A short update on how things have been: camping went pretty well other than WAY TOO MANY BUGS and a bit warm. But generally Legan was awesome, Eric was awesome, canoeing was super awesome and I had a lot of ice cream. It was nice to get home, get more clean, and actually get Legan a couple of naps.
Then our basement flooded, pretty much right when we returned from camping - like still doing laundry from that. Our basement is finished and it's half of our total house space. It also holds our only living room & couches.
We didn't lose many possessions luckily, as it wasn't very deep water, but we did lose all of our flooring down there plus the bottom foot of drywall. It was a month and a lot of help to get all of that fixed and put back together. Other than painting, I couldn't help out a ton, and we were all tired and dirty and sore and cranky from lack of space and lack of comfortable seating. Also, it was super hot (duh, July) during this, and the basement is our cool dark retreat. No fun at all. But, we survived and got it all put together before birth, which was my biggest concern.
And here starts the birth story...
TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNING: gory birth details, cervical checks, and a couple concerning complications (but everything was FINE).
You can imagine I was a bit concerned, so off to L&D we went. Or at least I went. I allowed a cervical check and luckily not much going on there. So we monitored for a while and I went home. BUT not before insisting on the lung steroid shots, because of last time.
It was frustrating as half of the staff there was looking at me like, OK YAY LET'S HAVE A BABY TODAY and the other half was more like "Why are you here if you don't think you're in labor."\
But, as a preemie mom, I needed the shots and to make sure it wasn't real labor - Legan's labor didn't hurt until 7 cm, so....
After that, contractions never really stopped. If I was lucky, I got a 1-2 hour gap in the afternoon and a 2-3 hour gap overnight with none (thank you, because I couldn't really sleep through them). Otherwise every 3-20 min all day everyday. This started July 26 at 33+6. On August 17 (37 weeks exactly), I went into labor. Suddenly at 2 am they were 3-5 min apart, 1-2 min long, and painful. For hours. But, within an hour of Legan waking up and me needing to me a mom, they slowed down and intensity decreased. From there on out, every 2-3 days I would have a stint of 2-6 hours of this real painful labor that would go away again later. In the in between hours from those stints, I was still having the uncomfortable contractions too. I was now sleeping only 3-4 hours per night, usually broken up too.
On Wednesday Aug 29, they started again at 4 am. Which I fully ignored until probably 7 am. Only 2 things were slightly different from every other time things had started and stopped. First, I lost my mucous plug the night before. Second, sitting on the toilet was suddenly super uncomfortable. Like, made my inner hip joint and upper thighs uncomfortable. I told Eric to stay home from work.
This was taken Wednesday morning, in hopes that it was my last pregnancy photo (before the true birthing photos)
I let my midwife and doula know, but didn't really get too excited, I wanted to see what happened when Legan woke up. He DIDN'T WAKE UP. He's always up between 6 & 8, usually around 7. I woke him up that day, at 10:30 am. They didn't go away.
I put my mom and Eric on Legan duty generally, because I didn't want to be rude or cranky with him. I did my best to eat small meals and drink and just exist. I watched Call the Midwife all day long. Contractions from 3-7 min apart. After lunch, it was Legan naptime, so I did our normal routine, and nursed him. I wanted to make sure contractions didn't stop for my normal afternoon lull. They did not, but that nursing session was awful. Contractions were like 90 seconds long, and started every 2-3 minutes. But, I felt like there was finally a point to all my pain. The toilet was still awful, lol, I couldn't imagine how so many people love to labor there. No thanks.
After dinner and another hellish nursing session, I called my doula. I knew I wanted her there sooner rather than later, as it was now 2-4 minutes apart of contractions and I was getting pretty done with hanging out on the couch, plus wanted Eric to shut up for every contraction. My mom elected to not go to a party that night (in hindsight, she totally could have gone, but she wanted to be there for me, which was appreciated for sure).
