Underwater Birth, Not a Whale's Tale

..how our sudden militant views nearly killed our baby and changed our thinking.

Max and me

“However diverse its fine points, water birthing isn’t new. Mentioned in medical literature as early as 1805, it was first practiced in the Soviet Union and France and in recent years has enjoyed a modest increase in popularity in Europe. But the technique is still not widely available in the United States. Rosenthal believes his clinic is the only such center in California.” - L.A. Times, May 14, 1989

I’ve often stated that there is nothing new under the sun. There isn’t. It’s just packaged differently in different seasons. In present times, the temptation to be seduced into believing almost anything is obviously stronger.

It was 1986 and not long after our one year wedding anniversary we made a decision to try for a baby.

We were, in fact, the perfectly generalized long hair, VW Bus driving, home grown veggie eating kind of young kids. A bit hippy-like. When I met John I was overwhelmed with his healthy approach to eating, growing his own garden on a hillside in Laguna Beach, Ca. His personal story is for another time.

I was raised in a traditional British home of unprocessed fresh meat, potatoes and vegetables. I didn’t like eggs, tomatoes, sprouts or avocados. John introduced me to all the health nut sandwiches and salads I could possibly try for a British girl and I fell in love with everything but eggs.

Together, we were invincible and by the time we had mostly fixed up our first little home we were ready to bring a child into the world.

Somewhere in mid-October we got pregnant and began to tell everyone by Thanksgiving. Our baby was due on The Fourth of July 1987.

I can’t remember how we found out about The Family Birthing Center of Upland and Dr. Michael Rosenthal, but I believe it was from our insurance plan, at the time, and the fact that I chose this nuanced man to be my doctor. He was a normal obstetrician-gynecologist who ran this fascinating side hustle.

We scheduled a tour where we were immediately enamored with a squeaky clean, yet small facility, sweet nursing staff, and a beaming fully informed exercise instructor for pre-natal and post-partum exercise classes.

It took a few hours to realize that standard maternity care and modern day birth practices were not for us. We walked away believing the very notion of a “fetal monitor” was the devil itself.

“Although traditionally trained and board-certified, Rosenthal takes a dim view of conventional obstetrics, charging that most obstetricians demand too much power over their pregnant patients.” - L.A. Times | first article

I was an extremely healthy 26 year old with a normal pregnancy. I had the usual morning sickness but for the most part it was a very good pregnancy and I couldn’t wait to meet our baby. We were offered the amniocentesis test to see if our baby checked for Downs Syndrome or other genetic conditions and we turned it down. We didn’t care. That never changed as we grew our family.

I went into labor right after making these awful Trader Joes mini tacos the evening of June 28th. I love Trader Joes to this day and have never experienced a dislike since, but then I was pregnant and my tastes were different. Or perhaps it was the fact that John kept burping them during labor…

The nurse on duty at the birthing center met us, checked me out and sent us home. I wasn’t dilated at all but experiencing terrible back pain. A few hours later we went back and I was at 1cm. She sent us home again. Another few hours passed and I could barely stand the pain, was almost at 3cm and she admitted us. We never saw any other staff or the doctor the entire experience and we know there was at least one other couple being tended to.

As the evening wore on, the soft music promised on the tour turned into a repeat of Vangelis' electronic theme tune from the academy award winning Chariot’s Of Fire. If you have never heard this theme song I suggest you play it loud and use your imagination. I felt sick and begged for the music to stop at one point. I wasn’t dilating fast enough, in utter agony, with no relief in sight. I could also hear a small child running through the center asking for mommy to nurse him. Turned out the nurse, and only employee there, was his mommy. It was like a magnified nightmare. Medication of any kind was not happening, so up I went to the miracle tub to see if this would relax me.

John was my hand holder and cheerleader through what would be 17 hours of gruesome back pain. He put on his swim trunks as the same nurse on a 24 hour shift would prepare the bath. After about an hour or so of doing my best to relax, the nurse listened to my belly through an archaic stethoscope. Within seconds she charged that I needed an emergency episiotomy, no time for numbing. With the supernatural strength of the hulk, the thought of my mom’s birth experience with me at home in England (Call the Midwife?), John lifted me up, wrapped his arms around me from behind and we bared down together, screaming, delivering a wiggling blue baby boy who couldn’t cry. His umbilical cord had been crushing between one side of his neck and shoulder. Seconds longer in the birth canal it would have radically changed his life and ours forever. As it was, it did change our lives and I still don’t know why I thought this was a good idea after my mom’s birth story?

The nurse and John rushed our baby in a portable incubator, on foot, to the hospital across the street.

Once in the door, my poor young husband, dripping wet in swim trunks, barefoot, was met by a fiery nurse, who grabbed our baby boy and slapped him silly until he cried out. They were pissed he told me.

I was left on the floor in a small pool of blood, torn, alone in the birthing center, wondering if our baby was alive. By the time the nurse came back to stitch me and tell me everything was going to be okay, an hour had passed and the trajectory of our life had definitely done a 180.

