Grey Neil
8 lbs. 10 ozs. 21"
May 9, 2007
7:30 am- I woke up having to use the restroom. As I got out of bed, I quickly realized that I was leaking/gushing hot fluid between my legs. I ran for the bathroom trying to "catch" the liquid with my cupped hands. This didn't work very well, as I'm sure you can imagine, LOL. I lost a lot of fluid into the toilet. I looked down during a break and, sure enough, saw vernix floating around down there. My water's broken!! And it's clear, thank goodness. I called to DH (Jeremy), waking him up after about 3.5 hours of sleep. "You're not going to work today!" My hands were shaking as I excitedly called my midwife (Karen). I don't even remember that conversation...I think she just told me to "keep in touch." I was having somewhat light contractions about 3-4 minutes apart. I called my mom and my best friend (Jessica P) next. Everyone was excited.
8:30 am- Karen called to check in with me. My contractions were still 3-4 minutes apart but were not getting stronger. Jeremy had continued sleeping. I started setting up the pool and filling it. I figured I'd be getting into it soon. I did some laundry and picked up the kitchen a little bit, getting the house ready for a birth with a bunch of people.
9:30 am- Jessica P showed up and we start sitting around chatting. I'm spending time on my birth ball just being excited. Karen shows up about 10:00. Jeremy gets up and takes a shower. By now my contractions had started to really slow down. They were down to around 15-20 minutes apart. Boo.
So comes a lot of waiting. Another one of my friends has shown up (Jessica C.) Me and my girls decide to take a walk around the neighborhood. We walked about 45 minutes. Still not too much action. Everything has for the most part stalled. Karen and her assistant (Cindy) leave to do a few errands and visit another client.
We all spend the whole day sitting around our house watching movies Jeremy rented.
Evening comes around. Me and the girls decide to try another walk. Karen comes back just as we are leaving. We walk another 45 minutes. Walking by my neighbors again who are starting to get nervous since we also had walked by them earlier in the morning and had excitedly told them what was happening. My MIL (who was an L&D nurse for 20 years) has called a couple times by now getting nervous because of the lack of progress. She has started to tell me, and my husband, about the risks of infection "skyrocketing" after a certain amount of hours passing. Karen decides to go back home (about 1.5 hours away.) I'm completely comfortable with that. Jessica P goes home to be with her family and Jessica C decides to spend the night at our house.
We all finally get to bed around 11:30 pm. I am positive that I will wake in the middle of the night to active labor. That's the way it's supposed to work right??! From 2-3am I start having intense contractions 20 minutes apart. From 3-4am they're 10 minutes apart. These are pretty nasty pains. Jeremy and I start to get excited. 4-5am they slow
down to 15 minutes. I go to the bathroom and decide to just go to sleep, somewhat disgusted. I sleep pretty well from then on.
May 10, 2007
Jeremy's alarm went off at 7:30 am. He set it because of the 24-hour thing I think, his mother had made him nervous. But he still doesn't say much. Karen called. She knows we need to get something started. She told me to drink 6(!) ounces of castor oil mixed with frozen OJ concentrate. Ugh. I sent Jeremy to the store.
By 9:30 I managed to drink half of the mixture with a few close calls. I just can't do any more. I figure what's the point if I end up throwing it all up in the end??
I called my mom and tell her just to come to the house around 10am. I figured something will inevitably happen by that afternoon. She's relieved to finally come and be here with us. Jessica P has returned with her 9 mo. old Elias. Karen and Cindy return and we wait. I'm afraid to leave the house for fear that I will see my neighbors again. My MIL called earlier, checking in. She calls once more about 12:00. She calls her other son (a Physician's Assistant.) Who then calls us to make sure we know the risks we're taking. I finally decide I have to turn our phone off. This is NOT helping.
Around noon I started to get a little anxious. I really wanted this to happen! I started envisioning what would happen if we needed to go to the hospital. It was awful. A couple nervous hours go by.
2:00 pm- Some contractions are coming every few minutes. I tried not to get my hopes up too much even though I really had to breathe and walk through them. By 2:30 my midwife suggests the pool. I told her I was afraid to get in because I really did not want things to stall out again. She's pretty sure I entered active labor at 2. The next hour goes by quickly. By 3:30, I'm wanting to get in the water. Although now I am worried the castor oil has really kicked in, ah! I'm getting some gas and am afraid to get in the water. I'm moaning and pacing the house through these contractions, they are HARD! By 4:00 everything is still okay, so I decide I have to get in the water.
