Home Birth Story: L’s Birth Story
I woke up around 5:30 am on Thursday, August 9, 2007 with mildly painful contractions. They didn’t feel exactly like the Braxton Hicks I had felt occasionally for the past couple of months, but they weren’t so different that I thought they were the real thing. I figured they would go away soon, especially if I got up and began moving around. Since my midwife was out of town at a wedding, I had been willing my water to remain intact for the past two days. I truly believed that I would be able to arrest any contractions that began in order to stop labor, as long as my water didn’t break. My midwife, Dr. K, would be back on Monday, and after that I had given myself permission for labor to begin … not before!
I woke M up and told him I was having mildly painful contractions. He mumbled something about more Braxton Hicks, and I got out of bed. I showered and actually went all the way through my normal morning hygiene routine, something I hadn’t done in a long time! I felt like I was glowing by the time I was done. Looking back, I realize I was deliberately fussing around with my appearance, clothes, etc, almost like I was getting ready for a date! By then it was around 6:30, and I turned on the local news and waited for M to get up. Contractions were continuing, but nothing too bad. I still wasn’t convinced this was it. I decided to grab my watch and see if there was a pattern. M got up around 7 and I told him I wanted chocolate chip whole wheat pancakes! He laughed and obliged, making me bacon too. I was really glad I had such a hardy breakfast later on in the day.
While M cooked, I noticed my contractions were about 6-7 minutes apart and 1 minute long usually, but still somewhat erratic. I began to have to close my eyes through them, and it took M a little while to catch on that I wasn’t talking during them, and he shouldn’t either. I still didn’t want M to call in to his work yet, or call the apprentice midwife/doula/Bradley childbirth teacher K, or call my mom because I was convinced this would stop. We had breakfast and watched the Today Show, and I timed contractions.
M called K around 8am and let her know I was contracting. From what I could gather, K told M that although she was still a senior apprentice midwife, she would be comfortable staying with us if we were comfortable delivering at home. She said she would drive over to Dr. K’s office and pick up my chart and some supplies, and to call her back when the contractions were about 5 minutes apart and 1 minute long. I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were already there. For the next hour they were 4.5-5 minutes apart and about a minute long but still completely manageable. I commented to M that I couldn’t believe that epidurals were so widely used, since it didn’t hurt all that much! I called K back around 9am and updated her, and she asked me how I was feeling. I told her that I didn’t know because the contractions seemed to be progressing, but I still didn’t believe I was really in labor. She said she would swing back by her house and pick up a few other items, but she would be on her way. M called and left a message for his boss that I was in labor, and he wouldn’t be coming to work.
I called my mom and told her the situation, and she was immediately excited! I warned her that I wasn’t sure this was real labor, but she said she would call my dad and they may leave around noon to drive to our house, 6 hours away. I told her to call before they left and make sure things were progressing before they came.
M meanwhile began getting nervous, although I was completely calm, and started cleaning like a maniac. His very own nesting phase! He cleaned the entire kitchen, turned up the hot water heater, put the shower curtain under the bed sheet, moved the furniture all around to make room for the tub, put out the tarps and set up the birth pool, brought out all the bags with all the birth supplies I had prepared, set up the video camera in the corner, re-inflated my yoga ball, and generally fussed around making sure everything was ready. I felt the need to apologize more than once that I couldn’t help him. He just said my work was ahead of me.
Over the next hour my contractions got more erratic in spacing but began to lengthen to about 1.5 minutes. I was worried K would drive all the way over to our house, an hour and a $3 toll away, and everything would peter out. I was also worried because she had her own out-of-state wedding to attend that weekend, and she was planning to leave Friday morning. If this was really it, it needed to happen and quickly! If not, it needed to stop and go away until Tuesday and stop worrying me!
About that time the President came on TV for a news conference, and I decided I could not do the timing anymore. M took the watch, and I labored on the couch and the yoga ball a while. Things started getting serious, and time started to get a little fuzzy around the edges. I was lying on the couch through contractions, went back and forth to the bathroom a few times, and lost my pants and undies somewhere in the mix. M later told me that he thought it was funny that I was running around in just my shirt (“Women in Science … ‘cause smart is sexy!”) I decided I wanted to labor a while sitting backward on the toilet with a pillow under my forehead, then I would move to stand over the sink or the bed, or I would labor on my knees with my forehead over the pillow. M stayed with me the whole time, fetching water or a cool rag, telling me he was right there with me and that I was doing great. I tried the classic “Bradley pose” only once, and it did not work for me at all! For some reason leaning over something felt much better to me.
My dad called and left a corny message that wasn’t at all funny in the moment. When M called my mom back around noon, he told her that things were progressing. She said they were leaving for our house soon. K arrived and asked me how I was doing. For the first time, I realized this might be real. I told her I was ok, and she listened to the baby during and in between contractions, reporting that the heart tones sounded fine – hooray! I labored a while longer in the bedroom and bathroom. K must have been going through the supplies and setting things up. I heard her call someone and tell them that it looked like we were going to have a baby today, and that bolstered my confidence. Time stopped for me as I slipped deeper into labor, and K checked the baby a couple more times. At some point M or K started to fill the pool, and I was very glad when K told me that the pool was ready whenever I felt like getting in.
