My dearest, sweet little boy is now 4.5 months old and I am finally putting his birth story to (electronic) paper. I’m sure that many of the details are now lost to the haze already, but that’s probably for the better otherwise this story would be 20 pages long! Just to preface the whole thing by saying I am so, so happy that I chose to have a homebirth. It was everything I imagined it could be. No it wasn’t painless, but it was amazing nonetheless (or perhaps because of this). Despite all my constant worries throughout my pregnancy, from the moment my labor began I never had a moment of doubt, never wanted to go to the hospital, never wished for an epidural. Somehow, once I was in it, I trusted my body knew what to do. I was able to be in the moment in a way I never have never before or since. I was just THERE, just doing it, just riding the waves of my body. (And I was so ready to meet my baby by this point that I would have walked through fire.) My recollection of my birth even the next day was one of confidence and happiness. Not saying it wasn’t dang hard of course, just that I was able to be present, I was able to feel powerful, and I was able to trust my body. This was (and is) awesome.
Although many of the hours of labor now escape me, a few moments stand out: singing the national anthem in the bathroom (even in my labor daze I knew somewhere in the back of my head that this was funny, but singing helped and I couldn’t think of another tune), my DH getting teary to see me in such pain and my wonderful doula comforting him since I was aware of his emotions, but was too far gone to help him or even acknowledge him, and my MW giving me a foot rub when I was in transition (once again even though I couldn’t acknowledge what she was doing at the time, I was aware of it and it moved and comforted me). So to begin. . .
After an uneventful pregnancy I was 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant and SO ready to meet my first baby. We were planning a homebirth and everything was ready and waiting, the birth pool was waiting to be filled, the freezer was stocked with meals, the box of birth supplies was opened, the hospital bag was packed “just in case”, and those tiny little outfits and diapers teased with me every moment with their sweetness. My official due date was September 26, 2009, but very early on I had mentioned to my husband that I thought October 1 (knowing that first babies are often late) would be a nice birthday. So as the end of September approached I felt like it must be time, although I did not have any impending signs of labor—no cervical changes, no difference in my Braxton hicks—just an increasing heaviness and aching in my pelvis and lower back.
About 5 am on September 30 I woke to use the bathroom and was jolted out of my semi-asleep state by seeing pinkish mucous on the tissue and realizing that my panty-liner was full of pink fluid. I didn’t know whether my BOW had sprung a leak or if this was just bloody show, but I went back to bed to try to sleep (with little luck). About 6:30 am I gave up on sleeping and I found more pink/red discharge but not much fluid, so I suspected that my BOW had not broken. When my husband woke about 8am I told him that something was starting to happen. Then I called my MW and my doula who both said the same thing; “good sign, but it could still be awhile, so try to get lots of rest.” Easier said than done! I continued to have discharge and lost what I assumed to be the mucous plug, but still wasn’t having any contrax or feeling any different really. My DH decided to stay home from work and we made a list of things to do while we waited. We enjoyed having a day together (our last as a two-some) and went through our list of chores--cleaned up the house, went to the grocery store, took some last pregnant belly pictures, I baked muffins and brownies, and then lay down to watch a movie after my MW urged me again to get some rest. But of course I just couldn’t sleep. As we did all of this I was starting to notice some contrax. . .but it wasn’t like one minute they just suddenly hit me (as I had expected somehow), instead the feeling of the Braxton hicks that I was used to just sort of picked up in intensity and regularity as the day went on.
About 5pm, 12 hours after the first seeing bloody show, DH suggested we go for a walk (I wanted to start dinner first, but he thought we should walk while the light was still good). During this half hour walk I first started to experience contrax that were definitely different than my Braxton hicks. We came home and started to make dinner and as we did so the contrax steadily picked up in intensity and regularity. By the time the meal was ready I could only eat a few bites—the contrax were just too intense now and I couldn’t manage to eat (something I would regret later!) or even sit at the table. I was still convinced however, that my contrax would wane and that I wouldn’t actually go into labor till the next day. But by about 9pm my contrax were 3-4 min apart and 40 seconds long and we decided to call the MW and doula.
