The Birth of Lillian Grace

This, my third pregnancy, was in many ways my easiest yet. Through most of it I craved salads. I exercised, and all in all I felt pretty good (for being pregnant). At 37 weeks exactly I woke up to a significantly lowered belly and had mild contractions all day long. When the contractions kept going for a few days I was convinced that my baby would make an appearance soon. Boy was I wrong! Contractions came on almost every evening. Sometimes they would build in intensity and begin to form a rhythm and pattern. Sometimes they were unpredictable, but always they would stop. I'd wake up the next morning a little disappointed that labor had not begun. At 41 weeks I began to get nervous. A chat with my midwife, Norma, alleviated my fears and helped me to be at ease with my baby coming when she/he was ready. As 42 weeks approached I began waking up most mornings with a very crampy feeling that would last an hour or so and sometimes be accompanied by contractions. At night I would dream that I was in labor. I suspected that these were more than just dreams, but the contractions, dream and real, kept ending. Then at 42 weeks and 3 days the 'dream' contractions seemed even more real than usual. I eventually woke up and was too crampy feeling to go back to sleep. Contractions were coming at evenly spaced intervals and they began to get closer, longer, and stronger. I didn't want to get Stephan's hopes up, so I began timing them on my own. Once everyone was up I told him that I thought today was the day.

Around 8 am I called my mom to come over, and I gave Norma and my doula, Jenny, a heads up that today really might be it. They both live a good distance from us, so I didn't want to wait too long. I continued to labor for a little over an hour, and contractions started coming closer to 4 minutes apart. I called Norma and Jenny, and they both headed over. By late morning everyone was here. My mom was the first to arrive followed by Norma and Jenny with a few of her kids (she was still nursing her youngest, and her oldest two came to help care for him). The following few hours were pretty uneventful and...dare I say it...fun. We got the kids settled in with movies and toys, and my mom ran out to get lunch for everyone. Of course, I was laboring through it all, but we sat around chatting and laughing in between. I don’t remember being hungry when I labored with Levi or Sophia, but this time I was famished. I ate and ate and ate. In between eating, laboring, and chatting I played some with Sophia. These photos of us laughing together are some of my favorites from the day.

 

At some point in the morning Norma asked if I wanted her to check my progress. I don’t get checked at all during my pregnancies, and I’m never certain during labor if I want to know or not. Curiosity got the best of me, though. I let her check, and we were all surprised that I was already 6 cm. Honestly, it just hadn’t seemed painful enough for me to be that far along. Shortly afterward the contractions picked up in intensity, and the birthing pool began to sound wonderful. I asked Stephan to start filling it up, and I impatiently waited and labored until it was finally full enough and warm enough. Aahhh. Instant relief.

There’s nothing like water to ease labor pains, but this time the water eased it a little too much. My contractions lightened up and nearly came to a halt. Norma suggested a change in position, so I got on my knees and leaned on the edge of the pool. The contractions picked up again. I was still chatting and smiling during the breaks. The afternoon went on, and I accepted that this baby was in no hurry to get here. Close to 4 pm Jenny suggested that I get out of the water to see if gravity and movement might help baby along. Within seconds I was having extremely intense contractions. They started coming back to back. Ten or fifteen minutes later I felt like I needed to get back in the water. The intensity was too much for me to bear while standing and walking around, so I climbed back in. This birth was very different from my previous two.* It wasn't very painful until the end which is a blessing, but at the time I felt thrown off by that. I went into this birth prepared to ease into a birthing groove as contractions got stronger, but the pain was sporadic. I couldn't establish a rhythm which made me uneasy. When the pain did intensify with such suddenness, I felt lost without the rhythm that I thought I would already have.

The contractions were strong and very close together, but they were, at least, more manageable in the water. After only a short time, I began to feel the urge to push. I was stunned. Transition with my other two had lasted hours not minutes! It didn’t seem possible that I could already be at that point. I looked up at Norma all wide eyed and dumbfounded and said, “I feel like I need to poop!” Glamorous….I know. It is a bit of an awful joke that that is indeed what the need to push sometimes feels like. Norma looked a bit surprised, and said she wanted to check me first. Sure enough the baby’s head was at the perineum and ready to come out. Truth be told, I don't remember when exactly my water broke. It may have been a moment or two before this or maybe it was a moment or two after. Either way, things only sped up from here. Someone put a warm towel around my shoulders, and I am convinced that that towel was crucial to this birth. I held on to it with each contraction and felt like it was the one thing still grounding me to this earth. It’s funny how something so simple can become so important during labor.

