Joshua's Birth Story

I was lying in bed at 6 in the morning on October 19^th. Devan had left for work just a few minutes before. I suddenly realized that my pants felt a little damp. I got up and confirmed that my water had broken, but it was only a couple of tablespoons worth of fluid. I called Devan and told him to let his boss know that he would probably have to leave work early. Ben was already awake, so I laid down with him and tried to go back to sleep. Eventually he messed with Hannah enough to wake her up, so we got up and started our day. We ate breakfast and played for a little bit and after I put Ben down for his morning nap I called the midwife to let her know that my water had broken. I talked to her assistant, Kat, and she asked me some questions about it. I was having some uncomfortable contractions by this point, but they weren’t very close together. Kat said the contractions would probably pick up sometime between then and that evening.

Hannah already had plans to go to the library with Renee and Mickey, so she left at about 9:30. They kept her most of the day, which was great. Ben took his two naps, which totaled over 3 hours. It was a good day. I tried to take a nap, but I was only able to doze off for about 10 minutes. The rest of the time I tried to clean the house and get everything ready for baby. The contractions came closer together when I was up working, but when I rested they slowed down so I knew I wasn’t very far along in my labor.

At about 3:00 I called Devan to see when he’d be off work. The contractions were coming about 10 minutes apart. I told him I’d probably be okay alone with the kids for another 2 hours, but not another 5 hours. We were lucky and they quit at about 5:00 and he was home by 5:30. By this point the contractions were at 7 minutes apart.

One of my biggest fears this pregnancy was that I would go into labor when I was home alone with the kids. I was afraid that I’d be in pain and snapping at them and they’d be climbing all over me. A couple of weeks ago I was upset about the way the pregnancy was going and how long we were having to wait for the baby to come. I asked Devan to give me a blessing. The thing that stood out most was that he said that I’d be able to be calm when I felt like there was no way out. I kept thinking about that all day. A couple of times I felt the panic rising, but I was able to remember that I’d been blessed to feel calm, and I was.

The only time that I feel like it was difficult for the kids to be around me when I was in labor happened after Devan got home from work. I was having a contraction and it felt better to walk through it, so I was walking in a circle through the living room. Hannah decided she needed me right then and started chasing me and I had to yell for Devan to keep her away from me. But when it was over I was able to hold her and she seemed fine.

We got the kids ready to go and brought them over to my dad’s to spend the night. Then we left and went to the grocery store. All day long I’d been wanting to go on a walk to help move baby down, but I hadn’t wanted to drag Ben out of the house. It was nice to be able to walk at the store. Then we were hungry and we needed gas so we went to Costco. By the time we got into Costco, the contractions were getting painful enough that I couldn’t walk through them anymore. We tried to get a piece of pizza at Costco, but we didn’t have enough cash, so we just walked around the store for a while and then went to Subway for sandwiches.

We got home and the house still needed some cleaning done so we spent about an hour and got everything perfect. I’d already vacuumed once that day, but it needed it again. I kept telling Devan that it was so nice to clean and know that it was going to stay clean for at least a day because the kids weren’t here. Even now, a whole day later, my living room is still clean because the kids have hardly been home.

We were able to get everything put away and cleaned (even dusted!) before I felt like I needed to stop and rest. We turned off the light and went to bed and I watched TV and timed contractions. I started the hour with them coming at around every 6 minutes apart, but after about an hour of lying in bed, they had slowed to every 10 minutes again. I decided I needed to get up and be active to move things along. I went in the living room and worked on relaxing through a few contractions. I’m always amazed at how much work and concentration it takes to deal with pain like that. I was doing fine and then one hit me while I was walking that I wasn’t prepared for. I dropped to my hands and knees and made noise and woke Devan up. I felt bad because he’d just fallen asleep, but not really that bad. I knew it was going to be a long night for both of us.

I got in the bathtub and he sat in the bathroom and timed contractions for about an hour. They were coming every 4 to 6 minutes apart and they were lasting about a minute each. After about an hour we decided it was time to page my midwife, Charlene since she had a 45 minute drive to make. She called us right back and said she’d be on her way. She asked if we thought she needed to hurry or if she had a little time to get ready. We said she had a little time.

Kat, Charlene’s assistant, arrived first. By this time, I’d gotten out of the tub and was sitting in bed. The contractions were really painful by this point and I was moaning through them. Kat said I was probably getting close to the end. I said I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure. It was interesting, because all though my labor, the pains weren’t nearly as intense as they’d been when I had Ben. With Ben I felt all the pain in my back and Devan had to push on my back with every contraction for 12 hours. I also felt sick a lot of the time when I was laboring with Ben. I remember the midwives kept trying to get me to drink and I didn’t want to and by the end of labor I was so exhausted. This time I felt fine in between contractions. I’d also been really careful to take a drink whenever it was offered to me and ask for lots of water and juice. I was surprised that I felt good enough to be able to talk and laugh with Kat when I wasn’t having a contraction. I was sure that meant that I wasn’t very close to the end.

Charlene got there a little while later, at about 1:30 am. She walked in during a contraction and I was being very “vocal“ about it. They listened to the baby’s heart rate and said that it was dropping quite a bit during contractions, but going right back up to normal after. Charlene checked to see how much I was dilated. She said she wouldn’t normally do that, but since his heart rate was dropping she had to know how much longer we had left.

