Birth as I know it

So I have been wanting to write about my birth for some time now. I just haven't taken the time. Most of this you already know but I just kind of wanted to have a record of it for myself. Then maybe I could print it off and put it in her baby book or something like that. I am going to start a little before the birth, or a lot before. Sorry this is going to be really long.

So I was born and then I grew up. I am just kidding. We started trying to get pregnant in the summer sometime of '09. I didn't really start tracking it until September and by Christmas I was pretty sure I was pregnant. It wasn't until New Years Eve that we took the test and it confirmed my suspicions. So you know that I have had some exposure to births and especially home birth. I wasn't for sure that was what I wanted to do but once I prayed I knew for sure. Jeff did as well and felt it was right but still had some reservations. There a couple of reasons why I decided to have my baby at home. The first was that I wanted my birth to be how I wanted it to be. Meaning that I didn't want anyone taking control of my birth or telling me I had to do certain things (which can happen in hospitals). Secondly, I wanted to be comfortable during my birth and the thought of a hospital room did not make me feel comfortable. I wanted to be familiar with my environment and be able to do go where I wanted. The last one is that I am young and healthy and there is not reason to believe that I would need intervention of any kind. I am really low risk and so was a perfect candidate for home birth.

As you know my due date was Aug. 29 but that day came and went with no signs of her coming. My sister Rachel was here waiting around and after a week overdue my mom arrived. We tried taking different herbs, taking walks every night and having sex. You know all the usual stuff but she wasn't ready to come. Maybe to be honest I should say that I wasn't really ready for her to come. I was scared and was struggling to accept that this was going to happen. I was working on these emotional aspects of the birth as well as we waited for her. I cried most every day during this period. I was just so frustrated and doing some emotional work also made me cry. A problem came up and that was that my midwife couldn't legally keep seeing me after 2 weeks overdue without a doc saying it was ok. The problem is that the doctor exam would have cost us $500+ out of pocket. That was not good. So we started praying more earnestly and doing some other things. Plus Rachel had already been here for two weeks and needed to go home and had a flight scheduled for 9/11 to go home. But there was not pressure at all :)

So finally on the night of 9/9-9/10 I was up every once in a while having come contractions. They were more than I had ever had before that I knew this must be something. I was able to sleep during the night but when the morning came I knew it was the day. I told Jeff to call into work. The contractions were still not really regular by about 10 am and so we decided to take a walk. As we did the contractions started coming on a little stronger. It was not the most pleasant walk I have every taken. We had to keep stopping for me to have a contraction. It was good, though because I wanted them to get more regular. It really wasn't until about noon or so that they were finally regular and had some strength to them. They were really too painful so I just tried to relax. We finally called my midwives around 2pm I think and they showed up around 3 or 4. So from here on out time becomes really blurry to me. I will just write what I remember in order but the actual time things are happening, I am not sure.

When my midwives showed up we set up the birthing tub. Oh my goodness, this was probably the best decision I made about my birth. The warm water made such a huge difference in the contractions. I would highly recommend it. I sat in that for a long time and just contracted. They were getting a lot more strong and regular. Jeff got in the tub with me at some point and was also rubbing my back and such, as most of my labor was in my lower back. Now I have to tell you something else here. Having a baby at home is different because my midwives didn't check to see how dilated or anything. They believe (and so do I) in as little intervention as possible. They would check her heartbeat every once in a while. So were continuing to progress or so I thought. I finally go to a place where I hit a plateau. My contractions were staying about the same and it has been a long time and I wasn't feeling the need to push yet. We decided that I would go and lay down on my bed for a bit to see if I could relax or maybe even sleep. They felt that I was getting too tired and I might not have the energy to push when needed. It was nice to lay down but my contractions did hurt a little more when I was out of the tub. I didn't know why I wasn't progressing more. I was starting to get a little frustrated.

My midwife came to me and asked why she thought I was progressing. "I don't know, I guess I may be a little scared still". She kept telling me that I just had to let it all go. I wasn't really sure what she meant but I hadn't cried or anything during the birth (which surprised me). It is like I was keeping all of my emotion in and thus keeping Jane in too. That may not make sense to you but that is how I felt. I couldn't just relax and let it all go. So my midwife suggested that I sit on the toilet for a minute with just Jeff in the bathroom. Before this time I had started feeling a little nauseated. Jeff and I sat in the bathroom and I was having contractions and being really frustrated ( Jeff says I apologized to him). Well it finally all came to a head and I threw up a lot. I couldn't believe it. I did feel better. It was sometime soon there after that I had the desire to push.

