Birth Story and Baby Pictures

My birth story starts about a week or so before Isaac actually made his appearance. I was rapidly approaching my due date, and despite some 'good signs' wasn't going into labor. Now, obviously every woman starts to get antsy at this point. I think under normal circumstances, I would've been fairly chill about it -- I really truly believed that Isaac would come when he was ready, and I had no desire to be induced. Whether he came before or after his due date, it would be the right amount of time for him to have spent in the womb, and he'd come whenever his body and mine figured out it was time. One snag though -- my family (like, almost all of 'em, my parents, Talina, Star and Cody) were all leaving for Mexico on the 4th of July. The idea of my family not even being in the same country when I gave birth literally made me a little sick. I couldn't think about it much without getting upset. Star and I had talked for months about her being in the delivery room with me -- the first time I was going to have anyone other than Greg in there. My Mom and Dad live just a few blocks away and were posed and ready to easily run over to our house at any hour and watch the kids so Greg and I could make a hasty exit for the hospital when the time was right. As my due date approached, the clock was ticking. Then it passed, and I was constantly walking the clock, refiguring in my head each time how many hours I had to give birth before they'd leave. The morning of the Fourth, I said goodbye on the phone while they were waiting in the airport, hung up and started to cry. It hadn't happened. They really were going to be gone. I had run out of time.

I spent most of that day kinda down and sad. But, with them gone, a certain amount of pressure and stress lifted. I reminded myself often that many of my friends give birth in states far away from their loved ones, and in the long run, it does not matter if everyone 'meets' while still in the hospital.

(Oh, and if you're not comfortable with basic birthing terms like contractions, pushing and episiotomies, you might want to just skip down to the pictures.)

Monday morning I was feeling a lot better, but a new clock started to tick in my mind. Wednesday was the date my midwife had given me for an induction. Something I very much wanted to avoid. We drove an hour away for a family party with Greg's extended family, part of me hoping that Murphy's Law would insist that my labor start when I was as far away from the hospital as I'd been in weeks. But we returned home from a fun afternoon and took it easy for awhile. Around 6:30PM, I noticed some very light cramping and tightening that felt a little different than my normal Braxton Hicks. And, according to Greg's iPod Touch Labor Tracker app, they were coming every 3-10 minutes or so. I didn't take 'em very seriously though, 'cause I'd had some before, and these were so light that I could easily ignore them completely. Plus, in the past, they'd always fizzled out. Around 7:30 that night, my family got online and we chatted for almost an hour, they happily timed my mini-contractions from another country . . . my Mom kept telling me to get to the hospital already. They did get a bit annoyed though, when they started coming only every 10 minutes or so instead of every 5, like they had been. By 10ish that night, they'd really started to space out. I was barely noticing them, and only every 10-15 minutes at the most. We put a couple people on stand by, in case we needed middle of the night babysitters, and settled down for bed. By then, I was fairly convinced I'd fall asleep quickly and either wake up in the middle of the night to some stronger contractions, or wake up in the morning to find they had truly stopped. So, I was surprised when at 11PM as I was laying in bed, my water suddenly broke.

