A brand new birth

The third time around contractions started on their own with no efforts on the part of my husband and I to get labor started! In fact, labor started two weeks earlier than we had been hoping. But true to form, my third child was born in a different month than the due date indicated.

Baby Elizabeth was born on Tuesday March 27 at 7:43 am after two days of early labor and about 8 hours of active labor.

I woke up with contractions 15 minutes apart on Sunday. I knew based on the week before that I wasn't going to make it all the way through church but that the walk there and back would at least be good. All through the first hour, I felt contractions but they were very mild. After the meeting, I went home and decided that I would take a longer walk to see if I could get contractions going that way. When I couldn't get a hold of the friend I really wanted to talk to, I posted a shout-out on facebook for someone to call and talk to me while I walked.

I was disappointed that walking seemed to cause the contractions to space out more. I think all I accomplished was getting my hips sore. I did get a hold of the friend I had wanted to talk to (my best friend from fourth grade) and was able to talk to two others (both of whom are doulas). Upon getting home, I took a nap while dinner was being made and then went to bed after dinner. Throughout the day, I saw that I had lost a little bit of mucous plug and the contractions became slightly stronger. It was not a great night sleep, not because of the contractions but because my throat was getting increasingly sore and dry. It was difficult to breathe because it was so raw. Finally, I fell asleep and got about 7 hours.

The contractions were interesting because they were short and mild. They seemed very easy to deal with. By Monday afternoon, I was starting to believe that I was going to be in early labor for a few more days. Since I had had a good night sleep, I knew I could keep it up, if need be. Monday morning I took the children to their gymnastics classes and visited the chiropractor. I got an adjustment and the doctor said that it should do something to the contractions, though she wasn't sure if either they would stop or progress. I went home to just see what would happen.

That day I was supposed to have a midwife appointment but I just did not feel up to it knowing that I also would be going to other appointments. I called and said I wouldn't make it. My visit that day was supposed to be with a group of pregnant women, based on the Centering Pregnancy model. I just wasn't feeling social enough to be contracting every 8-15 minutes through that meeting. However, I still was able to get a prenatal visit in that day because my midwife's partner lived near enough to me that she came and did a home visit. Based on her assessment of what she was observing from me, she too thought that I could continue in labor for a couple of days.

It was at that point I started wondering what the heck was going on. Why were the contractions so easy? Why weren't they going away? Why weren't they progressing? I got really tempted to check my cervix to see if anything had been happening. I even posted to my local birth group my frustration and asked for opinions on whether or not it was worthwhile to check. A funny thing from that conversation was that the henna artist I had scheduled for the following week to come and do a henna belly for me volunteered to reschedule my appointment to the next day, in hopes that I could get the belly done before the baby was going to be born. We made the appointment and waited to see what would happen.

I also got a call that day from a good friend who had been planning to lead a blessingway ceremony for me the following weekend. She called because she kept feeling like she needed to talk to me about it. She was glad she did when she found out that I was experiencing early labor. She quickly volunteered to call me that night and do a little ceremony by phone. I spent the rest of the day waiting for 8 pm to roll around and just settled in for whatever was in store.

That night, she called and spoke to me about the history of LDS women giving blessings to pregnant women and calling on that tradition, she prayed for me. I will post her prayer on my spirituality blog if you are interested in reading through it. After she closed her prayer, she suggested that I get the older children in bed and then get as much sleep as I could, and get to sleep as soon as I could. As it turned out, contractions changed in intensity and became slightly longer and stronger as I was cuddling children to sleep. My son was quite sure that the baby would be born that night and he excitedly told everyone just that. It sounded almost exactly like what he said on Christmas Eve when he announced that Santa was coming.

At 1 am, I gave up trying to sleep and called my midwife's partner. I still wasn't convinced that I was in active labor but I asked her to come over and see what she thought before I sent her home or called the midwife. The partner came, she checked my cervix and found that I was 5 cm. She settled in to sleep but before she was even able to sleep, the contractions shifted again and became stronger.

Check out that hippie having a homebirth!

At 2:00 am, we called the midwife who then headed to my house. At 2:30, I headed downstairs to the bathtub. My mom was so sweet making preparations as I took over her living space. She gathered candles and laid them out in the room. She plugged in my aromatherapy diffuser and got my favorite fuzzy robe into the dryer. She arranged the towels, gathered seating for midwives and my husband and stayed to hang out with me and chat between contractions. She had never seen a homebirth before and didn't have great births with my brother and I (I was a induction turned c-section for undetected breech and my brother was stillborn). While my mother made her preparations, my husband got my ipod set up and turned on my birthing playlist.

