Yes, I realize little Macie is 3 weeks old now. But, well, life has been flying by.
I was due on October 2nd, 2009 with my 4th little girl. I was so excited. I was also convinced she was going to be early, although I didn't know why, since all of my children have come past their due dates. Then, at 38 1/2 weeks, we found out she was breech. That really threw me for a loop and I was very concerned about the possibility of not having my homebirth. I did everything humanly possible to get her to turn before my scheduled version 2 days later. When I showed up for the version, she had magically turned. Hooray!
Then, 4 days later, I went to a midwife appt and wouldn't you know that stinker was head UP again. So, back to my tried and true methods of turning her and the next day, she had turned back head down.
And there she stayed.
And stayed.
And stayed.
So my impressions that she would come early, were apparently very
very wrong. In fact, not only did she not come early, but she was my latest baby ever. On Tuesday, October 13th, I had a midwife appointment. I'd been having contractions and cramping off and on for a week, but they weren't hard or painful or anything. I asked Dawn (my midwife) to check my cervix just because I was curious. I was 3cm dilated! So those contractions had been doing something afterall. I left the appointment feeling upbeat. I had never dilated before labor before, so I was convinced this meant things were happening. I continued to have more cramping than ever the entire day. Later in the afternoon, I headed in for a biophysical profile to check on the health of the baby, since I was nearing 42 weeks. She was perfect and received a perfect score. I had discussions with my midwife about how much time I had before I would need to take more drastic measures to get labor going.
My contractions continued throughout the day, but they were not steady, nor strong enough to even bother timing. Most of the time I wasn't even sure if I was having them, or if I was just imagining them.
At 5pm exactly, I had a contraction that I knew meant business. I got excited. And I noted the time so I would remember when things began changing. They still were not too strong, and very irregular. I spent the next few hours just waiting for things to get down to business, but they just kind of poked along. I continued to have stronger contractions, but I certainly wasn't in any sort of active labor. I spent the evening sitting on the bouncy ball and watching TV.
At 9:30pm, things were only slightly more steady than they had been at 5. I wasn't sure this would be it, but I had a feeling it was. It was just a matter of when it would actually kick over to active labor! I called my friend Roni, who was the first on a phone tree. At my baby shower, those who wanted to, signed up to be on a phone tree to recieve a call when I went into labor and light a candle for baby to light her way, while they sent prayers and well wishes my way. I still didn't consider myself in labor, but I knew it was getting too late to make phone calls and I was pretty sure it would happen that night.
At 10pm, I began to time my contractions, because it felt like the strong ones were starting to get some sort of pattern. I timed them until 10:30 and they were every 5-8 minutes. At 10:30, I called my midwife and let her know that I felt labor was beginning to kick into active labor. I could still talk through them, but I preferred not to. And I realized I had no idea what was going on with the TV show I was "watching". The midwife was with another mom, but it was a first time mom who was in pretty early labor, so she arranged to have an old assistant labor-sit the mother, while she came to my birth (since we pretty much knew I would have the baby first). She told me it would take about an hour for her to get there.
I went upstairs to see if the girls were still awake, and sure enough Emilee was wide eyed. She knew I had been having contractions and couldn't sleep from the excitement, so I let her come downstairs. Megan and Melia were asleep, so we let them stay that way.
Around 11:15, I decided I no longer wanted to deal with the contractions outside of the water, so I hopped into the birth tub. Ahhhhh, sweet relief. It felt so good to be in the water. The water just takes all of that heavy feeling away and just helps me relax so well. I continued to labor, made quite a bit of noise, and then would joke with those around me in between contractions. Emilee was half laughing, half crying. She knew everything was ok, and we'd talked about how I would make a lot of noise but that that was alright. She knew that, hence the laughter, but birth is emotional and she's an emotional child so there were tears too. My mom did a good job of talking her through her emotions.
I spent most of my labor in the tub looking like this:
My mommy rubbed my head to help relax me. It felt wonderful.
My husband rubbed my back when it started aching.
Occasionally, Emilee took a turn. What a sweetie.
At 11:45, I could tell the contractions were getting really low. I knew I was near the end, and Dawn had not shown up yet. I told someone to call her and let her know she needed to be on her way asap. She was actually driving to my house as we called, and she showed up at 11:50pm. She was there with her assistant Melissa. They set up their stuff and watched me do a few contractions.