By the time the doula got to our house I had made my way upstairs to the bed, thinking I would try and lay down and do some Bradley/hypnobirthing relaxation, but I found then, as I did through all of my labor, that laying down was the worst position for me. The contrax were still very manageable though, and would space out and decrease in intensity every time there a new person showed up, so I still wasn’t sure I would be in active labor that night. Every hour though seemed to bring an increase in intensity, and my MWs apprentice came over around 10pm to do my first official check. I was only 2 centimeters, which was, briefly, very disappointing, I was really hoping to hear 4 or 5 centimeters. But I found that I was too focused on each surge to keep any other worries in my head. The MW followed on the heels of the apprentice which I was surprised at given how few centimeters I was and since I had thought she wouldn’t come until I was really in active labor, but she preferred to come and sleep at our house, since she lived a good 30 minutes away. She and the apprentice did sleep a lot of the night, but it was comforting to know that they were only a shout away.
As I continued dealing with the surges, I was discovering a number of things: I needed to moan/sing and vocalize through each one, I liked laboring alone in the bathroom, and I was experiencing more and more back labor which was preventing me from relaxing even between contrax. Every time I would need to pee, I would wind up staying in the bathroom for 5-10 contrax, emptying my bowels and being less inhibited with my vocalizations than I can be in front of other people. For me, the voice was truly connected to the cervix! I don’t know if I ever would have dilated if I had felt the need to stay silent.
The next hours, through the dead of the night, are really a blur, my doula and my DH were with me every step of the way encouraging me to drink between contrax and rubbing my back during the surges. I know it was hard for my DH to see me in such pain. The contrax I could actually deal with well using my relaxation/breathing techniques and vocalization, but the back labor was getting worse and worse and that was the worst part. My contrax felt like a very tight band being squeezed across my abdomen, and that tightness began to extend more and more to my back. Eventually, even between contrax my back would not relax and this was truly the worst part of my labor experience. At some point I found myself throwing up into the bathroom trashcan (because I was sitting on the toilet already), but I can’t remember now exactly when this happened, just that I felt embarrassed that someone else had to clean up my vomit. Eventually I got in the shower and a combination of singing and letting the hot water hit my back really helped for awhile. I finally got out b/c I didn’t want to use all the hot water that we would need for filling the tub. My MW checked me again (I have no idea what time this was though) and I was 6 centimeters which didn’t seem nearly enough considering all the work I was doing, but it did allow me to get into the tub finally. The tub felt great! It allowed me to relax a bit and for the first time that night I was able to sleep between contrax, sitting in the water, my head on a folded towel on the edge of the birth pool. This was from about 4-6am.
Around 6am I could smell my MW making breakfast which briefly bothered me (both the smells and the thought that here I was doing all this work and she was just down there casually making eggs!). After this my MW decided I needed to get out of the tub to pick my labor back up. Since the back labor was so bad, my MW wanted to try a manual rotation of my babes head--thinking he must be posterior. With difficulty I got out of the tub and onto the bed (I can’t imagine having to get out of the house and into the car to go to the hospital! It was hard enough to just get the two feet from the tub to the bed!). My MW declared me a “stretchy 8” then started to rotate the head and as she did that my water suddenly broke splashing her and the apprentice. I suddenly felt this huge shift in pressure and almost immediately the contrax got more intense. They suggested I walk our stairs to get to 10 centimeters but I must have given them a look of death—that was not happening! So I went back to my happy place on the toilet! I spent 2 hours there (although at the time I thought it was about 30min) and not only got fully dialated but started moving my babe down without ever really pushing. I would just have this little grunty feeling at the end of each contrax and I could feel him shifting down, but I didn’t feel the urge to really push. They kept asking if I felt “pushy”, and I kept saying no even though I knew I was pushing a bit. I guess I expected the feeling to be overwhelming and for me it never was. Although my Los heart rate never wavering during my whole labor, around this point my blood pressure started to get a bit wonky. My MW thought I was getting dehydrated, so while I was there on the toilet my doula or my DH would make me drink between every contrax. I was so focused and internal at this point that I just sucked whenever the straw was put in my mouth without ever losing my concentration on the now-overwhelming sensations.
