~this is still kind of a rough draft but i want to post it now anyway 
~
When I was pregnant with Noah I had no discernable contractions until, after a full day of Pitocin, the OB broke my water. Lilah was different. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions all along, and had been having different- crampier- contractions since about 37 weeks. In fact, one evening when I was right around 37 weeks along, I even called Nancy because I thought my labor might have been starting. It wasn’t, but the contractions continued. They weren’t really painful but I felt a lot of pressure and they were just somehow different than the Braxton Hicks I had been having for months.
My midwife, Nancy, was perfect and shared the same natural ideals as I did about pregnancy, labor, and birth. Because of this she did not offer, and I did not ask her, to check my cervix at any of my appointments. The contractions continued to come and the days continued to pass. On Tuesday September 28th I was 40 weeks! I knew this didn’t really mean anything, especially since Noah was induced after my due date and my mom carried both me and my sister to 42 weeks, and still it made me anxious. I think most of my anxiety came from the fear that I just would not go into labor on my own and would be forced back into the hospital. After such a wonderful pregnancy and so many months daydreaming about this baby’s perfect homebirth I just could not bear the thought that I would end up in the hospital. About this, as about everything, Nancy was wonderful. She was not worried at all. She had the utmost faith that my body knew what it was doing and she said many times, “I just know that this baby will be born at the perfect time.”
Still, I asked her about what the protocol would be if I went past my due date. The plan would be to see her backup OB, Dr. Terry in Pinehurst, at 41 weeks for an ultrasound to check fluid levels and the placenta and a Non Stress Test for the baby. If I was still pregnant at 42 weeks the same would be done. She never mentioned having to go the hospital and told me there were many things we could try to get labor going at home before that would be an issue. Still it was in the back of my mind. I made an appointment with Dr. Terry for 41 weeks, which was Tuesday October 5th. I also made an appointment for acupuncture on my due date, Tuesday, September 28th.
As much faith as I have in acupuncture and as excited as I was about the appointment, I really didn’t think it would start my labor. I hoped it would, but I wasn’t counting on it. I figured it would at least relax me though and I looked forward to the appointment. On Tuesday morning though I called Nancy just to check in and found out that she had another mom already in labor. I was so disappointed. I asked her if I should reschedule my appointment for acupuncture and she thought I should. I called Brian and he agreed. Oh how I wanted to just ignore them and go for it! But then I remembered how I had gone against my instincts during my pregnancy and labor with Noah and deeply regretted it. I had come this far, I could wait another few days. So I called and rescheduled for Thursday, September 30th at 1:00.
That morning I took Noah to preschool and started doing some errands. I was shopping in Target and the contractions were getting stronger. They actually hurt and made it difficult for me to walk around the store. I was thinking maybe I wouldn’t even need that appointment. But once I left Target they stopped.
The appointment was different than my other acupuncture treatments had been. For one thing, Kimberly had me sit in a chair, rather than lay on my back as I had always done before. I was kind of uncomfortable but I knew there was no way I could lay on my back. She felt my pulse and asked me how I was feeling, if I was feeling anxious or tired. I told her I remembered that Heather had told me that most times a woman didn’t go into labor on her own it was because she was either too tired or too stressed. I had been thinking about that a lot and wondering if I was either. Really I didn’t think I was either particularly tired or particularly stressed and I told her this. This confused her. She called Heather who told her to do some of each kind of points. She did a lot of points, many more than Heather had ever done. After a while she came in with the moxa stick and burned that over some of the points around my ankles. She said this was to focus the chi downwards. I did notice some increase in my contractions while she was doing this. After the appointment I asked if I should make another appointment if this one didn’t “work.” She said yes and she penciled me in for Monday, October 4th. She mentioned, as Nancy had earlier, that if it was going to work it would do so within 24 hours.
The next morning, Friday October 1st, I had an appointment with Nancy at 10 am. Brian and I discussed whether he should come with me and Noah but ultimately we decided that he would just go to work. I figured he would be taking off a lot of time soon enough and there was no reason to take this day off as well. We did joke that I would probably go into labor at Nancy’s and then have to drive all the way home while in labor. Still, I figured even if that happened it would just be early labor and it wouldn’t be too bad. The appointment was uneventful, everything looked and sounded good. We fed the chickens some overripe tomatoes on our way out. On the way home I noticed my contractions were getting stronger but still nothing exciting. By the time we got home they had stopped. So about this time I figured my 24 hours after the acupuncture was up and it wasn’t going to work. Oh well.
