06/12/12

Hunter’s birth story: part 3

Here it is! The final part to Hunter’s birth story. Make sure to check out part 1 and part 2 as well.

Since I kept having my midwife check me, she was skeptical about when I’d really need to push. She said there were behaviors she would see and she’d know it was time.

It felt like I was in transition f.o.r.e.v.e.r. Every check left me disappointed since each time I had not reached 10 cm. There was this tiny little lip that just wouldn’t budge.

When I switched from ‘I feel like I need to push’, or ‘I want to push’, to ‘I need to take a poop!’, that was the sign!

My midwife checked me once again and although I wasn’t at a 10 still, she told me to push with the next contraction and she’d see what my cervix did. During that next contraction I pushed, she pressed that tiny part of my cervix over (holy ouch!) so he could begin to pass and it begun.

I was so glad to start pushing. Finally the end is near! My midwife saw I still had part of my bag of water in tact, so she broke it. Surprisingly there was meconium (baby’s first poop) in the bag. That meant the neonatal staff had to be there just in case he swallowed any of it, which would be bad.

8:30pm

The team was intact. Me on the slightly inclined bed, my midwife there to catch Hunter, the nurse holding my left leg and Jacob on my right. It took me a few pushes to really get the feeling of what pushing was like. Honestly, it’s the same feeling as pushing out a poop. Just gotta give in to the feeling.

I’d get 2 good pushes out of each contraction, try to catch my breath and push for a 3rd. Everyone was cheering me on and telling me what they could see with each push. The feeling of his head making its way past my cervix was crazy. I thought he was already out but that was just step one. Once he past the cervix I was in a rhythm. A contraction would come, I’d take a breath in, left it out, take another deep breath in, hold it, pull my legs back and push like crazy. Pushing was amazing. I was doing something! I couldn’t believe the lack of pain I felt during the pushes. Contractions didn’t hurt anymore.

When his head started to crown I could feel the burn begin, but my midwife used oil and helped stretch me and he began to emerge, quickly. Once his head was out I just wanted to keep pushing, especially since it felt sooooo weird just having his head hanging out! A couple more pushes and boom he was out, face up, fist under chin and screaming like crazy.

8:58pm

Just 28 minutes. That’s all it took to push out our 7 pound 12 ounce baby boy Hunter.

They put him on my chest right away since he looked and sounded good (the neonatal nurses left). All I remember saying was ‘oh my gosh, oh my gosh’ and that he was so big! Jacob thought he was big too, but apparently he wasn’t to the nurses. To us he was!

Our baby was in my arms. He was perfect. After the cord was cut and
placenta delivered, my midwife was going to stitch me up a bit. I had tiny little tear, and since it was so little I was given the option to not have stitches, which I decided against.

About 30 minutes after he was born he already started nursing — for 30 minutes! He was a champ from the beginning.

We let them weigh him, give him his vitamin K shot then he was back in our arms.

I could not believe how quickly he came out, especially being a posterior baby. All that working out a did during my pregnancy definitely had me ready for the big pushing event, which much like working out, I loved.

Jacob was amazing the entire time. He was my rock and kept me from freaking out when my contractions would get intense. I felt so much support for our choice for a drug free child birth, not only from our midwifes (we started with one, ended with another), but the 2 nurses we had at the hospital as well. There were definitely some moments I didn’t think I’d make it, but once it was over I couldn’t imagine having done it any other way.

06/7/12

Hunter’s birth story: part 2

Before heading onto part 2, catch up on part 1 of Hunter’s birth story.

At 1am we arrived at the family birth center. I got hooked up to two monitors – one for my contractions, one for Hunter’s heart rate.

A nurse checked and indeed my water had broken — we were there to stay. When my midwife arrived she checked to see how much I’d progressed — 3 cm, almost 100% effaced and he was at zero station, meaning very low, locked and ready to go!

After 30 minutes on the monitors I was free to move as I pleased. I walked around the room a lot, spent some time in the tub and did some hands and knees rocking. I was feeling pretty drained from the lack of sleep that I began to drift off into sleep in between contractions.

The switch

Typically things start to progress along in labor — longer and stronger contractions that get closer and closer together. Well the opposite began happening for me. They kept getting further apart, leaving me with 5-6 minutes of breaks in between each (where before they were 1-2 minutes apart). I was even able to get an hour long nap in, and apparently I had a 24 minute break from contractions at that time.

Although the relief was nice, I knew it wasn’t a good sign.

By noon on Monday my midwife decided to check me again, only because my labor didn’t seem to be going the right way. At that time I was 5-6 cm dilated. I had made progress, just slowly. We decided to give it a couple more hours to see if things picked up before talking about other options.

The nurse did some acupressure on my feet/ankles and we tried hot wash cloth nipple stimulation. Both things that can help pick up contractions. I moved around the room, did lunges, got on my hands and knees. I wanted my body to do this on its own without help.

4pm rolled around and I was check again — only 6cm dilated. Barely a change. Since my water had broken at 8pm the night before the 24 hour time clock was counting down.

