Esther's birth story actually begins about 2 weeks before she was born. I had an uncomplicated pregnancy and was very much looking forward to my second home birth. At my 36 week appointment, my midwife said she thought that Esther was breech. She recommended that I have an ultrasound done to make sure because if Esther was breech, my home birth would not be a possibility.
We scheduled the ultrasound and, sure enough, my baby girl was butt down instead of head down like she should have been. After consulting with the midwives, we decided to try a version with Dr. Steele in Green Bay (the breech baby expert).
Ray and I went up to Green Bay on Thursday, May 17th and Dr. Steele tried three times to turn Esther into a head down position, but she was having none of it. Our only two options at this point were to attempt a breech delivery with Dr. Steele or schedule a c-section. I easily decided that I wanted to do the breech delivery. Dr. Steele said she was going to be out of town the upcoming weekend, but that she would make sure that the only other doctor who does breech deliveries would be available in case I went into labor over the weekend.
At 1am on Monday, May 21st, my water broke. Contractions started soon after so Ray and I called Berd to come watch Jude and drove up to Bellin Hospital in Green Bay. By 5am, we were settled in at the hospital and waiting for contractions to pick up and Dr. Steele to come in.
At 9:30am, the nurse came in and said she had bad news. Dr. Steele was in Seattle, WA and wasn't going to be back in town until evening. The other doctor that did breech deliveries had been on call all weekend and wasn't able to stay for us. We had a 12-hour window where no breech doctor was available, and that was the time that Esther decided to come! The nurse said that we couldn't stay at Bellin unless we were willing to schedule a c-section with the doctor that was currently in. We needed to make a decision fast.
I frantically called my midwife and asked the nurse to call ThedaClark and St. Elizabeth's to see if any other doctor around might be willing to deliver our breech baby. The nurse found that a Dr. Kaldas at ThedaClark would do a breech delivery, so we made a quick decision to drive back to Neenah.
We got settled into ThedaClark late in the morning and soon after both my mom and my midwife, Jill, showed up to help. We met Dr. Kaldas. He didn't have a good bedside manner and didn't leave us with a very good feeling after talking about our circumstance with him, but we felt like he was our only shot at a breech delivery at this point.
By late afternoon, contractions were really picking up and I was feeling really good about the whole thing. I didn't have the back labor that I had with Jude, and labor was progressing a lot faster than it did with Jude. I was actually enjoying my labor experience!
Dr. Kaldas came back in to see how I was progressing. He thought I was 8 centimeters dilated. Yay! He left and I continued to labor. Shortly after that, some nurses came in and said it was time to move to the operating room. I knew I would have to deliver in the operating room because of Esther being breech, but I was no where near ready to deliver yet. We firmly told them that we were not ready to move to the operating room.
Dr. Kaldas came back a little later (having been told by the nurses that we were not cooperating!) and said that we could continue to labor in the room, but as soon as I was ready to push, I had to go to the operating room. We agreed. Then, he checked me again and asked me to do a "practice push". He said Esther was still way up in my uterus and not dropping down like she should. He said we would have to do a c-section. We were completely shocked and said we needed time to discuss things.
By this time, Dr. Steele was back in Wisconsin. Jill spoke with her on the phone and told her what Dr. Kaldas said to us. Dr. Steele agreed with us that there was no reason for us to not labor longer and see what happened. We fought with Dr. Kaldas until he issued the ultimatum that we could either check out of the hospital and drive back to Green Bay, or we could get into the operating room for a c-section. I was having really strong contractions at this point and there was no way I could make it back up to Green Bay. We felt we had no options left.
Into the operating room we went. Esther Jo Froehlich was born at 8:15pm on Monday, May 21st. She was a troublesome little thing to get into the world, but all was forgiven the moment we laid eyes on her. Who could resist such an adorable little girl?
