Birth Stories

~*~  ~*~  ~*~

Caroline's birth of Son

~*~  ~*~  

Thanks to my very awesome & very natural midwife (who did some prenatal care, but we wanted to have the actual birth unassisted) we got a dangerous bout of toxemia corrected just in time.

And we got the baby turned to anterior, also just in time. The midwife did a diaphragamatic release on me 3 days before the due date, and I tried to imitate it for the following days, hoping Baby would not turn back to posterior. Baby did not.

So when the time came everything was ready. But both of the conditions I had would almost definitely NOT have been corrected in most hospitals, since usually they say there is nothing that can be done for either one. I was very blessed to have found my prenatal-care midwife.

~*~  ~*~  ~*~

So Friday, October 17th dawned... a day before my due date. I felt just a tad more crampy than usual during the day. I had been cramping a little every day for 3 weeks. But when I saw pink mucus I had my suspicions that Baby would arrive in the next day or three. We hoped Jeremy would not have to go in to work, but rather that he could stay home & deliver a baby. But 3 pm came, and work started. That's ok. It was Friday. Maybe God would bring our baby into this world at the perfect time: AFTER the weekend started, so we would lose less income.

Then at about 8 pm I was resting at home, while Jeremy worked, and I felt even more crampy. I wondered if one certain contraction I felt was more like the real thing... but then it did not recur for a long time. The painless or almost painless kind kept coming at about 7-10 minutes apart, but that was the case for a few days, so I did not get excited about that. I fell asleep on the couch for an hour or so. . It was now 11 pm. Jeremy worked until 1 am, so I always try to be up when he arrives home. Thus my nap on the couch, rather than going to bed. Then I got up to pee. Long gone was the pink mucus! This was real blood! I had a HUGE smile on my face! My BABY is coming soon! I called Jeremy at work and asked, "Do you want to have a baby?" He got SOOOO excited & asked, "Should I come home now?" I said maybe he should work the last two hours, and if anything changed I would call. I still had had only two real contractions by this time, and they were hours before, at about 9 or 9:30. Blood isn't enough, I thought, and I expected to labor for at least 12 hours, maybe 36, like my mom did with me. Since Jeremy can be here in 10 minutes, I thought we should hold off. I took a walk around the block, hoping to stimulate some contractions. No news, still. It was just a regular walk, no real contractions.

Jeremy came home at 1:15 am. He asked how it was going, and I said there wasn't much change, so maybe he should shower & we could go to bed quick in case something DID change soon. We were in bed at 2:30, and I started having trouble sleeping because contractions started waking me up. But they were still pretty light and sporadic. I told Jeremy I would putz around downstairs, and that he should sleep so he could be useful later. I goofed around on the computer, and danced to the sounds of silence. I walked around the dining table, trying to move Baby down. But contractions were not really that strong yet, and they were at about 5-7 minutes. Suddenly they were at 3 minutes. I woke Jeremy up, because they went from 7 to 3 pretty fast, and I wanted some counter-pressure on my back to get through them.

It was about 6:30 am when I started getting counter pressure. This is where I start considering it actual labor, rather than, "Oh, MAYBE I am in labor, but maybe it will stall." So 6:30 am I got help with counter-pressure, and Jeremy checked me & verified what I had already checked on myself: I was dilated to 3 cm already, and I thought I was just starting! I thought I would be at 1 or 2, but the really amazing thing is that I jumped to 6 cm about 20 minutes later! At 6 cm I had all the symptoms of transition, but I thought, no, that's supposed to happen at 10. It will be worse later. Still, I threw up, and had the shakes.

During this time I was in & out of the tub. Jeremy gave counter-pressure while I was in the tub, because I rolled onto my side & exposed my back to him. Next thing we knew, I was at 10 cm, at about 8 am! This was only 90 minutes after I knew for sure I was going to have this baby today. I got out of the tub, because it was going to be hard to keep twisting myself around like that, with the baby so low now. And it was definitely baby-time, as the pushing urges had begun! (And there was no "repeat transition" at 10 cm. I have no idea why I had the shakes and vomiting at 6 cm. I also never got the feeling like "I can't go on," or "This is too much". I was actually WAITING for this freak-out, HOPING for it, because it means labor is almost over! But it didn't come, so I thought there was a decent amount more labor ahead, even though all the stats said I was really close...)

