14 May Welcoming baby Dash!

It was such a pleasure to get to know this couple and to bear witness to their love and support of one another.  This mama worked so hard and was so powerful in bringing her baby into this world!

Thank you, Kenzie, Abbie, and Dash, for allowing TCM to be a part of your family’s journey, and Kenzie, for sharing the story below!

Kenzie, Abbie & Dash’s birth story told from Kenzie’s perspective

I had no signs of impending labor the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021 which was my 41 week mark. I went to a scheduled chiropractic and acupuncture appointment at SuNu, the wellness center in Linden Hills where I had been getting bodywork since the second trimester. I didn’t get my hopes up, but I left the appointments, especially acupuncture, feeling like something was stirring. My maternity leave from work had begun on our due date (Feb. 16), and I was anxious for things to get going. My wife Abbie and I were both so eager to meet our son, and I had been doing daily three mile walks in the subzero temps to try and make baby move on out.

We drove to my mom’s nearby for dinner that night after my appointments. As we were walking through her back door at 4:30pm or so, my water started breaking. It was a slow but substantial leaking that continued until about 2am. I started having period-like cramps soon after my water broke.

By early morning, contractions were coming every ten minutes or so. They felt like intense period cramps, and I was thrilled. My mom came over early and we walked to the Minnehaha Falls which took a while because I kept needing to stop and breathe through what I now recognize as mild (versus intense, active labor) contractions. At noon, we had a scheduled appointment with our midwives Kate and Sam at Twin Cities Midwifery. I wasn’t up for the three block walk to the clinic but could still talk through my contractions during the appointment as long as I got up and stretched or walked.

After the appointment, we went home and sat in the living room with my mom. Labor began to accelerate. We called Sarah Auna, our doula, who came over and supported my transition into active labor.  She texted our midwife Kate to come over a little after 5pm. By the time the midwives arrived, I had “turned inward” and was not really able to speak during contractions or around them. I was keeping my eyes closed most of the time. The pain was much more overwhelming than I was expecting. It felt increasingly scary and unnatural. Sarah was telling me to move into different positions that would help my labor progress and coaching me through breathing exercises, urging me to make low “o” sounds as the waves of each contraction hit. I remember feeling surprised by how pain relieving making those sounds could be.

When Kate and Sam arrived, I was upstairs, backwards on the toilet. I never went back downstairs. I moved back and forth from the bathroom to our bedroom, moaning and shaking and bracing through contractions. Around 8pm (I think!), I got in the birth tub that was set up in baby’s room. The physical relief was immediate, but the tub was soon the site of some serious psychological doubt–would be able to get through this labor and delivery at home? I was suddenly convinced I had made a mistake doing a homebirth. I wanted pain relief and surgery to get this baby out faster. I was convinced everyone was thinking I wasn’t going to be able to make it but just wasn’t telling me. In contrast they were actually telling me this labor was progressing really normally and I remember being confused but reassured by how upbeat everyone was. I remember thinking I needed to get Abbie alone and somehow convey to her that we could never, ever do this again (something we laugh about now since I’m already yearning to have another).

I got out of the tub soon after I got in. I wanted to keep working to actively get the baby out, and I instinctually knew I needed to leave the tub to do that. The period that followed is pretty hazy. The contractions were crippling. I was yelling through most of them. Sarah was suggesting positions that hurt a lot (side lying release and sitting on the toilet from the front). I never got mad or otherwise lashed out at the birth team; even in my lowest, most desperate moments I felt certain that everyone was doing everything they could to help me and that following their suggestions would get me where I wanted to go. I remember being asked if I felt the urge to push, but I didn’t—I never did.

 Eventually Kate offered to do a cervical check, something she hadn’t done until that point to avoid the possibility of infection (since my water was broken). I was fully dilated except for a cervical lip, which was a relief. Kate offered to hold the lip out of the way while I pushed, and I was so fixated on progress that I didn’t hesitate to say yes despite the pain of having her hand all the way up there. Kate’s steady, encouraging voice was a constant comfort.

