Wow, turn the page on that calendar and the Feb babies just start popping out, huh? Mira was born on Sunday, Feb 1st at 5:50 or so a.m. It was the most amazing birth I could have wished to have. The only thing that would have been better is if the midwife had been there. Or if I'd managed to take off my underwear before giving birth. Otherwise it was fantastic, the recovery is miraculous, and nursing is so far going well. Miri is the cutest sweetie. 
I'll write up a full birth story soon, but couldn't wait any longer to share with you all.
Mira’s Birth Story
Sunday, February 1, 2009, 5:50 a.m.
6 pounds, 4 ounces, 18.75 inches long
I had been feeling great. I had gone to the office four days that week, and all the walking on my commute hadn’t bothered me as much as it did the week before. I kept saying I thought the baby would come late because I didn’t feel anywhere near close.
Saturday we went to the Chinese New Year parade in Flushing and walked a lot. When we got home, DS napped and DH and I dtd, for the first time in about a month. And we did it with the works. That afternoon I started having some small, light contractions. I could tell they weren’t Braxton Hicks, but they were still so small. When I got one I would sit down, and the pressure would go away. After a while they petered out and I had none all evening, so I didn’t think anything of it. I made dinner and put DS to bed.
That night at about 3:30 a.m., I woke realizing that I’d been having contractions for a little while, and they felt regular. I asked DH to time them. DS was in bed with us, and he was very excited about being awake with us in the middle of the night. The contrax were light and easy – I talked through them. DH got his Birth Partner book and said very assuredly that it seemed like pre-labor because they were so light and shorter than 60 seconds, and that he didn’t think this was really labor. I hoped this was true, because I had arranged 6 months maternity leave and didn’t like the idea of going back to work in the beginning of August rather than the middle.
But I told DH that I thought the contrax weren’t as light as he thought they were. He said the book said if it was labor I wouldn’t be able to be distracted by them, so I asked him to give me addition problems during them. I did a few, and then there came a contraction where I told him I didn’t want to think about that, so after that he stopped.
I got on my hands and knees for most of them, but knelt upright or stood for some of them. Things were moving so fast that what felt good for one contraction didn’t work for the next one. I tried to think of them as power surges, and tried to think of it as riding waves like a surfer, but neither of those analogies rang true for me. I thought it might be because the contractions just weren’t that hard. I tried a couple of the techniques from Birthing from Within too, but they just sort of seemed silly. The contractions just felt like a mild leg cramp, or like a bad gas pain, but all I had to do was wait it out. I knew it would get better after the peak, and they were short and I had about 5 minutes of feeling perfectly normal in between each of them. Mostly I just focused on how they were opening my cervix and that even if I didn’t have the baby for three more weeks, it was good work that was getting accomplished.
In between contractions I lay back down and talked with DH and DS or went to the bathroom. I had to pee very frequently. I was seeing lots of mucous but it was clear. Then one time there was an extra large amount and it was pink. I told DH I had bloody show. The next time it was bright red blood. That scared me a little and I said I really wanted to call the midwife. DH thought we should time five more contrax first. They had been hovering between 4 and 5 minutes apart, but then two of them were 6 minutes apart and I started saying I wanted to go back to sleep. DH talked to the midwife and she said it sounded like I was going to have a baby, but we still didn’t believe it, and none of us thought she needed to come then.
Then something changed, and neither of us remembers what it was, but we decided to get DS to my in-laws. DH and DS went into DS’ room to pack his overnight bag. I started climbing the headboard during contrax and vocalizing a little. I was trying not to scare DS, but eventually I couldn’t hold back. DH came back in and I hung on him for one contraction. That was the best one of the whole labor. I told him I wished they weren’t leaving, and he asked if I’d rather continue to labor alone while he took care of DS in the other room, and I said no. So they left for the neighbors who would hold DS until my in-laws came to get him.
It was so different being alone. The contrax got harder and I was yelling during the peaks. At one point I gave three short barks like a dog and really surprised myself. I went into the bathroom to pee, but to my surprise poop came out instead. The contrax got harder still, and I couldn’t find any position to relieve them. I moved up and down between sitting on the toilet and standing, and leaned so hard on the towel rack that I worried I would tear it off the wall. But there were only a handful of contractions like that.
I started saying “No no no,”and worried that I shouldn’t go in a negative direction. I reminded myself that this was exactly what I wanted, that my body was opening so I could give birth. And then I started thinking, “what did I get myself into, I wish I could go to the hospital and get drugs, I don’t think I can do this,” and I immediately remembered that thinking those things probably meant that I was in transition. But I couldn’t believe it could really be transition, because I expected transition to feel like the Pitocin contractions I’d had with my first birth, and these weren’t even a quarter as painful as that.
