u/KindlyEnergy6959

I am writing this out of frustration and fear and sadness and hoping any other parents can comment anything helpful.

I FTM gave birth a little over 12 hours ago to a full term baby (40+5 weeks) after 54 hours of unmedicated labor. I prepared so hard to have my dream physiological birth and dreamt of immediately bonding with my baby. She had a beautiful birth and was born in her sac! An incredibly rare mermaid birth! I was so excited to meet her after so many months spent growing her and days laboring but she spent not even 30 seconds on my chest. She was whisked away immediately to NICU due to meconium aspiration and respiratory distress. Apgar score was 4 then 5. She just couldn’t breathe at all on her own without O2 support.

At first they said a few hours in the NICU and they would bring her back to me. Then she was diagnosed with PPHN and pneumothorax. Then the said she could possibly have congenital lobar emphysema. Diagnosis keeps changing every few hours it seems. Her pediatric specialist is grateful though and has visited us frequently with updates and she had some mild improvement but that was it.

I know that she needs this care and I’m grateful to her providers. It is so heartbreaking to not have had a baby with me. No golden hours, no skin to skin, no time to even meet her before she was ripped away from me. I’m struggling so hard to not have my baby.

As soon as they would let me, my husband and I went to visit her. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. She had a breathing tube and we can’t pick her up or hold her because she needs to stay strapped on her left side where the potential pneumothorax is. As soon as she heard my voice and felt my she struggles to cry but has a tube in and becomes distressed and her heart rate goes up a ton and I’m afraid that it’s stressing out her poor little body. She has to be sedated to be comfortable

We are devastated seeing her like this. I want to visit her obviously but I can’t spend all day there. Emotionally or physically. Sounds selfish but how can I even visit her if she becomes upset at my touch and voice and I can’t hold her? I’m just supposed to stare at her in this little box?

This is next level difficult 😞. Can anyone share stories of babies being okay after any/all theses conditions?

I’m a FTM 39 weeks and just started maternity leave. We’re planning an unmedicated birth at a birth center with midwives. I was texting my husband about something that happened earlier that annoyed me about my boss (lol nothing super important) and I think i sent like 3-4 messages. For context, we are both dentists so don’t really check our phones while working on patients, usually in between procedures.

So I guess he felt the vibrations in his pocket and he immediately thought I was in labor lol. He had 20 mins left in procedure so he finished and then frantically checked his phone outside the operatory and realized I wasn’t and we had a good laugh.

Anyways that got me thinking, when should I tell him I’m in labor? I know usually the first time, it can take quite awhile before active labor hits and we need to go to the birth center. Especially if it’s in the middle of the night, my midwives told me to just ignore contractions for as long as possible and continue to rest or go about your day. My husband works about 10 mins away from our house. I know he will rush home as soon as I tell him because he’s my “doula” and wants to support me throughout labor. I just don’t want to alert him too early if he’s at work/sleeping and contractions are very manageable in early labor.

TLDR: How far apart were your contractions when you woke up/ had your birth partner come home from work to support you?