I did not want to be alone during my labor at all, so when the midwives got there, I invited the assistant in and asked her to talk with me. After all the birth supply preparation was taken care of, everyone joined me and we listened to music, laughed and talked.

At one point, my mom asked me if I was hungry and I wanted anything to eat. I didn't really have an answer for her at that point but it came to me awhile later when during a contractions, blackberries occurred to me. I opened my eyes, looked at her and said, "Blackberries." That confused everyone in the room except my husband who was the first to suggest that someone go upstairs and get me a bowl of frozen blackberries. Those were excellent to munch on between contractions. A little later, the midwife made me a fruit and yogurt smoothie and some red raspberry leaf tea.

The midwife really loved the music I had playing. Since it was on shuffle, we got some interesting juxtaposition between songs. For example, Give Said the Little Stream was followed by Bohemian Rhapsody. A little later, Laurie Berkner's  Song in My Tummy came on which caused everyone to laugh. My midwife requested that I share the playlist with her because she really enjoyed the mix of music on it.

They were also surprised that for the most part I was able to continue talking and laughing through contractions. All of us kind of believed that not much was going on. We knew that the baby was moving down because the place where we detected her heart rate became lower and lower on my abdomen. Each time heart tones were recorded we used the fetoscope to listen, just as I requested.

Listening to heart tones with the fetoscope

At one point, we couldn't hear the baby's heart beat. We could find mine and the placenta but not the baby. For the most part, we were listening through the placenta to hear it anyway and at this point, it was difficult enough to hear. We tried a couple of different times but not having success, I did consent to try with the doppler just until we found it and heard it. Once I found it, the doppler went off and we knew the baby was just fine.

Around the time I started pushing, one of my favorite gospel anthems came on called Arise and Shine Forth. As I listened, something that my friend prayed for earlier happened. She had asked that I feel encircle about with the love of my heavenly parents and with angels and the spirits of my loved ones. I I felt just that and started to cry. The midwives were also concerned about me, thinking that I was upset and they began to reassure me that everything was okay. A contraction came on and I knew I couldn't explain to them what was actually going on so I managed to say "Its a happy cry, don't worry. I'm okay." I don't think they've heard the explanation for that yet, actually.

Pushing this third time around was the hardest yet. The baby was descending slowly and I knew for quite a long time that her head was still high. The midwife asked if she could go a vaginal exam to see how high the baby was but I was able to tell her just based on what I was feeling. It was around that time I tried to will myself to get out of the bathtub and head either to the toilet (which can help a baby descend) or to the stairs (since she was probably acynclitic). Each time I would try to raise my hips out of the water, the contractions became so intense that I would immediately change my mind.

Getting out of the tub seemed like a good idea, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. 

After quite a while of pushing, I told my husband that it would be a good time to wake up the older siblings to come and witness the birth of our new baby. My husband took one look at me and said he didn't think that was a good idea. I realized that the reason he said that was because of how hard pushing had been for me and he was concerned that it would be too intense for the children to see me working so hard. Through each contraction, I was yelling quite loudly with effort.  So they stayed sleeping and we let them sleep until they woke up on their own.

At one point, the midwife asked me how long I had pushed with my previous births. The longest had been with my first, a whole 45 minutes. At that point, I had been pushing for longer than 45 minutes. I finally started feeling like the baby had moved down and that I might be able to feel where the baby was if I reached for her head. I couldn't feel her head but I did feel a intact and bulging bag of water. Just then a contraction started and I felt the bag of water break over my hand. Looking at the water of the bathtub, you couldn't tell at all which is always a good sign.

With the bag of water out of the way, her head descended quickly. It was just a couple of more contractions before she was crowning and I was at the crazy point of feeling my body push involuntarily and trying to stop pushing because I felt my tissues stretching and stinging. It took a few moments to integrate and coordinate the movements and with the next contraction, her head was part way out. I could feel her ear off to the side of her head and her soft thick hair floating in the water around her head. The next contraction, her whole body came out and she floated up in the water to my hands.