And then I felt my body give a push. That made me frantic. I said out loud, “No! I am not giving birth alone into a toilet full of poop!” So I wiped as best I could, pulled my underpants back up (wish I hadn’t done that) and lurched back onto the bed.
A wave of heat came over me, and for some reason that – not the pushing – finally convinced me that I was in labor. Then I saw the phone on DH’s night table. We still had not asked the midwife to come yet. It took me 3 contractions to crawl across the bed to get to the phone. I called her and just yelled, “Miriam, come now, my body is pushing.” She said, “Oh. Okay.”and hung up quickly. I thought that was the perfect reaction and I felt happy. My body pushed involuntarily again, and I felt the baby bulge out. I was doing everything I could not to push, and in fact I never gave one voluntary push. The baby slid back up and I felt relieved. It felt weird, soft, and not painful at all. I realized later it was because she was still in an intact bag of waters. Then she bulged back out again and stayed there. And then it was like the maelstrom suddenly stopped – everything was peaceful and quiet and incredibly calm, and there was no pain at all.
I wanted to feel the bulge and see if it was the baby’s head, but I felt like I couldn’t move from my all-fours position. At that point I heard DH open the apartment door. I quickly called out, “Honey, come here, I need your help.” He came in and said, “What can I do?” And I said, “Feel that bulge and tell me if it’s her head.” He must have been so shocked. He had left me having mild contractions only a half hour before, and when he came back the baby was crowning! So he felt and then he said, “I really think you should take off your underwear now.” I said, “Okay, just a minute,” and she squirted out. Her whole body slid out in one push with a big gush of water. She just pushed aside the crotch of my underpants and landed herself on the bed.
DH said, “She’s out. She’s out. What do I do?” I told him to turn her face down so her mouth and nose could drain. She was silent and I asked him if she was breathing. He jiggled her a little and she gave a small cry. Then I swung my leg over the cord and sat up and held her. Her eyes were open and she was moving her limbs. I was still wearing my nightshirt. I cuddled her and tried to keep her warm. DH helped me get my nightshirt off so I could warm her against my skin. Then he called his folks to tell them not to take DS to their house, but to come back upstairs instead. He called the midwife and told her, and she said she would stop running red lights. I felt the placenta coming, and I got up into a squat to let it out. DH got a scissor and cut off my underpants so he could put the placenta into a container. And then we simply sat there in the quiet of dawn and looked at our newborn baby.
I'll write up a full birth story soon, but couldn't wait any longer to share with you all.
Mira’s Birth Story
Sunday, February 1, 2009, 5:50 a.m.
6 pounds, 4 ounces, 18.75 inches long
I had been feeling great. I had gone to the office four days that week, and all the walking on my commute hadn’t bothered me as much as it did the week before. I kept saying I thought the baby would come late because I didn’t feel anywhere near close.
Saturday we went to the Chinese New Year parade in Flushing and walked a lot. When we got home, DS napped and DH and I dtd, for the first time in about a month. And we did it with the works. That afternoon I started having some small, light contractions. I could tell they weren’t Braxton Hicks, but they were still so small. When I got one I would sit down, and the pressure would go away. After a while they petered out and I had none all evening, so I didn’t think anything of it. I made dinner and put DS to bed.
That night at about 3:30 a.m., I woke realizing that I’d been having contractions for a little while, and they felt regular. I asked DH to time them. DS was in bed with us, and he was very excited about being awake with us in the middle of the night. The contrax were light and easy – I talked through them. DH got his Birth Partner book and said very assuredly that it seemed like pre-labor because they were so light and shorter than 60 seconds, and that he didn’t think this was really labor. I hoped this was true, because I had arranged 6 months maternity leave and didn’t like the idea of going back to work in the beginning of August rather than the middle.
But I told DH that I thought the contrax weren’t as light as he thought they were. He said the book said if it was labor I wouldn’t be able to be distracted by them, so I asked him to give me addition problems during them. I did a few, and then there came a contraction where I told him I didn’t want to think about that, so after that he stopped.
I got on my hands and knees for most of them, but knelt upright or stood for some of them. Things were moving so fast that what felt good for one contraction didn’t work for the next one. I tried to think of them as power surges, and tried to think of it as riding waves like a surfer, but neither of those analogies rang true for me. I thought it might be because the contractions just weren’t that hard. I tried a couple of the techniques from Birthing from Within too, but they just sort of seemed silly. The contractions just felt like a mild leg cramp, or like a bad gas pain, but all I had to do was wait it out. I knew it would get better after the peak, and they were short and I had about 5 minutes of feeling perfectly normal in between each of them. Mostly I just focused on how they were opening my cervix and that even if I didn’t have the baby for three more weeks, it was good work that was getting accomplished.