The pool immediately felt much better than laboring on dry land. Almost as quickly, my contractions began to get much more intense. I remember by about the second or third contraction in the tub, thinking that these pains were intense enough to want an epidural! Each contraction was very intense, and I was vocalizing with low moans on each breath out. Relaxing fully was difficult, and that was the only part of labor where I felt like I wasn’t “doing it right.” M got in the tub with me, although I couldn’t really lean on him or tolerate much touch during contractions. His low gentle voice was a stronghold for me and helped me to focus on relaxation and breathing and not allowing the pain from the contractions to overwhelm me.
At some point M got out of the tub. I began talking to the baby, saying “Move down, baby, move down, move down …” I didn’t realize how much time had passed or that I needed to get some sugar into my system, and I began lapsing into a very deep sleep between contractions. I would wake with a start and realize I hadn’t been breathing. I would think, I need to breathe, the baby needs oxygen! Then I would fall back into the same sleep again until the contraction came. This happened between three or four contractions, and then M (thankfully!) encouraged me to switch positions, which helped me stay awake a little better. K asked me if I needed to get out and use the bathroom, or if I wanted to go ahead and pee in the tub. I told her I had been! She said it was fine.
M kept asking if I wanted some honey or Emergen-C, and I kept saying no, just water. One time I said yes to the Emergen-C, and I immediately felt much, much better. I remember asking M, “How do I know if this is working?” M reassured me that it was. I began to feel that I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle, and hoping this was transition! K came near and asked what was feeling different, and I looked at her but couldn’t find any words to say for a little bit. Finally I just said, “Just more … More intense.” She said, “Sounds like transition to me.” The lights were turned off at some point, and I was feeling very cold with my wet shirt on, so I told M I needed to take it off, now!! I was very cold in between contractions, but then during them I felt like I couldn’t get enough air. M got the fan and that helped some.
During one contraction, my body involuntarily started little grunting pushes. Afterward, I got panicky and told M that I needed to poop! K asked me if I needed to poop, or if it was the baby. I told her I didn’t know. There was one more contraction with the little mini pushes, and then one more contraction after that with no pushes, only the dilation pain from before as my cervix finished dilating completely. K came over and told me that she didn’t want me to push unless I had an uncontrollable urge to do so. I asked her, “What if I poop in the pool??” and she said, “That is ok, that is what we have this little net for.”
Immediately the contractions became uncontrollable at the peak, and I had to push! It was a completely different sensation than before. I had absolutely no control over what my body was doing at this point. My body told me to get on my hands with my feet up against the back of the tub. My arms and shoulders were posed like a silver gorilla, and it felt very primal. The pushing contractions continued, with the urge to push coming sooner and sooner in the contraction. I said that it hurt, but really it was just more of a scary, out-of-control feeling, and I didn’t like it! All at once during a push, POW! my bag of waters broke! K told me it was fine, the water was clear.
I felt the head starting to crown, and K told me that she could see the hair. She asked me if I wanted to reach down and feel it, and I said, “No!! … Ok.” Once I felt the baby’s hair, I almost started crying with joy. All of the sudden I saw a clear image in my mind of the baby’s face, and I said, “It’s soon!” Another contraction came, and I felt myself start to tear. I wanted to stop the pushing, but I couldn’t, and the tearing was even scarier than the uncontrollable pushing. I shot up nearly all the way out of the water and I am sure my vocalizations were pretty scary.
K told me that I needed to get the head out with the next push, and she sounded concerned. I immediately said “Ok” and with the next contraction, my body bore down hard. Out the head came! What a weird, incredible feeling! K told me the baby’s head looked fine, and the baby was starting to turn to face upward. I don’t remember if it was the same push or the next one, but I pushed, and whoosh! out the baby came!! K told me to sit back in the water, and I picked up the baby. I held the baby close and said, “Oh! That was such hard work! It’s done now, it’s over.” I asked K if the baby was ok, and as K was getting ready to suction the nose, the baby started making little noises. Hooray! I held the baby close for a few minutes, and then we checked the gender … a girl!! I told her she was so beautiful, and we loved her so much!!
I stayed in the tub for two or three more minutes, and then decided to get out to deliver the placenta on the birth stool. M and K held me while I held the baby and stepped out of the pool. K said as I moved that it looked like the placenta had detached already. I held L to my breast and she licked at the nipple. K sat in front of me with a plastic bowl to catch the placenta, and she pulled gently at the cord. She told me to let her know if I felt the urge to push. I was afraid of her pulling at the cord, since I am Rh-negative and needed a completely natural third stage to feel comfortable with my decision to avoid the anti-D shot. Another minute or two later, and I pushed for a few seconds, and out came the placenta.
K seemed a little concerned with the bleeding afterward, and gave me some Chinese herbs to make sure I didn’t hemorrhage. She said they would taste gross, but I thought they tasted a little like an authentic Asian soup of some sort. After a little while M took L while K examined me. She said I had a small tear upward and a larger tear downward. She said the second tear looked to her like a 2nd degree tear, but that she would monitor it for another hour or two and make sure I didn’t need to go to the doctor for stitching.
An hour later, K measured L – 7 lb, 2 oz, 20 inches long. We stayed in bed and cuddled while M and K cleaned everything up and made the place look like nothing unusual had happened. My parents showed up, with sustenance!, around 8pm. Grandma cuddled with L while Grandpa ooh’ed and ah’ed and M and I ate some burgers. Then M and I retired to bed with our amazing little miracle.
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