(no subject)
it basically started in the wee hours of the morning, otherwise known as the middle of the night. I woke up and had an emotional breakdown. I knew I would never have the baby, that every day, I would wake up and it wouldn't be the day. I started crying. I felt bad for my husband having to be up for this, since he works early and should have been getting some sleep. he assured my it would happen SOME day. then his alarm went off and and he grumbled about having to get up. I pointed out that all that pineapple I'd eaten the night before did nothing but give me gas. then, all of a sudden. POP. GUSH. ugh. I was in a puddle of water. wtf? my waters NEVER break before labor. G's broke during transition, and L's never did, he began emerging with them intact. I got up to clean up, and chris called off work. when I got out of the bathroom, nice and "dry" (as dry as you can be with a toddler diaper shoved in your underwear, leaking more fluid every time you move...) and called Poppy. it was about 5:45. I figured I'd be waking her, but she answered after about 2 rings. "I KNEW you were gonna call! I woke up about 15 minutes ago.." said I should call back n about 20 minutes, as she'd be getting her stuff together to come up. see if anything happens in that time.
I decided to at breakfast. my hope would be that things would pick up rapidly, and I might not feel like eating later. of course, I had all the fears accompanying broken waters, too. was the cord compressed between the head and my pelvis? was the baby in a decent position for labor? I checked with the stethoscope, the heartbeat sounded fine. the latter would be my bigger concern, as I'd learn some 17 hours later...
called back, maybe I'd had 2 BH type contractions in that time? she said those aren't BH, if the water's broken, anything counts. I'd have to keep careful track of anything, painful or not. she'd be her in 2.5 hours, she said. it was just after 6 am.
did some cleaning of house. wasted time on the internet. I forget what happened in those 2.5 hours. not much in the way of contractions, though. *sob*. she came in and set up, said her assistant would be there in about an hour, everyone would meet, and if nothing was going on, they'd take off for a while, I could call her cell if anything happened. so they left again at about 11, mom left with the kids around the same time, though they would be gone for the entire day, night too...
chris and I were supposed to take a walk while we were alone... but he played video games and I was bored and we didn't really do anything. I decided to take a warm shower, and had just gotten out when Poppy and Lori (the assistant) came back around 12:45 and told us to take a walk then. we didn't go too far, the end of the block and back. ran into my neighbor, he hadn't even known I was pregnant! we talked a bit. he asked if I was expecting twins. I told him no, I was just 9.5 months pregnant, and in fact I was in labor. :) he asked if I was having the birth at home. I suppose he knew my others were home births... I only contracted twice while we were out.
we came back inside and we all played scrabble. it seemed I had a contraction just about every time it was my turn! I told everyone to take their turns faster... by the end of the game, all the rules went out the window. it was fun, but laughing during contractions kinda hurt. :/ the good thing, though, was that pain was starting to kick in. yay! we were getting somewhere! I was still leaking tons of fluid, going through diaper after diaper.. at least it was blood streaked by then. also starting to pass some vernix, which was weird to me since, as I've said, I'd never had broken waters early in labor before.
after the game I decided to lay down a bit, and chris lay with me. poppy came in and said they were going out a bit, call if anything exciting happened, etc. it was about 5pm. I don't remember how long we slept (or tried to sleep) but things really did intensify in the time they were gone. I didn't call, though, as they weren't too close together. I tried to find a good position to work with the pain. on the toilet... nope. on hands and knees on the bed, propping myself up with pillows whenever I felt the need to be more upright. that's how I stayed for a while... I was undressed from the waist down, covered a bit with a sheet. the fluid leakage had slowed to nearly nothing. hopefully that meant the head was engaged, blocking it from coming out.
poppy and Lori got back again around 8 pm. must've seen what pain I was in, as they quickly set up the living room with plastic sheets and towels and chux pads, for me to birth on. dimmed the lights, stating they were too bright for a newborn, and lit a bunch of candles (looking back on that, I think it was incredibly cool). I labored in several different positions, mostly trying to stay as upright as possible to get things moving more quickly. leaning against chris, him holding me up, was probably the best position, but I couldn't handle his body heat. the birth ball was nice and cool, as were the linen pillowcases on the pillows. nothing was very comfortable for very long. I don't know how many times I changed positions. but I was hot, so the shirt came off.