That afternoon Noah was refusing to nap and in general driving me crazy. I called Brian around 2:00 or so and told him I really needed to nap and asked him to come home. I was just tired. He came right home and even though Noah had actually fallen asleep he stayed. I napped. When I woke up I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Noah didn’t want to come so Brian stayed home with him. I was hoping this would make my contractions start up again. It worked while I was walking but they stopped when I got home.
Noah had a date with LuLu that evening. Brian ordered dinner for the two of us from Elizabeth’s and dropped Noah off at LuLu’s. We ate our dinner in front of the tv around 8. My contractions started up again during dinner but they weren’t anything unusual. I started to feel very excited that this might be it but was afraid to get too excited, for fear that nothing would come of it. I think I mentioned something to Brian around 8:30 pm, told him I was having contractions again and getting hopeful that this might be the start of the big event. I asked him if I should call Nancy before it got too late but he didn’t think so. I’m not sure why, because at this point they didn’t feel too different from what I had been feeling for weeks, but I just knew I should call Nancy. So around 9:00 I called her. I explained what was going on but she didn’t really seem to think this was it either. She said I should try to get some rest in case things picked up later. Even though I wasn’t in much pain I thought to myself, there is no way I can rest through this. She asked how far apart the contractions were but I couldn’t tell her. They seemed to get stronger and weaker but there really was no discernable pause in between them so I didn’t know how to measure them. She said to call her back when they got to be 5 minutes or fewer apart. I hung up the phone and told Brian what she had said.
Right about then they started to really pick up and I could feel when they stopped and started. I asked Brian to time them. They were 2 minutes apart- or less- though they were only lasting about 30 seconds each. It was 10:00 pm. I called Nancy back and told her. She asked whether I thought she should come. I told her I didn’t know, that I thought it would still be a long time before the baby was here. She said that didn’t matter, that if I thought this was really labor she would come. I thought, “If this isn’t labor I’m in big trouble.” I told her I felt sure this was labor. She said she would call her assistant, Wanda, and that they would be here in about an hour and 15 minutes, so around 11:15 pm. I called my mom and told her what was going on as well.
I had heard that the shower felt really great in early labor so I decided I’d try that. It really didn’t help at all though and I recall thinking I was crazy for deciding to have this baby at home where I couldn’t get an epidural. At this point it wasn’t that the contractions were so bad it was just that I figured I had a long, long way to go. I got out of the shower. At this point, every time I had a contraction I really felt like I had to go to the bathroom, but when I tried nothing would come out. Each time I was losing more of my mucous plug though and that was encouraging. It was clear, like clear jello and once I saw that it was slightly streaked with blood.
After I got out of the shower Brian asked if he should start filling up the pool- it was a blow up kiddie pool and we had planned to set it up in the family room. I wasn’t sure because I thought I still had a long way to go and I wanted to save the pool for when I felt like I couldn’t handle the pain any longer. It was a pretty big pool though and we weren’t sure how long it would take to fill so we decided to start.
At this point it hurt. During the contractions I needed Brian to press on my sacrum to ease the pain in my back. I also needed him to remind me that it was only pain, a physical sensation, and that it would end soon. Even more importantly I needed him to remind me that this is what needed to happen for our baby to be born, that soon I would be holding our new baby in my arms. I could feel the contractions in front but the strongest pain was in my back. I also felt intense downward pressure. I joked with Brian that I could really feel my chi moving downward. We had the door from the family room to the deck open and I spent most of this time out there leaning on the rail during contractions. I was moaning loudly. I still felt like I had to go to the bathroom with each contraction but I decided that must be birth related since when I tried to go nothing would come out. I decided that trying to hold it in would make me tense up all my birthing muscles and would slow my labor down so I decided to consciously relax those muscles even if it felt like I was going to pee-or worse- on myself. Incidentally, neither one happened.
