that it was the best possible experience I could have hoped for. The on-call OB was the one I fell in love with in December when I had my kidney stone. She was very intervention-free friendly. In triage, she told me that if the nurse came back and took my temp, and it was any higher, Rocket would have a mandatory 48hr NICU stay, and being an IBLC, she didn’t want us to miss out on those precious hours of bonding and nursing. My WBC was double the normal range. The monitor showed late decels after contractions. C-section was the best option to me at this point. We shed some tears and they prepped the OR. The OR experience was so beautiful. I’ll NEVER forget Frank Sinatra playing in the room. Filling the cold sterile air. It brought such a deep warmth to the whole experience. The staff was amazing. Patient. Kind. Warm. I remember getting the epidural while having a contraction. The nurse, had huge gorgeous blue eyes sitting above her blue surgical mask, talking me through the rush. I will always remember her as an angel. My blue angel. She talked me through each rush until the epidural kicked in. After that, I could take a deep breath. I could step out of primal survival mode, and now enjoy the arrival of Rocket. I remember hearing his first cry. Seeing his face. The staff was wonderful and put Rocket skin-to-skin as soon as they could. Even took photos on The Professors cell phone for us. We were wheeled to recovery where the nurses latched Rocket while I was in and out of sleep. The rest of our stay was wonderful. The staff was superb and the food was actually good. I got some rest and Rocket never left my side."