So...how 'bout I blog about a birth??

Been looking for a good excuse to resurrect this little blog of ours.  Lucky for me, I conveniently had a baby a few weeks ago.  And every baby has a birth story.  And I LOVE to tell a good story.  Just be warned, though - if the use of words, such as "poop" and "mucous plug" are offensive to  you, this ain't the story for you (but, c'mon - it's about BIRTH - what do you expect???).  Without further ado...

Caroline’s pregnancy was easily the easiest I’ve had of my three children.  Not a single day of morning sickness.  No nausea or food aversions or extreme tiredness.  I was basically the pregnant woman that every pregnant woman hates (or at least the pregnant woman I hated when I was puking my guts up the entire first trimester I was pregnant with Thomas).  I ran up until I was about 38 weeks pregnant and only had to stop when it became too uncomfortable because of the head jammed into my pelvis – not because my body gave out (like it did with Abby at 30 wks).  I felt great and had great energy all the way until the end. 

After going past 41 weeks with Abby, I had a feeling Caroline would not come before her due date and probably not even until about the same 41 wk. mark when Abby came.  So when my due date passed, I wasn’t anxious.  I was still smiling, still going to the gym, not bothered by answering everyone’s “when are you due??” and “you haven’t had that baby yet??” questions.  41 wks came and I still had the smile, but could feel some anxiousness creeping in.  Once I passed 41+1 (the date at which I had Abby) I really started to worry.  I was becoming increasingly irritated by people asking me why I wasn’t being induced, asking me if it was still safe to be pregnant, etc.  I was hopeful that baby was just holding on until my little brother’s birthday on January 31^st.  After all, I had been telling people since August that the baby was due “sometime between mid-late January”.  So when I woke up on Feb. 1^st, STILL pregnant, I went completely crazy pants.  Didn't this baby know it was supposed to come in JANUARY???  Suffice it to say, I was not in a good place.  

I had been trying to keep up my daily routine to keep my mind off of The Wait, but I had a breakdown that morning.  I had gotten ready to take the kids to the gym, but instead of going downstairs to help the kids put their shoes on, I went into the bedroom and sobbed.  For twenty minutes, I just let it all out.  I had woken up that morning, terrified that something was wrong with the baby that was keeping him/her from coming.  I knew I had my first NST (non-stress test) scheduled for the following Monday (42+1) and I was terrified that the baby would fail the NST and that we would have to be admitted to the hospital and I would have to have a repeat c-section.  So many worries were surfacing, so I just let it all out.  Thankfully Kenta stayed home from work that day and took care of the kids while I cried and cried and cried.  I messaged Autumn, the midwife that was on call, to let her know that, mentally, I was a wreck and needed to talk some of my fears out.  She called me right away.  It was SUCH a relief talking to her on the phone.  She told me the emotions I was feeling were just a normal part of preparing for the birth.  I had been feeling absolutely fine until I lost it that day.  She calmed my fears about the NST, telling me that more often than not, the NST shows that the baby is thriving and doing just fine.  We discussed a few options for gently inducing labor (stripping membranes, blue cohosh, etc.) and said if I wanted to do any of that, it was certainly up to me.  I decided I would wait through the weekend, see what the results of the NST were, and go from there.  I had a 42 week appointment scheduled with my midwife the day after the NST, so I told myself “if I make it to that appointment, I’ll probably ask to have my membranes stripped”.   The phone conversation with Autumn left me in a really good place, but I was still pregnant and was losing faith that my body would figure out how to start labor on its own.  It was terribly hard to go that far post dates when most everyone I knew was  telling me, “You’re crazy!  Why aren’t you getting induced????”.  Even random old men at the gym had taken notice that I had been pregnant for an extraordinarily long time. I felt like maybe I was being a bit negligent and almost (as weird as this sounds) a bit selfish or prideful about my desire to have a natural birth and let the baby and my body do what they needed to do on their own timetable.

