The night before the birth, the MW had checked me (I was 2 cm dilated, ripe, and anterior) and very gently stripped my membranes and told me to have sex for extra cervical ripening. I guess it worked, because I started having little contractions at work about 2:30 or 3 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 19th. They were spaced relatively far apart, far enough that I didn't pay attention to how often they were coming. I wasn't very comfortable sitting down, and I had to walk slowly. Baby had felt low in my pelvis all day, like a bowling ball sitting on my bladder. By 4:15 or so, I wanted to leave work, and by 4:30 decided there was NO reason for me to be there - everything was taken care of, and it seemed like the 'right thing' to do to leave. I had been talking to my replacement hire in terms of "what YOU have to do tomorrow", so I think I knew that I wouldn't be coming in the next day, though it seemed like too much to hope for that I would be spared coming in to work again.
I walked home in the fading light, counting contractions but not timing them. A walk that normally takes about 20 minutes took 40, and I had 18 contractions during that time. I could walk very, very slowly through some of them, but at least a third made me stop as they started gathering strength so that I could sway my hips and shake my head back and forth and close my eyes through them. It was sort of nice, walking by myself, feeling these come and go, some stronger than others, but definitely coming more frequently than they had been at work. I was a little surprised that nobody stopped and asked the very pregnant, swaying lady if she was okay, but maybe people just thought I had Tourette's or something...nobody stopped to help me when I was equally pregnant with DS1 and walking home in a tornado warning and lightning storm and absolute downpour, so maybe it's just that chivalry is dead after all.
I had to stop for each contraction by the time I was nearing my house, so it took me three stops to get from Michael St., two short blocks up the street, to my doorstep, even having to stop right at our property boundary, the 'finish line' of the door still in sight. I called the MW at 5:25 and told her about my walk home, getting sort of fuzzy and not being able to talk to her about numbers while I was having a contraction. Said, "Sounds like early labor." I said, "Yeah, I guess so. I'll call you again if they either pick up or peter out." I was hoping that it would be the former, but didn't want to get attached in case it was just prodromal. I was ravenously hungry and came home to find a very thoughtful gift bag left by a dear friend. It had all sorts of German treats in it, and the Almond Spekulatius cookies looked delicious. I opened the package and ate part of one, had a contraction, had to stop eating it, and then DS1 came in and said, "I want some cookie." It seemed most expedient to give him the one I'd been working on, and we repeated that scenario a number of times. I think DS1 ate about 5 of them, and I got about 2 total cookies.
I was still lucid enough that I wanted to clean up the house, and I asked that we order a pizza. I was able to put away a pile of coats that lay on a chair by the closet, ask somebody else to vacuum the rug, and sweep the floor between contractions, but they were getting strong enough that I couldn't tell DH what kind of topping I wanted on the pizza. By the time he'd retrieved it from the pizza shop, I was beyond wanting to or being capable of eating it. After the floor was swept, I felt like I had to go into the bedroom to be on my hands and knees on the futons. I stacked up pillows and leaned into them between and sometimes during contractions, which were getting stronger and more intense. I would get breaks between, which felt like heaven. I could lay, peaceful, still, relaxed. Then one would come on, and I'd have to sway my hips, tell myself to open my hands and relax into it. I also had to start vocalizing through them. At first soft oooohs or aaaahhhhs did the trick. I think around that time, I told DH he'd better start setting up the birth pool, and a little later that he needed to call the MW back and tell her to come.
I could hear the air compressor for what seemed like forever, then the sound of water running. I kept asking if I could get in the tub, even if it was filling, because I really wanted water on my belly. Of course, the water was too hot to spray right on me, and I knew that but was thinking we could just turn the cold on too. DH said no, so I asked him for a hot washcloth, which did some little bit of good on my belly, but it got cold, and it was hard to hold it and have a contraction. My sister had takenDS1 upstairs, and I was alone for much of this part of labor. But, the wonderful, wonderful Dog, who I'd been worried would be freaked out by labor and noises emanating from my mouth, came and sat on the bed with me, quiet, calm, and proving himself once again to be the most awesome dog on the planet.