When I was still struggling to make progress despite pushing with the lip held back, Kate said my bladder might be in the way. I hadn’t peed in hours. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pee. It was just too excruciatingly painful to sit on the toilet in that way. Everyone insisted, so I tried, and I ended up thinking I was going to faint in the bathroom, and Sam super supportively helped me back out. The next choice they offered me was between going downstairs and trying some side-lying releases OR getting a catheter. I chose the catheter, which ended up only taking a few minutes and being painless. My sense is that it certainly didn’t hurt progress but that it also wasn’t the key to forward movement either.

The original plan had been for me to get back in the tub after the catheter. My mom had been heating it back up with hot water from the stove and the pain relief I had experienced in the tub earlier was so appealing. But Kate said she thought we could get the baby out if we tried more pushing, and the idea of being close to the finish line was too enticing to refuse. That began the four hours of pushing that led us to Dash’s birth. I pushed laying back on our bed. My mom helped hold my legs and Abbie was up by my head holding me and also trying to catch the Gatorade I was vomiting up as each contraction crested into its most painful peak.

The progress was incredibly slow and painful. I could tell there was some confusion as to why that was the case, but I felt very safe in our team’s hands. My eyes remained closed and I just focused on making the most of every contraction, using their power to push with everything I had. When his head became visible (and everyone cheered—which I loved), I assumed the end was in sight, but it felt like an eternity to get from there to all of him out. The pain was blinding. There were many moments where I begged the team to help me make the pain go away. They were checking baby’s heart rate constantly and he was always steady and thriving, which was always a relief to hear. “This is a baby who likes being born,” said Sarah at one point.

As soon as baby’s head was out and the rest of him didn’t follow, the team realized this was a case of extremely bad shoulder dystocia (top three of Kate’s career, she said later). In the most grave and commanding moment of the labor, Kate and Sarah demanded that I flip over onto all fours immediately. I pushed there, and then with each leg lunged forward, finding a strength to do those movements from a place of needing to save my baby’s life.  Somehow I got from those positions back on my back, and both Kate and Sam delivered the baby—one of them reaching up inside me and the other pushing his shoulder under my pubic bone from the outside of my abdomen. 

Dashiell Michael Engelstad was officially born at 5:31am. The relief was immediate. They pulled him out of me, handed him to Abbie, and she put him on my chest. He was purple and silent, but his little eyes were blinking right into mine, and even though I kept asking if he was ok, I knew he was. It felt like time stopped. All the cliches about love at first sight were true.

We had the sweetest golden hours as the sun was coming up. I had a second-degree tear and got a couple stitches, which felt like no big deal. The placenta was delivered no problem, and Sam gave us a tour of it. We had planned to toss it, but seeing Dash’s home for the past 10 months suddenly made me want to keep it for burial, so we double bagged it and put it in our freezer. The midwives checked Dash and told us he was healthy and weighed 8lbs, 10 oz. They then cleaned up the house, and then Kate helped me take a quick shower while Abbie did skin to skin in the glider chair my cousins had gifted us. During that time the midwives got a page from another client whose labor was beginning. I remember marveling over the pressure and responsibility of their job, going from unique birth to unique birth and puzzling their way to bringing babies earth-side. I remember feeling the strongest need to tell them how grateful I was for them, and I still feel that urge every time I think about our birth.

After the midwives left around 10am, Abbie’s parents came over with take-out breakfast from Hi-Lo Diner nearby. I had a triple stack of pancakes and a strawberry milkshake. I felt weak, my skin was ghostly pale and tinged yellow, my eye was bloodshot with burst vessels, and my face and perineum were swollen and extremely painful, but I only felt thrilled and full of gratitude—that labor was over and that Dash was here and that we were all ok.

Kate told us later that I have an unusually narrow pelvic arch that likely created the conditions or at least contributed to the shoulder dystocia. She didn’t say it would definitely be an issue for future births but said it is something that future providers should be aware of so they can prepare. Sarah told us later that she thinks that in any other circumstance, my birth would likely have been a surgical one. There were so many complicating factors, but between my perseverance and the team’s competence and ability to assess and take on a healthy amount of risk, we were able to do this at home.

If I give birth again, I don’t think I’d change anything. I loved our team. I’m life changingly in love with my new family. I feel intact socially, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I feel powerful in my body. I don’t want for anything.

Photo captured by Nylon Saddle Photography