Poppy told me I was fully dilated. she'll have to tell me what she was looking at, because somehow she could tell without doing an internal. I started pushing when I felt the urge, which wasn't often at first, but picked up. more position changing. I was half sitting when I felt the head coming. I was surprised I couldn't see anything. I mean, I knew I was bigger than my previous pregnancies, but I watched my daughter, my first, come out. I was in a similar position. this time, I couldn't see a thing. but didn't push him out that way this time.. I got on my hands and knees. I pushed and pushed, even when I felt I couldn't push anymore. poppy said there was some vaginal wall in the way. greaaaat. she held it aside and I pushed some more. just keep going, the baby will be out soon. when I felt I was stretched to max capacity, I asked if his head was out. nope, just to the eyebrows. more pushing, then I felt my perineum relax. he was out to the neck! he let out a little cry. or sigh. whatever it was, it was cute. I started pushing the body out. holy cow. my first had come out in one push, from the neck down. this guy seriously took 15. or maybe 10. I dunno, but it seemed forever. finally his body dropped, I could feel the cord. he was out! he was handed to me between my legs and I sat back and held him up close. this was when I checked, and for the first time knew that he was he. checked the clock. 10:34. we figure he'd been out about a minute, so 10:33 was the time of birth. he latched on and nursed a bit.
my bleeding wasn't bad. we moved to the bathroom and I delivered the placenta into the toilet. poppy pulled it out and plopped it into the bowl. at the time I was thinking that was gross, but the toilet water probably cleaned it off and made it less gross. looked good, everything was out. it was the first time I'd seen baby plus cord plus placenta. we decided to cut the cord then, and poppy did it. I made my way to the bedroom, climbed into bed with the baby and nursed him again. when he popped off, he was weighed. 10 pounds even! my biggest yet.
the rest of the night was basically me trying to pee, trying again, and finally peeing the third try. baby slept through most of that. poppy left, um, 1-ish? Lori had left shortly after the birth. chris and I finally fell asleep..
now here's the fun part. poppy called the next morning to tell me about the birth. "I was there" I said. "yeah, but not on the receiving end." the reason the baby took forever to come out is because he was in a terrible position. first his head was presenting wrong, the direct top rather than the back, with his chin tucked down. and then he had his arms both tucked behind his back. one moreso than the other, I guess making that shoulder slow things down. it was the type of thing, she said, that although she hates going in to help things, she might have had to... if not for the fact that my mad birthing skillz pushed that sucker right out like that. I don't know what it is. each time I have a baby, it stays in longer, comes out bigger, and is in a worse position.
anyway... baby slept through most of tuesday, had to fight to get him nursing. fine after that, though. afterbirth pains killed me, time and time again, complicated by severe gas accompanying them. gas should never, ever accompany afterbirth pains. or labor, for that matter...
Germaine and Linus love the baby. no jealousy at all whatsoever. I swear, I've never seen Linus smile more than these past few days...
Dietrich Thomas
March 19 (41w4d)
10:33 pm
10 pounds, 21.5 inches
I decided to at breakfast. my hope would be that things would pick up rapidly, and I might not feel like eating later. of course, I had all the fears accompanying broken waters, too. was the cord compressed between the head and my pelvis? was the baby in a decent position for labor? I checked with the stethoscope, the heartbeat sounded fine. the latter would be my bigger concern, as I'd learn some 17 hours later...
called back, maybe I'd had 2 BH type contractions in that time? she said those aren't BH, if the water's broken, anything counts. I'd have to keep careful track of anything, painful or not. she'd be her in 2.5 hours, she said. it was just after 6 am.
did some cleaning of house. wasted time on the internet. I forget what happened in those 2.5 hours. not much in the way of contractions, though. *sob*. she came in and set up, said her assistant would be there in about an hour, everyone would meet, and if nothing was going on, they'd take off for a while, I could call her cell if anything happened. so they left again at about 11, mom left with the kids around the same time, though they would be gone for the entire day, night too...
chris and I were supposed to take a walk while we were alone... but he played video games and I was bored and we didn't really do anything. I decided to take a warm shower, and had just gotten out when Poppy and Lori (the assistant) came back around 12:45 and told us to take a walk then. we didn't go too far, the end of the block and back. ran into my neighbor, he hadn't even known I was pregnant! we talked a bit. he asked if I was expecting twins. I told him no, I was just 9.5 months pregnant, and in fact I was in labor. :) he asked if I was having the birth at home. I suppose he knew my others were home births... I only contracted twice while we were out.
