The Story

It's been a really busy week already, and I'll catch up on everything soon, but I wanted to finally write up Henry's birth story before the details started disappearing. Unlike the details of his sweet face and hands and feet, I don't have any ultra-close up pictures of the details of his labor and birth -thankfully ha!

I kind of want to start at the beginning and all the reasoning and research and history that went into our decision to have a home birth, but really - as my wise friend Carla said, it's easier to just say "it was a well-researched decision." I probably will talk about it some day, but it's a separate post, because this one is going to be really long - I mostly want to write it all out so I don't forget. I did get concurrent OB/midwife care. If my asthma had not been well controlled, if I had gone into labor before 36 weeks, or there had been any other complications, I would have had a hospital birth.

I didn't know it (or obviously it would have been better) - but this was my last belly shot, taken on February 5th

On Saturday, February 6th, the day after I reached 36 weeks, I decided to allow myself a quick outing after six weeks of bed rest. I met a friend and her daughter - Sophia's best friend - for breakfast at IHOP with the girls. Afterwards, we went to their house so the girls could play for a couple of hours, then we headed home and I once again planted myself on the couch. I had every intention of taking it easy another two weeks until I was fully full term.

Later that afternoon, my friend Sarah came over with her husband, her son who is Amelia's age, and her twins who are eight months old - and a wonderful lasagna dinner! Do I have awesome friends or what?! They stayed and visited for a couple of hours. I love being around them - not only are Sarah and her husband awesome, but our kids play together really well, with Sophia doting on "the baby twins." But around 5:30 or so, as Sarah and her family were getting ready to leave, I started getting uncomfortable. I had been having contractions all day, kind of like I'd been having contractions for six weeks, but by the end of the day they made me squirm. Sarah later told me she knew something was up, because I was "sitting funny."

As soon as they left and I got dinner on the table, something weird happened. I read about it in the Bradley childbirth book, but hadn't experienced it before - I became totally manic. I could NOT. SIT. STILL. I mean, I literally couldn't. I wasn't in pain (the contractions were regular and about two minutes apart, but not really painful), I was just insanely restless. I told Davis I was going for a walk. I walked up and down our street and around the block a few times - it was a gorgeous, clear, cold night. After six weeks of being cooped up, walking felt amazing. The contractions were still mild and didn't make me stop walking. I had a feeling this was the very early stages of labor, but nothing would happen anytime soon - with Amelia I went into the hospital when my contractions were two minutes apart and she was born eighteen hours later.

I went back into the house and tried to help Davis put the girls to bed, although I don't think I was much good - I didn't even have the attention span to give them a bath or read them a story. As soon as they were in bed, around 7:00, I called my friend Carla (who was going to be with us for the birth regardless of whether it was in the hospital or at home - I was actually there ten years ago when she had her second child at home) and my midwife to tell them something might be going on. I told them I thought it was still very early. But because I had been having contractions for so many weeks, my midwife wanted to make sure, and she sent her apprentice over to check my cervix. I told her I didn't think it had changed any, and sure enough, at around 9:00 p.m. it hadn't changed from my last appointment the week before. I continued to pace a hole in the floor of my living room, as well as sit on the birth ball, which felt awesome. Mary, our midwife, told me to take a shower and call her back. My contractions seemed stronger, although still not very painful, after my cervix check. A shower sounded great.

Wow. Immediately after my shower, my contractions became much more intense and I could no longer talk or walk through them. I asked Davis to call Carla and Mary back, and they both decided to head over to our house. Around 10:00, they arrived. I was still chatty and excited between contractions, though during contractions I was all business.

I remember watching this (awesome) hippy dippy YouTube video (check it out) when I was pregnant, where this girl talked about how the contractions were just pressure and energy and not painful at all - and all I thought about from about 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. was "bull----." The contractions hurt. BUT not laying flat on my back in a hospital bed made them totally manageable. Sitting or laying still made me want to scream, but being able to move made all the difference in the world. During most of my contractions at this point I was standing up and I had the heels of my hands dug into my eye sockets until I saw stars and imagined I was flying through space - I don't know why, but it helped, and I'm really surprised I didn't have black eyes the next day.

By around midnight, the contractions were getting more intense, and Carla made the comment that I was now serious between contractions. I retreated to my little "cave" (bedroom) and everyone left me alone, except Carla and sometime Mary, who did this awesome thing where they put pressure on my back during a contraction.

Davis paced his nervous energy off outside the room, which was much better than having it around me. I started sitting on the toilet adjacent to our room during most of my contractions and that felt good. It was really nice to be able to do whatever felt good, and that's what I did. I forgot every thing I ever read in any book, I never took any childbirth classes, I just did whatever made me most comfortable. Check the time on this one - I had NO idea I was just an hour away from holding Henry!

At a little after 1:00 a.m., the midwives had set up a birth stool at the foot of my bed. I had started pushing - actually my body was pushing, I was making no conscious effort to push - a little and since sitting on the toilet felt good, they made the awesome decision that this is how I should deliver. Probably around 1:20, I moved to the stool and started pushing during contractions. Again, it was so great to just do exactly what my body told me to do, rather than having someone else tell me what and how to do it. The midwife told me that my bag of waters was bulging and that it would probably burst during my next big push. I was getting hot, so I asked Davis - who was rubbing my shoulders at this point - to get me a cold wash cloth. He went to find one, and during the next contraction, I pushed hard. My water broke just as predicted, but then my body kept pushing and out came Henry's head! And my body kept pushing - same contraction - and the rest of him came out! We were all shocked. Both the girls crowned forever and we all thought after my water broke, we would start the whole process of getting baby out. But he had other plans, precious boy. 1:34 a.m., Sunday, February 7th.

They placed him in my arms immediately and examined him while I held him.

After they cut his cord, we moved to the bed for me to deliver the placenta. I held Henry and just marveled and praised God and loved the fact that no one was taking him across the room to mess with him after all the hard work I'd done - I just got to keep him! He was so cute, he kept turning his head and licking his own arm and then making this face like that's not what I'm looking for! So I decided to see if he wanted to nurse, and oh my gosh, little five minute old 36 weeker just latched on and started nursing like a champ.

After he had nursed and I had delivered the placenta (and the midwives had magically cleaned up the whole room and were washing towels in the laundry room), Davis took Henry into the girls' room to wake them up and show them their brother. They got up and came to our bed, where we all marveled at him.

The midwives and Carla left around 3:30 a.m. and amazingly, the girls actually went back to bed. Davis slept on the couch. And I laid in bed and just stared at Henry until the sun came up. I prayed and prayed for this baby, and here he is.

A few days ago, we had God is So Good playing on iTunes, and Sophia said to me "God is so good, he gave us a baby brother!" Amen.