I lay belly down in the pool with my arms hanging over the side trying to stay an relaxed as I can. As soon as I was in the water my contractions started to change. Little by little they transformed into pushing contractions. I was still breathing and moaning through them. They get harder and Karen decides it's finally time to check my progress. I'm thankful for this as I'm really wanting to bear (sp?) down a little. She says there's still a little bit of cervix left and I need to breathe as much as I can. This probably lasted about half an hour or so. They suggested that I flip over so I'm belly up. I really did not want to move, but I did. It didn't feel much different. I was too into my contractions to really care. I'm breathing through as many contractions as I can but I can't help but push a little during each one. Karen keeps asking me if I can feel the baby moving down. "Not really" is my usual reply. The only thing I started to feel was pressure against my rectum. I knew then that is was about time. Someone walks in the front door. It's my MIL. I was happy to see her and told her it was getting really close. I was so happy at this point. I knew I was about to meet my baby. And the contractions were getting less painful and more intense with each one.
Karen checked the heartbeat a total of three times. She had a new underwater doppler and I knew she didn't really like it. The first time they had a hard time finding the heartbeat at all (that I could hear.) The second time the HB was loud and clear and perfect. The third time they had a hard time again. I was never fearful through all of this, I knew baby was just fine. I just wanted him OUT!
I was very aware of my surroundings. Jessica C was holding Owen. He would be whiny and squirmy in between contractions but would be really intense while I was moaning and starting to yell through each pain. Baby Elias was sitting in a high chair eating and grunting right along with me. Right in the middle of a particularly rough one, Owen yelled out "Hi!" I yelled "Hi!" right back at him and everybody laughed, so did I.
Through each contraction I really mostly made just one good push. The rest of the time I did "horselips" which was awesome. It totally relaxed me and made the pain dissipate. But during that one good push I really made some noise, it felt so good. I was smiling through a lot of this time. I'm using a mantra during most of this time as well. "Come out baby, come down baby." Over and over and over.
Karen tells me to reach down and feel my baby's head. Jeremy asked me where it was and I said "it's RIGHT there honey!" And it was. So exciting! The head starts to crown and I'm feeling this the whole time. I actually use one hand to add some counter pressure to my labia as the head is coming out. The head is out! I don't feel much coming now. "Come out baby." I start to give little pushes on my own. I want this baby out! The shoulders slowly come out with LOTS of pain. But there's no going back, it'll only stop once he comes out. As soon as I feel his shoulders coming free, I quickly reach down with both hands and grab him. I hadn't discussed this previously with Karen so I think she was caught a bit off guard.
5:15 pm- His eyes were wide open coming up and out of the water. His cord was wrapped around his body and between his legs. Karen was worried I was going to pull it taught and I had to tell her it was fine and she could work to untangle him. As soon as they did that they layed a towel over him and he was on my chest. We still didn't know what he was. I start to try to stimulate him along with Cindy. "Come on baby, come on baby." His eyes were open the whole time and he was looking around. It took several minutes (about 5!) for him to take a breath. His cord was pumping the whole time. I wasn't worried at all, I had complete faith in him that he would be fine. Karen gives him a little cayenne tincture on his gums. Meanwhile my MIL is going at him pretty good with a bulb syringe. I wasn't very happy with that at the time, but I do believe it was necessary. She pulled quite a bit of thick mucus out of his nose and mouth. Someone asks what we have. I feel between the legs and it is pretty obvious. I announce "it's a boy!"
5:20 pm- He finally takes a breath and gives a weak cry. Our boy is here!
Everything else is pretty standard. We sat in the pool waiting for the placenta to come. The cord stopped pulsing a while ago and Karen asks if we can cut it. Yes, that's fine with me. Jeremy asks Jessica P if she wants to cut. He's a little freaked out at this point and needs a minute. She's happy to do the honors. The placenta comes soon after. I had to push pretty good this time. I barely felt anything last time. The placental blood spills a bit into the pool and it's suddenly very dark. Time to get out. No excess bleeding is happening and I'm dried off and put into bed. I take a couple of tinctures and Grey and I settle in. I can tell I've torn pretty badly but it's decided we should just let it heal on it's own. It's a little nerve wracking but I'm told to keep my legs together religiously for the next two weeks.
I'm so happy with our birth experience. I don't believe it could have gone any better. Thanks for reading through all this. I know there are some tense errors, I'll try to fix that stuff later. I just wanted to get it all out.
