Dale's Birth Story
Dale Arden Irene
Born at Home (!!)
October 17th, 2011
10:31am
8lbs, 4oz, 20.5"
On Friday, I woke up poo sick and puking, but not sick sick, so I thought for sure I was getting ready for labor. I had an appointment with the hospital midwives that morning, which wasn't enough time for me to rehydrate, so I wasn't surprised that I was spilling protein when they did the urine test. Apparently it was +2, so they were not willing to blow it off like they would have just a trace even though my BP was a textbook 120/80. I agreed to a stretching of the cervix with a dilation check because I was perfectly content to evict the little one in whatever hippie way we could at that point, especially with the +2, whatever the cause. She said I was a 3 and effaced, so she stretched and messed around in there. No sweeping b/c I was only a 1 on the inside. I had been drinking water in the appointment, so I was instructed to re-pee for another dipstick test, and the nurse did it, proclaimed me still a +2 and gave me a lab slip for a 24 hour urine and blood draw. I explained that we were looking at very concentrated pee after having been sick, and why I thought I was getting a +2, and she tended to agree, told me I was free to decline any procedure, but that she wanted to give me the slip and I could decide to go get it or not. She was nice about it, and told me to watch my symptoms and if anything else came up, to for sure go get the labs. I agreed. When I talked to my home birth midwife about it, she said that she'd recommend I do the bloodwork and 24 hour urine test because she was fairly certain it would come out in my favor, so I would have a bit more sway in terms of continuing with the home birth plan.
On Sunday, I had still not gone into labor, so I talked again to the home birth midwife (AMY) about the castor oil we had discussed, and she gave me the go-ahead to take it and see what we got, especially with the urine test from Friday being wacky and before I was to have another appt with the hospital midwives. I made the cocktail and downed it really quickly even though it was disgusting. I had it in about 45 minutes to an hour (an hour from start, 45 from finishing) before throwing it up. I was pissed that I had thrown it up and wasted that effort and the chance to get things moving. I called Amy back and told her, and she said it may still do something so to keep her updated. I nursed Halston down to a nap and fell asleep in this crazy zonked way - I think it was the fact that I had a cup of champagne in me for close to an hour and I don't drink at all - seriously my last alcohol consumed was like 6 years ago - and I woke up an hour later because I had to run to the bathroom for the cramps and gas and diarrhea of the castor oil. It was quick, not horrible, and as soon as it was done I started having contractions that felt like a mild-moderate period cramping. They were non-organized, but consistent in that they didn't go away all day. They started at like 2pm and I seriously spent the time in between each one afraid that the next one either a) wouldn't come or b) wouldn't hurt. It was mentally taxing. I talked to Amy a few times during the day when she would check in, and finally at 9pm before going to bed. She said to call her if it seemed to get to the next stage, and that I would be able to tell when that was. (My first labor was induced, my second started with water breaking and immediate HARD contractions, so this was all new to me.)
I went to bed and felt them off and on as I slept, drifting awake here and there. They were totally non-horrible, so I slept fine, but I woke up at 1am realizing that I wasn't feeling them anymore. By 2, I woke up Brandon to tell him that they'd stopped and I was pissed. He went right back to sleep, and I did, too, but in a crappy mood. At 3, I was awoken by the contractions coming back like, "Fuck you, you thought we left?" and they huuuuuurt. I waited a bit and timed a few to see if they would go away or change, but they were hurty and they were consistent, so I called Amy and she came over, and I called my mom (sleeping in the basement guest room) and she came upstairs. Amy checked me and I was a TWO, and managing them well, so she got things set up and ready and then went home, telling me to call her when they changed again - that next phase thing. I said okay, and laid down in bed trying to rest between them. Brandon also tried to rest, but he did it by putting his pillow over his head which pissed me off because I was in enough pain (and a little anxious that I needed support). My mom was pushing on my back, and I finally was able to relax enough that I had her turn off the lights and I drifted into and out of sleep during the pauses. She went back down and went to sleep again. (I think it was here that I remember asking my mom if the sound I had heard out in the other room a bit earlier was Amy opening the box with the birth kit - I had kept it sealed just in case - and when she said it was I gave her a thumbs up as she left the room. It was really happening and I could accept it finally.)