we came back inside and we all played scrabble. it seemed I had a contraction just about every time it was my turn! I told everyone to take their turns faster... by the end of the game, all the rules went out the window. it was fun, but laughing during contractions kinda hurt. :/ the good thing, though, was that pain was starting to kick in. yay! we were getting somewhere! I was still leaking tons of fluid, going through diaper after diaper.. at least it was blood streaked by then. also starting to pass some vernix, which was weird to me since, as I've said, I'd never had broken waters early in labor before.
after the game I decided to lay down a bit, and chris lay with me. poppy came in and said they were going out a bit, call if anything exciting happened, etc. it was about 5pm. I don't remember how long we slept (or tried to sleep) but things really did intensify in the time they were gone. I didn't call, though, as they weren't too close together. I tried to find a good position to work with the pain. on the toilet... nope. on hands and knees on the bed, propping myself up with pillows whenever I felt the need to be more upright. that's how I stayed for a while... I was undressed from the waist down, covered a bit with a sheet. the fluid leakage had slowed to nearly nothing. hopefully that meant the head was engaged, blocking it from coming out.
poppy and Lori got back again around 8 pm. must've seen what pain I was in, as they quickly set up the living room with plastic sheets and towels and chux pads, for me to birth on. dimmed the lights, stating they were too bright for a newborn, and lit a bunch of candles (looking back on that, I think it was incredibly cool). I labored in several different positions, mostly trying to stay as upright as possible to get things moving more quickly. leaning against chris, him holding me up, was probably the best position, but I couldn't handle his body heat. the birth ball was nice and cool, as were the linen pillowcases on the pillows. nothing was very comfortable for very long. I don't know how many times I changed positions. but I was hot, so the shirt came off.
Poppy told me I was fully dilated. she'll have to tell me what she was looking at, because somehow she could tell without doing an internal. I started pushing when I felt the urge, which wasn't often at first, but picked up. more position changing. I was half sitting when I felt the head coming. I was surprised I couldn't see anything. I mean, I knew I was bigger than my previous pregnancies, but I watched my daughter, my first, come out. I was in a similar position. this time, I couldn't see a thing. but didn't push him out that way this time.. I got on my hands and knees. I pushed and pushed, even when I felt I couldn't push anymore. poppy said there was some vaginal wall in the way. greaaaat. she held it aside and I pushed some more. just keep going, the baby will be out soon. when I felt I was stretched to max capacity, I asked if his head was out. nope, just to the eyebrows. more pushing, then I felt my perineum relax. he was out to the neck! he let out a little cry. or sigh. whatever it was, it was cute. I started pushing the body out. holy cow. my first had come out in one push, from the neck down. this guy seriously took 15. or maybe 10. I dunno, but it seemed forever. finally his body dropped, I could feel the cord. he was out! he was handed to me between my legs and I sat back and held him up close. this was when I checked, and for the first time knew that he was he. checked the clock. 10:34. we figure he'd been out about a minute, so 10:33 was the time of birth. he latched on and nursed a bit.
my bleeding wasn't bad. we moved to the bathroom and I delivered the placenta into the toilet. poppy pulled it out and plopped it into the bowl. at the time I was thinking that was gross, but the toilet water probably cleaned it off and made it less gross. looked good, everything was out. it was the first time I'd seen baby plus cord plus placenta. we decided to cut the cord then, and poppy did it. I made my way to the bedroom, climbed into bed with the baby and nursed him again. when he popped off, he was weighed. 10 pounds even! my biggest yet.
the rest of the night was basically me trying to pee, trying again, and finally peeing the third try. baby slept through most of that. poppy left, um, 1-ish? Lori had left shortly after the birth. chris and I finally fell asleep..
now here's the fun part. poppy called the next morning to tell me about the birth. "I was there" I said. "yeah, but not on the receiving end." the reason the baby took forever to come out is because he was in a terrible position. first his head was presenting wrong, the direct top rather than the back, with his chin tucked down. and then he had his arms both tucked behind his back. one moreso than the other, I guess making that shoulder slow things down. it was the type of thing, she said, that although she hates going in to help things, she might have had to... if not for the fact that my mad birthing skillz pushed that sucker right out like that. I don't know what it is. each time I have a baby, it stays in longer, comes out bigger, and is in a worse position.
anyway... baby slept through most of tuesday, had to fight to get him nursing. fine after that, though. afterbirth pains killed me, time and time again, complicated by severe gas accompanying them. gas should never, ever accompany afterbirth pains. or labor, for that matter...
Germaine and Linus love the baby. no jealousy at all whatsoever. I swear, I've never seen Linus smile more than these past few days...
Dietrich Thomas
March 19 (41w4d)
10:33 pm
10 pounds, 21.5 inches