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...r/IMGP1141.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...r/IMGP1133.jpg
8 lbs. 10 ozs. 21"
May 9, 2007
7:30 am- I woke up having to use the restroom. As I got out of bed, I quickly realized that I was leaking/gushing hot fluid between my legs. I ran for the bathroom trying to "catch" the liquid with my cupped hands. This didn't work very well, as I'm sure you can imagine, LOL. I lost a lot of fluid into the toilet. I looked down during a break and, sure enough, saw vernix floating around down there. My water's broken!! And it's clear, thank goodness. I called to DH (Jeremy), waking him up after about 3.5 hours of sleep. "You're not going to work today!" My hands were shaking as I excitedly called my midwife (Karen). I don't even remember that conversation...I think she just told me to "keep in touch." I was having somewhat light contractions about 3-4 minutes apart. I called my mom and my best friend (Jessica P) next. Everyone was excited.
8:30 am- Karen called to check in with me. My contractions were still 3-4 minutes apart but were not getting stronger. Jeremy had continued sleeping. I started setting up the pool and filling it. I figured I'd be getting into it soon. I did some laundry and picked up the kitchen a little bit, getting the house ready for a birth with a bunch of people.
9:30 am- Jessica P showed up and we start sitting around chatting. I'm spending time on my birth ball just being excited. Karen shows up about 10:00. Jeremy gets up and takes a shower. By now my contractions had started to really slow down. They were down to around 15-20 minutes apart. Boo.
So comes a lot of waiting. Another one of my friends has shown up (Jessica C.) Me and my girls decide to take a walk around the neighborhood. We walked about 45 minutes. Still not too much action. Everything has for the most part stalled. Karen and her assistant (Cindy) leave to do a few errands and visit another client.
We all spend the whole day sitting around our house watching movies Jeremy rented.
Evening comes around. Me and the girls decide to try another walk. Karen comes back just as we are leaving. We walk another 45 minutes. Walking by my neighbors again who are starting to get nervous since we also had walked by them earlier in the morning and had excitedly told them what was happening. My MIL (who was an L&D nurse for 20 years) has called a couple times by now getting nervous because of the lack of progress. She has started to tell me, and my husband, about the risks of infection "skyrocketing" after a certain amount of hours passing. Karen decides to go back home (about 1.5 hours away.) I'm completely comfortable with that. Jessica P goes home to be with her family and Jessica C decides to spend the night at our house.
We all finally get to bed around 11:30 pm. I am positive that I will wake in the middle of the night to active labor. That's the way it's supposed to work right??! From 2-3am I start having intense contractions 20 minutes apart. From 3-4am they're 10 minutes apart. These are pretty nasty pains. Jeremy and I start to get excited. 4-5am they slow
down to 15 minutes. I go to the bathroom and decide to just go to sleep, somewhat disgusted. I sleep pretty well from then on.
May 10, 2007
Jeremy's alarm went off at 7:30 am. He set it because of the 24-hour thing I think, his mother had made him nervous. But he still doesn't say much. Karen called. She knows we need to get something started. She told me to drink 6(!) ounces of castor oil mixed with frozen OJ concentrate. Ugh. I sent Jeremy to the store.
By 9:30 I managed to drink half of the mixture with a few close calls. I just can't do any more. I figure what's the point if I end up throwing it all up in the end??
I called my mom and tell her just to come to the house around 10am. I figured something will inevitably happen by that afternoon. She's relieved to finally come and be here with us. Jessica P has returned with her 9 mo. old Elias. Karen and Cindy return and we wait. I'm afraid to leave the house for fear that I will see my neighbors again. My MIL called earlier, checking in. She calls once more about 12:00. She calls her other son (a Physician's Assistant.) Who then calls us to make sure we know the risks we're taking. I finally decide I have to turn our phone off. This is NOT helping.
Around noon I started to get a little anxious. I really wanted this to happen! I started envisioning what would happen if we needed to go to the hospital. It was awful. A couple nervous hours go by.
2:00 pm- Some contractions are coming every few minutes. I tried not to get my hopes up too much even though I really had to breathe and walk through them. By 2:30 my midwife suggests the pool. I told her I was afraid to get in because I really did not want things to stall out again. She's pretty sure I entered active labor at 2. The next hour goes by quickly. By 3:30, I'm wanting to get in the water. Although now I am worried the castor oil has really kicked in, ah! I'm getting some gas and am afraid to get in the water. I'm moaning and pacing the house through these contractions, they are HARD! By 4:00 everything is still okay, so I decide I have to get in the water.