At about 5:45am, I woke up and realized that I was going to puke on Brandon if I didn't run to the bathroom right then. I made it in there, but just in time to discover that I also had to use the toilet, so I puked on a towel and the floor while also going to the bathroom. FUN! My mom heard me puking and came upstairs as I was sitting there, and she cleaned up the puke (moms are so good) and I was like, "Uh, I don't think this is pee..." noticing that I had a steady stream of something coming out of me that wasn't normal. I called into Brandon that he should get up because my water broke, and had my mom bring my phone so I could call Amy. As I talked to her the next contraction came and I dropped the phone it hurt so bad. My mom talked to her and she headed back over.
I moved from the bathroom to the bedroom, and my mom was putting counter pressure on my back during the contractions. She was going to leave so Brandon could take over and I had a momentary cry freakout and didn't want her to go because he was going to "do it wrong" and he "didn't care" because he had been laying there with a pillow over his head for my other ones earlier. I was all "I want my moooooooom." She showed him what she was doing and he took over, though. I swear, someone applied counter pressure for EVERY CONTRACTION after this point around 6am, so the people at my birth (husband with pillow included) were freaking patient rockstars. Anyway, I moved to the chair in our room where one of our comforters was piled with some pillows and sort of bent over it. We put a towel down because I was leaking fluid and show with most contractions, and Amy arrived shortly after and they moved me and my towel to put a chux pad under it. I kept asking Brandon over and over if it was clear, no brown, and he kept saying yes. Poor dude, half-naked wife flipping her noodle and asking him to inspect the stuff leaking out of her onto the chair.
I'm hazy at this transition, so I'll fill it in when I get Amy's notes, but I think she wanted to check me to see where we were, so I moved back to the bed. I don't know how long I was in the chair or what time it was. I laid on my side and the contractions sucked and I whined and then realized that I was going to puke again. I did a bunch of puking of Recharge into the bowl that I was clutching for dear life, and Elizabeth (second midwife) took the bowl away to rinse out and Amy checked me again at some point here and said that I was complete, but that the second sac had not broken, so the head was high and not yet coming down. I had wondered if the puking was transition (oh, man, anything that gave me hope that we would soon be DONE with this excruciating pain was like super welcome). I was waiting to feel urges to push, and I thought I did, but I think it was more that I wanted to be pushing and that pushing against the contractions made the pain lessen a tiny bit. Since I had started doing some pushing, they asked if I wanted to move down over the edge of the bed (our bed is really low) and kneel with the bed as support. I did and I pushed more, and it hurt really really bad in front way down in my pelvis - like more than usual. I was there for what felt like a good long time with nothing (kept waiting for the burning, please let there be burning). I finally needed to get back up into the bed because my legs were tired and the position was not working. Amy checked me again and discovered that I was NOT complete any longer, I was at an 8. The second sac had ruptured, and it seemed like maybe it had been holding things open at 10, so when there wasn't that to hold it open, the cervix went down. She then told me to stop pushing so that I could dilate back up to complete. She had tried to keep her hand in during a contraction to see if it was just a lip that pushed back to allow me to keep pushing, but it hurt so bad I made her stop.
At this point, I was lying in the bed and I was feeling monumentally defeated and psyched out. I mean, who goes BACKWARDS?? I also couldn't get out of my head, so I was thinking things like "I have to do these 8-10 contractions again and they are brutal." and "I have just been pushing on a lip at best, 2 cm at worst, and now it's swollen and it won't dilate and we'll have to transfer and boy am I fucked." And when you can't get out of your head and are thinking things like this, it HURTS. (I should have said something b/c nobody else was worried.) I couldn't seem to do anything to make it manageable, so I was whining and yelling and generally freaking out about the contractions and the people pushing on my back and everyone stayed really patient with me, though I have no idea how they managed it. This was the low point - up until this I felt like I was doing it - not particularly well or gracefully, but I was doing it. After this up until pushing again I was just a mess. It was also when the boys were getting breakfast in the kitchen and I could hear them running around and talking and it was super distracting because I was doing a lot of vocalizing and it was worrying me that they were going to be afraid. My mom was hurrying them through it so they could leave, but it was really getting to me beyond a conscious level, I think. She told me later that Wiley had heard me and said, "Mama's crying." and wanted to come into the room and make sure I was okay. My mom tried to explain that I was getting the baby to come out and I wasn't crying, I was just "rar"ing, and he said "No, mama's crying. She *said* I could be in there." And I had said that, and we talked about it, but ultimately when the time came I was not okay with that because I was not in any position to be seen by my almost 4 year old, so we compromised by him getting to say goodbye to me through the door. I remember telling him to have fun and that I loved him in my most non-freaking my shit out voice (they were going to the museum of nature and science to see the dinosaurs).