Another reason I was feeling anxious about not having had a baby by February 1^st was that my mom was coming that evening.  I had made NO plans for what to do with her because, well, baby was supposed to have already been born.  My mom went through childbirth nine times, but I really wasn't sure if she or I were comfortable with the idea of her hanging around the house while I had the baby.  I'm not a very "zen" person during childbirth - having an audience was not really part of my plans.  We had made arrangements for the kids many weeks previously.  I knew I couldn’t have them around because I didn't want to scare them.  Before my mom came, I thought, “I really, really, really don’t want her there”.  But once we picked her up, I thought, “I don’t really care who is in the house.  I just want this baby OUT”.  And, honestly, it was making me more anxious trying to figure out what to do with her.  So we had some back up plans for my mom if she or I got too uncomfortable, but we decided to take a "wait and see" approach.

Sunday, February 3^rd, I was 42 weeks pregnant.  I had said a few days before that I didn’t want to go to church and see people if I was still pregnant, but I ended up changing my mind.  I figured if I just went to the first hour, I could at least get the spiritual uplift without having to talk to people (you don't really want to see or talk to people when you are 42 weeks pregnant.  Even people you really, really like.  Trust me.).  So I left church and went home to chill by myself for a few hours.  It was nice to have a few hours alone.  Did I rest at all?  Nope.  In fact Kenta and I skyped with my sister in Australia that evening and didn't end up going to bed until just after midnight.  At this point, I had given up the hope that spontaneous labor would start any time soon.  I had developed a bad habit of staying up pretty late because every day was seeming like the day before.  I was, essentially, living Groundhog Day.  Every morning I woke up, fully refreshed...and not in labor.  But - finally!- something changed that night.  

I woke up around 2:00 in the morning to go to the bathroom.  Then I woke up again around 3:30 a.m. with my first contraction.  It was a real, legit, LABOR contraction.  I kicked myself a little for not having gone to bed earlier.   Keeping true to my tendency to procrastinate, I decided it would probably be a good idea to start gathering odds and ends of things I should have had together at least two weeks before – baby blankets and clothes and hats and such.  I timed contractions and woke Kenta up around 4:30 to let him know that we were going to need to start filling the birth tub.  He told me to wake him up again in half an hour.  We started filling the tub around 5:00 and I panicked a little when I realized that it was going to take a little while to get the tub filled, due to the limited capacity of our hot water heater.  So I freaked out and had Kenta boil water in pots and bring them up the stairs to the birth room (the kids' room). I really did not want to be without that tub when I was in labor.  I NEEDED that tub.  The thought of laboring without it petrified me.  Contractions were still holding pretty steady, around 4-8 minutes apart, lasting around 40 seconds.  I had Kenta page the midwife at 7:00 (Adrian, the other midwife, was now on call) to let her know that I was in labor.   

Things were calm and manageable.  I had to breathe pretty deeply through contractions, but other than that, I was able to carry on pretty normally.  The kids woke up just after we called Adrian, so Kenta brought them downstairs and we discussed our plan for the day.  The kids had preschool at a friend's house at 10:30 that morning.  Mom was going to take them to preschool and then another friend was going to pick them up around noon and take them for the rest of the day, and possibly overnight.  I stayed upstairs for most of the time between when the kids woke up and when they left.  It was hard for them to understand that every few minutes, I couldn’t talk to them and just needed to breathe and be left alone.  Abby was particularly upset because I wouldn’t hold her.  I changed into my “birthing attire” (sports bra and bathrobe) and came downstairs for one last picture with the kids as a family of four before they headed off to school.  I tried not to think too much about how our family would change before I saw them next.  I’m getting a little emotional as I think about that moment now, but when they left, I was relieved to be able to concentrate on the work ahead of me.  