Suddenly things got even more intense. I asked Brian what time it was and how much longer until Nancy was going to get here. He said it was 11:00 and that she would be here in about 15 minutes. I was thinking she and Wanda had better have some good tricks for getting me through this pain because youch- it hurt!! Brian asked if I wanted to get in the pool. I wasn’t sure because I thought I still had a long way to go and I had wanted to save that for the pain got the worst. All of the sudden I felt this crazy wiggling in my body and then my body started pushing. I jumped in the pool and told B to call Nancy, that the baby was coming and my body was pushing! Ahhhhhhh, the water felt good. I jumped in and held on to the side with my arms. It felt good to have my whole big belly under the water. I felt inside me and could feel the top of the baby’s head in my cervix. I felt hair! I was laughing and crying and saying, “I feel a lot of hair!” Brian hung up the phone and said Nancy would be here in about 5 minutes. She had said to tell me it was okay if my body pushed on its own but not to push on purpose. Ha! It felt so much better to push. It took the pain away and I knew I would push for longer than 5 minutes. My only fear was that when Nancy got there she would tell me I was only a few centimeters dilated and that I couldn’t push.
When Nancy arrived she jumped behind me. Within a few pushes the head was crowning and then starting to be born. With each push a few more inches would come out. Brian called LuLu and said come over now! She and Noah got there just after her whole head was out. Wow, the feeling of relief when her head was born was so wonderful. With the next contraction I pushed her body out easily. Nancy caught her and they helped me turn over so I was sitting, rather than kneeling on my hands and knees. They handed her right to me. Brian said “I think it’s a girl.” Noah said, “But I wanted a little brother.” It was only 11:30 pm and here she was already.
I held her in the pool for a little while and then we decided to get out and go into the bedroom. When I stood up a big gush of blood came out. I continued to lose blood and was having really painful contractions still. My blood pressure was low. Nancy and Wanda were more than wonderful. At some point I pushed out the placenta. Wanda massaged me and helped me deal with the after-pains. They gave me Rescue Remedy and some herbs to help with the bleeding. At some point they decided I need Pitocin to help my uterus clamp down and stop the bleeding so Nancy gave me a shot in my leg. Nancy figured I probably had a big clot in my uterus not letting it contract all the way down and thus causing all the bleeding. They suggested I go to the bathroom to try to pee and also to see if the clot would come out. I was so weak. They had to help me to the bathroom. Even on the toilet I was just exhausted. I could not hold myself up. I was bent over at the waist leaning over my legs. At some point some big clots did come out. After a while they suggested we try to get back to the bed. I didn’t think I could possibly manage that even with Nancy, Wanda, and Brian all helping. I asked if I couldn’t just sleep on the bathroom floor but they convinced me that that wouldn’t be very comfortable. The first time I tried to stand everything went black. Nancy said to put my head between my knees. Wanda brought some more Rescue Remedy and some honey. I tried to stand again with them supporting me. I don’t know how far we got when I passed out. Brian said I was only out for a few seconds. I woke up on the floor with the worst feeling ever. I just felt so scared and out of it. I had no idea where I was or what was going on. That only lasted a few seconds though. They got me into the bed and slowly I got back to normal. Wanda kept bringing me glasses of juice and Gatorade to drink. They kept checking my blood pressure and pulse and they were improving. Finally I was starting to feel better. I nursed Lilah on the bed and I’m sure that helped too. After a while I was back to normal and they suggested I eat something with protein. It had all happened so fast we had barely any food in the house. They made me some peanut butter crackers and I ate that. It was about 4:30 am when we went to sleep but I could barely close my eyes. All I wanted to do was stare at my beautiful new daughter. I was so enamored with her and totally on a high from her birth.
The days after her birth were wonderful. I was so proud of myself for giving birth to her at home in such a gentle and loving place. I felt such love and gratitude to Nancy and Wanda for helping her into the world and helping me with my blood loss. I felt such amazing, overpowering love for Brian for really helping me and supporting me during my labor and delivery and for trusting me to do this my own way. The way I felt could not have been more opposite from how I felt after Noah’s birth. After Noah’s birth I loved him fiercly, as I did Lilah, but I could not even think about his birth. For weeks, and even months it caused me intense anxiety every time I thought of it. To this day it makes me feel uneasy thinking of it. Their different births had no affect on how much I love them but they had totally and completely different effects on me.