They finally checked me and I was still only dilated to an 8. So even though I needed to push I wouldn't have been able to get her out. So they were thinking that maybe her head was in a funky position and that was keeping her in. At this same time I started to have the desire to push. My midwives said that I should put my head on the ground and but in the air in hopes that she would move down and reposition. So I do it but I was also feeling like I needed to push and it hurt REALLY bad. One side note here on pushing. I could not believe how strong the desire was. I have never felt anything like that. So they were telling me not to really push but I honestly couldn't help it. Well the butt in the air thing wasn't too successful and so they thought I must have a cervical lip, which means my the cervix is caught up on something. So my midwife has to go in and manually remove the lip (using her finger) and she had to do it while I was contracting. Jeff said that was the worst part, I guess I really wailed. But when she did this I finished dilating and was able to start really pushing.

The pushing part is interesting because it doesn't really hurt too much it is just really uncomfortable. I got back in the tub and started to really give it my all. Well so I thought. Her head started coming out a little but she crowned for 45 minutes. It was funny because they kept telling me to reach down there and touch her head so I could see that she was coming. The problem is that, to me, it never felt that it was getting out any more. They kept checking her heart beat (which was annoying) but it never got too high. At one point they had me stand up and put one leg up kind of like a lunge to try and get her to come more. My perineum was just really not elastic. I think that I was still scared for her to come and I was fighting having her come out. It is funny because I often have this image flash in my head, it is of everyone surrounding the tub looking at me and cheering me on. I remember my mom crying somewhere around this time but she kept being really positive. Even though it was the middle of the night Mabel had woken up and was sitting on Rachel's lap watching me. I was so amazed that she didn't say a word but just sat there and watched. Her head finally made it out and with one more push the rest was out (this was about 3:30 am). They took and put her on my chest and she was struggling a little to breathe. My midwife gave her a breathe with her mouth and then told me to do the same and just kiss her and talk to her. Within a minute she was breathing fine. She did seem to have a lot of extra mucus in her mouth but they said that it wasn't uncommon for babies born in water.

I stepped out of the tub (large amounts of blood came out, scary but normal) and laid on a bed of sort they had made on the floor right next to it. I was still holding Jane and the midwife started massaging my belly to help the afterbirth come. This surprisingly hurt and I was thinking 'how could this hurt when I just delivered a baby'. So they asked me to try and stand up a little to help the afterbirth come and I just started to stand and PLOP it fell out. They checked it and it was all there so we made our way back to my bed. We laid on the bed and tried to get Jane to latch and nurse but she was struggling to do so. We finally cut the cord and I realized that I was burning in my vaginal area. They took a look at it and I had torn really badly. The tear was a labial tear which means I tore forward not back (although I did have a small perineal tear). They called another midwife who specialized in suturing and she agreed to come. While we were waiting for her the midwives weighed, measure and generally checked out Jane. The other midwife arrived around 5:30 or 6 am and I spent the next hour and a half getting sewn up. Jane would still not latch and only actually nursed once in the first 24 hrs of her life. My midwives came back over and suggested we get a nipple shield and Jeff gave her a blessing and she started to nurse fine. I was kind of scary for a bit and she cried so much that first day that she went kind of horse.

A couple of last notes. I know that this seems really bad or hard or whatever but you can't believe the feeling you have when they set that baby on you for the first time. There is nothing like it and all that stuff you just went through just seems to melt away. I have never felt such love in my life. I think that is one of the reasons why I still love having her lay and sleep on my chest (which she actually is right now). It is hard to really portray all of the feelings that were going on and still do. I am just so excited for you to experience these things. It is so amazing and I wouldn't take it back for anything.

I believe that I struggled so much with my birth is because of emotional things holding me back. I know that this is not a popular view and it is ok if people don't agree. I know this for myself. My own fears of the birth and becoming a mother stopped my progress in different points in the birth. I bottled up my emotions. Can you believe I didn't cry once during the birth? That is just ridiculous. I actually have cried a couple of time while I have been writing this. Sometimes I am a little slow but I eventually get there.