We had my brother in law David, who had been house sitting for my parents home just a few blocks a day, come over right away. We called Greg's parents to come over for the night to watch the girls (so they could relieve David in an hour or so and he could go back home, get rest and go to work in the morning). As we drove to the hospital, I kept waiting for the contractions to start up, and pick up in intensity since the cushion of the amniotic fluid was now gone. We got there, got into triage, and I was being checked out, and I kept thinking, "I hope they start soon," since all I was noticing was an occasional light cramp. So, I was surprised when she said I was dilated to nearly a 6. We got into a room, and I noticed a few more minor contractions while I got hooked up, settled in and met all the nurses. I met the midwife who'd be handling the delivery (mine couldn't be reached), and I instantly liked her and was excited when she said I didn't need an IV. She said as long as I was going natural, I was fine without either the IV or even the hep lock. She became my new best friend. Unfortunately, the slightly more nervous nurses soon decided that there were some slightly less reassuring things on the monitor with Isaac's heartrate, and they wanted to pump me back up with fluids so he'd have more volume going to him too. I was fine with that, and ended up with an IV. I would've been more disappointed about this if I'd been trying to get up and walk around and stay mobile like I'd originally planned, but I found all I wanted to do was curl up on my left side and try and relax as much as possible. Something I decided I could do with an IV in. Oh well. So, once we were left to ourselves, I returned to my headphones, curled up on my side and listened to my "Hypnobabies" tracks. I told Greg to go ahead and lay down and rest . . . things weren't picking up that much with my contractions, that while more uncomfortable, I could still relax through them mostly, and easily relax in between. At one point I noticed them becoming a little more frequent, but not much. After a little bit, I noticed that they were getting a bit more uncomfortable, and I couldn't relax through them anymore, I'd just tense up, so I called Greg over to come 'help' me, and he rubbed my back through one contraction. It felt great. He tried it again during the next contraction, and it made it worse. I told him I was getting nervous that I wasn't handling them as well as I wanted (that I wasn't able to relax through them), and then I sent him back over to the couch and just went back into my own world of listening to my iPod. I think now to the bag of 'comfort items' I packed, the birth ball still out in the car, the walking and swaying and leaning I'd planned on to deal with contractions, and the only thing that sounded appealing was curling up on my left side in bed. I called Greg back over after one contraction and told Greg that with all that fluid they were pumping into me, I wanted help getting into the bathroom. I had one or two contractions while in the bathroom and decided that I just wanted to get back into bed as quickly as possible, where contractions were far more comfortable. I was so much more comfortable there. We made it back to the bed, paged the nurse to come hook me back up, but before she had a chance to come in, I decided I wanted to go back into the bathroom. This entire time, I was carrying on conversations with Greg, I was talking about how things were feeling more intense, but I wasn't consumed by the contractions by any means. In fact, the nurse mentioned when she came in that maybe I needed to get up and walk around to get these contractions coming faster and more intense. Then she started explaining the privacy & safety policies to me while I got back in bed. I had a contraction at this point . . . I could hear her and even follow the conversation, but the contraction had the majority of my attention. Then about 10 seconds later I had another one. She was talking about the menu for tomorrow's lunch :-) Then as soon as that one finished I had another one. This one made me whimper and squirm around a bit more. She suddenly asked, "I wasn't going to check you yet, but maybe I should . . . " I agreed, and as she came towards me I suddenly cried out, "I think I'm pushing!" Sure enough, she checked and Isaac was crowning. I couldn't believe it, she hit the nurse call button and was calling for anyone who could come . . . two nurses made it in (we were in the room across the hall from the nurses station thankfully), there wasn't even time for her to drop down the bed or anything . . . and for all my stressing while preparing for labor about what position I would want to push in, turns out all I could do in this case was lay back on the bed and push -- he came all the way out the next contraction. The midwife was in the next room and couldn't make it over in time, and the OB on call couldn't get from across the labor and delivery ward in time. Isaac was delivered right onto the bed, with the nurse just sitting at the end of the bed. Right onto the sheets in front of me, I sat up immediately and the nurse helped me pick him up and I held him on my stomach. I think Greg and I were both in a bit of shock :-). It was amazing. The nurse had said there'd be a lot of pressure and then burning -- the pressure was definitely there -- I even screamed out for a few seconds with both pushes (more out of shock and effort than actual pain), but there was no real burning. I would even go as far as saying it wasn't painful . . . just intense and a lot of pressure. It was literally over in a minute or two, it was crazy. And as soon as he was out, it was like it was over. No pain, no discomfort, it was just over. And he was there. And it was one of the coolest things ever. I turned to Greg and said, in a bit of shock, "I would do that again. That wasn't that bad." The whole experience had gone better than my greatest hopes for labor -- as much as I'd practiced and relaxed and 'self-hypnotized' for a 'painless childbirth', I always expected it to hurt. Not beyond what I could handle, but to the point of sheer miserableness followed by a huge high of accomplishing it. Turns out, that for me it was intense at the end, but looking back, even as I was approaching transition nurses with decades of experience had no idea I was even in very active labor. (Here is where I should probably add a little disclaimer: I think I'm a freak. I don't think this is the norm, or something that anyone who listens to some relaxation CDs should expect -- but I do believe that just like women have different levels of menstrual cramps and whatnot, women have different experiences in labor. One of my reasons for wanting to go natural this go around, was a little nagging voice at the back of my head that said, "What if? Just what if you're one of those it isn't 'that bad' for, and you never try and never know." Weird, I know. But, turns out that voice had a point. I also believe that this being my third, and not first, was a HUGE part of the level of comfort/discomfort. Being a week overdue probably helped too, as my body was very prepared. Anyway, I don't think this is the 'norm' of natural childbirth or anything -- just a possibility that exists. And a very cool one to have personally experienced. Something I'm grateful for.) It was 1:37 now. We'd gotten into our room after midnight. Time had flown by, it hadn't felt like an hour and a half.