I kept wishing for the lights to be turned out, but I couldn't get up to turn them off, nor could I seem to ask somebody else to do it. The ooohs soon turned into more powerful OOOOOOOOOOOOOing. I kept thinking OOOOOOOOOO, open, O. I could feel my cervix opening too, on some contractions it seemed like I could feel it open a whole centimeter at once, and I could sort of see in my mind's eye the progress it had made. I could feel too, the baby's head moving my sacro-iliac joint, pushing my sacrum up and opening my pelvis. My hands and knees stance got wider and wider, and I felt more like I couldn't move from that bed. The contractions were coming very fast now, with just the smallest break between some of them, and they were getting more intense, enough that I thought, "I don't know if I can do this until midnight."
Luckily, as I was thinking that, the MW and her partner finally arrived, and DH said that the pool was about half-full. The MW came in to check on me just as a contraction started, and I had to tell her, "No touch, no talk, having a contraction." She listened to me, told me to relax a little more, and I was glad to have somebody there to support me who could talk me through contractions. I told her that with the one I had when she came in, I was feeling just the start of pushy at the end of the contraction. She listened to the baby with the doppler, though I don't know how much she could hear, and then I was told I could go in the birth pool. I got up and tried to pee, but couldn't sit on the toilet and gave up trying to squat over the bowl when they said, "You can also just pee in the pool." Getting in the water was a huge relief, even though the tub wasn't extremely full. Just being able to sink my belly into the water was good enough, and the midwives and DH brought more water and dumped it in as I was laboring.
The pushy contractions started getting stronger, and I remember sort of crying out to the MW, "Another one is coming. Tell me how to breathe." The midwives told me to grunt through them, so I did, feeling stronger and stronger pushing being done by my body at the end of each contraction. Around the time that I got in the tub, my sister and DS1 came downstairs. They stood at the end of the tub for the pushing and both got to witness the birth. The contractions spaced out just a little, but when they came, they were strong and I felt like I was not in control of what my body was doing except for grunting my way through them as directed. Grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, puuuuush from my abdomen. I could feel baby moving down pretty fast.
As the baby moved lower, I felt like I had to flip from hands and knees to being on my left side with my right leg pulled way back. I reached down and felt inside the birth canal and felt a little bit of scalp, just a knuckle or two inside and knew the baby was close. The MW gave me an update on progress between contractions, and then she reached down to support my perineum. After another couple of contractions, I reached down and felt his head again, this time crowning. I felt compelled to have my hand at my vaginal opening for support and to feel the baby's progress. Still, I wasn't pushing with intent, just grunting through the contractions and feeling the burn and stretch and hoping I would not tear.
The MW finally told me to add my efforts to the pushing, which I did. And then she said, "Okay, on the next contraction, your baby's head will be born." I pushed as she told me to, and it was so much easier and less painful/intense than DS1's head, and then the rest of the body slipped out, and the MW put a wet, purplish baby on my chest. The second MW covered the baby immediately in towels, and I felt like it was all I could do to keep from slipping into the water. The baby was a little gurgly, but pinked up nicely. When I finally managed to check, we found huge pink testicles and a little penis another boy! I had been so sure it was a girl, but nope. He was born at 8:03 p.m., about 2 1/2 hours after I got home from work.
I stayed in the water with him until the cord stopped pulsing, then my sister cut the cord, one of the MWs took the baby, and I got out of the water and went to the bedroom to deliver the placenta. Dog made an appearance and tried to sit on the bed, but I felt like it was a little unsanitary to have him in there and asked him to leave, though I did appreciate his concern.
After the placenta was born, the midwives left me and DH and the baby alone for awhile and went about emptying the birth tub and packing it up, starting laundry, and generally tidying up. I finally got a piece of cold pizza, and I ate more cookies (DS1 ate a lot more of them too). After they were done cleaning, the midwives came back and did a newborn assessment, inspected the placenta, and checked on my fundus and perineum. The baby weighed 9 lbs, 1 oz, was 21.5 inches long, and had a 37 cm. head circumference. A big boy! I had one tiny tear, in just about the same location I had with DS1, but it didn't need stitches.