The tub was full at that point, and I wanted to climb in for a little to work through some contractions.  The water felt good.  TOO good.  I noticed that the contractions really fizzled out. I only had about three the whole 45ish minutes I was in there, and they weren’t very strong, so I climbed out.  I fully expected labor to taper off at that point in the day like my labor with Abby (which it did, right around the time the kids headed off to preschool), but I didn’t want to stop things completely.  I got out and came downstairs for a bit to chat with my mom.  Kenta left to get some lunch at Five Guys - he had decided months before that he wanted Five Guys for HIS "labor food".  Seriously - he might have been more excited about Five Guys than a new baby.  Anyway, I stayed at home in my bathrobe, did a little embroidery, talked to Mom, and breathed through contractions.  Kenta came home, offered me a french fry, I ate it, immediately regretted it (food just always sounds DISGUSTING to me while I'm in labor). I gave up on being social and excused myself to go upstairs to the kids' room and get some rest.  

Before I tried to take a nap, I took the opportunity during this lull in labor to finish an episode of Downton Abbey that I missed the night before.  When I finished, I thought, "Hmmm....I kind of forgot all about labor pain management...that might be good stuff to remember" and decided I should brush up on my Bradley relaxation techniques.  I grabbed the Bradley book and an extra pillow from our room (Kenta was asleep on our bed at that point…he claims he was updating his new phone or something, but, yeah -  he was totally asleep) and went and laid down on Thomas’s bed.  Between contractions, I practiced relaxed breathing and letting my body sink deep into the bed.  Initially, I timed the contractions, but it was getting really annoying having to grab my phone (yes!  there is an app for that!) and start  and stop them, so I just told myself, “forget it, this is my time to relax and breathe and rest.  No matter what I do, things are not going to pick up for awhile.  I need this chance to let my body get the rest it didn’t get last night”.  This was an important lesson I learned with Abby – I tried walking and moving to keep labor going in the middle of the day instead of resting.  So I laid in bed, breathing and visualizing my body sinking into the mattress from about 1:30-2:00ish to 3:30.  At about 3:30, I noticed I had gotten a facebook message from Autumn (who wasn’t on call anymore) because she had gotten an email from the paging system saying that I was in labor.  She wished me luck and I messaged her back telling her, “This is turning out to be a very Abby-esque labor so far. Things fizzled out around 10:00, so I took the opportunity to rest while contractions were light and manageable (I only got three hours of sleep last night...). So, here I am, bracing for things to pick up again. “  Not long after that, I had a contraction that lasted just a bit longer than anything I had had before.  It had another layer of intensity to it and I thought, “hmmmm….this might be the start of things picking up....”.  

Right around the time I had that contraction, the phone rang.  I was pretty sure it was Adrian calling to see how things were progressing.  I had the phone in my hand, but did not want to answer in case I got caught in another contraction.  I could hear Kenta practicing the piano in our bedroom, so I yelled at him to come get the phone.  While I was yelling at him, the phone rang again.  I was really mad that he couldn’t hear me.  We have an electronic keyboard with headphones and I knew he had the headphones on and couldn’t hear me, even though I was like ten steps down the hall from him.  I waited for the next contraction to pass, then I marched into the bedroom and reamed him out for having headphones on while I was in labor.  Then I told him Adrian called and he needed to call her back.  I then went to the bathroom and noticed that I there was A LOT of discharge.  I had been waiting to lose my mucous plug all afternoon, but had seen nothing.  This definitely looked like mucous to me (I told Kenta to tell Adrian that it was like “a big blob of snot”) – but there was no blood.  I was expecting blood.  So I was a little confused.  I then handed Kenta my phone and emphatically stated that it was HIS job to be timing my contractions.  He hadn’t done much of the “birth partner”-y stuff yet and this was annoying me (nevermind that I hadn’t asked him to do anything until that point….I think I was just mad that he had had the headphones on and that I had to come find him).  Looking back, I should have known things were about to get serious because of how quickly my attitude changed.  Poor Kenta had no idea that I had suddenly gone from "this is going to drag on forever" to "Umm...I REALLY NEED HELP NOW" until I started yelling at him about not answering the phone.  Ha!

