Mikayla's Birth Story, Part 3

At this point I need to consult Joel for the sequence of events. I remember distinct positions, feelings, and thoughts from the labor process, but really had no sense of time whatsoever. According to Joel, I got onto my hands and knees for awhile to open some space, and encourage the baby to turn. For some reason it was comfortable for me to lean my forehead against the edge of the tub, but I learned quickly to just do what came naturally to my body! When my arms (and head) grew tired, I sat and leaned back against the side of the tub, with Joel behind me. The back pain continued, but our midwife was super brilliant and knew how to push straight back on my knees, toward my back, to help open my pelvis. That relieved some of the back pain, and we went on like that for a while. The deep, abdominal breathing and relaxation we had learned in our Bradley class continued to serve me well.

Eventually I ended up back on hands and knees, probably because the back labor was continuing and becoming too much in the seated position. It sounds scary, but in between contractions I was able to rest, and Jen’s pushing on my knees did bring quite a bit of relief. But it just wasn’t working to help things change or progress. So back onto hands and knees, and this time Joel and Jen took positions on either side of the birth tub in order to push on my hips. Jackpot! The contractions were getting stronger and stronger, and I found that I had to vocalize in order to manage the pain. I also became very focused on what my body needed, barking at my attendants to push on my hips – now harder! Now stop!

Around 6:00 a.m., Jen checked me again. I honestly don’t remember where this fits into the sequence of events in the labor tub (and neither does Joel), but I do remember how difficult it was to get out of the tub with the baby moving ever further down in my pelvis. I waddled the two steps to the bed, up onto the little stool and onto the bed. Jen checked me – 7 cm dilated – and I promptly threw up ALL over the place. Repeatedly. How humiliating! Jen continuously encouraged me, told me it was normal and perfectly fine, and grabbed something for me to be sick into. At this point I also lost the mucous plug with a little blood. I remember feeling completely at the mercy of my body as I threw up, and a contraction hit – my sensation was of being out of control, watching from a distance as my body just freaked out and convulsed. But, it only lasted a VERY short time, and then I stopped being sick and things came back under control, mentally and physically. I think it must have just been my body’s reaction to the internal check, and contact with my cervix, as well as the beginning of transition.

Back into the tub! Again, the sequence of events is a little fuzzy but as I went into transition things really clicked. I was leaning back in the tub, with Joel behind me outside of the tub with his arms around me. The contractions became incredibly intense. Jen tried to push on my knees again but this time, it was NOT what I needed. I locked into a mental place wherein each time a contraction came, I focused visually on the rubber duck thermometer – some intense eye contact with its one beady little eye! – and mentally clicked into a mantra: Send all the pain to my hands, and blow it away. The deep breathing wasn’t working at that point, since a deep inhale sent my lower body into a frantic attempt to push/convulse. So it became five short, intense exhales and then a nice sharp inhale, repeated throughout the contraction. Mentally sending the pain to my hands enabled me to keep my lower body as relaxed as it needed to be. On a few contractions, I lost focus and felt my body tense up, which made it sort of try to push, and this increased the pain. My advise for transition is this: find what works for you! For me it was the focal point, and having a repetitive breathing and thought pattern, continuously telling myself what to do and focusing intensely on the present moment only. Doing those things really made it bearable, and decreased the pain!

Tomorrow's installment: Finding The Zone

Mikayla's Birth Story, Part 2

This was good news to me – all I wanted was to get up there and into the birth tub! But between us and the birth tub stood a 25-minute drive over snow-covered roads. Joel left me in the bathroom to go investigate our driveway situation and get the “last-minute” items together for our birth bag. Thankfully we had a list on the fridge of things to grab on our way out the door, so we didn’t have to worry about forgetting something in the moment.

The driveway was full of snow, and the roads weren’t looking too good either. After debating whether to call a friend with 4-wheel drive, we opted to at least attempt the drive in my car. All our bags and the car seat were in my car, and we had brand new tires, so it seemed worth a try. Joel helped me put some clothes on, and put my socks and shoes on my feet between contractions while I leaned on the dresser. I was starting to vocalize a little during the contractions, which were still 3 minutes apart, and I wondered what our neighbors were thinking!

