Our little one has arrived! Or, Adventures in home-birth!

To start off, one:  our little one arrived healthy and safely on June 5, 2010. Just a few days after his due date.  He was born at home at 9:33 am, weighing in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 20 1/2 inches tall.

And, two: yes, natural childbirth hurts like a m***** f*****  –duh.

Was it manageable and did I survive? Hell yes. Does the pain instantly go away the minute the child pops out? Absolutely. Does it hurt a little a few days later (like right now)? Sure.

As per my earlier post, our adventure in home-birth was not to demonstrate some crazy feat of heroics, but rather to have an experience completely at my own control, letting my body do what it was meant to, rather than when the docs want it to, appeasing their scheduling needs.

Without backtracking too much, I was due June 1 and really, truly thought with this little guy I would come closer to the end of May.  Well, June 1 came and went without much activity. I had been having contractions off and on for weeks but nothing was sticking around longer than an hour or so.

Thursday: Finally I had a check in at 40 weeks on Thursday, June 3 with my midwife. The plan was to “sweep the membranes” if my body was indicating it was ready.   However I was only dilated to 1 cm, and not ready so it wasn’t done.

Went home wondering when the heck little-man would be coming.  Babies are “term” at 40 weeks and most healthcare providers want you delivered by 42 weeks. No one was in any rush to push me to have the baby only being two days past my due date. (Amen, to that!)

Contractions kicked in around 4:30 that afternoon, and were intermittent throughout the evening up til Friday at 4 am.

Friday: I called to let my midwife know about the contractions and she asked that I call her if my water broke, or if they were 10 minutes apart for greater than an hour.   For the better part of Friday, the contractions disappeared.

As the day progressed Jay was getting ready for his friends from the Bay area to arrive for a BMW event here in the Portland area. We had been putting all sorts of contingency plans together about the event with regard to whether or not the baby would be here.

Around 2:30 that afternoon while we were awaiting the arrival of our friends and prepping a dinner -the contractions decided to come back. Scattered again, coming 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 5 minutes, then 20 minutes apart for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  The crew of  Bimmers and friends showed up, and we had an amazing tri-tip dinner and lots of yummy sides.  I lost track of the contractions and went about the night.

My new t-shirt from our friends. Just a few hours before labor began.

I went to bed at 10:30 and Jay decided to join the guys for a beer at a pub down the street. “Might as well…” I told him –nothing was happening. I climbed in to bed and fell asleep by 11… only to be jarred out of bed by some intensely strong contractions at 12:15 am.

Saturday: Now they started to come consistently every 10 minutes. Uh oh! I waited to call Jay thinking  bars  close at 2 anyway, he’d be home and the contractions would probably go away. Only they didn’t and they got stronger.  I began pacing through them in our bedroom, finally settling into a frog-like squat on the side of my bed with my pillow between me and the bed frame to rest on.  I just kept sitting through them like that –sometimes shifting my weight side to side to ease through the really nasty peaks of the contraction.  About 1:30 am I heard Jay come in… he walked right past me as I was on the floor.  He asked why I was down there, but the trademark “Oh shit!” look on his face told me he already knew.  I told him I was waiting until 2 am to see if the contractions would stick and that I would call my midwife after if they did.

By 3 am they were definitely sticking and had dropped to every 6 minutes. I called the midwife.  Thankfully I was able to get Jay back up out of bed and moving stuff around, like our youngest son who was camping out in our bed since his Lula (grandma) was in town and sleeping in his room.  And the door to the bathroom, which I wanted removed so I wouldn’t have to fuss with the damn thing during labor.

The midwife sets up everything needed in our room.

Jay and I prepped our bed, having no idea really where I’d deliver.  I certainly wasn’t laboring in the bed –laying down was intensely uncomfortable.  I kept crouching down on the side of the bed each time a contraction hit to work through it.

The midwife arrived shortly before 4 am, with her team (an RN and midwifery assistant) in tow. They began setting all sorts of equipment up. When she was settled she checked me to see how I was progressing: dilated to 5 with a bulging bag of waters! I was thrilled, never having accomplished that on my own before. Every other birth I was in a hospital bed with Pitocin controlling the show, and a side order of Demerol waiting in the wings.

Things were sort of slow and steady, the midwife and her team chatted with Jay and I, all of us parked around our king-sized bed.  I am sure Jay felt a little weird with all the women in the room, but it sure as hell beat having him sitting in the corner of a hospital room. Besides, he was all superman helping me through the truly worst parts of labor, literally carrying my weight for me.  Sometimes all I could do was lock eyes with him through a contraction, and that was enough to keep me from losing it. The sun was starting to come out, I could hear chirping.  The ladies helped me keep my sense of humor as contractions started coming on harder. We joked as we heard one of our annoying neighbors walking her dog right under our window.

Finally, around 7 am I started really losing it,  the contractions were literally spilling over each other.  As I peaked with one and started to come down, I could feel them starting again.  I was nauseous, clammy and I could taste that tri tip in my throat. Only it wasn’t delicious anymore, and my mouth was watering for a different reason.  I started feeling completely unglued and couldn’t focus and sweating out of control. The vomiting kicked in.  I tried a shower. That helped for a while, but not long. Big deep breaths started giving way to absurd grunting and shrieking. I was definitely losing my grip.