I picked her up and realized that the cord was quite short. I held her against my stomach as we waited for her to breathe. Right before her body came out, I felt her feet kick inside me so I knew she was awake and alert, but when she got to my arms, she was still. Her face looked at rest like she had decided it was time to sleep. I think that's when I told her rather forcefully that it wasn't time to sleep, that I knew she was awake and it was time for her to breathe. She started making some respiratory effort but it wasn't enough. Everyone who could reach her started stimulating her body tactically. That's when the first assistant noticed the cord was rather tightly wrapped around the baby's back and neck. My second baby completely tangled in her cord! We got her unwrapped and the primary midwife reached for her and gave her a rescue breath mouth to mouth and that's finally when the baby seemed to come into her body. She did not like being breathed into and she yelled and then started breathing. 

Into Mama's arms and telling her to breathe

Throughout the resuscitation, the midwives had been talking about her as he. When she was back in my arms I asked if it really was a boy because I hadn't seen yet. My husband and I looked together and saw that our first surprise baby was our second daughter!

I cuddled her to my chest and she with much enthusiasm launched herself at my nipple. She surprised me with how she even knew that there was something she desperately wanted behind that bathing suit top. We got her access to the nipple and she attempted to latch on immediately. Since she's my third baby, I knew immediately that something was really wrong with her latch. In spite of her enthusiasm, we knew that getting her latched on would take some work and that it was best that I get out of the tub at that point and settled into bed. On the way out, I birthed the placenta (which by the way, the midwife said was the most perfect, healthy placenta she had ever seen).

Cuddling with my baby for the first time

Once in bed, her temperature was below the outer limits of normal (97.4) so we got very busy trying to get her temperature up--using a heating pad, blankets, skin to skin and a hat. Because her latch was so wrong and wasn't getting better, I couldn't give try to get her some colostrum to help regulate her temperature. The midwives then recommended that she be given a dropper-full of glucose water (made with blackstrap molasses instead of processed sugar). Once her temperature got up to 97.6, that was stopped. We were all surprised by how long that took to happen.

I then spent the next 24 hours hand expressing colostrum and feeding her with a pipette while I waited to get a Lactation Consultant to the house. When she was less than 3 hours old, I had already called around to get someone over. One LC that I spoke to by phone suggested giving a craniosacral therapist a call (especially after I described her birth) and when she was 4 hours old, she had already seen her first therapist. The next day, we saw the Lactation Consultant and she was diagnosed with tongue tie. I'll post all about that experience in a separate post.

Elizabeth was born at 7:43 that morning, with our children still sleeping upstairs. They didn't wake up until 10:30 or so when they came downstairs and met their baby sister. I was right, they even got to unwrap her just like the a Christmas present since she was so bundled up.

Later that night, we had a little birthday party for her. My husband went out and got a cake and then brought it to us singing Happy Birthday. We all then tried to get the best night sleep we could.

In total, her birth was longer and more exhausting than I thought it would be. I had hoped that hers would be longer than her sister's birth, which I got, but I never even considered that her birth might be longer than her brother's! If I count all the early labor, her labor was 49 hours long, with a 1 hour pushing stage. It was however, a very easy 49 hour labor with only about 2 hours that I would consider intense enough that I had to really get serious.

All together

Belle's Birth Story

I feel like I should start her story with Peter's return home on Wednesday night. He was so tired and sad but relieved to be home. The last two weeks have had him experiencing the most intense and varied emotions. He got a day to recover before a whole new range of emotions swept by him.

Or I could start Belle's birth story the same way Willem's starts. "Thursday night, sex did it..."

I hoped that the prostaglandins in the semen wouldn't start contractions, or that if they started they would stop after a while. At 3:30 I woke up feeling a mild contractions. At that point, they were seven minutes apart. Within a half hour, they were 3 minutes apart. I decided then that I wouldn't be sleeping anymore that night and got up to ready the house for the birth. I put towels in the washing machine, finished making my laborades (lavender lemonade and sweet rose tea) and started inflating the birth tub. At 4:45, the contractions were getting stronger but still at 3 minutes apart. I decided to wake Peter up and get him to take over inflating the pool. He was completely groggy and too was hoping that the contractions would stop and that we’d be going back to bed.

While he pumped up the pool (we were using a manual bike pump, efficient but we wished we had purchased an electric), I straightened and gathered supplies while pausing for contractions.

At 6:30, Willem woke up and “helped” me through contractions. I was on my hands and knees on the floor and he curled up underneath me. When the pool was filled with air, he was ready to get in. We started filling it with water and when it was the depth of a normal bath, Willem and I got in together. He was so excited to be in a “warm bath downstairs with Mama.” Peter started boiling water on the stove and periodically added more water.