Norma quickly gave a few instructions on how she wanted me to breathe this baby out instead of push. With each contraction I grabbed the towel, locked eyes with Jenny, and desperately tried to follow her breathing with my own. Actually, I guess I'd really have to put Jenny above the towel on a critical to this birth scale. She brings a sense of calm and a confidence that I have come to rely on. She has been a godsend in each of my homebirths. At a moment when I felt a bit panicky and began to pray for God to please be with me, she looked at me and said with calm conviction, "He's already here." And, He was...guiding all of it perfectly.

After a couple of contractions, the baby crowned but then slipped back into the birth canal. At that point Norma suggested that I push just until I felt a burning sensation and then stop. I must admit that that burning sensation, also known as the ring of fire, caught me totally off guard. With Sophia, pushing just felt like intense relief. That was not the case this time. I felt the ring of fire, and I wanted to run away! Instead, I pushed gently two or three times and then reached down to feel my baby’s head. There is nothing to compare to that first touch. It reminds me of what joy is waiting at the finish line and gives me the strength to keep going. This time I looked up at Norma and excitedly said, “Is that hair?!!!” Sophia had been practically bald, so it was such a different experience to feel a head full of hair. I was thrilled and so excited to meet my new baby. One more contraction and baby was out...4:35 p.m.. Stephan said she looked like a dolphin shooting into the water. It was surreal to watch my sweet baby lock eyes with me right as she came into the world. The memory of that gaze is forever tucked away in my heart now....to be pulled out at moments of stress in, oh, about 15 years. (Here’s the part where things got a bit hairy. It all ends well, though.) That wonderful gaze continued as Norma was lifting baby out of the water, but just as she came to the surface her cord snapped. The blood looked like a firecracker setting off in the water. Norma has fast and steady hands, though. The second the cord broke, she grabbed the baby’s end of it. Then she handed the baby to me, and I continued to pinch the cord shut while Norma found the other end and pinched it. She called for clamps and helped me out of the water where she could more easily and safely clamp both ends of the cord. The whole while my sweet baby calmly stared into my eyes. Everything was settled in just a matter of seconds, and baby and I were checked over and wrapped up in warm blankets. Norma was checking the baby at the end of the bed when I realized that I hadn't even looked to see if we had a boy or a girl. I asked, and when I heard the words “It’s a girl” I squealed and giggled. So much joy!

Because of the cord breaking, it was imperative that the placenta come out quickly. After my last birth the placenta took a long time to come out, so Norma began preparing herbs to help it along this time. I wanted to give nursing a chance to kick start some contractions, but my beautiful baby wanted nothing to do with it. She was content just to stare into my eyes, so we called Sophia in to help. I love to hear Stephan tell this part of the story. Neither one of us will ever forget Sophia’s excitement over the prospect of helping mommy. Of course, some of that excitement might have been due to the fact that she hadn’t nursed since that morning. She came running in on her short little legs, bounded up on the bed, and latched on. The placenta was delivered shortly after that and no herbs were needed which was quite the relief for me. I was a little nervous about taking herbs that were strong enough to detach a placenta! All was well. The placenta was whole and there was no sign of hemorrhaging on my part. Lillian never knew anything had happened. She was perfectly pink, healthy, happy, and alert. She and I snuggled into bed as everyone filed in to meet and greet. And, once Lillian figured out that she could nurse and still look at me she was happy to do so….for the next 24 hours. Seriously, she didn’t sleep that whole first night. She just nursed and looked at me all through the night and most of the next day. I didn’t mind, though. She was a beautiful sight to behold.

We called her 'Baby' for a couple of days before deciding on Lillian Grace. Truth be told we were convinced that she was a boy, and the only name we had picked out was a boy name. Throughout the pregnancy we both felt like I was carrying a boy. Everyone, strangers included, guessed it was a boy, and to top it off her heart rate fell into the boy range at all but one of her last check ups. Boy, were we wrong! I'll never forget the feeling of giddiness that came over me when I found out she was a she. After 9 months of wondering and anticipating it is so much fun to be surprised in the end.

Welcome to the world, little Lillian! We're thrilled that you're here!

*You can read Levi's emergency c-section birth story here and Sophia's homebirth here.