Eventually, my MW wanted to check me again and promised that I could get back into the tub if I wanted. So I painfully made it back to the bed and never left! I was told to try some pushes and once I started that I couldn’t have imagined moving again. I hated the pushing!!! It was such hard work, not like the more mental work of relaxing through contrax, instead this was purely hard, physical work and I was so tired and hungry by now. I just wanted it to be over so I gave it all I had. The morning light was coming in the window, it was October 1 and I knew I would be holding my baby soon. But my mind was consumed with how much it hurt! I only actively pushed for 26 minutes, but he had a long crowning, so it seemed like forever to me. Every time I just wanted his head out and every time they would say okay just a couple more pushes. They all got excited when they could see his head and they started talking about how much hair he had. . .and I just wanted it OUT! I conjured up super-human strength (or so it seemed) and finally pushed his head out. . .I expected immediate relief, I expected his whole body to just slide out. . .but his shoulders were stuck. As he was trying to start breathing, my MW got really serious and told me to push again really hard and as I did she reached in there and pulled him out. Everyone cried, “look at your baby”! I’ll never forget that first glimpse of him, his purple face tilted to one side and with such broad shoulders! They lay him on my chest and he started to cry and get pink right away. I felt so much relief that he was out and so much awe at this little person. This was the baby I had been waiting for! This was the one that had been kicking me all these months! They left the cord till it stopped pulsing which turned out to be about 30 minutes, and that whole time, DH and I just stared at him. The MW did suction him a little as he had a lot of mucous and his breathing was a little ragged. But he looked at us through his swollen eyes and I just could not get over the smell and sight of him. Everything else that happened over the next hour or two (placenta, shower, needed a catheter--but I didn't tear!) was just a whisper of a distraction to my total and intense connection to my baby. He latched onto my breast and stayed there for about 6 weeks straight!
Noam Lee was born at 9:46am on October 1, 2009. Weighing in at 9lbs and measuring 20.5 inches in length.
the day he was born: http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/w...am100109-1.jpg
the chubby guy today: http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/w...baby/naked.jpg
Although many of the hours of labor now escape me, a few moments stand out: singing the national anthem in the bathroom (even in my labor daze I knew somewhere in the back of my head that this was funny, but singing helped and I couldn’t think of another tune), my DH getting teary to see me in such pain and my wonderful doula comforting him since I was aware of his emotions, but was too far gone to help him or even acknowledge him, and my MW giving me a foot rub when I was in transition (once again even though I couldn’t acknowledge what she was doing at the time, I was aware of it and it moved and comforted me). So to begin. . .
After an uneventful pregnancy I was 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant and SO ready to meet my first baby. We were planning a homebirth and everything was ready and waiting, the birth pool was waiting to be filled, the freezer was stocked with meals, the box of birth supplies was opened, the hospital bag was packed “just in case”, and those tiny little outfits and diapers teased with me every moment with their sweetness. My official due date was September 26, 2009, but very early on I had mentioned to my husband that I thought October 1 (knowing that first babies are often late) would be a nice birthday. So as the end of September approached I felt like it must be time, although I did not have any impending signs of labor—no cervical changes, no difference in my Braxton hicks—just an increasing heaviness and aching in my pelvis and lower back.