I actually ended up kneeling on the floor with my face on the couch and Spock snuggling my face. I loved it.
It was 11 pm ish when she arrived. She and Eric got my birth pool filled up. I wasn't sure if I should get in yet, I didn't want to slow things down, but I knew I had been progressing pretty quick with Legan so Seong (my doula) told me to go ahead and get it if I really wanted to. Fun fact - we emptied water heater to get it filled up, but we started hot enough that it totally worked out just fine.
Getting in was awesome. I thought I'd want to be in a squat, but contractions really made that painful in my hip and upper thigh, so I was more just stretched out floating in pool. Did a lot of kneeling with my upper body on the side of my SUPER HUGE AWESOME PORTABLE BIRTH POOL.
Things really actually seemed to pick up for a while now, but slow and steady. Eric asked if he could take a short nap. Seong told me she'd let the midwives know when they should get there. I decided to just let people do whatever they thought was good. We sent Eric to nap. Suddenly, power surged and went out. Came back nice and fast, but I had to send Seong to make sure that Legan's window AC had turned back on - as his room can get really stuffy and hot really fast. It was, yay.
Then I had to talk mom back through getting Call the Midwife back on. There was something hypnotic about it for me. So many happy moms and babies and midwives and homebirths. I wasn't watching it, but it was nice.
After maybe an hour from power surging, contractions settled into 3 min apart, we called Barb (midwife) and got Eric back down. Between power surge and everything else, he maybe got 40 minutes to nap on the high end. Oh well.
Things just seemed like they were moving quickly and I was getting nauseous. Yay for Seong to the rescue. I know I had some somewhere too, but her peppermint oil was readily available. Just a sniff of the peppermint oil every contraction instantly made me feel better. Hooray!
After an hour of very strong contractions that I was feeling in my sacrum, groin, and uterus, we sent for the midwives, and very shortly after had Eric come back, as it seemed things were progressing very quickly.
I started needing hand holding for every contraction. I was sure to keep drinking water and having some energy gels every so often. Cold wash cloth on my neck was super important too, as the pool was hot.
Midwives arrived around 2 am. Team of 3, and start the health checks. Both baby and I were doing great, but by the time I'd answered questions and had so many things checked, contractions slowed down to 5-7 minutes apart and less intense. Sigh. It'd been almost 24 hours and I was hoping we were very very nearly done.
This was right after I had Eric come back from nap
This was once things just started to slow and I was hanging out by myself.
I had a gel with caffeine and just started kinda crawling around the tub and rocking. Pretty sure this was about two hours. Eric took a short nap here, leaning against the wall. After maybe 30 minutes of this, I decided to get out, use toilet, and consider a nap - I was exhausted and now it felt like baby wasn't coming anytime soon. I remember asking if I was doing anything wrong, it just felt like things were slowing too much. I was a little discouraged, but I knew that I could handle things. My whole previous month contractions actually picked up more when I was lying down and relaxed, and slowed down when I was up and about, so I figured either A - I would be able to nap and wake up in a bit refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of this labor, or B - trying to nap would speed things up. I think this was 5:30 am, ish.
It was totally B. I spent maybe 30 minutes lying in bed with Eric, trying to sleep. I did doze between a few of the contractions, but they were speeding up again, and getting more intense again. I remember thinking that it felt like the pieces of the rear of my pelvis were separating and stretching apart. After giving up on my nap (but was kinda excited about it and got a second wind), I decided a cervical check was the way to go. I wanted to know if we were getting super close to meeting baby or if it was more likely that trying harder to nap was a good idea, to save energy for a longer labor.
We were basically all the way thinned, and like 7.5 cm, bag was bulging out, but that was as much intervention as I was interested in.