~When I was pregnant with Noah I had no discernable contractions until, after a full day of Pitocin, the OB broke my water. Lilah was different. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions all along, and had been having different- crampier- contractions since about 37 weeks. In fact, one evening when I was right around 37 weeks along, I even called Nancy because I thought my labor might have been starting. It wasn’t, but the contractions continued. They weren’t really painful but I felt a lot of pressure and they were just somehow different than the Braxton Hicks I had been having for months.
My midwife, Nancy, was perfect and shared the same natural ideals as I did about pregnancy, labor, and birth. Because of this she did not offer, and I did not ask her, to check my cervix at any of my appointments. The contractions continued to come and the days continued to pass. On Tuesday September 28th I was 40 weeks! I knew this didn’t really mean anything, especially since Noah was induced after my due date and my mom carried both me and my sister to 42 weeks, and still it made me anxious. I think most of my anxiety came from the fear that I just would not go into labor on my own and would be forced back into the hospital. After such a wonderful pregnancy and so many months daydreaming about this baby’s perfect homebirth I just could not bear the thought that I would end up in the hospital. About this, as about everything, Nancy was wonderful. She was not worried at all. She had the utmost faith that my body knew what it was doing and she said many times, “I just know that this baby will be born at the perfect time.”
Still, I asked her about what the protocol would be if I went past my due date. The plan would be to see her backup OB, Dr. Terry in Pinehurst, at 41 weeks for an ultrasound to check fluid levels and the placenta and a Non Stress Test for the baby. If I was still pregnant at 42 weeks the same would be done. She never mentioned having to go the hospital and told me there were many things we could try to get labor going at home before that would be an issue. Still it was in the back of my mind. I made an appointment with Dr. Terry for 41 weeks, which was Tuesday October 5th. I also made an appointment for acupuncture on my due date, Tuesday, September 28th.
As much faith as I have in acupuncture and as excited as I was about the appointment, I really didn’t think it would start my labor. I hoped it would, but I wasn’t counting on it. I figured it would at least relax me though and I looked forward to the appointment. On Tuesday morning though I called Nancy just to check in and found out that she had another mom already in labor. I was so disappointed. I asked her if I should reschedule my appointment for acupuncture and she thought I should. I called Brian and he agreed. Oh how I wanted to just ignore them and go for it! But then I remembered how I had gone against my instincts during my pregnancy and labor with Noah and deeply regretted it. I had come this far, I could wait another few days. So I called and rescheduled for Thursday, September 30th at 1:00.
That morning I took Noah to preschool and started doing some errands. I was shopping in Target and the contractions were getting stronger. They actually hurt and made it difficult for me to walk around the store. I was thinking maybe I wouldn’t even need that appointment. But once I left Target they stopped.
The appointment was different than my other acupuncture treatments had been. For one thing, Kimberly had me sit in a chair, rather than lay on my back as I had always done before. I was kind of uncomfortable but I knew there was no way I could lay on my back. She felt my pulse and asked me how I was feeling, if I was feeling anxious or tired. I told her I remembered that Heather had told me that most times a woman didn’t go into labor on her own it was because she was either too tired or too stressed. I had been thinking about that a lot and wondering if I was either. Really I didn’t think I was either particularly tired or particularly stressed and I told her this. This confused her. She called Heather who told her to do some of each kind of points. She did a lot of points, many more than Heather had ever done. After a while she came in with the moxa stick and burned that over some of the points around my ankles. She said this was to focus the chi downwards. I did notice some increase in my contractions while she was doing this. After the appointment I asked if I should make another appointment if this one didn’t “work.” She said yes and she penciled me in for Monday, October 4th. She mentioned, as Nancy had earlier, that if it was going to work it would do so within 24 hours.
The next morning, Friday October 1st, I had an appointment with Nancy at 10 am. Brian and I discussed whether he should come with me and Noah but ultimately we decided that he would just go to work. I figured he would be taking off a lot of time soon enough and there was no reason to take this day off as well. We did joke that I would probably go into labor at Nancy’s and then have to drive all the way home while in labor. Still, I figured even if that happened it would just be early labor and it wouldn’t be too bad. The appointment was uneventful, everything looked and sounded good. We fed the chickens some overripe tomatoes on our way out. On the way home I noticed my contractions were getting stronger but still nothing exciting. By the time we got home they had stopped. So about this time I figured my 24 hours after the acupuncture was up and it wasn’t going to work. Oh well.
