Daniel's Birth Story
I'm all about planning for convenience. (Well, maybe that's not exactly true since I've come 360 from induced birth two weeks early to natural home birth...but I digress.) So, naturally I wanted my body to go into labor on my timeline, (doesn't everybody?) We decided that Easter weekend would work great for us since Cliff had Good Friday off already. (Plus, it was a full moon, so we thought that would help me go into labor right when we wanted!) I started having mild contractions on a Tuesday for 4 hrs, then nothing. When that date came and went we naturally hoped for the next Friday! I had some more consistent teaser contractions that week but that Friday came and went too...finally my adjusted "due date" (April 17th) came around and brought on mild contractions, 6-8 min apart, all day long. Thinking that this might finally be labor and that it would proceed just like my last birth, we called my mom to come out to our house, and my brother took our kids home to their house for a sleepover so they wouldn't have to be at the house during our home birth in case the baby came in the morning. (Because, as my eight-year-old Julie had said, "I don't want to see a baby come out of a woman!")
As soon as I called my mom I felt pressure to "go into labor" and have a baby that night (and I started to miss my kids too) and it almost stopped my contractions! They did continue through the night, and even got a little closer together at one point, but by 7 AM they were gone. I cried. Then I slept for a couple more hours. I had prayed often that our baby would be born with good timing so that everything could work out with the kids. By then I realized that there was a special Mother Daughter Activity Days that day so I had my brother bring all the kids back to our house.
The activity was from 11 to 2 PM and during it I had much stronger contractions, but now 10 to 15 minutes apart. My brother and sister-in-law called and said they would come over to our house from Seattle to pick up one of our brothers and then we could all see their newest addition who was born on Monday. I told them that would be wonderful and that maybe we'd even have our baby!
About 2 PM we got the news that Cliff's aunt Bonnie had passed away. It was hard to hear, and I wondered how it would affect my birth, but in the end I was okay. She always did love to hold my babies.
By 4pm I had to breathe through a contraction so it was time to call the midwife and set up the birthing pool. My dad, brothers, and sisters also all arrived at this point to be there when Cory and Kayla brought their new baby over from Seattle, so the boys went to work setting up the pool together. (It was a great distraction for them, especially since my dad didn't know I was really in labor before he got here, and he wasn't sure he really wanted to be there once he did! Lol!)
I texted the midwife (Loritha) and said, "So, do you want to come and party with us? I can guarantee that you will get to hold a baby - if not mine then my brother's who was born on Monday night ;-)...We almost literally have everyone in my family here...so, it's going to be fun!"
At this point the kids were all busy playing with their aunts and uncles and they were all so excited to be there when their baby brother/nephew would be born! They weren't in the way at all and it felt good to have them home. The midwife told me, "As long as it doesn't make things slow down for you. Sometimes too many distractions can do that." So I told her "We're putting the pool up into our room instead of the front room and I tend to do fine with mayhem anyway..." :-) I was really thankful that my friend Kailee lent me a comfortable dress that kept me modest for the birth since everyone was there too. It was perfect.
When the midwife and her assistant got there about 5pm we had the tub set up and Cliff had filled it with a hose from the sink and the big, orange, water dispenser filled and hauled in from the other bathroom! It was some work but he got it to the perfect height and right in time. They immediately started to set up the room like a hospital - with everything you would find there besides anesthesia and a C-section. (Including Instruments, sutures, IVs, Pitocin, oxygen, resuscitation table, etc etc.) Luckily we didn't have to use any of it besides the scissors to cut the umbilical cord ;-)
Pretty soon my brother and sister-in-law arrived with their three little ones, including the newborn, and while I labored in the pool I got to visit with them and hold my new little niece who was born 10 lbs. 3 oz - I didn't wish the same size baby on myself!
As family came and went visiting me I had to make sure that I told Loritha in between that I was still having very strong, consistent contractions! Occasionally she'd have me get up for a minute to make sure they hadn't slowed because the weight of standing up always brought on a strong one. She later told me she was glad I'd warned her how I am in labor, otherwise she wouldn't have been sure I was having a baby that night!