The Birth of Sophia Mae

I am not a writer, and I feel wholly inadequate telling this story.  In fact, it's been written and rewritten many times already.  I can't seem to find the words to describe how peaceful and beautiful Sophia's birth was.  During this pregnancy, I read lots of birth stories and watched birth videos.  All of those mothers seemed so courageous and brave.   The thought, "What if I'm not?," kept ringing in my head.  Here's the thing,  I am not.  I am not any more courageous or brave than the average gal.  I don't hold any special skills or abilities that make me "good" at giving birth naturally.  I am just a normal woman....probably a little less courageous than most...definitely less pain tolerant.  I've been known to cry over stubbing my toe.  Seriously.  I do not like pain, and before going into this birth I was afraid.  But, all of those fears washed away as labor set in and the work of getting a baby into this world was before me.  The pain of birth is unlike any other pain.  It has a magic and a mystery to it....a plan and a purpose.  Surrendering to that plan and purpose was the key for me.

.......

 
Around 4 am on September 1st I started having sporadic but intense contractions.  We assumed they were just "practice" contractions and would end soon.  Since they were too painful to sleep through, I got out of bed.  I started a blog post about our week (which had been great and so very full of nesting).  I was going to tell y'all about the appointment with our midwife and time spent at the park the day before.  I had pretty pictures to share of my oh so full belly....

Levi took this one, and I am in love with it.

There were going to be stories of our little adventures...

But, that post was set aside and forgotten when the contractions became more regular and intense.  They were 5 to 7 minutes apart for about an hour.  Every time one hit I felt the need to hold onto a table and squat, so that's what I did.  I was still convinced I wasn't really in labor, but I figured it was a good time to practice.  Advice that our doula, Jenny, gave me kept running through my head.  A few weeks before Sophia's birthday, Jenny came for a visit.  That evening she told me something that stuck with me.  She said that she was never capable of surrendering to pain, so she always found it easier to surrender to God and his plan.  I had been given similar advice before, but there was something about the way she said it that made it click for me.  So, I practiced surrendering with each contraction.  Little did I know that this wasn't practice but the real thing.  6:30 am came around, and ouchie, ouchie.  Those contractions started rolling in at 4 minutes apart and 60 seconds long.  I woke Stephan at 7, and thirty minutes later we called our midwife, Norma.  I still thought it would end soon.  Norma didn't.  On her way to our house, she called Jenny.  After this point, time became a bit of a blur.
Norma arrived, and started setting things up. She told me that she wanted to check how far along I was but there was no rush.  She would check me when I felt ready.  I wandered around the house finding birth supplies and calling my mom and sister.  During contractions I would lean over or squat.  Jenny arrived and immediately started doing hip presses to alleviate some of the pain...oh so wonderful.  It wasn't too long before I felt okay being checked for dilation.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the results, but curiosity got the better of me, when Norma looked pleasantly surprised and said that I was really coming along.  I was 4 cm and 85 % effaced.  I was beginning to get excited yet still a little wary.  I was afraid the contractions would end, and then I'd be sending everyone home.  Can you say, "denial"?
Instead of ending, the contractions began to really pick up.  Walking around and chatting were no longer so comfortable, and I finally began to really believe we were going to meet our baby.  The birth tub became very appealing.  Water felt good....really, really good.  To everyone's surprise, I hit transition shortly after getting into the pool. 

How do you like the fishies? ;)