That afternoon Noah was refusing to nap and in general driving me crazy. I called Brian around 2:00 or so and told him I really needed to nap and asked him to come home. I was just tired. He came right home and even though Noah had actually fallen asleep he stayed. I napped. When I woke up I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Noah didn’t want to come so Brian stayed home with him. I was hoping this would make my contractions start up again. It worked while I was walking but they stopped when I got home.
Noah had a date with LuLu that evening. Brian ordered dinner for the two of us from Elizabeth’s and dropped Noah off at LuLu’s. We ate our dinner in front of the tv around 8. My contractions started up again during dinner but they weren’t anything unusual. I started to feel very excited that this might be it but was afraid to get too excited, for fear that nothing would come of it. I think I mentioned something to Brian around 8:30 pm, told him I was having contractions again and getting hopeful that this might be the start of the big event. I asked him if I should call Nancy before it got too late but he didn’t think so. I’m not sure why, because at this point they didn’t feel too different from what I had been feeling for weeks, but I just knew I should call Nancy. So around 9:00 I called her. I explained what was going on but she didn’t really seem to think this was it either. She said I should try to get some rest in case things picked up later. Even though I wasn’t in much pain I thought to myself, there is no way I can rest through this. She asked how far apart the contractions were but I couldn’t tell her. They seemed to get stronger and weaker but there really was no discernable pause in between them so I didn’t know how to measure them. She said to call her back when they got to be 5 minutes or fewer apart. I hung up the phone and told Brian what she had said.
Right about then they started to really pick up and I could feel when they stopped and started. I asked Brian to time them. They were 2 minutes apart- or less- though they were only lasting about 30 seconds each. It was 10:00 pm. I called Nancy back and told her. She asked whether I thought she should come. I told her I didn’t know, that I thought it would still be a long time before the baby was here. She said that didn’t matter, that if I thought this was really labor she would come. I thought, “If this isn’t labor I’m in big trouble.” I told her I felt sure this was labor. She said she would call her assistant, Wanda, and that they would be here in about an hour and 15 minutes, so around 11:15 pm. I called my mom and told her what was going on as well.
I had heard that the shower felt really great in early labor so I decided I’d try that. It really didn’t help at all though and I recall thinking I was crazy for deciding to have this baby at home where I couldn’t get an epidural. At this point it wasn’t that the contractions were so bad it was just that I figured I had a long, long way to go. I got out of the shower. At this point, every time I had a contraction I really felt like I had to go to the bathroom, but when I tried nothing would come out. Each time I was losing more of my mucous plug though and that was encouraging. It was clear, like clear jello and once I saw that it was slightly streaked with blood.
After I got out of the shower Brian asked if he should start filling up the pool- it was a blow up kiddie pool and we had planned to set it up in the family room. I wasn’t sure because I thought I still had a long way to go and I wanted to save the pool for when I felt like I couldn’t handle the pain any longer. It was a pretty big pool though and we weren’t sure how long it would take to fill so we decided to start.
At this point it hurt. During the contractions I needed Brian to press on my sacrum to ease the pain in my back. I also needed him to remind me that it was only pain, a physical sensation, and that it would end soon. Even more importantly I needed him to remind me that this is what needed to happen for our baby to be born, that soon I would be holding our new baby in my arms. I could feel the contractions in front but the strongest pain was in my back. I also felt intense downward pressure. I joked with Brian that I could really feel my chi moving downward. We had the door from the family room to the deck open and I spent most of this time out there leaning on the rail during contractions. I was moaning loudly. I still felt like I had to go to the bathroom with each contraction but I decided that must be birth related since when I tried to go nothing would come out. I decided that trying to hold it in would make me tense up all my birthing muscles and would slow my labor down so I decided to consciously relax those muscles even if it felt like I was going to pee-or worse- on myself. Incidentally, neither one happened.