Describing the scene to me at the hospital, over the phone as I recovered, John was broken. We were grateful and devastated at the same time.

Filled with shame, caught up in a militant belief system that nearly killed our baby, we took little Maxwell Jordan home a week later and never spoke of it again.

In fact, a few years later, when my best friend, Peggy and I were pregnant with our daughters, she had chosen Dr. Rosenthal and the birthing center for her delivery. I never discussed what happened with her. How could I? How could I not? It was her first baby. At the time, it seemed maybe the center had learned a thing or two. What happened to us was unimaginable.

The relief that our baby lived and the continual wonder that he would turn out okay was enough to fill our heads for the rest of our lives. We never considered a lawsuit and held ourselves 100 percent responsible, despite the incompetence, complete lack of staffing and concern.. even after the ordeal.

When I look back at all the decisions we made as a couple, concerning our children, from that point forward, they were nothing but balanced.

Two more children were born in birthing room environments in the hospital. No water to be found, yet both were born in under three hours. Perhaps first time births should not be an experiment?

None of my after-birth stories went well. The other two babies were immediately taken away for observation for possible meconium ingestion. I was not meant to have a whale’s birth or a baby at home for that matter. I was different and my babies were different. I also came with an Rh Negative factor. A distinct risk to my unborn babies. Both baby boys were extremely jaundiced.

In reflection, we are meant to discern greatly and competently our circumstances, fears, family history, etc., and find a calculated gamble that works best for us as individuals. We should never base our choices on broad or narrow minded pressure .

All three of our children are vaccinated with childhood vaccines. We adhered to these after reading, studying history and weighing the costs. Our children went to schools that required them. I was not cut-out to homeschool and we did not have sufficient public resources for that in the 1980s-90s. We decided it wasn’t for us or our children.

The world was a wonderful and tough place and our children needed to be equipped to live in it. Homeschool was an extremely isolated place to be at that time. If I had to weigh homeschool today I might have a different opinion. Much has changed both in the world and in homeschooling options.

From general health, to mental and physical health, food, snacks, privileges, rules, I took the middle road of thought. I felt like nothing in our life needed to be excessive or stagnant.

I took that road with the 2016 election, never thinking my choice would render me a radical right-wing nut-job. Far from it. Not caring about personalities anymore, I was fed up with self-serving politicians and hoped for a fiscal change that screamed retirement. America had made so much progress everywhere else, but people were still dying on our streets and many were working multiple jobs to feed their families. At the rate we’re going now, my husband will be lucky to retire at 70. That’s just wrong. A lot is wrong.

With the recent pandemic, I opted out of the vaccines, which technically rendered me a killer. I thought I had a choice about what I put into my body, so I opted for natural immunity on this one. I got uninvited, canceled and lost my work. On top of it I lost family and my dad to cancer. I believe I made the right choice and I’m still standing.

Years after our experience with the birthing center, my best friend, Peggy (my story “Domestic Doris and Me”) was deeply involved in pro-life ministries. She discovered Dr. Rosenthal was also performing dangerous abortions the entire time he was preaching a total holistic approach to childbirth. I believe she and others spearheaded the doctor’s eventual decline.

“The board accused him of mishandling three abortions in 1999, when he was running his own Upland-based Family Birthing Center serving women with low-risk pregnancies.” - L.A. Times, April 20, 2002

The year our daughters were born, in 1989, the L.A. Times story read “WATER BIRTHING: Gimmick or Godsend?” At the very crux it kept this man popular and wealthy. Dr. Rosenthal was waking up to his coffee, ready to lecture a group of doctors, in Newport Beach, on the art of water birth, as I was sitting on the floor of his birthing center without my baby. Those three botched abortions were second trimester. I thought, “the juxtaposition of these two images.” How do you sleep at night?

To end, it’s easy to get swept up in a belief system.

For my beautiful friend, she was interviewed and photographed by the L.A. Times, through pre-natal exercises at the center and eventually her water-birth, which went off without a hitch. I have a copy of the article and pictures. I am so grateful her experience was the complete opposite of mine. She didn’t get to live long enough to enjoy her adult children and grandchildren.

Our oldest son grew up healthy and became a linesman. My family is slowly piecing itself back together since the pandemic.

All I know is once you learn it’s hard to go back. Once you’ve seen your ways and how quickly you can get sucked down the abyss of unconscious, you can’t go back. You slowly begin to stand for what is right and good for yourself and for others. Your choices become grounds for truth and individuality. Other people’s choices, beliefs and propagandas should not be your cross to bear.

The reason I began this newsletter was to write honestly about the topic of family and life stories in general. To work out the knots of loss in my heart.

It took over 10 years for me to open up a mother’s journal and pen Max’s birth story. It was also a love letter. I can remember sobbing my way through it. I’ve cried through this as well. I loved him more than anything in the world. I love him.

As another Mother’s Day passes I am, as usual, filled with gratitude.

I am plain grateful.