Baby has hardly opened his eyes since birth, partly because they are a bit puffy, and partly, I think, because all the lights were blazing when he was born. To quote DS1, "It's too shiny!"
I walked home in the fading light, counting contractions but not timing them. A walk that normally takes about 20 minutes took 40, and I had 18 contractions during that time. I could walk very, very slowly through some of them, but at least a third made me stop as they started gathering strength so that I could sway my hips and shake my head back and forth and close my eyes through them. It was sort of nice, walking by myself, feeling these come and go, some stronger than others, but definitely coming more frequently than they had been at work. I was a little surprised that nobody stopped and asked the very pregnant, swaying lady if she was okay, but maybe people just thought I had Tourette's or something...nobody stopped to help me when I was equally pregnant with DS1 and walking home in a tornado warning and lightning storm and absolute downpour, so maybe it's just that chivalry is dead after all.
I had to stop for each contraction by the time I was nearing my house, so it took me three stops to get from Michael St., two short blocks up the street, to my doorstep, even having to stop right at our property boundary, the 'finish line' of the door still in sight. I called the MW at 5:25 and told her about my walk home, getting sort of fuzzy and not being able to talk to her about numbers while I was having a contraction. Said, "Sounds like early labor." I said, "Yeah, I guess so. I'll call you again if they either pick up or peter out." I was hoping that it would be the former, but didn't want to get attached in case it was just prodromal. I was ravenously hungry and came home to find a very thoughtful gift bag left by a dear friend. It had all sorts of German treats in it, and the Almond Spekulatius cookies looked delicious. I opened the package and ate part of one, had a contraction, had to stop eating it, and then DS1 came in and said, "I want some cookie." It seemed most expedient to give him the one I'd been working on, and we repeated that scenario a number of times. I think DS1 ate about 5 of them, and I got about 2 total cookies.
I was still lucid enough that I wanted to clean up the house, and I asked that we order a pizza. I was able to put away a pile of coats that lay on a chair by the closet, ask somebody else to vacuum the rug, and sweep the floor between contractions, but they were getting strong enough that I couldn't tell DH what kind of topping I wanted on the pizza. By the time he'd retrieved it from the pizza shop, I was beyond wanting to or being capable of eating it. After the floor was swept, I felt like I had to go into the bedroom to be on my hands and knees on the futons. I stacked up pillows and leaned into them between and sometimes during contractions, which were getting stronger and more intense. I would get breaks between, which felt like heaven. I could lay, peaceful, still, relaxed. Then one would come on, and I'd have to sway my hips, tell myself to open my hands and relax into it. I also had to start vocalizing through them. At first soft oooohs or aaaahhhhs did the trick. I think around that time, I told DH he'd better start setting up the birth pool, and a little later that he needed to call the MW back and tell her to come.
I could hear the air compressor for what seemed like forever, then the sound of water running. I kept asking if I could get in the tub, even if it was filling, because I really wanted water on my belly. Of course, the water was too hot to spray right on me, and I knew that but was thinking we could just turn the cold on too. DH said no, so I asked him for a hot washcloth, which did some little bit of good on my belly, but it got cold, and it was hard to hold it and have a contraction. My sister had takenDS1 upstairs, and I was alone for much of this part of labor. But, the wonderful, wonderful Dog, who I'd been worried would be freaked out by labor and noises emanating from my mouth, came and sat on the bed with me, quiet, calm, and proving himself once again to be the most awesome dog on the planet.
