My Birth Story

I've been working on this post since 12/27!  :-)  If you're interested, here's my birth story....

I had a midwife appointment on the 9th of December.  That was the day before my due date. At the end of that appointment I made another appointment for the next week, but we all laughed about it because we just knew for sure that I would have the baby before then.  haha heehee.  ;-)  I needed that appointment! 

I was starting to feel like stinky fish.  Everywhere I went everyone would say stuff like, "When are you going to have that baby/"  or "Are you STILL here?"  Darin and the kids kept asking, "How do you feeeeeeel?"  Wondering if I was having contractions or not.  But nothing was really happening and I almost resigned myself to being pregnant for the rest of my life.  Oh my.  Can you imagine????  ;-)

So I went in for the appointment on the 17th.  Early that morning I had this weird "internal contraction-like" thing.  It felt like a contraction inside, and it felt as if Grace moved down.  I had never felt anything like that before!  So when I got to the midwife's, I told her what had happened and she decided to check me to see if I was dilated.  I was at a 5 and fully effaced.  That seemed to freak her out a little.  We are 30 minutes from the birthing center, and I am Group B Strep positive.  I needed to get two doses of antibiotics in before Grace came through the birth canal, so she told me in very strong language that if it were her, she would stay to be induced.  Well.  Absolutely.  My biggest fear during the pregnancy was that I would not be able to get the antibiotics needed before Grace was born.  I had a niece die from exposure to Group B when she was born so I definitely want to be overly cautious in this area.  It was a hard blow for our family when that happened!  That sweet niece would have been my parent's first grandchild.

Darin and I had taken Henry, Sophia and Lydia with us to this appointment, so we took them home, called our friend (more about her in another post!) who had volunteered to help out with the kids during the delivery, went through the drive-thru of Chick-Fil-A for some lunch, filled up the car with gas, then headed back to the midwife.  :-)

When Darin and I got there, Lynne, the assistant, told me to use my breast pump for 30 minutes to see if we could get labor started that way.  I am an all-or-nothing gal, so I hooked-up both sides and cranked the pump to "Max."  Darin looked at his watch when I started.  It was 12:12 p.m.  OH MY GOODNESS.  It worked!  10 minutes later I asked Darin to go ask if I could stop!  The contractions came on so fast and hard.  Lynne said I could stop, but that I needed to go take a brisk walk.  Oooookaaaay.  :-/  I tried to be a good girl and go for a walk, but I knew there was no need.  I laid down on the bed and sweated through some contractions before deciding to get up and change into the clothes I was going to wear for the birth. 

While I was up, I noticed the contractions were a lot more manageable while standing.  So I paced around the room, working through the contractions.  Our midwife came in for something....not sure what she was doing.  I think she was filling out paperwork or something.  She asked Darin how far apart my contractions were.  He said.  "Oh, about 10 minutes or so."  WHAT?  ;-)  It was obvious he wasn't the one FEELING the pain, so I set him straight on their frequency.  The midwife, Jean, said she also noticed they were lasting a good long time, so she decided to check me.  I was dilated to an 8.  This was only after about an hour.  It was just a little past 1 by this time.  Jean decided that if she broke my water, the baby would come right down and right out. 

It sort of worked like that.....the baby did come right down, but the right out thing was a little more tricky.  While I was pushing, my contractions slowed way down.  And can I say, WOW.  I could have lived with the contractions ALL DAY as long as I didn't have to push.  Having never given birth without drugs before did not prepare me for the pain of pushing.  Really, the thing that bothered me the most was feeling claustrophobic.  There were one person holding each of my legs, Jean, the midwife standing at the ready to catch the baby, and another person standing behind her telling me to PUSH!!!!!!  I felt as if everyone were on top of me and I just wanted them to back off.  And with everyone screaming at me (it seemed as if they were!) to push, I felt like a pushing failure.  I ended up pushing so hard that I had broken little blood vessels on my face - it looked as if I had a rash.  And I'm a screamer!  LoL  I kept saying, "Take the baby out!  Take her out!"  And then they would say, "You have to PUSH!!!!!"  I hope that if we go through this again that my reactions will be a little more subdued.  I think I was caught off guard with the intensity of the pushing.  There is nothing I could have read that could have prepared me for that.

So...my contractions finally caught back up to where they needed to be and I had two or three good pushes in a row and Grace Anne was finally born at 1:44 p.m.  9 lbs. 1 oz.  She was/IS beautiful.  :-)  I was so thankful it was over, but then it wasn't really over for me yet.  :-/  I was bleeding very heavily.  I ended up losing twice as much blood as I should have.  Jean said it was probably because my contractions slowed down during the pushing.  That left me weak and so tired and I'm still trying to work through that now.  I am always anemic (except during pregnancy) so I'm sure the blood loss didn't help that.  But I have to say that if God blesses us with another little one, I will definitely use the midwife again.  Besides the low energy I have from the blood loss, the healing really has been much faster than with all our other babies.  And no episiotomy for the first time!  That's probably the biggest blessing ever.  My old OB always gave episiotomies as a matter of course.  It was part of her procedure.

The best part was that Darin was able to take off the entire rest of the month.  He and the kids spoiled me.  I took naps, fed the baby, watched HGTV, ate the good food they brought me.  It was so nice to be at home immediately after the birth rather than separated from everyone at the hospital.  Another positive about giving birth at the birthing center.  During the last days of the pregnancy I thought that if there were a next time, I might try giving birth at home, but I can't imagine putting my kids through my freaking out during the pushing, so the birthing center it is!  ;-)