For the most part we chatted about previous births and I listened in the background to my "Birth Day Affirmations" CD from Hypnobabies. I also utilized a lot of my Hypnobabies training to keep me calm during the harder contractions but I didn't put on any of my relaxation CDs because I was afraid if I relaxed too much I would go under the water. Lol.
Near the end I sat briefly on a torpedo shaped birthing ball, but I felt enough head pressure descending that after a few contractions I got back in the pool. It was a heated pool so the water stayed very warm, and by the end the whole room was very hot and humid, so they put some cold rags on us since I was pushing and didn't want to get up - it was the perfect amount of cool to balance me out. The pool was a little too big for me to push on one end with my back and the other with my feet so I asked Cliff to sit behind me to have something to lean on and that made a huge difference. The kids were also listening periodically, and although they said they never heard me, they did hear the baby's first cry!
Those final contractions are always doozies and this was no exception. He was a BIG baby and there was a LOT of pressure that frankly didn’t feel great, but Cliff and the midwife kept me calm with their encouragement, and calming prayer helped me through it too. I think it was a good 3 pushes to bring out his head, which was still in his water sack until he crowned and it burst, and then another couple for his long body. I just remember thinking, “Heads out, now’s the easy part…” and then “Man, he just keeps coming!” Finally he was born in the water and the midwife handed him up to me. He was calm and quiet and although I could see him breathing, just to make sure, I held him up so he would cry ;-) His cord was very long, which was good since it was wrapped around his neck twice. The midwife was monitoring his heart rate throughout and it stayed 140-144 the whole time.
The great side effects of the warm water we're help with pain management, not tearing (because you can stretch equally in all directions and the warmth softens the tissues), and no adrenalin shakes after birth! My mom took video of the birth (something we’ve never done before) and I’m glad she did.
I certainly saw God's blessings throughout the whole event and I knew that my prayer for good timing for our children had been answered. (I just didn't realize that my plan to have them gone was not the best plan for us.) Had baby come more like I’d envisioned it would have been much harder! The midwife had been with a mother the previous night and had only delivered around 2pm that Friday so they would have been exhausted. Cliff had been up for work since 6am so he’d have been exhausted, and I wouldn’t have had as much strength for pushing out either!
No, laboring through the night into morning was just not nearly as good as the way it happened. Another blessing - I didn’t realize that the assistant whom I really wanted to attend our birth lived 3 hours away! But, she was in town for the previous birth and when she heard I was starting contractions she turned around and stayed another day just for me! Like the Lord says in Isaiah 55:8 “ ¶For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” Plus, I would have missed the mother/daughter activity! AND Heavenly Father DID still let him come on the weekend ;-) Yes, we were blessed all around.
No, laboring through the night into morning was just not nearly as good as the way it happened. Another blessing - I didn’t realize that the assistant whom I really wanted to attend our birth lived 3 hours away! But, she was in town for the previous birth and when she heard I was starting contractions she turned around and stayed another day just for me! Like the Lord says in Isaiah 55:8 “ ¶For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” Plus, I would have missed the mother/daughter activity! AND Heavenly Father DID still let him come on the weekend ;-) Yes, we were blessed all around.
The kids came in and saw baby while we were still in the water, and then everyone came in after I’d been checked and was back in my own, comfortable bed! When they finally weighed Daniel I guessed 9 lbs 10 oz (My biggest babies were 9.5 and 9.7) and the midwife and assistant guessed low 9 lbs. I think…only Cliff, who when he picked him up out of the water KNEW he was at least a 10 lber, guessed 10 lbs 4 oz so we could at least “beat” Cory and Kayla’s baby ;-) When he saw 10 lbs 9 oz he said, “YES!” and ran out to announce that we beat them! Kayla said something like, “That’s one race I did NOT want to win!”
My mom with her grand-baby #9
