March 21, 2018
Over the course of her career as a midwife, Emily Dial has helped birth more than 800 babies.
All three of her own deliveries, however, have been C-sections.
“[It’s] ironic, because not many midwifes can say they’ve opted for a C-section,” said Dial, who is also a nurse practitioner and lifelong resident of Lawrenceburg.
Far fewer can claim they’ve pulled their own baby out of the incision by hand.
Dial welcomed her 7-pound, 15-ounce daughter Emma Kaye into the world on March 11 in a shocking feat that has since gained international attention.
A video taken inside the operating room shows Dial, surrounded by medical personnel, reach down into her stomach and place her hands on her daughter’s head before smoothly wresting her from the incision.
When the video was posted to Facebook, it spread rapidly. Professional photographer Sarah Hill, who Dial recruited to capture the delivery, also received nearly 1,000 shares after she posted visceral photos of the procedure to her Facebook business page.
Dial has since received coverage from People, Cosmopolitan, Fox News and even The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom.
“I’ve been so overwhelmed by the response,” she said. “I can’t keep up with the notifications.”
Despite the glamor, Dial doesn’t recommend opting for a C-section over labor.
Her history with the procedure stems from her first pregnancy.
When Dial was 25 weeks pregnant with her son Grayson, she learned he had a congenital diaphragmatic hernia.
“Basically all of his abdominal organs were herniated into his chest,” she said. “[It was a] very poor prognosis and we were given a 30-percent survival rate.”
Given the choice between being induced at a nearby hospital or having a C-section at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital where she could be in-house with Grayson, Dial chose the latter.
Despite surgeries, Grayson died after 10 days.
When Dial became pregnant with her daughter, Ella Grace, about one-and-a-half years later, she said another C-section was the medically sound decision.
“It’s recommended by medical guidelines to not labor that close together,” she said.
Ella Grace is now 4-years-old and is “over the moon” with the birth of her new sister, Dial said.
Hospital guidelines advise against labor after two C-sections, so Dial chose the procedure once again for the delivery on March 11.
This time, however, she wanted more direct involvement.
Dial said the thought of physically pulling the baby from her belly never entered her mind during her first two pregnancies.
Dial hatched her plan after she saw a picture of a mother assisting in pulling out a baby.
“I thought, ‘how cool would that be?,” she said. “This is what I do for my job every day. [I thought], ‘let’s make this a fun experience.’”
Dial approached Dr. Mark Wainwright, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Women’s Care of the Bluegrass in Frankfort, where she works.
“My doctor and I are really close and I kind of threw the idea at him,” she said. “ He said, ‘let’s try it if you’re up for it.”
Wainwright wasn’t the only friend and close colleague assisting—it was her entire delivery team.
“It was the whole practice,” she said. “The two most important things in my life are my family and my career. As hard as we work in he OB-GYN field, you spend more time with your colleagues than you do your family, sadly enough.
To tie those two [things] together right then at that moment was amazing. It’s going to be hard to top that for the rest of my life.”
Dial’s procedure was scheduled for 10 a.m., but her team ended up doing another delivery so she pushed it back to 11 a.m.
To prepare, Dial thoroughly sterilized to prevent infection. On her way to the OR, she scrubbed like she would for her job. Once on the operating table, she put on latex gloves over her IV before being administered a spinal anesthetic for numbing.
Next came a skin incision to test the anesthesia. Doctors must cut through different layers of tissue and muscle before making the uterine incision and ultimately an amniotomy, or breaking the water.
“[After that], the physician guided the baby’s head out,” she said. “From that point I reached down and could feel the baby’s head and applied gentle traction with [the doctor’s] assistance to get the rest of her body out.”
Although Dial describes the experience as ‘surreal,’ she said it was much smoother than she anticipated and ultimately painless.
Most of her shock came from an unexpected gender reveal.
“[Throughout] my pregnancy, I convinced myself she was going to be a boy,” she said. “When she came out as a girl, I was so shocked, that was really my focus.”
Dial said the experience marked a complete reversal from her first C-section.
“Going from my first C-section where [there was] very limited interaction, and I didn’t know the physicians, and didn’t know the circumstances…[this time], I could see everything that was going on. It made a huge positive difference
“That’s what made this C-section all the more special,” she said. “[With Grayson], I just got a glimpse of him and almost didn’t see him for the entire day. Being able to be this hands on with this baby was really special.”