Things were moving along very quickly, but it all felt natural and peaceful.  I was being allowed to follow my body's lead.  There was no hospital frenzy, no strangers wandering in, no monitors and iv's to restrict me, and most importantly no nurses telling me that I wasn't really in labor.  I was focused and relaxed.  The times when I felt my focus slipping, Jenny and Norma would immediately pick up on it.  They knew exactly what to do to get me back to where I needed to be.
When transition ended there was a relaxing lull.  Norma checked to make sure I was fully dilated and effaced.  I was.  But, this is where things slowed down...way down.  Notice there has been no mention of my water breaking.  That's because it hadn't broken yet.
After the lull, contractions began again.  They were hard and long.  I felt a lot of rectal pressure.  Classic pushing contractions, right?  Wrong.  Despite the rectal pressure, I wasn't feeling that undeniable urge to push.  Norma suggested that I try pushing anyway with the hopes that my water would break.  After a few ineffective pushes, we opted for another strategy....waiting.  I got out of the tub and labored in lots of different positions....waiting and waiting and waiting.  When I grew tired of standing, sitting, and squatting, I would lie down on the bed to labor on my left side.
Eventually, Norma considered breaking my water (something she almost never does), but then she changed her mind.  She believed my contractions were strong enough, and they would do it for us.  We just had to wait.  Despite all of the pain, a peace came over me when this was decided.  I knew it was the right thing to do.  God would take care of everything in his own time.
As the contractions grew more and more intense, I stayed on the bed.  Norma was at my feet, and Jenny and Stephan were on either side of me.  I could hear their prayers, and kept saying my own....with every contraction surrendering to God's plan for this birth.  And, finally at the very moment that I thought I couldn't go on any longer, I suddenly realized that I was pushing.  That undeniable urge had struck.  Norma and Jenny simultaneously said, "Now that's a pushing contraction!"  It wasn't long before my water broke.  The relief I felt at that moment is indescribable. 
Contractions really started to pick up at this point, and pushing was well under way.  Within 30 minutes Sophia's head crowned.  I reached down and felt her for the first time.  Norma instructed me to stop pushing and to just breath my baby out.  I stared intently into Jenny's eyes.  I gripped someone's hand.  As soon as I started to follow Jenny's breathing, Sophia's entire head was out.  Norma was telling me to slow down, but I wasn't pushing.  Out flew the rest of Sophia.  At 2:55 in the afternoon this girl was ready to see the world, and she was not about to be breathed out.  The feelings that rushed over me as I saw her for the first time were truly incredible.  Talk about an all natural high.  And, then finding out that the baby I'd been carrying around for nine months really was a girl.  Sweetness.  Pink thoughts started twirling about in my head as she was placed on my stomach.

After the cord quit pulsing, Stephan got the cutting honors.

And, then I was able to really hold her in my arms.  Sophia latched on like a pro as we waited to deliver her placenta.

I'll spare you from the photos my sister took of the placenta.  But, for curious moms to be, delivering the placenta is nothing like delivering the baby.  Promise.

After lots of sweet nursing and cuddling time, we were ushered into a warm herbal "tea" bath. Sophia looked like she had landed in heaven.  I was certain that I had.

And, that is the story of how an incredible new life took her place in the world.  But, the real story is just beginning to unfold...even as I type.

A Full Belly....36 1/2 weeks

Our midwife came for a visit yesterday.  Levi was her "big helper"...measuring, and checking on the baby.  After she left, "Where's my Miss Norma?"

And The Fear Starts To Sink In

So do not fear, for I am with you;

do not be dismayed, for I am your God. 

I will strengthen you and help you; 

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 

~Isaiah 41:10

Lately I find myself repeating this one to myself....over and over.  Until recently, I was confident about my decision to birth at home.  Most of the time I still am.  I adore my midwife and doula.  Together with my husband, I don't think I could have a better team.  My confidence in them remains unshaken.  Buuuuuuut.....then there's me.  Lately, especially at night, doubts and fears have started to creep in.  I wonder if I can really handle it.  "It" being the pain, the fatigue.  The rational me knows that this fear is uncalled for.  Considering all of the pain that I dealt with during and for months after Levi's birth, you'd think I'd have it permanently etched in my mind that I am far more capable than I give myself credit for being.  And, as Stephan puts it, "You don't have a choice, Babe."  Leave it to a man to sum it up so tenderly.  

When I was pregnant with Levi, I spent loads of time trying to ignore my fears.  That go round I didn't have the sense to be scared of my own abilities.  I thought babies were just born and that was that.  Instead, I was terrified of drugs, needles in my spine, an episiotomy, and a c-section.  All but the episiotomy came true.  Levi's birth was probably the scariest time of my life, and so much of it was unnecessary.*  This time, I've done my research.  I haven't walked blindly into this birth, and I've done everything that I know to do to avoid the things I was initially and rightfully terrified of.  In so many ways, this will be like having a baby for the first time.  And, like most first time mamas (really probably most mamas), fear seeps into the cracks.  The knowledge that we aren't as in control as we think we are can shake us....although, in reality, knowing that we aren't the ones in charge should lift us up. 

*Levi, in case you're reading this way down the road, your birth may have been scary, but I'd have done it all over again a hundred more times just to get you.  You were worth it all, and I'm so glad to have you.

P.S. If you don't have something encouraging to say then please hold your tongue...or your keyboard.