Tristyn Jane Noelle's Birth story

I vowed not to have a baby on Jan. 30 of this year. I refused to have a baby that day. It would be the one year anniversary of my mother's death and I was not in the right state of mind to deal with labor on that day. Nuh-uh. No way was it gonna happen. I had a little talk with God and Baby…Ok guys…not on the 30th. The 29th? Sure! The 31st? Not a problem. Just not the 30th.

My child and God have a sense of humor. God also has a way of knowing exactly what I needed.

The evening of the 29th Michael and I went to dinner at some friends' house. We were out late and had a lot of fun! On the ride home I felt extremely nauseas and about 7 miles from home I motioned frantically for Michael to pull over the van while I willed the automatic window to roll down faster before my dinner from 4 hrs. previous decided to revisit. It took 10 minutes before the gagging subsided and another 5 minutes for Michael to get everything cleaned up off the van. We got home and I showered and then crawled into bed where I spent all night dreaming I was having contractions. I woke up sometime around 11 or 12 and felt awful. I was very out of sorts and didn't feel like doing much of anything. I was feeling raw emotions for the day itself and tried to busy myself with laundry and baby prep so I didn't have to think about it. I had started having contractions at 2:30pm and they were coming steady although not overly painful. I tried laying down to see if it would help and it only made things worse. I tried taking a few showers and it would help for a little bit, but the minute I got out I was back to contracting. Around 5:30 I told my husband I was thinking it might be the real deal when I went to the bathroom and found I had loads of mucus plug/ bloody show and he called my midwife around 6 pm. She said to chill out and relax and eat something and call her back in an hr. Now although I had been drinking all day I hadn't been able to eat. I just didn't feel like anything sounded appetizing. So I forced myself to eat some crackers with Peanut Butter and some orange juice (yeah BIG mistake lol.) I took another shower and Michael called the midwife again at 7pm to tell her my contractions were really close together and strong. He had been in a flurry of cleaning and taking care of the kids and now started setting up my birth pool. I told him I didn't want it, but he thought it would be smart to have it set up just in case I changed my mind (smarty pants!) My midwife arrive at around 7:30 with her daughter and her daughter's friends because they had been shopping at the mall and she was worried with how my contractions were coming we'd have a repeat of Steven's birth ( 4 hrs 45 min start to finish) and she didn't want to chance missing it. She could tell I was in active labor and we decided to do a check to see where I was at. I was dilated to a very stretchy 4 so she called my other midwife and told her not to rush herself too much that we had some time. She left to take the girls to meet someone to pick them up and get herself something to eat. At some point my father called to check on me and I told him I was in labor (which was a mistake on my part…I should have known how crazy he'd get without my mom to keep him calm.) He then ran off to tell my sisters (one of which I am cool with, the other I want nothing to do with for multiple reasons.) I remember my husband ordering pizza for him and the kids for dinner. I remember freaking out the delivery guy by telling him what was going on and promising I wouldn't make him deliver the baby that delivering the pizza was enough. I remember my younger sister coming by to check on me on her way home from work and promising to come back after she went home and changed out of her uniform. Michael hopped in the shower while my Aunt sat with me (she had come over earlier to help michael with the house and kids.) My older sister then shows up. I wasn't happy she was there, but wasn't going to make a big deal. I knew as soon as the midwife arrived I had to say the word and she'd clear the house out of anyone I didn't "need" there. All I remember is the phone rang for the millionth time that day and my sister went into the kitchen to grab it for me. Michael heard her voice and came out of the shower and in no uncertain terms told her to get out. I tried to keep him calm, but due to some very bad blood between them (one of the many issues I have with my sister and her husband) he didn't even hear me talking to him. They had words and she left and proceeded to my father's house (right around the corner) where she came up with this grand story of how my evil husband threatened the cops on her and how poor little me was crying for her to stay. This all blew up into some major drama all while I'm trying to labor. Thankfully Michael handled it so I didn't have to (and apologised to me for stressing me out) and soon my midwifes arrived back at the house. We had the birth tub half filled by now and I was laughing and joking between contractions. At around 9 pm I decided to get into the tub (which actually got filled all the way this time around!) The contractions were getting serious and I was going into my zone. The one thing I remember through it all was making sure I relaxed INTO the contraction and didn't fight against it. I didn't make any noises like I had during my son's birth. I was very quiet and focused. At some point I threw up my crackers, peanut butter and OJ (yuck!) I remember I asked my midwife to check me and then decided I didn't want to know because if I wasn't as far along as I wanted to be then I might get disappointed or discouraged and it was better not to know. At around 9:45pm I started feeling pushy. I told the midwife and she checked me and told me I was a 9, but she didn't want me to try to push because she didn't want my cervix to swell. So I relaxed through a few more contractions and then it hit me. I HAVE to push. I told my midwife so and she said that was fine if my body was telling me to do it. This was at about 9:55 pm. I had 3 good contractions and pushed for about 10 minutes and out she came, Tristyn Jane Noelle at 10:03 pm. She was perfect and pink and tiny as can be at 7 lbs and 20 inches long. She was my smallest baby, but also the most healthy straight out of the womb. Her apgars were 10/10 at birth and she was a champ at nursing right away (although she is tongue-tied like my other two were so that will have to be fixed eventually.) I remember birthing the placenta and then worrying that my dog might get it…

I called my dad at around 11pm to let him know he had another granddaughter. I was expecting him to come meet her, but my older sister passive-aggressively left one of her sons with my dad overnight so he was stuck there for the night. I let it ride because I wasn't going to let her rain on my parade and so we called everyone else we could think of to come meet Tristyn. I didn't manage to crawl into bed until somewhere around 3 am, but it was very worth it to feel the love and support of the people that truly care for us. My eldest son had tried to stay up to meet the baby when she was born, but fell asleep about 30 minutes before she arrived. He got to meet her the next morning. My youngest son however woke up about 2 hrs. after she was born and got to hold and love on her and nurse next to her before he was toddled off to bed again.

I realized after everything had settled down that night that my mother was with me and had helped me through, even though she couldn't be here physically. January 30th will now be a day to celebrate the life of my beautiful little girl and to celebrate the life of my mother for what it was and no longer will need to be a day of sadness and sorrow.

Pictures!!