Finally I pleaded with my midwife “I need something, I just don’t know what” (uh, yeah like a painkiller, or two or five?) – I wasn’t asking for meds (which I obviously wouldn’t get anyway!),  but after a few minutes realized what I was trying to articulate was that I needed help keeping my focus. She got that immediately, gripping my hand and me gripping Jay with my other hand, I focused on her face through each contraction and mimicked everything she did, breathing in and right at the top of the contraction grunting really low.  The lower I kept my voice, the less it hurt. The more I panicked and shrieked, the more it hurt.  All it would take, however was one sideways glance at something else and it was like falling off a bike. It felt like it would take me the better part of two or three more contractions to get that focus back.  I gave in to the loud growls and grunts for a while, only to attract our dogs to the door, and we all laughed as we heard them whimpering and scratching at our door for a few minutes.

After a while of this I felt this weird crampy feeling on top of the contractions. Where I was able to move through them to help the pain all of a sudden I couldn’t. Every move I tried to make felt like a complete zing in my side.  My water still had not broken so my midwife anticipated that the water bag was getting in the way of Jonah making his way down through the pelvis.

She checked me, and I was dilated to 9. I could no longer squat or stretch through my contractions  because the water bag was so far protruded. I had her break my water bag and Jonah slid down over the next hour.

The midwives had set everything up along side my bed for delivery while I had showered.  We decided Jay could support me by sitting on a chair, holding me under my arms (my back facing him) so I could squat down to deliver Jonah. Gravity is a wonderful thing. I have no idea why we bother with sitting upright in a bed to push babies out (actually I do, its easier for the doctor to deliver that way). Only my legs were so exhausted and jell-o -like from squatting all night that I decided to go sit on the toilet to relieve my legs for a few minutes.  Once I went in, there was no way I could get out.  My legs were done.

The contractions were so fierce at this point I was gripping both Jay and the towel bar in the bathroom trying to rock through them. I wanted to bite something. I kept clenching my jaw. I tried to grab the towel and bite it, but couldn’t and ended up banging three or four times on the wall next to the towel rack. We share a wall in our condo with a neighbor on that side, and I’m thankful to say, that is all they heard from me that morning.  Just the banging on the wall for that moment.

I suppose that was a signal to the midwives that I wasn’t going to be able to get back out of the bathroom and Jonah was on his way out stat!  Everyone quickly reassembled all the gear near our bathtub, and Jay sat on the toilet seat to hold me (under the arms) while I squatted and midwife caught the baby. This happened in 18 minutes.  My midwife offered me the chance to help catch baby but I felt so unstable with my legs (even with Jay supporting my weight) I passed on that and then scooped him up after the midwife caught him.

Most unreal experience. Ever. Amazing how as soon as the little guy pops out, you completely pull yourself back together and no longer feel unglued and out of sorts. This endorphin rush lasts for the first day and you’re convinced you’re no longer tired and yes, you are in fact super-human. And then reality sets in the next day and you’re crushed to learn no, you’re a mere mortal. This has held true in every birth, be it in a hospital with meds or home.

Well, I was able to hold him while we delivered the placenta. I couldn’t even tell you how long we sat there on the floor of the bathroom, the five of us plus baby. They didn’t even suction Jonah with the nasal aspirator from what I can recall, he came out nice and clear and was blatting immediately.  By this time Lula and all of our kids were downstairs having breakfast (they had been up since 5 or 6 am).  We heard a stampede of feet and they all rushed through the door and gathered around the bathroom entry way as the midwife and team clamped and cut Jonah’s cord. Deciding they were going to see way too much of mom naked, they just as quickly went back downstairs.

It was so nice to crawl right back into the bed with Jonah and lay there,  skin to skin for well over an hour while the midwife and team did their thing.  After nursing Jonah, the RN collected him on the other side of my bed where they began to weigh, measure and do all of their official things. The other assistant helped me get my self cleaned up and stable.

Our boys were able to come up and see their new baby brother while the RN was getting him measured. When it was time to dress him, our youngest son was able to help by putting on his new brothers diaper and socks. It was a fantastic moment of bonding for all of us.

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After more time with Jonah they decided it was time for me to get looked at further, making sure I was stable and not at risk for any complications.  Jay took Jonah downstairs while the midwife worked on me a bit and then I had a shower while they remade the bed with clean sheets and had everything ready for me.

Jay came back up with baby and we all got to spend the next few hours in bed with the kids, while the midwives cleaned up the gear, the birth mess, did a load or two of our towels and sheets, etc. I tell you, they could put a crime scene clean up unit to shame.

It was pretty awesome for this to happen while we had friends and family in town.  We even got lucky with a 75 degree day, blue skies and sun, so it was warm and toasty in our room all day.  Such wonderful change from our usual grey rainy June Portland.

PS- post birth coping? Tiger Balm for my back +Advil+Jay. He has literally not let me lift a finger. Which means I am eating like a queen, and have time to write this blog post.