John Colt McCalley: Our Rainbow Baby
I finally got it. A birth that I want to relive over and over and over again. You may envision me pushing my baby across the finish line with a screaming newborn laid on my chest. Not quite.
My third birth was all about control. I wanted to be in control as much as possible. I wanted to call the shots as much as possible. I wanted to be mentally present as much as possible. Did I get exactly what I wanted? No. But birth rarely goes according to your own plan, no matter how much planning you do.
When we found out we were pregnant with our rainbow baby, I immediately started reflecting on my first two births and how I wanted this one to be different. When I reflected on my first birth, I saw an uneducated, unprepared first-time mom. When I reflected on my second birth I saw a much more prepared and educated mom, but a mom that was dealt a really crappy hand and forced to juggle feeling confident in my birth but scared to death of what would come after.
Spoiler alert if you haven’t read my first two birth stories, but those both ended in cesarean deliveries. I was convinced that this time I would have a VBA2C (vaginal birth after two cesareans), but little did I realize how difficult it would be to be supported in that decision.
At my first OB appointment, my doctor immediately told me I would be getting a repeat cesarean. Convinced that I would get the vaginal birth I so desperately wanted, I was obviously upset. After my previous c-section, another c-section was the last thing I wanted. It brought back too many painful memories. I left that appointment determined to find somebody who would support my decision to have a VBA2C.
I then started listening to The VBAC Link podcast (which I highly recommend, even for first-time moms) and learned about ICAN. I located my local ICAN group on Facebook and started looking through old posts, specifically for people asking about doctors who supported VBA2C. Turns out the list was slim. There were literally two names that kept recurring. One was a doctor that would deliver at the same hospital as my current OB and another was located an hour and a half away from me.
I immediately contacted the local OB office and asked for a consult. At that appointment, I explained what I wanted and gave details about my first two births. I was very quickly turned down, with the main concern being the short time frame between my last delivery and this due date. I would be delivering 16 months after my last birth.
I had told myself before that appointment that if they turned me down that I would just accept it, go back to my original OB, and schedule the c-section. Instead, I left that appointment and immediately texted a close friend to give me details about her home birth. In that moment I decided that if everything looked good at my 20-week anatomy scan I wanted to try for a home birth.
We were so relieved and excited that everything checked out at the anatomy scan and no heart defects were found. The very next day I signed up for a meet the midwife Zoom meeting. During that meeting, the midwife reviewed start to finish what a birth would look like with her and I was hooked. Physiological birth the way it was meant to be in the comfort of my own home. I understand this is far from the first choice for a lot of people, but I thought it sounded amazing. I filled out all the paperwork and waited to see if they would take me on.
Related Posts
I got a call a few days later informing me that I was too high risk based on my previous surgical report. I was shocked because as far as I knew, everything with my last cesarean went completely fine. I was crushed. I felt like I had done so much research and gone to so many appointments just to end up right back where I started. I let myself be upset. I let myself cry and be angry.
After getting my emotions out of the way and praying about the situation, I came to the conclusion that I had done all I could do. My absolute last option was to talk to a doctor an hour and a half away from me, but both my husband and I were not comfortable being that far away from the hospital where I would deliver. I explored every avenue and did all the research. It was not for lack of trying. In my mind, if even the most natural route of having a baby at home didn’t work out, then maybe there was a reason I needed to be in a hospital setting. It took me a few weeks to accept this fact, but I eventually did.
Once I let myself accept what was going to happen it helped me enjoy the pregnancy more. I was no longer stressing myself out over researching and setting appointments. The more I thought about a scheduled cesarean the more excited I became for that day. It was nice to know I wasn’t going to labor for who knows how long and still end up with a cesarean, leaving me completely exhausted. It was nice to know I wouldn’t have to wonder when labor would start, or if an induction would actually work.
Even with a scheduled cesarean though, there were still a lot of decisions to be made. There are so many options moms have for a gentle cesarean that we aren’t informed about. If you don’t talk to your doctor about your desires, you’ll end up with the standard cesarean, which can sometimes be a very traumatic event for some moms. If not traumatic, it can still feel very cold and sterile and like you are not part of your birth experience.
I wouldn’t say my first two cesareans were traumatic, but once I knew all the options I had for a gentle cesarean I realized that the first two weren’t ideal. For this cesarean, I requested the following: a clear drape, my arms not be restrained, delayed cord clamping, immediate skin-to-skin, and baby to never leave my sight while any evaluations were being done in the OR. There were other things I could have asked for, but these were the most important to me. I discussed these options with my doctor at my 28-week appointment, and she didn’t have an issue with any of these requests.