I knew what my options were going to be, and I knew I didn’t really have a choice with them, but when my midwife suggested a little pitocin I broke down and cried. It’s not what we wanted or planned for. The lack of sleep was making me pretty emotional, and at the time I felt like a failure. Why couldn’t my body do this? Did I do something wrong? This is not what we had planned.

We said okay to the pitocin. Our midwife knew what we wanted, but sometimes things change with unexpected situations. I started off with the smallest dose of pitocin, which we hoped would kick start my body back to where it needed to be. For the next hour I got 2 tiny increments.

Things were starting to pick up. By 6pm the contractions were much much stronger. I could no longer walk them off. I’d instantly have to get on my knees, arms on tub and Jacob putting hot compression on my back. It was the only way I could deal with them. There wasn’t talking, just walking then onto my knees during the pain.

I wanted to be checked again, hoping I’d be at the point of pushing. Pushing meant the contractions would soon end and Hunter would be here.

Only at a 9. Keep moving as much as I can. Keep things moving and getting to that 10.

Just about every 20-30 minutes I asked to be checked again and I was stuck at 9-9.5 cm. It seemed like I was stuck there forever.

Contractions were back to back and I could barely deal with them. I kept saying that I wanted to push, but they knew I wasn’t ready. I wishfully wanted to push. That would mean it was over.

Stuck at that 9.5 I began to feel defeated. I kept telling them I couldn’t doing it any more. Jacob and my midwife would encourage me and get me through that contraction, one at a time. My breathing would start to get our of hand, then Jacob would just start doing the slow deep breathing and I’d begin to mimic him.

In my head each time I said I couldn’t do it anymore, to me that meant I needed drugs. That’s the thing about transition, you begin to say things you don’t really mean…

06/6/12

Hunter: 1 week + post pregnancy update

It’s hard to believe Hunter’s already more than a week old! On Monday he hit the 1 week mark.

Being home now instead of working full time has been an easy adjustment. I love every minute of it. It’s like a constant weekend, just hanging out with my little guy, no worries in the world.

Starting off his sleep was hit or miss. The first 4-5 nights were really rough. One night I had been awake the entire night and when it got to 3:30am with no sleep, I just broke down and started crying. Nothing I was doing would make him calm down, so I gave him to Jacob and went to sleep. Much needed sleep. Luckily he wasn’t back to work at the time so we could tag team him in shifts. Monday morning Jacob had to get back to work, which meant no more tag teaming at night. I know if I need his help I can wake him up, but since I’ll be home throughout the day I feel like I should let him sleep. Plus I function much better on less sleep than him.

Luckily I’ve figured out how to get him to sleep the majority of the night — on my chest. He boycots sleeping in the pack n play napper set up next to our bed. Occasionally he’ll sleep laying next to me, but only if I put him there after he’s really asleep. Since I figured this out, the past 2 nights I’ve slept from about 9:30pm-6am, waking up about 3 times during the night to feed/change him. I feel sooooo much better now that I’m getting sleep!

He doesn’t cry too much at night, and when he does cry I’ll just give him a boob and he’s okay.

Throughout the day he’ll sleep for long stretches on the couch in between two pillows. At night it’s a different story though… strange.

He’s been breastfeeding since the get go and it’s going great. No real problems with him latching or wanting to nurse, which I feel so lucky about. When my milk came in my breasts were engorged for about 2 days, but nothing painful. I’d hand express a bit of milk before feeding him (to make it easier to latch), and we’d be good to go. Again, feeling soooo lucky about that.

His skin is starting to flake off, which I read is normal. So far his eyes are blue/grey… I wonder what color they’ll end up being. Jacob’s eyes are blue, mine are brown.

He gets the hiccups daily and is already working on holding his head up!

Look at that big cloth diaper butt!

Since we switched to cloth diapers that’s all we’ve been using and we sure love it. Doing a load of laundry every day isn’t a big deal at all, especially since they’re pretty small loads.

How am I doing? Recovering pretty well, just still sore from him coming out of me. It feels like I’m bruised down there, and I can tell when I do extra walking around the house or if we run an errand I feel even more sore.

I think I’m on the mend though. Yesterday I went for a walk with Hunter in the moby, and my mom holding on to Joe. We did our normal 25 minute walk and I didn’t feel sore at all during. When we got back I could definitely feel the extra movement, but the joy of walking was way better than the tiny bit of soreness.

Sleep definitely makes me feel a lot more normal. In addition to the walking I vacuumed, ironed some of Jacob’s shirts, did lots of laundry, did dishes and even made dinner yesterday. It felt so good to cook again!

When Hunter was born I had gained a total of 45 pounds. One week later I’m down 17 pounds. I’m definitely not worrying about the extra 28 pounds I’ve still got. They’ll leave me eventually. Honestly I felt so tiny instantly without the big belly! I’m interested to see what happens with my weight by just eating well, eating when I’m hungry (which is basically all the time!) and slowly starting to add walking in.

One daily treat for myself (other than constantly cuddling my Hunter) has been soaking in tn the tub. It’s not only super relaxing, but helps with the healing process too.