I kept wishing for the lights to be turned out, but I couldn't get up to turn them off, nor could I seem to ask somebody else to do it. The ooohs soon turned into more powerful OOOOOOOOOOOOOing. I kept thinking OOOOOOOOOO, open, O. I could feel my cervix opening too, on some contractions it seemed like I could feel it open a whole centimeter at once, and I could sort of see in my mind's eye the progress it had made. I could feel too, the baby's head moving my sacro-iliac joint, pushing my sacrum up and opening my pelvis. My hands and knees stance got wider and wider, and I felt more like I couldn't move from that bed. The contractions were coming very fast now, with just the smallest break between some of them, and they were getting more intense, enough that I thought, "I don't know if I can do this until midnight."
Luckily, as I was thinking that, the MW and her partner finally arrived, and DH said that the pool was about half-full. The MW came in to check on me just as a contraction started, and I had to tell her, "No touch, no talk, having a contraction." She listened to me, told me to relax a little more, and I was glad to have somebody there to support me who could talk me through contractions. I told her that with the one I had when she came in, I was feeling just the start of pushy at the end of the contraction. She listened to the baby with the doppler, though I don't know how much she could hear, and then I was told I could go in the birth pool. I got up and tried to pee, but couldn't sit on the toilet and gave up trying to squat over the bowl when they said, "You can also just pee in the pool." Getting in the water was a huge relief, even though the tub wasn't extremely full. Just being able to sink my belly into the water was good enough, and the midwives and DH brought more water and dumped it in as I was laboring.
The pushy contractions started getting stronger, and I remember sort of crying out to the MW, "Another one is coming. Tell me how to breathe." The midwives told me to grunt through them, so I did, feeling stronger and stronger pushing being done by my body at the end of each contraction. Around the time that I got in the tub, my sister and DS1 came downstairs. They stood at the end of the tub for the pushing and both got to witness the birth. The contractions spaced out just a little, but when they came, they were strong and I felt like I was not in control of what my body was doing except for grunting my way through them as directed. Grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, puuuuush from my abdomen. I could feel baby moving down pretty fast.
As the baby moved lower, I felt like I had to flip from hands and knees to being on my left side with my right leg pulled way back. I reached down and felt inside the birth canal and felt a little bit of scalp, just a knuckle or two inside and knew the baby was close. The MW gave me an update on progress between contractions, and then she reached down to support my perineum. After another couple of contractions, I reached down and felt his head again, this time crowning. I felt compelled to have my hand at my vaginal opening for support and to feel the baby's progress. Still, I wasn't pushing with intent, just grunting through the contractions and feeling the burn and stretch and hoping I would not tear.
The MW finally told me to add my efforts to the pushing, which I did. And then she said, "Okay, on the next contraction, your baby's head will be born." I pushed as she told me to, and it was so much easier and less painful/intense than DS1's head, and then the rest of the body slipped out, and the MW put a wet, purplish baby on my chest. The second MW covered the baby immediately in towels, and I felt like it was all I could do to keep from slipping into the water. The baby was a little gurgly, but pinked up nicely. When I finally managed to check, we found huge pink testicles and a little penis another boy! I had been so sure it was a girl, but nope. He was born at 8:03 p.m., about 2 1/2 hours after I got home from work.
I stayed in the water with him until the cord stopped pulsing, then my sister cut the cord, one of the MWs took the baby, and I got out of the water and went to the bedroom to deliver the placenta. Dog made an appearance and tried to sit on the bed, but I felt like it was a little unsanitary to have him in there and asked him to leave, though I did appreciate his concern.
After the placenta was born, the midwives left me and DH and the baby alone for awhile and went about emptying the birth tub and packing it up, starting laundry, and generally tidying up. I finally got a piece of cold pizza, and I ate more cookies (DS1 ate a lot more of them too). After they were done cleaning, the midwives came back and did a newborn assessment, inspected the placenta, and checked on my fundus and perineum. The baby weighed 9 lbs, 1 oz, was 21.5 inches long, and had a 37 cm. head circumference. A big boy! I had one tiny tear, in just about the same location I had with DS1, but it didn't need stitches.
Baby has hardly opened his eyes since birth, partly because they are a bit puffy, and partly, I think, because all the lights were blazing when he was born. To quote DS1, "It's too shiny!"