After they left, I had been on my one side for a while and they wanted me to roll over to get a new position to see if that would help move things along. I rolled over and had a SCREAMING contraction with tons of fluid gush, and was like "fuck this moving thing." After a few more contractions they made me roll back over and it happened again, so it was clearly making stuff move forward, but OMG. I resisted the fuck out of this turning thing. I think I maybe turned 3 or 4 times and they had the tub filled in the kitchen and gave me the option of turning over or going to the tub with the next contraction. The next contraction came with some retching into the puke bowl, and I got the first edge of that pushing where your body is totally pushing from some deep place and you cannot possibly be doing anything at that moment but pushing. I said so, and that it "felt different" and that "I think she's coming" and Amy said okay and was going to check me, but it didn't happen. She could see from the outside that when I pushed my bottom kind of expanded, and that it was really the real thing. I pushed for a couple more contractions and felt (sweet god in heaven thank you) the burning and said so. Once I felt that I was like rip-roaring pushing with all that was in me. It took longer than the boys and more pushes (holy balls, 8lbs+ is so different than 5lbs+), and there was a point when the head was out and I was pushing and could not figure out why the rest of her didn't just come out already. Apparently Amy was slowing it down by holding her from coming out to attend to the cord. It wasn't wrapped around her neck (both boys had a double nuchal cord), but kind of around her body funny as if she was wearing it like a feather boa. When she sorted it, Dale came out on the next push the rest of the way. All in all, I pushed for about 15 minutes, they said. She was born roughly 30 minutes after my mom left with the boys. They hadn't even gotten into the museum yet, they had just parked.
She went immediately onto my belly, and I was in this awkward position, and it didn't magically stop hurting right away like with Halston, so I was a little out of sorts still and confused and Brandon took some really horrendous pictures with my phone. Elizabeth helped get her more in the right spot to root over to my nipple, and then held my nipple to her when she latched. She stayed that way for a good while as I was getting my position adjusted and delivering the placenta (it came about 10 minutes after Dale). Oh, and 7 minutes after Dale, my phone rang on the nightstand and it was the hospital midwives calling to see why they hadn't gotten labwork results from me and that I really needed to get over there and do the labs. I laughed when I listened to that message :)
She nursed and pooped a ginormous meconium poop all over me because we were skin to skin under a towel, and it probably took at least an hour and a half or maybe more (?) before they did the cutting of the cord (Brandon hasn't ever and didn't want to, so Amy was really excited to get to do it) and the weighing her, etc. There were a bunch of little things that were neat - she showed me my placenta and pointed out some really cool vein crossovers in the tree of life, and it was just emblematic of the quiet normalcy in this birth to be examining this organ on the floor next to my bed. At some point the second midwife did dishes (only bad thing about the birth - she put the pitcher from my iced tea maker in the dishwasher and melted it! how awesome is it that *that's* the only bad thing about my birth!) and took all the towels down to start a load of laundry. They took out all the trash and reheated me some pancakes (leftover from the boys' breakfast). You would never know we just had a birth when they left, seriously.
My mom and the boys got back about an hour after the midwives left, and Wiley was thrilled that he could just walk right into our room and see me. We were supposed to be sleeping, but who can sleep with the birth high, so I was sitting up holding her when he came in and I wish I had realized what an amazing face he would make so I could have had a camera at the ready. Halston was asleep, so my mom moved him from the van to his bed, and he slept for an hour and a half or so before meeting Dale.
This is the boringest birth story EVER, and it's been something I keep putting off finishing because of that. My last was quick and funny and ridiculous, my first was a clusterfuck of bad, and both of those were easy to write. Funny how that works.
Firsts:
My first girl
My first full term baby
My first baby that was solely breastfed by me (both boys got donor breastmilk in the beginning)
My first home birth
Born at Home (!!)