The next minutes involved lots of strategy. Contractions were three minutes apart, so as soon as one passed, we hurried down the stairs. The next one rushed upon me in the kitchen so we waited, and then Joel helped me with my coat and gloves. We paused through another contraction, then tried to make it out to the car before the next one. The ice and snow said otherwise, so I hung onto Joel through a contraction before making it into the car.

The 25 minute drive took us nearly an hour, in second gear until we made it to the relatively clear highway. My contractions mercifully spaced out to 4 minutes during the ride. I focused on the snowy road in front of us and breathed through each one; I thought I was handling the whole car labor thing pretty darn well! At one point I realized I REALLY had to go to the bathroom, so where else would we stop at 3 a.m. but at the Turkey Hill gas station? The guy at the counter went white as he realized what was probably going on right there in his store. We avoided eye contact and hurried through the bathroom process – somehow, I didn’t have any contractions while we were in there! I did have one on the way back out to the car and clung to Joel for support. I got the impression that because we were in public, he wanted to “act natural” as much as possible, but that wasn’t exactly the priority for me!

Soon enough we hit the highway and clearer roads, so we were able to pick up speed. We reached the birth center around 4 a.m., hoping Jen (our midwife) wouldn’t judge us too harshly for being late. Quite the opposite – she welcomed us quickly, helped me through a contraction just outside the door, and took us inside where she had the birth tub set up and was ready to do an initial check.

At 4 a.m. I was 5 centimeters dilated. At this point my water had not broken, nor had I come “uncorked” yet. Jen asked me what I wanted to do, and without hesitating I said, “Get in the tub!” She quickly began to fill it with nice warm water. I labored on the toilet while we waited for the tub to be ready.

If laboring on the toilet was good, getting into a hot birth tub was AMAZING!! Not that it was particularly fun throwing a leg over the side of the tub at that point, but sinking down into the water and feeling the soft, inflatable tub all around me was as close to heavenly as one can feel during labor. I wasn’t sure what position to be in, so I just sat down initially, but as the contractions rolled over me, I realized that the baby had turned posterior and was causing a LOT of pain!

Tomorrow's installment: Back labor!

Mikayla's Birth Story, Part 1

So I just finished writing Mikayla's birth story, in as much detail as a new mama can remember. Scrolling back through, I'm realizing that it is seven pages, single spaced. Now that is a lot of detail for one blog post, so at Joel's suggestion I am going to post it in installments over the course of a few days. Let me know if you're interested in the whole thing; I can email the file in its entirety so you don't have to wait :-).

As a brief word of introduction, I'll say that we had an amazing birth experience supported by a phenomenal midwife and nurse. Joel was an amazing coach! The birth story you'll read here was written by me, from a laboring mama's point of view. I noted where I had to check with Joel for details. He's planning to read through the whole thing and add comments where he remembers things that I don't, or remembers them differently. Hopefully he'll add those comments here as well, but at the very least you'll get a sense for the course of our labor and delivery from my perspective. Again, this is as much detail as I can remember, carefully recorded as an encouragement to other moms-to-be and as a personal memoir of this life-changing experience. It is not for the faint of heart, and probably not for the uninitiated male reader. I left out some of the less dignified details, but recorded as much as I could of the physical sensations and mental gymnastics that were involved in birthing our daughter. For those who would like to learn about the most intense, beautiful, miraculous eleven and a half hours of my life, read on...

Our birth experience began quietly and unexpectedly at 11:00 p.m. on 1/11/11. I was dozing, having gone to bed a short time before, when I experienced my first contraction. Now, I had been pre-laboring for about a week – lots of random, relatively painless contractions, sometimes happening regularly for a few hours, but always spacing out and subsiding eventually. So when this one woke me up and took my breath away, I didn’t immediately suspect that I was starting into labor. But, since it felt different than previous contractions, and I continued to feel somewhat crampy even after the contraction ended, I decided to make a note of it.