Barb (head midwife) suggested trying laboring in a supported squat. It would open everything up more than hands and knees/kneeling, and the fact that a squat was such an intense discomfort, there was a chance that that meant it was progressing things and moving baby down. We put a towel down, Eric helped support me, and two contractions later water broke. This was at 7:30 am, roughly. I had someone check the time for me. After hours of being in a total fog and yelling at everyone for talking during contractions, I really wanted to know the time. Labored on knees with Eric sitting in front of me on the couch, for just a few minutes, maybe 15-20? I was trying to focus on just kinda surrendering my body to the sensations, keeping my jaw loose, and letting things happen. And this is when I had the first spasm of my body trying to do it's own thing. Here I am, trying to stay relax and just accept things, and my hips and lower abdomen were seized in an indescribable jerk. The best way to word it (and I stole these words from someone in a VBAC group on Facebook), was that my body was trying to dry heave out of my butt. It wasn't exactly my butt, but that general idea. It was that strong of a jerk. Took 3 or 4 of these for me to realize that possibly my body was trying to start the pushing process. Also cue Legan waking up, but my mom was all on top of that.
I finally decided I should tell them that I felt like pushing, lol, instead of holding back. We decided to start on toilet just because I had never pushed before so hopefully I could figure out that right muscles by sitting there. The toilet was STILL SO PAINFUL to be on though. It felt like my hips were ripping out of the socket and my quads were all in an awful charlie horse. So back to the tub I went.
Once in the tub, I was persuaded to get back into a squat. Especially again, as a first time vaginal birth, it gives extra space. The squat here was still pretty freaking uncomfortable, definitely less than on toilet though, and the water did help support my weight. Eric stood outside and helped hold me up. When I pushed, he pulled up to give me something to push against. This both felt like it took forever, and not very long at all. From the best estimates I can get from everyone there, it was 45-60 minutes of pushing. I started this process with baby reasonably far up - from my own perspective. Contractions were definitely a bit further apart now, but long. They were slightly less intense than previously, but being in a squat hurt quite a bit more than knees, so...value neutral.
I've heard from many other moms that pushing was almost a relief, but that wasn't my experience. Actually, I think the hard work of pushing, plus the additional ouch of squat and baby moving down/out, and the longer contractions flared my asthma. I didn't have my inhaler downstairs and I honestly doubt that using it that late would have really mattered, but if I had used it just before starting to push I think that would be been helpful. Either way, it took probably 20 minutes to figure out how to kinda breathe enough to effectively help my body move baby down. The first 20-30 min ish it didn't really feel like we were making great progress, but considering how much more my pelvis/hips/back hurt I'm guessing baby just had some serious ground to cover. Right around now I was kinda wishing I had the option of some medicinal pain relief. I was feeling a bit like I had made a poor decision to not have drugs around.
All of the sudden, the pressure changed, and I knew the head was coming. Not quite crowning, but I announced to the room something to the affect of "Ok, so THAT'S a head." Also, the worst part of this whole thing was getting baby's heart rate checked between each contraction. Especially since by the time she was sure contraction was over, and I caught my breath (I spent the whole pushing process really feeling like I couldn't catch my breath at all, which was annoying, slightly scary, and really distracting, see comments about inhaler earlier!), now I'm having to shift my legs around so that doppler can get in to check, and then it took several moments to find the heartbeat, and by then the next contraction is starting and my foot is out of position. This was super annoying as well. The high sides on the tub didn't make the midwives' job easier for this process. Finally she must have adjusted some and changed her angle, because I finally stopped having to move my foot for this, so that helped. Maybe 3 contractions after I felt head really getting close, it was obvious that head was now really at the exit. This was a different and sharper pain, but the pain in my pelvis/sacrum was dying down finally, so that was nice. I did have to consciously think of not letting baby regress back in between pushes, but that at least gave me things to think about. Everyone suggested I reach down to feel the head, but I couldn't. I wasn't grossed out, but I really really needed to focus here, and felt like if I distracted myself and let go of Eric's hands and got my head out of the game that it would make it all harder. So, no thank you.