October 17th, 2011
10:31am
8lbs, 4oz, 20.5"
On Friday, I woke up poo sick and puking, but not sick sick, so I thought for sure I was getting ready for labor. I had an appointment with the hospital midwives that morning, which wasn't enough time for me to rehydrate, so I wasn't surprised that I was spilling protein when they did the urine test. Apparently it was +2, so they were not willing to blow it off like they would have just a trace even though my BP was a textbook 120/80. I agreed to a stretching of the cervix with a dilation check because I was perfectly content to evict the little one in whatever hippie way we could at that point, especially with the +2, whatever the cause. She said I was a 3 and effaced, so she stretched and messed around in there. No sweeping b/c I was only a 1 on the inside. I had been drinking water in the appointment, so I was instructed to re-pee for another dipstick test, and the nurse did it, proclaimed me still a +2 and gave me a lab slip for a 24 hour urine and blood draw. I explained that we were looking at very concentrated pee after having been sick, and why I thought I was getting a +2, and she tended to agree, told me I was free to decline any procedure, but that she wanted to give me the slip and I could decide to go get it or not. She was nice about it, and told me to watch my symptoms and if anything else came up, to for sure go get the labs. I agreed. When I talked to my home birth midwife about it, she said that she'd recommend I do the bloodwork and 24 hour urine test because she was fairly certain it would come out in my favor, so I would have a bit more sway in terms of continuing with the home birth plan.
On Sunday, I had still not gone into labor, so I talked again to the home birth midwife (AMY) about the castor oil we had discussed, and she gave me the go-ahead to take it and see what we got, especially with the urine test from Friday being wacky and before I was to have another appt with the hospital midwives. I made the cocktail and downed it really quickly even though it was disgusting. I had it in about 45 minutes to an hour (an hour from start, 45 from finishing) before throwing it up. I was pissed that I had thrown it up and wasted that effort and the chance to get things moving. I called Amy back and told her, and she said it may still do something so to keep her updated. I nursed Halston down to a nap and fell asleep in this crazy zonked way - I think it was the fact that I had a cup of champagne in me for close to an hour and I don't drink at all - seriously my last alcohol consumed was like 6 years ago - and I woke up an hour later because I had to run to the bathroom for the cramps and gas and diarrhea of the castor oil. It was quick, not horrible, and as soon as it was done I started having contractions that felt like a mild-moderate period cramping. They were non-organized, but consistent in that they didn't go away all day. They started at like 2pm and I seriously spent the time in between each one afraid that the next one either a) wouldn't come or b) wouldn't hurt. It was mentally taxing. I talked to Amy a few times during the day when she would check in, and finally at 9pm before going to bed. She said to call her if it seemed to get to the next stage, and that I would be able to tell when that was. (My first labor was induced, my second started with water breaking and immediate HARD contractions, so this was all new to me.)
I went to bed and felt them off and on as I slept, drifting awake here and there. They were totally non-horrible, so I slept fine, but I woke up at 1am realizing that I wasn't feeling them anymore. By 2, I woke up Brandon to tell him that they'd stopped and I was pissed. He went right back to sleep, and I did, too, but in a crappy mood. At 3, I was awoken by the contractions coming back like, "Fuck you, you thought we left?" and they huuuuuurt. I waited a bit and timed a few to see if they would go away or change, but they were hurty and they were consistent, so I called Amy and she came over, and I called my mom (sleeping in the basement guest room) and she came upstairs. Amy checked me and I was a TWO, and managing them well, so she got things set up and ready and then went home, telling me to call her when they changed again - that next phase thing. I said okay, and laid down in bed trying to rest between them. Brandon also tried to rest, but he did it by putting his pillow over his head which pissed me off because I was in enough pain (and a little anxious that I needed support). My mom was pushing on my back, and I finally was able to relax enough that I had her turn off the lights and I drifted into and out of sleep during the pauses. She went back down and went to sleep again. (I think it was here that I remember asking my mom if the sound I had heard out in the other room a bit earlier was Amy opening the box with the birth kit - I had kept it sealed just in case - and when she said it was I gave her a thumbs up as she left the room. It was really happening and I could accept it finally.)