Anyway, I told him to call Adrian back and tell her I thought I had lost my mucous plug and that contractions had picked up a little but were still 4-6 minutes apart and had only been that way for about 30 minutes (it was almost 4:00 at this time).    I felt a contraction coming on, so I quit chewing Kenta out and got on our bed in child’s pose (the most comfortable position I could find) and just let out some low vocalizations into the pillow.  I felt a little “pop!” and thought, “hmmmm…I remember feeling that in the tub with Abby and it HURT”.  I was pretty sure that my water had broken, so I stood up and a little water trickled out.  Again, I was confused because I thought there was supposed to be a big gush, not a little trickle.  I had Kenta call Adrian back and tell her that I thought my water had broken.  I went to the bathroom again. Gushed a little bit more water (Adrian asked Kenta if it was clear.  It was - a good sign).  Adrian had Kenta ask me when the last time I felt the baby move was.  I honestly had no idea but made a note to pay attention to it.  Turns out there wasn’t much time for that.  Contractions immediately jumped from 4-6 minutes to 2 minutes apart after my water broke.  Of course, Kenta took this moment (I have no idea why) to update me on some camera stuff he had been selling online.  He had sold a camera to a guy in Russia that supposedly had gotten lost in the Russian mail system (bummer), but had just found out that day that the guy actually ended up getting the camera.  At any other time, I would have been really happy and interested (because it really was good news), but when he was telling me all of this, all I could respond was, "Hm..oh. Uh-huh.  That's nice".  What I really wanted to say was, "I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID CAMERA.  CAN YOU NOT SEE I AM DYING HERE?????"

After the mucous plug incident, I had not completely flushed all the toilet paper down the toilet (and our toilet doesn’t have a very strong flush), so when I went to the bathroom again and flushed, I clogged the toilet.  Excellent time for me to lose my birth partner, due to him having to perform plumber duties. I was super annoyed because I wanted to go the bathroom AGAIN (seriously, I would have probably had that baby on the toilet, there was so much pressure on my tailbone I felt like I was constantly needing to poop), so I had to go use the downstairs bathroom while Kenta found the plunger and fixed the upstairs toilet.  

I had a contraction downstairs and declared that I was ready to get in the tub (Adrian had told me to hold off as long as possible).  I got in and I knew that this was IT.  My contractions were holding steady at about 2 - 2.5 minutes apart.  Just before 4:30, I had a wild contraction, looked at Kenta when it was over and said, “I am pushing.  I need to push”.  He kind of looked at me, a little terrified and said, “We can do this.  Push if you need to”.  At some point he had talked to Adrian again and she let him know that her assistant, Beth, was about ten minutes away.  I heard my mom  (who I had kind of forgotten about) yell something up the stairs like, “don’t push, Kendall!  Just pant, it’ll keep you from pushing until she gets here!”.  I was like, “No way, man.  This baby needs to come OUT”.  I did not want to delay it, even though Beth wasn’t there yet and Adrian was still at least 15 minutes behind.  After a couple of pushes, Beth showed up.  I was so relieved to see her come in.  I had been feeling for the baby’s head when I pushed and was worried that I was feeling something that wasn’t a head.  I had no idea what it was, but it didn’t feel like a head to me (seriously, how many baby heads have I felt?  What did I know?).  She took a look with a flashlight and said it was fine – it was a head and I was making great progress.  The next contraction was pretty intense.  I tried to push the baby out, but didn’t make it.  She told me that the baby was going to come out the next time and I thought, “YES.  I WILL MAKE THAT HAPPEN”.  I was so ready for it to be over.  So the next contraction I pushed and I pushed HARD.  I had been squatting and Beth kind of guided me on to my hands and knees as I was pushing (later, I found out it was to help unwrap a nuchal chord).  I remembered not wanting to be moved at all while I was pushing Abby out, but with this one, I could feel the baby coming out, so I was like, “Dude, move me wherever I need to go so this can be OVER”.  I felt the baby come out and it was instant relief.  Ahhh….relief.  I flipped over just in time to see my little baby girl get pulled out of the water and flopped on to my chest.