At 8:30 I got out of the tub. Jeremy called the midwife sometime around now, because my water still had not broken. Do we leave it? I said to Jeremy that if we break it the cord can come out & become prolapsed by the descending head. We better ask. (I never lost my head during my labor, strangely enough. I thought I would be out of my mind, but I continued to be rational during the entire birth, and helped Jeremy to remember things that needed to be done.) The midwife said to leave the amniotic sack intact, and it would either break on its own or we would have to open it upon the birth of our baby.

So time to push... The amniotic sack was bulging REALLY far out of the cervix by now, but I thought it was still going to be a while. Jeremy got a plastic drop cloth onto the living room floor and on top of that, a blanket, and many towels. I got a chair and placed it near the edge, so I could lean over it like a birthing ball. The chair has French Toile (red & white) pictures of peasants on its upholstery, which gave me something to focus on. (In the tub I focused on a spot of mildew! HAR!) So I was leaning over this chair, looking at these pictures of peasant women in long dresses, and pushing on our baby. I thought of how those peasant women also had home births. No interventions, no drugs, no coldness & antiseptic feeling. Just their home & their families... Maybe the local midwife was there, maybe not.

Jeremy was awesome, always remembering to tell me what I needed to do, like relax my mouth, or push hard, or his best line: "Let it wash over you. Don't fight it. It needs to happen. Let it happen..." I thought that was pretty insightful. And it did help! A few times I forgot, and didn't realize I was fighting it, although usually I knew there was no point in that. But when I did forget, Jeremy reminded me.

~*~  ~*~  ~*~

Suddenly, at 9:20 am, the bowling ball inside me was threatening to come out! Jeremy tried to keep me oiled down below, but he only managed to apply the oil twice, due to the rapid events that would follow. Even though it was painful I didn't feel like I would tear apart if I let go & let it happen, something I also expected, and something that is in almost every natural birth story I have read. I guess I knew it HAD to come out, so I kept trying to relax my nether regions. Must've worked, because we literally went from a bulging sack to POP! My water broke all over the towels, and the baby was out before I could pant through crowning! In one push the entire baby slid out, and Jeremy had to really hustle to get a hold of him! From crowning at 9:20 to birth at 9:21.

I could hardly believe it was over, since I had just really begun to recognize that it had begun. And there he was, a purple boy, sputtering & crying right away, with no need for help. We angled him downward, and decided to suction just to be sure, but he was pinking up immediately, and we think he was about a 9 on the APGAR scale, from our best judgment. We would have given him a perfect 10, but his extremities remained purple for minute or two. He will be like his Mama, probably, with cold limbs. Poor Baby! But otherwise, he is PERFECT!

There were absolutely no issues transitioning him to life outside. We waited a while after the cord stopped pulsing to tie it off & cut it. We weighed him on our friend's baby scale, and he is 7 lbs. 14 1/2 oz. Just shy of 8 pounds. Not bad. I am glad he got his last little growth spurt after my toxemia issues became apparent & I increased my protein in my 9th month. He could have been very small.

I pushed out the placenta and had no idea it could be that big! I thought it was about half that size. I have learned a lot about births, including on YouTube, watching hundreds of deliveries, but I only saw one that included the placenta, and I forgot the size of it, I guess.

All was well, until I realized I was bleeding more than I thought I should. It was borderline-to-too-much, but borderline hemorrhage is still scary, and so we put in another call to the midwife. Her suggestions & a little common sense had the problem resolved without incident. I also passed two more clots of placenta, so even though the placenta looked solid, apparently there were two little areas that were not sealing up inside, but now they are fine.

I had no issues with "turning inside out" at crowning, as I saw so often on YouTube, so I have no hemorrhoids, and Jeremy checked me for tears, and there are none! WOW! Considering how fast Baby came out!

Well, that is my wonderful day, on October 18th, 2008. The day I said I would have my baby. My baby will be prompt and punctual like his mama. He came right on time, and didn't make me wait. If he'd had a cell phone in there, I am sure he would have called to let me know the hour of his expected arrival so I could have tea on...

Email