At about 5:45am, I woke up and realized that I was going to puke on Brandon if I didn't run to the bathroom right then. I made it in there, but just in time to discover that I also had to use the toilet, so I puked on a towel and the floor while also going to the bathroom. FUN! My mom heard me puking and came upstairs as I was sitting there, and she cleaned up the puke (moms are so good) and I was like, "Uh, I don't think this is pee..." noticing that I had a steady stream of something coming out of me that wasn't normal. I called into Brandon that he should get up because my water broke, and had my mom bring my phone so I could call Amy. As I talked to her the next contraction came and I dropped the phone it hurt so bad. My mom talked to her and she headed back over.
I moved from the bathroom to the bedroom, and my mom was putting counter pressure on my back during the contractions. She was going to leave so Brandon could take over and I had a momentary cry freakout and didn't want her to go because he was going to "do it wrong" and he "didn't care" because he had been laying there with a pillow over his head for my other ones earlier. I was all "I want my moooooooom." She showed him what she was doing and he took over, though. I swear, someone applied counter pressure for EVERY CONTRACTION after this point around 6am, so the people at my birth (husband with pillow included) were freaking patient rockstars. Anyway, I moved to the chair in our room where one of our comforters was piled with some pillows and sort of bent over it. We put a towel down because I was leaking fluid and show with most contractions, and Amy arrived shortly after and they moved me and my towel to put a chux pad under it. I kept asking Brandon over and over if it was clear, no brown, and he kept saying yes. Poor dude, half-naked wife flipping her noodle and asking him to inspect the stuff leaking out of her onto the chair.
I'm hazy at this transition, so I'll fill it in when I get Amy's notes, but I think she wanted to check me to see where we were, so I moved back to the bed. I don't know how long I was in the chair or what time it was. I laid on my side and the contractions sucked and I whined and then realized that I was going to puke again. I did a bunch of puking of Recharge into the bowl that I was clutching for dear life, and Elizabeth (second midwife) took the bowl away to rinse out and Amy checked me again at some point here and said that I was complete, but that the second sac had not broken, so the head was high and not yet coming down. I had wondered if the puking was transition (oh, man, anything that gave me hope that we would soon be DONE with this excruciating pain was like super welcome). I was waiting to feel urges to push, and I thought I did, but I think it was more that I wanted to be pushing and that pushing against the contractions made the pain lessen a tiny bit. Since I had started doing some pushing, they asked if I wanted to move down over the edge of the bed (our bed is really low) and kneel with the bed as support. I did and I pushed more, and it hurt really really bad in front way down in my pelvis - like more than usual. I was there for what felt like a good long time with nothing (kept waiting for the burning, please let there be burning). I finally needed to get back up into the bed because my legs were tired and the position was not working. Amy checked me again and discovered that I was NOT complete any longer, I was at an 8. The second sac had ruptured, and it seemed like maybe it had been holding things open at 10, so when there wasn't that to hold it open, the cervix went down. She then told me to stop pushing so that I could dilate back up to complete. She had tried to keep her hand in during a contraction to see if it was just a lip that pushed back to allow me to keep pushing, but it hurt so bad I made her stop.
At this point, I was lying in the bed and I was feeling monumentally defeated and psyched out. I mean, who goes BACKWARDS?? I also couldn't get out of my head, so I was thinking things like "I have to do these 8-10 contractions again and they are brutal." and "I have just been pushing on a lip at best, 2 cm at worst, and now it's swollen and it won't dilate and we'll have to transfer and boy am I fucked." And when you can't get out of your head and are thinking things like this, it HURTS. (I should have said something b/c nobody else was worried.) I couldn't seem to do anything to make it manageable, so I was whining and yelling and generally freaking out about the contractions and the people pushing on my back and everyone stayed really patient with me, though I have no idea how they managed it. This was the low point - up until this I felt like I was doing it - not particularly well or gracefully, but I was doing it. After this up until pushing again I was just a mess. It was also when the boys were getting breakfast in the kitchen and I could hear them running around and talking and it was super distracting because I was doing a lot of vocalizing and it was worrying me that they were going to be afraid. My mom was hurrying them through it so they could leave, but it was really getting to me beyond a conscious level, I think. She told me later that Wiley had heard me and said, "Mama's crying." and wanted to come into the room and make sure I was okay. My mom tried to explain that I was getting the baby to come out and I wasn't crying, I was just "rar"ing, and he said "No, mama's crying. She *said* I could be in there." And I had said that, and we talked about it, but ultimately when the time came I was not okay with that because I was not in any position to be seen by my almost 4 year old, so we compromised by him getting to say goodbye to me through the door. I remember telling him to have fun and that I loved him in my most non-freaking my shit out voice (they were going to the museum of nature and science to see the dinosaurs).