At one point, every time I had a contraction, it was followed by the biggest urge to pee. I kept saying so, and everyone kept telling me to go. But I did not want to leave the comfort of the water. They told me to just go in the pool. But alas, I could not bring myself to do it. So eventually, after complaing a dozen times, I got out of the tub and to the bathroom. As I finally felt relief, I heard everyone out in the living room cheer. I laughed and told them that I did not need a cheering section for my pee.
I had a contraction outside the tub and my sweet husband held me.
At 12:15, labor started getting really intense. The contractions were super short, and had no work up at all, so I was having trouble staying on top of them and getting truly relaxed before they peaked. Actually, they felt like all they were was a peak with no beginning or ending. I started to get really loud. I started to complain a lot. Dawn offered to check me. I told her she could only check me if she was going to tell me I was 9cm. She jokingly said she could lie to me if I wanted, but I let her know I'd know if she was lying to me. She went ahead and checked me and I was 8cm! Woohoo! Almost there.
Meanwhile, the contractions were really kicking my butt. But in labors past, I typically go 6cm to baby in my arms in just over an hour, so I knew I would have a baby soon. I do remember saying that I just wanted 10 minutes to rest though. They were so hard, and so close that I was getting overwhelmed. At 12:48, I started giving little pushes during the contractions, just to test things out and see how it felt. It felt better to push, so I did when I felt like it. However, after about 10 minutes of that I told Dawn that something didn't feel right so she checked me again. I had a lip of cervix left which I could labor and breathe through, or I could push and she could try to slip it over the baby's head. I chose to push through it, because the contractions were so intense I didn't think I could just breathe through them.
Getting rid of that cervix proved to be the most difficult part of my labor. The pressure in my cervix was insane. I had never felt it like this before. And as hard as I started pushing and as much as Dawn tried to move the cervix out of the way, it just was not budging. When that didn't seem to work, she suggested I try to breathe through some contractions because she didn't want my cervix to swell. I tried....through all of two contractions and then said "No way! I'm pushing!"
I continued to push and voice my frustration that pushing wasn't as easy as it had been with my other kids. Even my first baby, with an epidural, only took 25 minutes. I began to scream and cry in frustration and woke poor Megan up and she came downstairs. At 1:18am, my water broke while pushing. A few minutes later, while still trying to push past the cervix, I felt it slip over the baby's head and her head came out in the same push. Dawn later told me she had been worried my cervix would tear because it was coming all the way down the birth canal with the baby's head (hence the insane pressure I was feeling!!). After birthing the head, Dawn told me to wait a minute while she unwrapped a cord from around the neck. Then I felt her tugging on the baby and I didn't know what she was doing. I later found out she was trying to pull the arm out. Baby was coming out with an arm that was up by her face and Dawn was trying to pull it out so that when I pushed the body out, she didn't move her elbow and tear me. She couldn't get it to budge though, so I resumed pushing. I remember saying "Holy cow, she's huge!" while pushing her out, because I could definatley tell. ROFL.
At 1:24am, on October 14th, 2009, I pulled Macie Dawn up out of the water. Her cord was wrapped all the way down her arm, like a candy cane stripe. That had been what was holding her arm up by her face and why the midwife couldn't get it to budge.
Macie has a head full of hair that our whole family just adores. She weighed a whopping 9lbs 4oz, which is almost a whole pound bigger than Melia, and a pound and a half bigger than Emilee and Megan. In addition to being my biggest, I had to push her out with her hand up by her shoulders! That's a lot of baby to birth! That obviously was the difference I felt in the pushing phase and why it was so difficult to push past that cervical lip.
The first few days after the birth, the only thing I could remember was the last hour of the birth and how difficult it had been. How I had never had that much difficulty during labor. But after a few days had passed, I realized the labor itself had been my easiest labor. Up until that last hour, it was a breeze. It was simply the last part that was difficult. I think quite possibly that is because I was expecting the pushing to be quick, since it always is, and I was mentally unprepared for anthing else. Have "else" happen, left me feeling out of control and I don't do well when I don't have control. But then, what is one hour? Anyone can do anything for one hour. And really, in the scheme of things, one hour is not that long. And it reminds me that birth is fluid and timeless and I shouldn't have boxed myself into what it would be timewise. Live and learn! And really, how can you even remember one difficult hour when you're holding a squishy, beautiful baby in your arms?
She's a bit bruised in the face. But notice she STILL
has her hand up by her face. Apparently she doesn't
know it's not still tied up with her cord.
After getting cleaned up, I sat in the recliner and cuddled with my sweet, sweet little baby. In fact, I hardly moved from that spot for the next couple of days. That is one of the most wonderful parts of homebirth. She is practically perfect and my kids are just eating her up.