In between contractions I lay back down and talked with DH and DS or went to the bathroom. I had to pee very frequently. I was seeing lots of mucous but it was clear. Then one time there was an extra large amount and it was pink. I told DH I had bloody show. The next time it was bright red blood. That scared me a little and I said I really wanted to call the midwife. DH thought we should time five more contrax first. They had been hovering between 4 and 5 minutes apart, but then two of them were 6 minutes apart and I started saying I wanted to go back to sleep. DH talked to the midwife and she said it sounded like I was going to have a baby, but we still didn’t believe it, and none of us thought she needed to come then.
Then something changed, and neither of us remembers what it was, but we decided to get DS to my in-laws. DH and DS went into DS’ room to pack his overnight bag. I started climbing the headboard during contrax and vocalizing a little. I was trying not to scare DS, but eventually I couldn’t hold back. DH came back in and I hung on him for one contraction. That was the best one of the whole labor. I told him I wished they weren’t leaving, and he asked if I’d rather continue to labor alone while he took care of DS in the other room, and I said no. So they left for the neighbors who would hold DS until my in-laws came to get him.
It was so different being alone. The contrax got harder and I was yelling during the peaks. At one point I gave three short barks like a dog and really surprised myself. I went into the bathroom to pee, but to my surprise poop came out instead. The contrax got harder still, and I couldn’t find any position to relieve them. I moved up and down between sitting on the toilet and standing, and leaned so hard on the towel rack that I worried I would tear it off the wall. But there were only a handful of contractions like that.
I started saying “No no no,”and worried that I shouldn’t go in a negative direction. I reminded myself that this was exactly what I wanted, that my body was opening so I could give birth. And then I started thinking, “what did I get myself into, I wish I could go to the hospital and get drugs, I don’t think I can do this,” and I immediately remembered that thinking those things probably meant that I was in transition. But I couldn’t believe it could really be transition, because I expected transition to feel like the Pitocin contractions I’d had with my first birth, and these weren’t even a quarter as painful as that.
And then I felt my body give a push. That made me frantic. I said out loud, “No! I am not giving birth alone into a toilet full of poop!” So I wiped as best I could, pulled my underpants back up (wish I hadn’t done that) and lurched back onto the bed.
A wave of heat came over me, and for some reason that – not the pushing – finally convinced me that I was in labor. Then I saw the phone on DH’s night table. We still had not asked the midwife to come yet. It took me 3 contractions to crawl across the bed to get to the phone. I called her and just yelled, “Miriam, come now, my body is pushing.” She said, “Oh. Okay.”and hung up quickly. I thought that was the perfect reaction and I felt happy. My body pushed involuntarily again, and I felt the baby bulge out. I was doing everything I could not to push, and in fact I never gave one voluntary push. The baby slid back up and I felt relieved. It felt weird, soft, and not painful at all. I realized later it was because she was still in an intact bag of waters. Then she bulged back out again and stayed there. And then it was like the maelstrom suddenly stopped – everything was peaceful and quiet and incredibly calm, and there was no pain at all.
I wanted to feel the bulge and see if it was the baby’s head, but I felt like I couldn’t move from my all-fours position. At that point I heard DH open the apartment door. I quickly called out, “Honey, come here, I need your help.” He came in and said, “What can I do?” And I said, “Feel that bulge and tell me if it’s her head.” He must have been so shocked. He had left me having mild contractions only a half hour before, and when he came back the baby was crowning! So he felt and then he said, “I really think you should take off your underwear now.” I said, “Okay, just a minute,” and she squirted out. Her whole body slid out in one push with a big gush of water. She just pushed aside the crotch of my underpants and landed herself on the bed.
DH said, “She’s out. She’s out. What do I do?” I told him to turn her face down so her mouth and nose could drain. She was silent and I asked him if she was breathing. He jiggled her a little and she gave a small cry. Then I swung my leg over the cord and sat up and held her. Her eyes were open and she was moving her limbs. I was still wearing my nightshirt. I cuddled her and tried to keep her warm. DH helped me get my nightshirt off so I could warm her against my skin. Then he called his folks to tell them not to take DS to their house, but to come back upstairs instead. He called the midwife and told her, and she said she would stop running red lights. I felt the placenta coming, and I got up into a squat to let it out. DH got a scissor and cut off my underpants so he could put the placenta into a container. And then we simply sat there in the quiet of dawn and looked at our newborn baby.
:
So I will summarize