Despite the ongoing discomfort following this first contraction, I was able to go back to sleep for a bit. The next contraction woke me at 11:29 p.m. and felt similar to the first one. I abdominal-breathed through it just as our birth class instructor had taught us, and again made a mental note that it had come about 30 minutes after the first one. So far, Joel was still sleeping soundly with nary a clue that anything might be happening. I decided not to sound the alarm just yet, and settled in for (hopefully) some more sleep myself.

The next contraction didn’t hit until 12:30 a.m., so I’m not sure whether I slept through one. I still wasn’t getting TOO excited because they were pretty far apart, but the contractions were definitely intense enough that I needed my deep breathing and relaxation skills to feel ok. At this point I got up to walk around a little and use the bathroom, to see if that would help the crampy feeling to go away (it didn’t).

At 12:54 I had another contraction, and the next followed swiftly on its heels at 1:03. We went from spaced out, almost half an hour apart contractions to 9 minutes apart after only three contractions. At this point I was definitely considering waking Joel to provide some coaching! He actually woke on his own and asked if everything was alright. I told him I was considering waking him in a few minutes, that I was having painful contractions.

I should mention at this point that Joel can, and often does, sleep through anything. He is not easy to rouse. So I confess to several minutes of bitterness as another contraction rolled through at 1:11 and he was still, apparently, sleeping soundly. If he wasn’t going to wake up, then I was going to need to get comfortable. I headed for the bathroom. And may I say, laboring while sitting on the toilet is amazing! I was able to use all my breathing to completely relax through each contraction. Contractions kept coming at 8 minutes, then 7 minutes, then 6 minutes apart. It seemed that each one came closer upon the previous one, rush upon rush.

In all fairness, Joel got up quickly as soon as he realized what was happening. But naturally he requested to go to the bathroom – what?!? Give up my precious laboring position?? But there weren’t a lot of options, so I stood for the next one. Yup, I definitely preferred sitting on the toilet.

I labored until about 2 a.m. in the bathroom. We lit a scented candle, wrote down the timing of contractions on a little note pad, and generally talked about what in the world should we do?? Our area had a winter weather advisory in effect, and our driveway (not to mention the roads) was covered in 4-5 inches of snow. At 2:00, my contractions were 6-7 minutes apart (we only had a few contractions that were 8-9 minutes apart before they ramped up). We decided that with how quickly things seemed to be moving along, we had better call the midwife to give her a heads up and talk about when to head to the birth center. While Joel was on the phone with her, my contractions went from 6 minutes to 3 minutes apart. Holy smokes! Our midwife on call, Jen, asked to speak with me. I told her everything was going fine, and had a contraction while we were on the phone. She observed that I had to stop talking and breathe through it, and we decided to meet at the birth center at 3:30 a.m.

Tomorrow's installment: Battling the snow!

Welcome, Mikayla Grace!

With the help of the Lord and a fantastic midwife, Joel and I welcomed our precious Mikayla Grace into the world at 10:18 a.m. on Wednesday, January 12, 2011. (Even better than making it for a 1/11/11 birth, she has a palindrome birth date of 1/12/11!) She weighed in at 8 lbs 3 oz, and was 21 1/2 inches long.


We had a near-perfect birthing experience, other than a little back labor for a few hours and having to finish the delivery outside of the birth tub due to meconium staining. All told, labor lasted just over 11 hours. I'm working on writing up the whole birth story and will post it here when I'm finished. Thank you to all who have been praying for us, that Mikayla would arrive soon and with a safe delivery. We truly have been far more blessed than we deserve in both pregnancy and birth. It went so well that we went home a short 4 hours after Mikayla was born!


Truly the Lord has smiled upon us in this season, and our hearts are grateful. Glory be to Him alone!

On Being Pregnant Forever

An actual conversation, copied and pasted from Gmail chat:

me: Laura's in the hospital working on having her baby, so that'll be two down from our birth class. I almost cried when I read it (though I think she was due before me) because I am now certain that I will be pregnant forever

Joel: Honey, you won't be.

We're still a week away from the due date!

Your pelvis will open, and the baby will descend, like millions of babies before him/her (quote from birth class).

me: yeah yeah....