About 5 am on September 30 I woke to use the bathroom and was jolted out of my semi-asleep state by seeing pinkish mucous on the tissue and realizing that my panty-liner was full of pink fluid. I didn’t know whether my BOW had sprung a leak or if this was just bloody show, but I went back to bed to try to sleep (with little luck). About 6:30 am I gave up on sleeping and I found more pink/red discharge but not much fluid, so I suspected that my BOW had not broken. When my husband woke about 8am I told him that something was starting to happen. Then I called my MW and my doula who both said the same thing; “good sign, but it could still be awhile, so try to get lots of rest.” Easier said than done! I continued to have discharge and lost what I assumed to be the mucous plug, but still wasn’t having any contrax or feeling any different really. My DH decided to stay home from work and we made a list of things to do while we waited. We enjoyed having a day together (our last as a two-some) and went through our list of chores--cleaned up the house, went to the grocery store, took some last pregnant belly pictures, I baked muffins and brownies, and then lay down to watch a movie after my MW urged me again to get some rest. But of course I just couldn’t sleep. As we did all of this I was starting to notice some contrax. . .but it wasn’t like one minute they just suddenly hit me (as I had expected somehow), instead the feeling of the Braxton hicks that I was used to just sort of picked up in intensity and regularity as the day went on.
About 5pm, 12 hours after the first seeing bloody show, DH suggested we go for a walk (I wanted to start dinner first, but he thought we should walk while the light was still good). During this half hour walk I first started to experience contrax that were definitely different than my Braxton hicks. We came home and started to make dinner and as we did so the contrax steadily picked up in intensity and regularity. By the time the meal was ready I could only eat a few bites—the contrax were just too intense now and I couldn’t manage to eat (something I would regret later!) or even sit at the table. I was still convinced however, that my contrax would wane and that I wouldn’t actually go into labor till the next day. But by about 9pm my contrax were 3-4 min apart and 40 seconds long and we decided to call the MW and doula.
By the time the doula got to our house I had made my way upstairs to the bed, thinking I would try and lay down and do some Bradley/hypnobirthing relaxation, but I found then, as I did through all of my labor, that laying down was the worst position for me. The contrax were still very manageable though, and would space out and decrease in intensity every time there a new person showed up, so I still wasn’t sure I would be in active labor that night. Every hour though seemed to bring an increase in intensity, and my MWs apprentice came over around 10pm to do my first official check. I was only 2 centimeters, which was, briefly, very disappointing, I was really hoping to hear 4 or 5 centimeters. But I found that I was too focused on each surge to keep any other worries in my head. The MW followed on the heels of the apprentice which I was surprised at given how few centimeters I was and since I had thought she wouldn’t come until I was really in active labor, but she preferred to come and sleep at our house, since she lived a good 30 minutes away. She and the apprentice did sleep a lot of the night, but it was comforting to know that they were only a shout away.
As I continued dealing with the surges, I was discovering a number of things: I needed to moan/sing and vocalize through each one, I liked laboring alone in the bathroom, and I was experiencing more and more back labor which was preventing me from relaxing even between contrax. Every time I would need to pee, I would wind up staying in the bathroom for 5-10 contrax, emptying my bowels and being less inhibited with my vocalizations than I can be in front of other people. For me, the voice was truly connected to the cervix! I don’t know if I ever would have dilated if I had felt the need to stay silent.
The next hours, through the dead of the night, are really a blur, my doula and my DH were with me every step of the way encouraging me to drink between contrax and rubbing my back during the surges. I know it was hard for my DH to see me in such pain. The contrax I could actually deal with well using my relaxation/breathing techniques and vocalization, but the back labor was getting worse and worse and that was the worst part. My contrax felt like a very tight band being squeezed across my abdomen, and that tightness began to extend more and more to my back. Eventually, even between contrax my back would not relax and this was truly the worst part of my labor experience. At some point I found myself throwing up into the bathroom trashcan (because I was sitting on the toilet already), but I can’t remember now exactly when this happened, just that I felt embarrassed that someone else had to clean up my vomit. Eventually I got in the shower and a combination of singing and letting the hot water hit my back really helped for awhile. I finally got out b/c I didn’t want to use all the hot water that we would need for filling the tub. My MW checked me again (I have no idea what time this was though) and I was 6 centimeters which didn’t seem nearly enough considering all the work I was doing, but it did allow me to get into the tub finally. The tub felt great! It allowed me to relax a bit and for the first time that night I was able to sleep between contrax, sitting in the water, my head on a folded towel on the edge of the birth pool. This was from about 4-6am.