While the pool filled with water, I asked Peter for a priesthood blessing, in part to gauge the rightness of calling the midwives for any unseen reason. The blessing was one of comfort and reassurance: that my body was strong and I could be confident in my ability to birth the baby. I was counseled to meditate and use the relaxation techniques I had learned from my studies. During the pregnancy, I had listened to the Hypnobabies scripts but I did not turn them on during labor. I applied principles of visualization, affirmations and prayer throughout the process. I spoke to the baby and breathed deeply through contractions. As they built, I found the visualization of getting to the peak of a hill helpful because I could feel when the "steepness" changed and I knew I was headed back down the hill again.

The pool was filled using a garden hose attached to the kitchen sink and then run across the kitchen, through the pass through that separates the kitchen and dining area and into the pool. That was about 7:00, I stayed in the pool only getting out to trek upstairs to the bathroom. While on the toilet, I felt the beginnings of pushing sensations but attributed it to a bowel movement. I checked to see if I could find the baby’s station and I think I felt a head with bulging waters. I didn’t even try to determine dilation because knowing that there was a head there was enough for me. Contractions were 2 minutes apart.

Around this time, Peter admitted that this was truly labor and it wasn’t going to stop until the baby was born. Both he and I thought that we would have several more hours. I then remembered that we had been remiss throughout the pregnancy and hadn’t documented it with pregnancy pictures. I had been completely unclothed in the pool so on one trip upstairs to the bathroom. I pulled out the maternity bathing suit that my friend had lent me. On the way downstairs, I told Peter he should start getting some pictures before it was too late.

Between 8:30 and 9:00, Willem started getting antsy in the house so we started preparing him to go to a friends house. This was about the time that I moaned to Peter “I want to take a break. It’d be nice if I could have three minutes between the contractions again.” I don’t really remember his response but I remember it was sympathetic. I think I heard Willem one time say “Mama sad” and I moaned through contractions, and I tried to explain that I wasn’t sad. I was just working hard to get the baby to come out of my body. We think looking back that was transition.

Around this time, I asked if Peter felt like he wanted the midwives to be present and he said that everything was going so well—and it would probably be awhile until the baby was born anyway—that he didn’t feel the need to call them. I knew I didn’t and reflected on what it might be like if they were present. I imagined that they’d be pleasant, supportive and kind but that they’d be gathered in the living room watching me and I did not like the idea of being watched, even if by benign and happy presences such as my midwife and her assistant. I didn’t need it, didn’t want it, and was doing the whole process as it was made to unfold for me.

This was when I realized that with every contraction, I needed to flip over to my hands and knees to get through it. I felt tightness radiating down into my thighs and it felt like the bones of my pelvis and hip were being stretched outwards. I did not experience any back labor, and contractions were low, tightening with pressure. This part is hard for me to explain, I was pushing gently with contractions but I’m not sure if I was doing because I felt like it or if it felt good. My thighs were getting very tired and at one point, I felt like asking Peter for some double-hip squeezing but he was busy trying to wrestle Willem into some pants. Somewhere in this time, I felt like I was getting more rest between contractions, even though they were any further apart. Looking back, I think it was an example of “ask and ye shall receive.” Maybe it was the actualization of a positive thought. Whatever it was, I was grateful for it!

As Peter was on the phone with our neighbor who was going to watch Willem for us, I checked the baby’s station again and I felt her head as deep as the middle knuckle on my index finger. When I told Peter that, he was shocked! To him, he had just barely begun to believe that this was really the birth of his baby.

Again I checked to feel if the amniotic sac was still intact and attempted to pinch it with my finger nails (I don’t really know why), I got a hold of something that might have been sac and pulled gently. And then I realized that I had just pulled baby’s hair! Oops! But based on that, I have no idea when my waters broke. I was hoping I’d know and be able to experience that sensation as it happened. This event was one of the decisions I regretted from Willem’s birth because I consented to AROM. I either wanted to know and feel it as it happened on its own or if it was a decision I made on my own, without feeling pressured by others around me.

A few minutes later, as they were about to walk out the backdoor, I yelled “the baby is crowning!” I roared a couple of times as the new sensations took over. I felt my first undeniable urge to bear down, immediately followed by sharp stinging in my tissues on either side of the baby’s head (not like the ring of fire). Instinctively, I stopped pushing and snapped my knees together. Then I laughed at myself, squatted and focused on letting the baby ease down. I felt another undeniable urge to push and the baby’s head was out. At this point, Peter was standing over the birth pool with Willem in his arms and they watched. There was a pause after the baby’s head was out and then another urge to push, a little more stinging, a shoulder, a shoulder and then another slight push for the chest (her chest is broader than her head circumference). I reached down and pulled her to the surface of the water, and then leaned back with her cradled in my arms. This was 9:31 am (I didn’t look at the clock until 9:34, so Peter verified the time).