And, I felt lied to again. I feel like many women have said once the head is out, it's one more push for shoulders and isn't too bad and then the rest of the baby mostly slips out. Yeah, no. After the head, it was probably 2-3 really hard pushes for shoulders, and then still another strong push or two for the rest. There was a cord slightly around the neck, but that was removed I think before the shoulders were out. I took a very short second to register that baby was out and pain was gone, before remembering to reach down and get her (bottom of pool was very padded!). Brought her up, and here was small complication #1. She didn't cry immediately. She wasn't super pink right away, but not too scary, but she didn't breathe right away. Luckily she was still attached to cord, so that's giving her oxygen. Her head was really really coned. I held her, rubbed her, blew in her face, and midwives stepped in, while I held her, did a little suction, gave a few puffs from the ambu-bag for air, and she started coughing and sneezing and then pinked up really quick. Hooray!! She still didn't really cry, but made more noise and was definitely breathing. Just a little subdued.
Then I realized we had no idea if baby was male or female. I realized I'd been holding with my hand under the rump, and so my verbal announcement was literally "I think it's a girl, I don't feel any testicles." I was right. Then we got us up and out of the pool pretty quick (this was complicated, but easier than it probably should have been). Moved to a bed, and again, getting placenta out was harder than I expected, but not terrible. Barb let me know that I had two tiny superficial tears, but not anything they could even call 1st degree - just slight surface abrasions.
Cue second small hiccup - bleeding didn't quite stop as fast as we would have liked. So I took some medicine, tried some herbs, and my little crazy animated baby crawled up me and latched on like a champ - all of which helped, but not enough. So I unfortunately needed some awful uterus massage. I know they wouldn't have done this if it wasn't necessary, and after everything had gone so well so far, I REALLY didn't want to go to the hospital, so OK.
Bleeding was slowing, but still not slow enough. Now the thought was that my bladder was super full, so maybe it was in the way of the uterus shrinking down enough. Alright, so I got up to pee. Eric got to hold baby. Failed at peeing on the toilet. I really wanted to, but whether I relaxed or tried actively to pee, I just couldn't. I decided to hop in the shower real quick, hoping that that would help, as warm water and being in shower usually makes me need to go. 10 minutes didn't help, so I got cleaned up and gave up. Now I'm asking them to cath me (yeah, with no meds). That was a bit uncomfortable, but released the pressure (YAY!) and that stopped the bleeding, so I was all for it. Hooray!!!! Midwives have now taken care of all of the small issues, and we're now in great shape. So after some more nursing, getting everyone dry, and getting me a small bit of food, it was nap time.
She wasn't named for another 3 days, but that was how Jade Taliya arrived, at 9:06 am on 8/30/18. She was 8 lbs, 6 oz, 21.5" long, born at 38+6 weeks.
Best part - didn't have to leave home, and standing up and walking to bed, toilet, shower, and bed afterwards was all pretty much less painful than walking while pregnant had been the previous day, so home birth for the win. So much more comfortable.
It was more painful that I expected, and the pushing was harder than I expected. It wasn't nearly as painful as the awful surgical birth, and I definitely think I did what was right for all of us. Home birth was the right thing for me, and I would do it again if I ever wanted another birth. I think next time it wouldn't be surprisingly hard or scary, because it was definitely a bit scary when I was so uncomfortable, felt like I couldn't catch my breath, and wasn't done yet. But, now I've been there and done that, and it was good and right.
Getting stories on our new family, baby, big brother, and recovery written soon.
Keeping calories in, yay Izze juice!
Please hold onto me
The dreaded squat
I did feel very supported, only sad thing was no photos of my doula (who took these photos)
Got her!
Just felt like I needed to hold her hand and talk to her
Yay, breathing!
Hugs for this big little lady, and that white circle is the amazing peppermint oil that I had to sniff for hours to not vomit
Moved to bed
Daddy first gets to hold her
Pretty one
She was and still is so pink and alert
Nursing right away! This was taken later that evening, after our long nap.
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