Around 6am I could smell my MW making breakfast which briefly bothered me (both the smells and the thought that here I was doing all this work and she was just down there casually making eggs!). After this my MW decided I needed to get out of the tub to pick my labor back up. Since the back labor was so bad, my MW wanted to try a manual rotation of my babes head--thinking he must be posterior. With difficulty I got out of the tub and onto the bed (I can’t imagine having to get out of the house and into the car to go to the hospital! It was hard enough to just get the two feet from the tub to the bed!). My MW declared me a “stretchy 8” then started to rotate the head and as she did that my water suddenly broke splashing her and the apprentice. I suddenly felt this huge shift in pressure and almost immediately the contrax got more intense. They suggested I walk our stairs to get to 10 centimeters but I must have given them a look of death—that was not happening! So I went back to my happy place on the toilet! I spent 2 hours there (although at the time I thought it was about 30min) and not only got fully dialated but started moving my babe down without ever really pushing. I would just have this little grunty feeling at the end of each contrax and I could feel him shifting down, but I didn’t feel the urge to really push. They kept asking if I felt “pushy”, and I kept saying no even though I knew I was pushing a bit. I guess I expected the feeling to be overwhelming and for me it never was. Although my Los heart rate never wavering during my whole labor, around this point my blood pressure started to get a bit wonky. My MW thought I was getting dehydrated, so while I was there on the toilet my doula or my DH would make me drink between every contrax. I was so focused and internal at this point that I just sucked whenever the straw was put in my mouth without ever losing my concentration on the now-overwhelming sensations.
Eventually, my MW wanted to check me again and promised that I could get back into the tub if I wanted. So I painfully made it back to the bed and never left! I was told to try some pushes and once I started that I couldn’t have imagined moving again. I hated the pushing!!! It was such hard work, not like the more mental work of relaxing through contrax, instead this was purely hard, physical work and I was so tired and hungry by now. I just wanted it to be over so I gave it all I had. The morning light was coming in the window, it was October 1 and I knew I would be holding my baby soon. But my mind was consumed with how much it hurt! I only actively pushed for 26 minutes, but he had a long crowning, so it seemed like forever to me. Every time I just wanted his head out and every time they would say okay just a couple more pushes. They all got excited when they could see his head and they started talking about how much hair he had. . .and I just wanted it OUT! I conjured up super-human strength (or so it seemed) and finally pushed his head out. . .I expected immediate relief, I expected his whole body to just slide out. . .but his shoulders were stuck. As he was trying to start breathing, my MW got really serious and told me to push again really hard and as I did she reached in there and pulled him out. Everyone cried, “look at your baby”! I’ll never forget that first glimpse of him, his purple face tilted to one side and with such broad shoulders! They lay him on my chest and he started to cry and get pink right away. I felt so much relief that he was out and so much awe at this little person. This was the baby I had been waiting for! This was the one that had been kicking me all these months! They left the cord till it stopped pulsing which turned out to be about 30 minutes, and that whole time, DH and I just stared at him. The MW did suction him a little as he had a lot of mucous and his breathing was a little ragged. But he looked at us through his swollen eyes and I just could not get over the smell and sight of him. Everything else that happened over the next hour or two (placenta, shower, needed a catheter--but I didn't tear!) was just a whisper of a distraction to my total and intense connection to my baby. He latched onto my breast and stayed there for about 6 weeks straight!
Noam Lee was born at 9:46am on October 1, 2009. Weighing in at 9lbs and measuring 20.5 inches in length.
the day he was born: http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/w...am100109-1.jpg
the chubby guy today: http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/w...baby/naked.jpg