I realized I saw the cord around her arm, and then her neck. I got a little confused as I figured out it was over her right shoulder across her neck, under her left armpit and wrapped around her arm. I unwrapped her and then noticed that she was looking pretty purple and was quiet. I wasn’t surprised that she would be quiet, especially as I could hear and see her breathing, with mucus clearing itself from her sinuses and mouth. But the purple was a little concerning. Peter noticed too and gently told me to hold her against my chest and rub her back. I did and she started crying, and then turned pink.

We saw a gush of blood into the water—which concerned Willem—and then we commented that we had failed to do the hemorrhage test in water. We knew what 200 CCs and 500 CCs of blood looked like on a chux pad but not in a pool of water. It was then that we decided that I should get out of the tub to monitor bleeding (and by that point I didn’t want to be sitting in bloody water anyway). Twenty minutes after she emerged, I squatted against the side of the pool and the placenta came out looking amazing. The membranes of the amniotic sac were trailing behind but came out easily too.

I had planned on using some purple cording to tie off the umbilical cord after the placenta had emerged. Earlier while I had been gathering supplies, I went to find the cording and couldn’t. I poked into my sewing box and found some white cording that I had intended to use on the bodice of my wedding dress but hadn’t. I felt it was very appropriate and meaningful instead to use it during the birth of our baby. Peter and I each tied off the cord (two ties with about two inches between), and then Willem held the scissor handles while Peter cut the cord.

I leaned against the wall, sitting on the chux pad to monitor bleeding while I suggested that I call the midwives for the newborn exam and filling out the birth certificate. I hadn’t known beforehand when I wanted to call them but at that moment, it felt good to welcome them and share the happiness. I called them while Peter took Willem to our neighbor’s house.

They arrived around 10:45, bearing a huge bouquet of flowers from the midwife’s garden—evidently I called her while she was out watering this morning. They were so happy for me, and so cheerful. This was also when I realized that the day before, my friend and I agreed that she’d come over Friday at 11 am so the kids could play together. I called her while she was on her way over and told her that the baby had been born and she was welcome to meet the baby and could she please supervise Willem on the playground outback for a little while. She came, she did just that (bearing Jamba Juice!) and washed dishes for us during the newborn exam. It was wonderful!

When they all arrived, I had settled on the couch with a blanket. That was where the newborn exam was performed. She weighed 7 lbs 6 oz, a half pound more than Willem at his birth. Before she was weighed, I asked Peter what his guess would be based on her appearance and he guessed exactly that! Length was 20 ¾ inches long. She has a lot of dark hair: like Willem did at his birth. We expect that hers too will change to blonde. She’s got the same butt-chin as Willem—they inherit that from Peter’s mother. And she has Peter’s dimple in her right cheek.

So far our babymoon has been lovely. The midwives helped me settle into bed upstairs and told me to stay horizontal for the next three days. I spent the rest of yesterday cuddling my new baby and nursing (her latch is pretty good for a beginner). I called friends and family then got a visit from my chiropractor. Before getting pregnant, she said that she’d like to visit the day my next baby was born so I took her up on it! It was so nice to see her!

Belle slept soundly last night from 1 am to 6 am and then again from 10 am to 1 pm. I slept with her during those times and then napped with her this evening between 7:30 and 10. She’s been sleeping soundly next to me while I’ve typed this out.

Today we had a little bit of an adventure when I was showering. Peter came in and said he was concerned that there was a gas leak in the house so he was going outside. He told me to be quick. As I stepped out of the bathroom, I smelled when he meant and hurried to get dressed. I met them outside and found a spot in the shade. Peter then told me that a plastic plate had gotten too close to a heated burner on the stove and had melted. I laid outside on a blanket, leaning against a pillow outside, talking to neighbors and nursing while the apartment was aired out. It felt so good that I didn’t want to go back inside so we were outside under the shade for 3 hours. During that time, my friend Shawnette and her mother visiting from my hometown in California dropped by to say hi and we enjoyed the fresh air together. We also broke into the cheesecake that I had made for Peter while he was out of town. I had intended to eat some for energy during labor, but it happened too fast to do so! I didn’t need it!