I lay belly down in the pool with my arms hanging over the side trying to stay an relaxed as I can. As soon as I was in the water my contractions started to change. Little by little they transformed into pushing contractions. I was still breathing and moaning through them. They get harder and Karen decides it's finally time to check my progress. I'm thankful for this as I'm really wanting to bear (sp?) down a little. She says there's still a little bit of cervix left and I need to breathe as much as I can. This probably lasted about half an hour or so. They suggested that I flip over so I'm belly up. I really did not want to move, but I did. It didn't feel much different. I was too into my contractions to really care. I'm breathing through as many contractions as I can but I can't help but push a little during each one. Karen keeps asking me if I can feel the baby moving down. "Not really" is my usual reply. The only thing I started to feel was pressure against my rectum. I knew then that is was about time. Someone walks in the front door. It's my MIL. I was happy to see her and told her it was getting really close. I was so happy at this point. I knew I was about to meet my baby. And the contractions were getting less painful and more intense with each one.
Karen checked the heartbeat a total of three times. She had a new underwater doppler and I knew she didn't really like it. The first time they had a hard time finding the heartbeat at all (that I could hear.) The second time the HB was loud and clear and perfect. The third time they had a hard time again. I was never fearful through all of this, I knew baby was just fine. I just wanted him OUT!
I was very aware of my surroundings. Jessica C was holding Owen. He would be whiny and squirmy in between contractions but would be really intense while I was moaning and starting to yell through each pain. Baby Elias was sitting in a high chair eating and grunting right along with me. Right in the middle of a particularly rough one, Owen yelled out "Hi!" I yelled "Hi!" right back at him and everybody laughed, so did I.
Through each contraction I really mostly made just one good push. The rest of the time I did "horselips" which was awesome. It totally relaxed me and made the pain dissipate. But during that one good push I really made some noise, it felt so good. I was smiling through a lot of this time. I'm using a mantra during most of this time as well. "Come out baby, come down baby." Over and over and over.
Karen tells me to reach down and feel my baby's head. Jeremy asked me where it was and I said "it's RIGHT there honey!" And it was. So exciting! The head starts to crown and I'm feeling this the whole time. I actually use one hand to add some counter pressure to my labia as the head is coming out. The head is out! I don't feel much coming now. "Come out baby." I start to give little pushes on my own. I want this baby out! The shoulders slowly come out with LOTS of pain. But there's no going back, it'll only stop once he comes out. As soon as I feel his shoulders coming free, I quickly reach down with both hands and grab him. I hadn't discussed this previously with Karen so I think she was caught a bit off guard.
5:15 pm- His eyes were wide open coming up and out of the water. His cord was wrapped around his body and between his legs. Karen was worried I was going to pull it taught and I had to tell her it was fine and she could work to untangle him. As soon as they did that they layed a towel over him and he was on my chest. We still didn't know what he was. I start to try to stimulate him along with Cindy. "Come on baby, come on baby." His eyes were open the whole time and he was looking around. It took several minutes (about 5!) for him to take a breath. His cord was pumping the whole time. I wasn't worried at all, I had complete faith in him that he would be fine. Karen gives him a little cayenne tincture on his gums. Meanwhile my MIL is going at him pretty good with a bulb syringe. I wasn't very happy with that at the time, but I do believe it was necessary. She pulled quite a bit of thick mucus out of his nose and mouth. Someone asks what we have. I feel between the legs and it is pretty obvious. I announce "it's a boy!"
5:20 pm- He finally takes a breath and gives a weak cry. Our boy is here!
Everything else is pretty standard. We sat in the pool waiting for the placenta to come. The cord stopped pulsing a while ago and Karen asks if we can cut it. Yes, that's fine with me. Jeremy asks Jessica P if she wants to cut. He's a little freaked out at this point and needs a minute. She's happy to do the honors. The placenta comes soon after. I had to push pretty good this time. I barely felt anything last time. The placental blood spills a bit into the pool and it's suddenly very dark. Time to get out. No excess bleeding is happening and I'm dried off and put into bed. I take a couple of tinctures and Grey and I settle in. I can tell I've torn pretty badly but it's decided we should just let it heal on it's own. It's a little nerve wracking but I'm told to keep my legs together religiously for the next two weeks.
I'm so happy with our birth experience. I don't believe it could have gone any better. Thanks for reading through all this. I know there are some tense errors, I'll try to fix that stuff later. I just wanted to get it all out.
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...r/IMGP1141.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...r/IMGP1133.jpg
: You rock mama!!! Your baby is beautiful! Congratulations.
