Orthodox Christian Birth Story: Jesse’s Cesarean Section

I originally was going to write this about my first birth, the birth of our daughter four and a half years ago. Her birth was an unexpected C-section, during COVID, and left me with a lot of distrust in hospital practices but with faith in God that He leads us to the right decisions. However, as terrifying and wonderful as her birth was, I wanted to focus on the birth of our son, nearly a year ago now, last August.

Baby two announcement during a stressful but exciting time

We found out I was pregnant during my second-to-last year of veterinary school, and the situation was incredibly stressful for me. Although I had been handling the rigors of graduate school fine, I was deeply worried by how my previous delivery had gone, and was reticent to relive any of it. I thus waited for winter finals to be done before making a prenatal appointment, as I had had a relatively healthy pregnancy with our first.

I knew from calculating dates that this baby would be due right around the beginning of my clinical rotations, and I knew where I would be for the entirety of that final year, due to how early my school planned our rotational sites. I would have my first half of the year be spent at hospitals near my mother’s house, as she is a family practice physician and could do my postpartum appointments as well as my baby’s neonatal visits. Then I could spend the second half of the year near my in-laws, who would obviously like to have ample time near their grandchildren, as well. This had the added benefit of always having family nearby, especially to help my husband, who is an Orthodox priest and hard-working primary parent.

Some unexpected news changes plans

Around 14 weeks gestation, I made an appointment at an OBGYN’s office in my mother’s town in order to get my viability scan, first appointment, and bloodwork all done at once. At the scan, I immediately noticed the technician quiet down and start taking measurements of a black area in my baby’s skull. Immediately, I internally began to panic, but my husband and daughter, oblivious to my mounting fear, cooed at the adorable picture. We also could quite clearly see that this baby was a boy, although the office stated that of course, they could not confirm until he was a bit further along.

Later, I was sat down by the practice NP where she let me know that our son had a large choroid plexus cyst, which if you’re not familiar, is essentially a sac of CSF in an area of the developing brain. They are not usually harmful to baby but can suggest some genetic conditions, so we did decide to do a genetic panel (we had also done one out of precaution and planning with our daughter) in order to know if we needed to prepare for a medically complex child. Because of that, paired with my previous unplanned, semi-emergent C-section and some allergic and immune issues that had cropped up in the past 14 weeks (allergic reaction to lobster, worsened asthma and contact hives from environmental allergies, thyroid enzymes too high to read), I was shunted to the high-risk maternal fetal medicine specialist, 2 hours away.

More unexpected news

My appointment there was scheduled for 18 weeks gestation. Additionally, we found out that our son’s due date was August 15th, on Dormition.

Three days later, as I was leaving lectures for the day, I received a call from the primary OB’s office, relaying to me that the doctor had reviewed my ultrasound and also had determined I had a complete placenta previa. This meant that I was immediately also placed on pelvic rest, which was a difficult pill to swallow for me, as I frequently lifted weights and tracked large animal in school, so I was expected to pull calves and catch sheep in vet school.

Finding peace in prayer and veneration

In the lead-up for that 18 week appointment, I shared my fears with my husband and some close friends. Our best friends, an Orthodox deacon and his matushka, were going to Hawaii and would be seeing the miracle-working icon there. They managed to talk to the caretaker and do a service for us and our unborn son while visiting. I also started receiving Holy Communion almost every day before school, early in the morning. A bishop close to our hearts also began intercessions for our pregnancy over St. John of San Francisco’s shrine. It was some of the most stressful weeks of my life, but finally, that appointment came.

Blessed with a miracle to buffer more trial

The MFM specialist actually thought that the referring OBGYN had sent the wrong chart. She stated that there was no longer any evidence of a cyst, and also that my placenta was so highly placed that she could hardly believe that it had been lying completely across my cervix 4 weeks prior. We were elated, of course, but MFM wanted to see us back in 4 weeks to do one more full anatomy scan, including his heart and kidneys, and reassess my thyroid enzymes and allergies/asthma at that time. I was started on 2 forms of inhalers and placed on an additional oral medication for my allergies.

Of course we felt completely in the clear, but some roads are bumpy. Our little son was hitting all his milestones on the 22 week ultrasound, except he wasn’t practice breathing. And he was small. 6%, to be exact. Which meant his percentile was going down (he had started around 17%). So we began weekly non-stress tests and movement ultrasounds, which sometimes became stress tests if he wouldn’t move spontaneously. His percentile dropped to 2%, and for one scary visit, actually fell behind to -2% on some body parts. He would move fine at home and then lay completely still at the MFM office. They waffled on whether or not I was truly carrying an IUGR, but he mostly fit the parameters.

I had to explain to my school that every week, I had no idea if I would be returning to class or if I would be being hospitalized for even a several-day stay, or a pre-term birth. Luckily, my professors were understanding of my situation and vowed to let me take any outstanding exams if I had to leave for pregnancy-related issues, provided that I could finish them before my last lecture semester ended. That was a relief, but I was deeply worried about our baby.

Additionally, I developed severe anemia and iron supplementation was not sufficient, so I began receiving iron infusions, which were exceedingly painful, at least for me, personally. Mind you, while all of this was happening, I was a full-time doctoral student who traveled 2 hours to this higher-trauma level hospital, with a husband and a toddler. And my husband’s assignment was (and is) a countryside mission 4 hours from where my school was located. Where my school is located is also one of the hotter regions of the USA, so summer temperatures, as I entered my 3rd trimester, were often 110-120, and since I was a large animal student, I was often outside. My thyroid enzymes stayed high, my asthma stayed terrible, but he began to gain weight.

Onward and upward with prayer and supplication

Slowly. So slowly. And then, at 36 weeks, I failed my 3-hour glucose test, and was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. This was despite eating much healthier, and being far more active, than I was with my first pregnancy. I felt defeated and hated pricking myself multiple times per day just to be discouraged again. I was started on Metform at 37 weeks, with only 2 weeks to go until birth!

My MFM and I debated allowing me to labor vaginally. My first labor was 2 days long and originally was progressing normally, but then stalled, my cervix re-closed after two oxytocin failures, and my daughter’s head never dropped through the pelvis. They also rehydrated my uterus with fluids twice. I labored naturally without an epidural, and when my labor stalled and I tried to rest, my oxygen dropped, and so did her heart rate, and both were slow to recover. And then I hemorrhaged during the C-section. My MFM stated that it was hard to tell, based on the medical charts, what my actual reason for failure to vaginally birth was, so I had a chance of being able to birth that way.

However, due to that whole story, mixed with the fact that I had so many borderline-concerning complications, we decided to continue with a planned C-section at 39 weeks - August 7th. This was still a significant date for us as well, as it is the Old Calendar Dormition of St. Anna, the Mother of the Theotokos. My husband and I felt that the Theotokos had been deeply enmeshed in this pregnancy, and it was only right that, one way or another, our son was coming out on a feastday associated with her.

The rest is, as they say, history! I won’t pretend that delivery was completely stress-free, and I still had some peri-op and post-op complications (dropping heart rate and blood pressure, hemorrhaged again, and I had a post-op blood clot in my IV arm), but he was joyfully received Earth-side on his scheduled date of August 7th, 7 days before my rotations were set to begin, with me having completed all of my pre-clinical examinations the week prior to delivery. In what seemed like an inside joke, all three of my recovery maternity nurses had versions of Mary as their first name.