Fearsy Baby Birth Story
Dec 12, 2020 21:28:00 GMT -6
Post by Fearsy on Dec 12, 2020 21:28:00 GMT -6
I finally have had some time to breathe. I wrote out my birth story for anyone interested in reading. There's a TL;DR at the end. PDQ - I will poof some details at some point.
On Sunday afternoon I was enjoying a bath and MH was doing a great job of keeping the girls out of my hair. After a while I tried to shift my position and ended up hurting my tailbone. It was so painful that I couldn’t sit and could barely walk. I spent the rest of the day distraught over my impending labor, wondering how this injury would affect my ability to cope with the pain.
On Monday morning MH took me to the chiropractor. I was still in significant pain but was feeling a lot better after being adjusted. The chiropractor said I didn’t bruise my tailbone but that it was some ligaments and muscles surrounding the area that were very swollen. He told me to ice/heat, do a lot of walking, and come back that evening if I still wasn’t feeling great. I spent most of the day trying to heal it as much as I could and saw the chiropractor for a second adjustment that evening. I slept really well that night for the first time in a long while.
On Tuesday morning I had an NST appointment scheduled with my midwife. Despite the tailbone pain being a little better, I still didn’t feel like I should be driving so MH and the girls took me to the city. They were not able to get a baseline because baby was so active, which made the strip look like the heart rate was too high. I asked my midwife to check my cervix before we talked about our options since I was already very overdue. I was about 1.5cm so I asked her to go ahead and strip my membranes to see if that would help get things moving along. She knew how much I really wanted to avoid the hospital so she suggested that we take the girls to get settled at my sister’s and then come back with our bags for a repeat NST.
My sister picked up the girls and MH and I spent some time doing a few last minute things before heading back. Usually I bake birthday cupcakes when I’m in early labor to distract myself so this time felt really different. I folded a load of laundry, did dishes, and a few other things that I knew I wouldn’t want to do when we got home. MH and I both showered before picking up sandwiches and heading in. We had the same issue again once I got hooked up to the monitors. We tried for a while without much luck and the midwife suggested some IV fluids might help, but she wasn’t able to get a vein. I thought for sure she’d send us home and I’d need an ultrasound in the morning, but she gave me a break and then hooked the monitors up for another try. Almost immediately she got what she needed and we felt so relieved! I started having some contractions during that monitoring session so when she came back to talk about options, we very quickly decided we’d stay and try to get labor going on our own. Going home to sleep seemed like a good choice but I had a feeling that we wouldn’t last long before needing to go back.
It was around 9pm when MH brought our things in and the midwife made a castor oil smoothie for me. It had almond butter and champagne so instead of giving me the shits, I was feeling pretty good. It didn’t really have an effect on my contractions though. I rotated between relaxing in the shower, pumping, and trying to rest. I asked for a cervical check a little after midnight and was frustrated that I was only about 2cm. Pumping was working the best for keeping my contractions going so I did a lot of 10min on, 10min off sessions. I was only 3cm at 3am and starting to feel pretty discouraged. I decided to try to get some rest but within 30min, the midwife came back to check on me. She could hear that something shifted in the way I sounded. I finally agreed to call our doula/photographer to come in for some extra support even though it felt like I had a lot of time left.
The midwife started filling the birthing pool at 3:45am and I was so eager to get in. I labored in the water with C and it really helped a lot so I was really hopeful it would do the same this time. I started feeling pushy very soon after getting in at 4:10am. I looked at the clock and realized it had only been about 20min since we called our doula. I knew then that she wouldn’t make it. My midwife offered to check me again but I said no. I was worried that if she told me I was at 6 or 7cm that I would make them take me to the hospital for an epidural because the contractions were really intense at that point.
A few contractions later and the head was out. The midwife encouraged me to take a minute to breathe and wait for the next contraction to push again. I felt like I was getting mixed signals when a few seconds later she said, “Well, we don’t want to wait too long.” I reached down to feel the head, thinking that would motivate me to birth the rest of the body. I felt the head and then said, “Oh the arm and hand are out already!” I thought that was pretty neat since baby’s hand was by the face in every single ultrasound picture we had. I looked down and realized I was wrong. It was actually a loop of the umbilical cord. The midwife immediately was shoulders deep, feeling around and I begged her not to pull the baby out. She said, “I’m not pulling, I’m just feeling.” When she took her arms out she looked right at me and said, “Okay. It’s time to have a baby. I need you to get this baby out right now.” She was nice about it but very assertive, which freaked MH out. I never felt scared or overwhelmed by her change in demeanor. I think because I knew that the baby wasn’t stuck and that I had just chosen to wait until a contraction came to be more comfortable. Once she said to get the baby out, I moved from my knees to a squatting position and pushed one more time and he was out! I pulled him up and held him on my chest while they checked him out. He was perfectly fine! We all cried and stared at him for a while before moving to the bed for the messy after birth stuff. I went from 3cm to baby in 90min so my doula was surprised when she came in 20min after.
We ordered food, called our families, and enjoyed our little guy for a while before going home 6 hours later. The doula followed us home to take professional pictures of the girls meeting their baby brother. They were very surprised to find out that it’s a boy after months of them saying they couldn’t wait for a sister. Luckily they didn’t care and are completely obsessed with him already. It was a wonderful experience overall and I couldn’t have asked for more.
TL;DR – WG was born via med-free water birth on 12/9 at 4:31am. He was 15 days overdue and weighed in at 8lb 13oz and 21 inches long. By far my biggest baby yet! (The girls were both 19in, 7lb 12oz and 6lb 15oz). We are starting to get settled at home and sorting through a lot of appointments. He is awful at nursing due to tongue and lip ties so we’ve been doing our best.
Thank you to everyone for all of your love and support!