Anyway, I held him while the nurse delivered the afterbirth and got everything cleaned up, at this point we're waiting for the midwife to come check out everything. The nursery nurses made it in after Isaac was born, and his chart makes me laugh, where the nurse wrote something like, "We came in to find the baby laying on his mother's chest, already pink and wiggling. Other nurses there tell us his Apgar was an 8." I was shaking pretty hard by now though (which happened after my epidural births as well), and I gave the baby over to Greg and the nurses to go take care of cleaning him up a little and weighing him, so I could take a couple deep breaths and 'come down' a little in time for the midwife to come in and take care of a couple stitches. This was the first point where I missed the epidurals of my first two births -- I loved just holding and nursing my new babies while the doctors and nurses got everything patched up and cleaned and taken care of, while I obliviously cuddled my new babe. With the natural childbirth, the after stuff had a little bit more of my attention. :-) Nothing was really that bad, the stitches and stuff weren't nearly as bad as I'd psyched myself out for, it just took a bit of my attention. On the flip side, I loved being able to walk off the delivery bed and into the bathroom to take a quick shower right there in the labor and delivery room, then walk around the room rocking my baby before getting into the wheelchair to be taken to the Mom & Babies rooms. Sure beat dragging my numb legs and body from one bed into another and being wheeled around the hospital, unable to get out of bed for hours. Oh, the other 'epidural benefit' Greg and I noticed was picture taking -- we have dozens of pictures of the girls right after birth, and all of us together as a family, and with extended family in the delivery room with us afterwards. This time we were both still in shock and barely remembered to take pictures. We got like six. Then with it being the middle of the night, there weren't extended family pictures (plus, my family was still out of town.)

We eventually made it over to our room, and it was funny, 'cause every nurse who came in that first day 'knew who we were'. We were kinda famous at the hospital that night. The baby born with the midwife in the next room, who couldn't make it over in time.

Here's Isaac and I right after birth -- I look a little shocked and very happy. And puffy, stupid IV fluids. :-)

Isaac on the scale. 8 lb. 1 ounce, 20 inches.
Much bigger than his sisters! (Annie - 6.5 lbs., Ellie 6lbs.)

This is first thing that morning, after I changed out of my hospital gown and got about an hour and a half's worth of sleep.

Annie, Ellie and Grandma Ruth showed up in the morning. You could hear Ellie calling, "Baby Isaac! Baby Isaac!" from the hallway. :-) Both girls were so excited to see him. Annie had Grandpa call us at 8AM to ask what color hair he had. She was quite disappointed it was dark, and not light like hers.

There were many interesting hair and accessory choices made over the few days Mom wasn't home . . .

Daddy, Isaac and Ellie

Isaac and Aunt Andrea

He was a huge fan of his fist that first day -- now he prefers the binkie.
When he's not nursing hourly :-)

Isaac and Uncle David

Mommy and Isaac cuddling

Annie loved holding her little brother, and was always anxious for her next turn . . .

Ellie was far more interested in climbing around the room like a monkey and eating saltines and cookies from the snack room . . .

Little baby feet

My kids

Ellie and I both sporting awesome hairdos . . . and Ellie running around naked. That was a tad embarrassing when she'd make a run for the snack room in nothing but a diaper . . .

Grandpa KC, Annie, Isaac and Grandma Ruth

Father and son

The girls both got new baby dolls as a present from their brother -- they basically spent the next hour fighting over baby doll accessories, whining about who got the better gift . . .

Isaac ready to leave the hospital.

Isaac and I right before we left.

My baby boy.