It feels like my pelvis IS open and the baby IS descending, and will remain halfway down for the rest of my LIFE.
But I have to acknowledge that you are probably right.

Joel: Probably.

I mean, I could be wrong, and you could be pregnant forever, and we could be in the guinness book of world records, and then you could give birth in 50 years, and we could name him or her Benjamin Button.

In all seriousness, major congratulations to both Angie and Laura, ladies from our birth class who have welcomed or are welcoming their little girls! I hope to join you in the ranks of motherhood someday...

Nursery Photos

Hey, want to see the nursery?


The view from the glider, where mama will spend oodles of time in the next few months. You can see diapers at the ready, and a closet stocked with newborn clothes (there's plenty of room for more, when we know whether to buy blue or pink).


It's pretty bright in there...we might need to add a few curtains to make it a little more conducive to afternoon naps.


There's room for grandparents to sleep here (baby can move to the portable crib in our room), or an exhausted mama who doesn't feel like making it back to her own bed in the middle of the night.


The table is one I painted not long ago, given to us by friends the Mokrejses. The same friends also gave us a cute wall hanging ("Our home has just been enlarged by two feet!" with a picture of little baby shoes on it) that Joel needs to put up sometime soon. The table holds the many books given to us for baby, a little musical horse that graced my room when I was tiny, and the picture frame I gave Joel to tell him I was pregnant.

And see the big space above the crib, waiting for the cross stitch that my mom is making for the baby? Speaking of the crib, here's a photo of the inside. It looks a little feminine, perhaps, but that's because most of the stuffed animals we have are from when I was little. Though we do have Joel's old teddy bear in there as well. It's the one you can barely see in the lower right corner. Also notice the cow from Becca and Amy, part of my "milk"-themed shower gift from them. Bumper courtesy of best friend Susan and her mom.



I think my favorite thing about our nursery is the fact that almost every item reminds me of the person who graciously gave or lent it, or helped us find it, out of love for our new baby. The crib from the Benders, clothes and changing pad from Laurie, glider found by Laurie (and a rocker downstairs given by her as well!), swing from my grandparents, books and stuffed animals from friends and family, diapers from my dear sister and her husband, and more. The whole room (along with other items throughout our home now) is such a collection of love and friendship, as well as history, reminding me that we could not welcome this child without the support of all the wonderful people in our lives. We feel so blessed by the generosity of those around us, and look forward to relying on you all to help us as parents, raising this sweet baby in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Thank you!

Sweet pea, come out and enjoy your new digs!

The One Wherein My Patience Forsook Me

Little sweet pea,

Enough with the warm fuzzies. Please get here, and I mean today. Well, maybe tomorrow so your daddy can finish recovering from being up so late. But seriously, I am ready to tango.

Love,
Mama

Yesterday:
- Grocery shopping, which I thought sure would get our little 2010 tax deduction rolling.
- Baked brownies and cream puffs from scratch, which...ditto above.
- Ate spicy hot wings and laughed til it hurt, but alas, it was all in vain.

Today:
- Cleaned the kitchen and reorganized the utensil drawers (seriously, how can that not mean that labor is imminent?)
- Made two lasagnas for the freezer, which is also stocked with autumn chowder, beef stew, and some Christmas leftovers. Also some Christmas cookies that might come in handy, because when do Christmas cookies not come in handy?
- Brewed some red raspberry leaf tea to maybe start some labor.
- Commenced Day 3 of Evening Primrose Oil supplements to help prime the pump, as it were.

Tomorrow:
- All of the above (tea, EPO, etc.) plus:
- A drive up the bad part of route 222 to maybe knock this sweet pea loose. Or maybe the drive to church will be enough if we take the back roads!

To any readers who stumble across this post: Don't you dare ask the Lord to teach us patience. Don't even think about it. Seriously. We have already passed the day of the tax deduction and have a fresh health insurance deductible waiting on us to boot. At this point, let's just get this show on the road! If you are going to pray, please pray for progress rather than patience.

Or, you know, just for the Lord to bring this baby in His perfect timing, because despite what you all believe, I am not nearly as smart or wise as the God who is putting the finishing touches on this little miracle He has knit together in my womb.