Birth story #2
My little lady is almost a year old. And, while I wrote down the bare bones of her birth story in snippets in the days and weeks after she she was born, I am just now finding the time (and the notebook I originally wrote it in..) to type it up.
It's crazy how time flies sometimes. I can surely still remember it all like it was yesterday, and yet here we are almost a year later.
It was just a couple days before my due date and this time around I was soo very ready to give birth. I was DONE being pregnant and nursing a toddler and I wanted something to change. Since weaning wasn't happening(more on that in a different post..), I obviously figured that the change needed to be giving birth. And while this certainly did usher in change, it took many more months and other catalyst to point me in the direction of the real change I was looking for.
I digress.
Point being, I was done being pregnant and ready to meet by daughter.
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| This is me, just four days before(wearing my perpetually exhausted face that is in all pictures from October to December of last year. I even had to get my license renewed during this time, it's a real winner..) |
So on Thursday December 5th, me and my son were playing outside in the late afternoon and waiting for daddy to come home. My son noticed a jump rope lying on the ground and asked me to jump. So I did. I manged to jump a few times before deciding that perhaps I was entirely too tired and pregnant to do so. But shortly after jumping rope, I felt what I thought "might" be a very mild contraction. However at this point I was hoping and noticing all kinds of signs that weren't actually labor, just me really hoping for it, so I didn't put a whole lot of stock in it.
But then, as the hour wore on I felt a few more. So, desiring to move things right along and encourage labor to kick in gear, I started stomping up and down the 3 steps that lead to our front porch. Mike came home around this time to find us stomping up and down the stairs and he joined in the fun. The rest of the evening I kept feeling the super mild gas like contractions that were much like the early contractions from labor with my son. Even still, I was able to get some decent sleep(as good as bed-sharing pregnant momma can get, anyway ).
Since the contractions hadn't gone away by morning, we figured this was the real deal and texted our midwife. But, they also hadn't gotten any stronger, longer or closer together, so, we went about our morning- business as usual- and Mike went to work.
As the morning passed, nothing really changed and I started to get impatient and a bit frustrated. I knew that this would not be good for labor and focusing on it would only serve to further frustrate me. So a little before 11 am we took the laundry down to the basement to do laundry. After getting it going, and while my son played with the toys, I decided to do some more stomping. Up and down the basement stairs. While I was doing this I had a few contractions that were significantly more involved and they started coming more frequently.
We went upstairs and as the contractions started picking up over the next hour I read the book "Welcome with love" to my son several times(I paraphrased some parts to simplify it for him, as he was 18 months at the time). And when my contractions started to hurt some, I quoted the book and told him the baby would be coming out of my belly soon.
This seemed to help him and, being as quick and perceptive as he is, I think he was understanding quite a bit.
Around noon I sent a text to Mike and said he might need to head home soon, but no rush. Then I fixed lunch and got my son to sleep for nap. While he napped I rested some, and folded some laundry. And around 1:30, I told my parents that we were in labor, and should we need anything I'd let them know( they were our backup care for our son, if need be) .
Mike got home just before 2 pm and, after updating our midwife, we agreed that once our son was up, we would go ahead and go shopping for the angel tree gift we had that needed to be dropped off by Sunday. I also labeled and stamped all of our Christmas cards and we dropped them in the mail on our way to the store.
While shopping (and walking all over there store pushing our son in the cart) , the contractions really started to increase in frequency and intensity. A few times I had to stop and lean into the shopping cart. We spent about an hour shopping and by the time we were checking out I was having contractions every five minutes. I went potty right before leaving the store and shortly after a contraction, and I had another one in the restroom. And then another as we exited. At this point I was mildly concerned and ready to be home NOW! But we had a 30 minute drive and sitting was super uncomfortable. Contractions stared lasting 60+ seconds on the way home.
When we finally arrived home, Mike and our son played outside and I went in to start on dinner. (At least that's what I tried to convince myself I was going to do. Hahaha)
I texted our midwife and changed into pajama pants. And gave up on fixing dinner. I tried to get comfortable on the couch but the contractions were taking over and I was loosing my cool(hello transition!)
Mike and our son came in and started to fix dinner. Once dinner was ready, I stayed on the couch and ate the chicken tortellini while they ate at the table. After eating they brought the advent wreath to the living room to light the candle and read from the advent book(it was our nightly routine once advent had started).
After about 5:30pm I was super uncomfortable and started fearing I might give birth before our midwife arrived.
Ten minutes later when I was literally screaming "Jesus bring her here now! " during a contraction, our midwife arrived. She listened to baby took my stats and asked a few questions. As contractions came she helped me calm down and work with them (I definitely hadn't been for the last half hour or so).
From this point on jeremiah and Mike were in and out of the room. He would be playing and then need to "check on mama." And make sure I was OK. He even laid hands on my belly and prayed for me and baby(with daddy's prompting).
A little after 6pm our midwife's assistant and amazing doula arrived as well. Mike offered her some dinner and after eating she jumped right in helping me through the contractions with massage and pressure points. After a while our midwife asked if we wanted to move to the bedroom, but at this point I knew baby was coming and I didn't want to move.
I lost track of time and with contractions coming on top of one another, I was ready to be done. I told our midwife that I felt "pushy" and the urge to push become uncontrollable. I started getting very "loud loud loud" as my son would often say in the weeks after his sister was born when asked about her birth.
I felt the need to stand with contractions, so for a while I was leaning into my midwife for support.our midwife suggested mike go heat up some towels at this point. But then, told him and my son to come back as we realized the pushing was coming to a head and baby was coming out. Our midwife moved behind me and squatted on the couch while I leaned into our doula for support. It was in the position (standing /squatting )in front of our living room couch, on December 6, 2019 at 7:44pm that our beautiful 8lb 1oz little girl was born. Mike and our son were standing in the doorway and saw her enter the world!
And now she's walking and starting to talk and mama is still trying to figure out where the time went.
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