 

She just looked around and blinked.  I was a little worried because she had her mouth shut and I was like, “Breathe, baby!  Breathe!” (completely forgetting that, duh, she’s still getting oxygen from the chord).  But she was so silent and calm.  And big.  I couldn’t tell how big because Beth had wrapped a blanket over her.  Beth’s guess was “high 8’s, low 9’s”.  I told Kenta to call my mom up, and she came up from the downstairs and walked into the room with tears in her eyes.  It was really beautiful to see my mom so touched.  She was literally there within a minute or two of Caroline being born.  Despite having had nine children herself, Caroline was probably the “freshest squeezed” baby she had ever seen.  Doctors didn’t hand the babies immediately over to their moms back when my siblings and I were all born.  It was really a moment we’ll never forget.   When it was time to cut the chord we flipped Caroline over and got a good look at her for the first time.  When Beth saw her back chub, she said, “ohhh…wait.  This baby is more like a 10 pounder.”  It had been two years since I had been around this new of a newborn, so to me, she still seemed really small.

As we were getting things cleaned up, Adrian showed up.  She was sad to have missed all the action, but it was still so nice having her there.  Kenta filled her in on the details while I moved into the bedroom.  They weighed Caroline and I heard, “Ten pounds!”.  I actually would have been a little disappointed growing anything smaller, considering I had gestated her a week longer than even Abigail.  Adrian and Beth checked me out to see if I needed any stitches and, much to my delight, not a single one was necessary.  Kenta called our friend to bring the kids over.  When they got there, they sat on the bed with me and waited for my mom to bring her in.  They were infatuated.  They kept looking at her and pointing at her.  Abby was obsessed with her monkey blanket.  We took some video and pictures.  Right before it was time for the kids to head out and back to our friend's house for the night, Thomas asked me, “Mommy?  Did the poopy come out?”  Hahahaha….he had asked me the week before if the baby was going to break my tummy open.  When I told him no, he said, “Is the baby going to come out of your mouth?”.  I laughed and told him the baby was going to come out “like a big poopy”.  So, in true Thomas fashion – he did NOT forget to ask me about the poopy.

As I was thinking back and comparing Abigail’s birth with Caroline’s, I can’t help but notice the difference in emotions that I felt at the end.  With Abigail, I felt exhilaration – I felt so empowered, like I could do ANYTHING.  It was an amazing feeling.  Caroline’s birth was a bit different.  The best word I can think of was “relief”.  I was relieved she was here.  Relieved she was safe.  Relieved it was over.  Her pregnancy had been an easy one.  Too easy.   I had a sense of dread almost the entire nine plus months that something was wrong because things had been going so well.  The entire first trimester I worried because I had no queasiness and I spotted.  Her 20 week anatomy scan was a little wonky because the sonographer had my due date wrong and found measurements that may have indicated Down Syndrome (turns out I had passed the 20 week window when they should have taken these measurements.  I was 21 weeks and they were inaccurate).  Once we cleared up the due date confusion, the doctor was quick to tell me that everything was most likely normal.  But that seed of worry had been planted and I kept it in the back of my mind throughout the rest of the pregnancy.  And when I passed my due date, each day I woke up, not in labor, I thought I was risking myself out of being able to birth the baby at home.  There was just SO much anticipation, it caused my anxiety to skyrocket toward the end of the pregnancy.  Having her safe in my arms, I was finally able to take a deep breath.  So, not quite the same “I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR” kind of feeling that I had with Abby, but instead, just a quiet “ahhhh…she’s here.  She’s really, really here”.

I learned so many lessons waiting for Caroline and she was worth every second of the wait.  We love having this sweet little girl in our family!