Now let’s finally fast forward to the birth, because again, birth rarely goes how you plan, and as I just mentioned above, I definitely had a plan and a vision of how this day would go!
I went to my 36-week appointment and got an ultrasound done first and would meet with my doctor afterward. My doctor is always very bubbly and energetic when walking into the room, but this day she was looking at notes and immediately asked me to confirm when I had my last c-section. To backtrack a tiny bit, I had had the most terrible, intense rib pain for the past three weeks and that whole week had kept saying how I needed this baby out of me! I was so miserable and in tears every day from the pain. On my way to the doctor that day I just had the slightest feeling that something weird was going to happen. Not necessarily something bad, but I just thought something felt off.
I told her the date of my last cesarean and she informed me that the ultrasound showed I had a uterine window. I knew what that meant, and I knew she was going to tell me they would want to take the baby early. To my surprise, early meant not going past 37 weeks. Um…that was in two days! Don’t get me wrong, I had complained all week of my pain and was excited to meet my baby, but mentally I was prepared to have a baby in two weeks, not two days.
We didn’t have any bags packed, no freezer meals prepared, and no name picked out. I felt very underprepared and very overwhelmed. I called my husband who I knew was in the middle of coaching as soon as I got to the parking lot to inform him that we were having a baby in two days. Then I called my mom and told her the news. On my drive home, I realized I might not be getting everything I was hoping for after all.
I got a steroid shot before I left that appointment and scheduled another for the next day to help prepare the baby’s lungs since he would be born at 36 and 6. My doctor had to inform me of all the things that could potentially happen. She wouldn’t know the extent of my uterine window until she opened me up and hoped she could “save” it. I didn’t need to panic if the baby came out: not breathing, not crying, a little blue, or a little purple. The baby might need some NICU time to help his breathing. That could be for just a couple of hours or maybe a whole day.
Even with all of the potential bad stuff she had to warn me about, I felt an insane amount of peace about the situation. After I took a few hours to wrap my brain around the fact that our baby would be here in two days, I just had an overwhelming feeling that everything would be fine. I prayed over the baby. I spoke to my son and father-in-law up in heaven and asked them to stay with us during the entire event. I spoke to the baby and told him everything was going to be fine. I knew I wasn’t going to get immediate skin-to-skin and the cord would be clamped sooner than I wanted, but I didn’t even care anymore. The excitement of meeting our baby and the calm I was feeling overtook any kind of disappointment I could have had.
It was so strange walking into the hospital that day and knowing when I would be having my baby. We were so blessed to have what my OB called the dream team that day. We had the sweetest nurse prep me for surgery. She even got my IV in my squiggly veins on the first try, which has never happened for me. She boasted about the anesthesiologist we had that day, which held true when we met him. I obviously had my own OB there that day, not just a random doctor who was on call that day. She knew everything we went through with our son the previous year, so she knew how important and special this day was to us. When I asked if somebody would be able to take pictures for us in the operating room so my husband could be fully present, they pulled somebody who wasn’t even scheduled to be in there for the sole purpose of taking pictures for us the entire time. Considering we only got four pictures of our last son’s birth, we were so grateful for these.
My surgery went well with no complications. My OB confirmed I did have a uterine window but that she was able to stay well away from it. I still got my clear drape, so I was able to see my baby pulled out of me which I had never seen before. They put him on my chest for a moment with the drape between us to clean him up a little bit before they took him over to the warmer. Any concern with breathing was squashed the second they pulled him out. He was screaming from the start. His APGAR was an 8 right at birth, and a 9 one minute later. He was in my line of sight the entire time he was being evaluated. My husband actually got to hold his son in the operating room and held him next to my face the entire time.
I was unsure of the emotions I would feel seeing my son – our rainbow baby. There is only one word for that moment:
Joy
Complete and utter joy. I don’t know that a smile left my face. I felt so close to the son we had lost that day and saw so much of him in his little brother that we just brought into the world. This new little life we had just met had immediately put some of the broken pieces of my heart back together.
John Colt McCalley was born on June 30, 2023 at 10:40 am weighing 6lbs 5oz and 19 inches long.
John after my husband’s father who had passed away completely unexpectedly in January of 2022.
Colt after our son, Rowan Colt, who passed away in June of 2022.
The birth I ended up having was the complete opposite of what I envisioned at the very beginning, but it ended up being my favorite birth. Even though I lost some control in the end, I was just happy that I got to go in with a clear mind that day. I walked myself into the operating room and put myself up on the table. I wasn’t being wheeled in after laboring for hours, completely exhausted and unaware of who was in the room and what was going on.
Birth is beautiful, and this was truly one of the most beautiful days of my life.
