Birth Story

Thank you, Joy, for updating my blog and letting everyone know that Evan arrived!!

I woke up at 12:30 in the morning on Sunday August 23 (37 weeks, 4 days pregnant), after an hour of sleep, not feeling very well. I went to the bathroom and was bleeding, not too heavily, but enough to have me concerned since it was slightly watery. I was wondering if my water broke. I called the nurse on call and she tried to connect me to the doctor on call with our practice, but he was in a delivery. I decided to wake up Matt at 2:00 since I was having regular contractions. They had been regular and noticeable starting at 1:30 and at 2:00 were lasting about 50 seconds and were 3 - 4 minutes apart. The doctor called back and said the blood was fine as long as it wasn't super heavy and that I could come into L&D whenever I wanted. I was really disappointed because none of the midwives are in on the weekends. I hadn't realized they don't normally work on the weekends.

Matt and I started cleaning (I insisted that we vacuum the floors and dust in our room) and getting stuff together (we had never completely finished packing our bags). Matt convinced me to go to the hospital when my contractions were lasting a minute and coming 2 minutes apart for an hour and a half straight. I hadn't wanted to leave even then, I was convinced we'd get there and get sent home. We arrived at the hospital at 6:00 am and the doctor checked me and said I was 6cm. Yay! It turns out my water hadn't broken though. The doctor gave me a hard time about going all natural, he made sure I knew that this was the year 2009, not 1909, and that I wasn't in a covered wagon headed out west with no modern technology. :-P

I got into the jacuzzi tub in our room and stayed in there 2 hours. The nurses kept talking about how most women dilate really fast in the tub. Our nurse even told me that I might go so fast that I wouldn't be able to make it to the bed before I needed to push, so told me what to do if that happened. I got out of the tub after 2 hours, one reason was because I was afraid I might have a baby in there! I was then checked by....my midwife, Tina!! It turns out that Sunday she decided to come in to help out since it was really busy. What a gift from God! I had only dilated to 7cm. Ugg. I laid in the bed on my sides for who knows how many hours. Tina recommended that I lay down for awhile to save my strength instead of walking around, which turned out to be a good idea. The contractions were horrible. However, Tina reminded me of the Bradley Method's relaxation techniques and I started employing them. It helped A LOT. Matt was great, he kept reminding me to relax at just the right times, even though later he told me he could never tell when I was having a contraction.

I would get up to walk around a little and go to the bathroom every few hours. I sat on the birthing ball for several hours. My mom and sister came in even though I had told them I wanted them to wait at home until after the birth. They didn't stay long, it was too "mellow" in there for my mom and my poor sister was probably so uncomfortable, although she helped out by rubbing my back when Matt left the room to eat lunch on the patio. Mom and Melissa came in a couple of times and went out and sat on the patio outside our room for a bit, but mostly they shopped at the mall across the street and sat in the waiting room.

I didn't say a word to anyone. We put on some relaxing music that also helped a lot. Apparently the CD played over and over and was annoying to the people who weren't in labor, but I didn't notice. ;-) The nurse who was helping told me I had more self control than anyone she had ever seen. She said Matt and I should teach labor classes! She also said it made her cry to see how well I was doing, but I didn't look up to see if she really was, although it sounded like it. I kept my head down on the bed the whole time I was on the ball and kept my eyes closed.

Tina was in a delivery but came back to check me and I was only 8cm! This was around 1:45 pm or so. While she was checking me I briefly went to 9cm while contractitng. She said to slightly bear down with each contraction. I did this for about 45 minutes and when she came back I was 9cm. She decided to have me start pushing then. I don't know if it was because she thought I would be too weak to push later or what. I gave her my permission to break my water and keep moving the lip of my cervix since I wasn't completely dilated. I started pushing at about 2:30.

Which was the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. I had no urge to push. I didn't want to. As a matter of fact, a couple of times I would wait until a contraction was almost over to push because I just couldn't work up the energy. I was acting horribly to Tina. Telling her just to cut Evan out, give me a c-section. After he started coming I wanted an episiotomy. I was just sure that if she would cut me a little he'd pop out right away and everything would be perfect. lol She kept telling me that there was plenty of room and that cutting wouldn't help anything. She also kept ignoring me, which aggravated me at the time, but that's really the best way to handle a mad, crazy, laboring woman. At this point it was obvious that I had lost my self control!!!

She had to keep reaching inside and moving things around. She kept whispering to the nurse. I could hear some of what she said, things about Evan being crooked and not twisting the way he should. Every time I started getting upset about it, she'd insist that it was fine, he just needed to get into position and it would happen. They kept telling me that they could see his head and that he had a lot of hair. I didn't care at that point. Matt and the nurse had to end up holding my legs back. That was another thing I was confused about at the time, Tina had me completely on my back. I had wanted to try squatting or another position. However, she had to do this because of all the reaching in and helping out she had to do. If I hadn't been on my back she couldn't have done this and who knows how things would have gone.

They got out these bars that I had to hold on to and pull myself up during contractions. I could hardly do it towards the end. I pushed for an hour and a half. They let me feel his head when it came out enough. I didn't want to, but Tina made me by grabbing my hand and putting it on his head. Then they made me look when his head was halfway out. Once again, I didn't even care, but it did end up encouraging me. Matt said when his ears came out, the rest of him popped out right away!!!! YAY! I immediately fell in love with Evan. During the pushing I could have cared less that I was having a baby. I was a little worried that after the delivery I still wouldn't care. But no way, I loved him at first sight. Matt said I immediately smiled when they put him on my stomach and I know I felt so amazed and full of love.

I held him for awhile until the pain of Tina delivering the afterbirth and pushing on my uterus was too bad. I needed a few stitches, but it was not major at all. As a matter of fact, Tina said that she didn't even need to stitch me, but that it would be more comfortable if she did, so of course I gave her permission. I never experienced any discomfort from them at all. The nurse examined Evan while all of this was happening. Here's some details:

• He was born at 4:03 PM.
• 7 lbs, 2 oz
• 19.5 inches
• 1 minute Apgar: 9, 5 minute Apgar: 9
• He has brown hair with some blond tints. While they were examining him it looked red under the lights, we all thought he had red hair for awhile there, but now it looks pretty much brown.
• His eyes are dark blue right now, but I know that they will probably change. I can't wait to see what color they end up being!

After everything was over, Tina talked to me and told me that it had been a really rough delivery although she hadn't said so while I was pushing. She said that Evan didn't turn the way he was supposed to, which is why it took so long and why she had to keep reaching in and moving him around. She said I did an amazing job, especially with having a delivery that is more difficult than most. I had suspected something was wrong, but I appreciated the way she handled it. I think if I had known for sure that it was rougher than the average delivery at the time, I would have been even more discouraged and upset. Matt said he kept trying to distract me when Tina talked to the nurse, so he didn't know how difficult it was either. That explains why I was on my back even after Tina had told me that I could push in whatever position I wanted after going over my birth plan.

But other than that, everything went so well and I was extremely pleased with the entire experience. The nurses were awesome, the room was great, I was treated very well. It felt like I was staying in a 5 star hotel! They were very courteous and followed my birth plan exactly.