After they left, I had been on my one side for a while and they wanted me to roll over to get a new position to see if that would help move things along. I rolled over and had a SCREAMING contraction with tons of fluid gush, and was like "fuck this moving thing." After a few more contractions they made me roll back over and it happened again, so it was clearly making stuff move forward, but OMG. I resisted the fuck out of this turning thing. I think I maybe turned 3 or 4 times and they had the tub filled in the kitchen and gave me the option of turning over or going to the tub with the next contraction. The next contraction came with some retching into the puke bowl, and I got the first edge of that pushing where your body is totally pushing from some deep place and you cannot possibly be doing anything at that moment but pushing. I said so, and that it "felt different" and that "I think she's coming" and Amy said okay and was going to check me, but it didn't happen. She could see from the outside that when I pushed my bottom kind of expanded, and that it was really the real thing. I pushed for a couple more contractions and felt (sweet god in heaven thank you) the burning and said so. Once I felt that I was like rip-roaring pushing with all that was in me. It took longer than the boys and more pushes (holy balls, 8lbs+ is so different than 5lbs+), and there was a point when the head was out and I was pushing and could not figure out why the rest of her didn't just come out already. Apparently Amy was slowing it down by holding her from coming out to attend to the cord. It wasn't wrapped around her neck (both boys had a double nuchal cord), but kind of around her body funny as if she was wearing it like a feather boa. When she sorted it, Dale came out on the next push the rest of the way. All in all, I pushed for about 15 minutes, they said. She was born roughly 30 minutes after my mom left with the boys. They hadn't even gotten into the museum yet, they had just parked.
She went immediately onto my belly, and I was in this awkward position, and it didn't magically stop hurting right away like with Halston, so I was a little out of sorts still and confused and Brandon took some really horrendous pictures with my phone. Elizabeth helped get her more in the right spot to root over to my nipple, and then held my nipple to her when she latched. She stayed that way for a good while as I was getting my position adjusted and delivering the placenta (it came about 10 minutes after Dale). Oh, and 7 minutes after Dale, my phone rang on the nightstand and it was the hospital midwives calling to see why they hadn't gotten labwork results from me and that I really needed to get over there and do the labs. I laughed when I listened to that message :)
She nursed and pooped a ginormous meconium poop all over me because we were skin to skin under a towel, and it probably took at least an hour and a half or maybe more (?) before they did the cutting of the cord (Brandon hasn't ever and didn't want to, so Amy was really excited to get to do it) and the weighing her, etc. There were a bunch of little things that were neat - she showed me my placenta and pointed out some really cool vein crossovers in the tree of life, and it was just emblematic of the quiet normalcy in this birth to be examining this organ on the floor next to my bed. At some point the second midwife did dishes (only bad thing about the birth - she put the pitcher from my iced tea maker in the dishwasher and melted it! how awesome is it that *that's* the only bad thing about my birth!) and took all the towels down to start a load of laundry. They took out all the trash and reheated me some pancakes (leftover from the boys' breakfast). You would never know we just had a birth when they left, seriously.
My mom and the boys got back about an hour after the midwives left, and Wiley was thrilled that he could just walk right into our room and see me. We were supposed to be sleeping, but who can sleep with the birth high, so I was sitting up holding her when he came in and I wish I had realized what an amazing face he would make so I could have had a camera at the ready. Halston was asleep, so my mom moved him from the van to his bed, and he slept for an hour and a half or so before meeting Dale.
This is the boringest birth story EVER, and it's been something I keep putting off finishing because of that. My last was quick and funny and ridiculous, my first was a clusterfuck of bad, and both of those were easy to write. Funny how that works.
Firsts:
My first girl
My first full term baby
My first baby that was solely breastfed by me (both boys got donor breastmilk in the beginning)
My first home birth