Suddenly things got even more intense. I asked Brian what time it was and how much longer until Nancy was going to get here. He said it was 11:00 and that she would be here in about 15 minutes. I was thinking she and Wanda had better have some good tricks for getting me through this pain because youch- it hurt!! Brian asked if I wanted to get in the pool. I wasn’t sure because I thought I still had a long way to go and I had wanted to save that for the pain got the worst. All of the sudden I felt this crazy wiggling in my body and then my body started pushing. I jumped in the pool and told B to call Nancy, that the baby was coming and my body was pushing! Ahhhhhhh, the water felt good. I jumped in and held on to the side with my arms. It felt good to have my whole big belly under the water. I felt inside me and could feel the top of the baby’s head in my cervix. I felt hair! I was laughing and crying and saying, “I feel a lot of hair!” Brian hung up the phone and said Nancy would be here in about 5 minutes. She had said to tell me it was okay if my body pushed on its own but not to push on purpose. Ha! It felt so much better to push. It took the pain away and I knew I would push for longer than 5 minutes. My only fear was that when Nancy got there she would tell me I was only a few centimeters dilated and that I couldn’t push.
When Nancy arrived she jumped behind me. Within a few pushes the head was crowning and then starting to be born. With each push a few more inches would come out. Brian called LuLu and said come over now! She and Noah got there just after her whole head was out. Wow, the feeling of relief when her head was born was so wonderful. With the next contraction I pushed her body out easily. Nancy caught her and they helped me turn over so I was sitting, rather than kneeling on my hands and knees. They handed her right to me. Brian said “I think it’s a girl.” Noah said, “But I wanted a little brother.” It was only 11:30 pm and here she was already.
I held her in the pool for a little while and then we decided to get out and go into the bedroom. When I stood up a big gush of blood came out. I continued to lose blood and was having really painful contractions still. My blood pressure was low. Nancy and Wanda were more than wonderful. At some point I pushed out the placenta. Wanda massaged me and helped me deal with the after-pains. They gave me Rescue Remedy and some herbs to help with the bleeding. At some point they decided I need Pitocin to help my uterus clamp down and stop the bleeding so Nancy gave me a shot in my leg. Nancy figured I probably had a big clot in my uterus not letting it contract all the way down and thus causing all the bleeding. They suggested I go to the bathroom to try to pee and also to see if the clot would come out. I was so weak. They had to help me to the bathroom. Even on the toilet I was just exhausted. I could not hold myself up. I was bent over at the waist leaning over my legs. At some point some big clots did come out. After a while they suggested we try to get back to the bed. I didn’t think I could possibly manage that even with Nancy, Wanda, and Brian all helping. I asked if I couldn’t just sleep on the bathroom floor but they convinced me that that wouldn’t be very comfortable. The first time I tried to stand everything went black. Nancy said to put my head between my knees. Wanda brought some more Rescue Remedy and some honey. I tried to stand again with them supporting me. I don’t know how far we got when I passed out. Brian said I was only out for a few seconds. I woke up on the floor with the worst feeling ever. I just felt so scared and out of it. I had no idea where I was or what was going on. That only lasted a few seconds though. They got me into the bed and slowly I got back to normal. Wanda kept bringing me glasses of juice and Gatorade to drink. They kept checking my blood pressure and pulse and they were improving. Finally I was starting to feel better. I nursed Lilah on the bed and I’m sure that helped too. After a while I was back to normal and they suggested I eat something with protein. It had all happened so fast we had barely any food in the house. They made me some peanut butter crackers and I ate that. It was about 4:30 am when we went to sleep but I could barely close my eyes. All I wanted to do was stare at my beautiful new daughter. I was so enamored with her and totally on a high from her birth.
The days after her birth were wonderful. I was so proud of myself for giving birth to her at home in such a gentle and loving place. I felt such love and gratitude to Nancy and Wanda for helping her into the world and helping me with my blood loss. I felt such amazing, overpowering love for Brian for really helping me and supporting me during my labor and delivery and for trusting me to do this my own way. The way I felt could not have been more opposite from how I felt after Noah’s birth. After Noah’s birth I loved him fiercly, as I did Lilah, but I could not even think about his birth. For weeks, and even months it caused me intense anxiety every time I thought of it. To this day it makes me feel uneasy thinking of it. Their different births had no affect on how much I love them but they had totally and completely different effects on me.