I was dilated to a 7. I knew that meant that I was about to go through transition. The first stage of labor lasts the longest and that’s when the cervix dilates from 1 to 10 centimeters. The second stage of labor is the pushing stage. The period when you go from about 7 to 10 centimeters is called transition. It lasts about an hour and the contractions are really intense and really close together. It’s the period when I really lost it with Ben too. I thought I was ready for it this time and I knew that when it hurt the worst and I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore that it would be almost over. The problem that arose this time was when she checked my dilation, she felt the baby’s head and discovered he was posterior. So, his head was down, but if he’d come out that way, he would have been born facing up rather than down. This can also make for a much more painful labor and a longer pushing stage.

After she checked me and told me he was posterior, the contractions became unmanageable. I was screaming by the end of the next one. My idea that I only had another hour left went out the window. I threw up 4 times during the next contraction and my water broke the rest of the way and gushed all over. Charlene said we needed to do some things to get him turned, but I thought it was going to take forever and that he was going to be stuck and never come out. The next hour of contractions were the most unbelievable pain. I was screaming and thrashing. Poor Kat kept needing to listen to the heartbeat during the contraction, but I wouldn’t stay still. The other assistant, Diane used a technique called riboso (I think.) I got on my hands and knees and she wrapped a big cloth around my abdomen and stood behind me and pulled the cloth to wiggle my tummy back and forth. It actually made the pain a little better. They also put some homeopathic remedy under my tongue that was supposed to get the baby to turn.

Sometime during this time, Devan had called my mom and my aunt to come over. My mom came right while I was in the middle of transition. She tried to come and say hello and pat my arm, but I was completely out of it. Devan said, “You shouldn’t touch her or you’ll get yelled at.” She spent a lot of the transition in the living room trying not to pass out. I don’t think that I could deal with ever seeing Hannah in that much pain.

During every contraction I was freaking out and saying that I couldn’t do it anymore. I begged Devan to take me away and make the pain stop. I seriously wished that I would die so that I wouldn’t hurt anymore. Finally Charlene said, “This seems like it’s really hard for you. Do you want to go to the hospital and get an epidural?” I’d really been thinking I needed to, but then as soon as she said that, I thought of having to walk down the stairs and ride in the car to the hospital, screaming in pain the whole time and I knew I couldn’t do that either. We’d talked a few minutes before about changing positions and someone suggested getting in the bathtub, so while I was trying to decide whether I was going to stay or go, one of the assistants came in and said the bath was ready. I had one more contraction that I didn’t handle well and Devan finally grabbed me and said, “Stop! You need to breath.” That woke me up a little bit and I was able to get up and walk to the bathroom.

I got in the bath and right away felt so much better. The very next contraction I felt a ton of pressure and I started pushing, which made the contraction hurt so much less. I didn’t tell anyone that I felt the urge to push, because I didn’t know whether or not it was time to push. With Hannah I had an epidural so I never got to even feel the contractions while I was pushing. They would watch the monitors and tell me when I was having a contraction and then I would push. With Ben they saw some bulging and told me I could start pushing, but it took a few contractions before I really felt like I needed to push. It was so amazing this time having my body tell me when I needed to push the baby out. And looking back, those last few contractions when I was screaming and freaking out in the bedroom, it was probably already time to push, but I just couldn’t tell because I was so emotional.

Meanwhile, Devan and Charlene were still in the bedroom talking about what we should do. Charlene asked him if I needed to go to the hospital. She said they needed to respect my wishes if I really wanted to go. Devan said that I was begging to go to the hospital right before I had Ben too. He said he thought that it just meant that the baby was going to come really soon. Charlene told him the next day that he should become an EMT or something because he’s really good at staying calm in an emergency situation.

I pushed through about 3 contractions before I told anyone I was pushing. Kat kept monitoring the baby during contractions and his heart rate kept dropping during contractions. But, we could tell by the heartbeat that the baby had turned. Before, the heart rate sounded faint and far away, but after they did the things to turn him, it was loud and right at the surface. It was so amazing that it worked that quickly.

I told them I was pushing and Charlene asked Devan how long it usually took me to push my babies out. She said that if it wasn’t quick enough we were probably still going to have to transfer to a hospital because of how much his heart rate was dropping. This was so scary. I’d gotten through the worst of it and I could feel that he was so close to being out. I did NOT want to go to the hospital after making it through everything else. They put some oxygen on me. I told someone they needed to get my mom and Renee in to watch. I pushed through a couple more contractions and said, “He’s really close!” He was crowning and then next contraction he was out. It was amazing. There’s nothing in the world like that feeling. One second there’s unbelievable pressure and pain and the next second it’s completely over and it was immediately all worth it.

Charlene quickly went to work unwrapping the cord from around his neck. We’d known from the ultrasound that his umbilical cord was around his neck and Charlene said that about 25% of the babies she delivered had a cord around their neck, so it was fairly common. When he came out, we were surprised to find that it was wrapped around his neck 5 times. Charlene said she’d never seen a baby with the cord wrapped that many times. She put him on my chest and he was blue and hadn’t started breathing yet. She rubbed him and told me to talk to him. It only took about 7 seconds and then he started breathing. It felt like forever. They got him some oxygen and I sat in the water and held him for a couple of minutes. Devan cut the umbilical cord after it had stopped pulsing. Then they told Devan to take his shirt off and hold the baby to give him some good skin to skin contact. Devan took him in the bedroom and held him. They had me stand up and push the placenta out. This was a new experience for me too. In the past, the doctor or midwife kneaded at my stomach until the placenta detached. It was much more pleasant to just push a little and have it fall out.

I went in the bedroom and they did all their post delivery checking. I tried to nurse a little bit and then they weighed him and did examinations on both of us. Charlene had mom and Renee cook up some eggs so I had some good protein right away. The midwife and her assistants ended up staying for about 3 hours after the birth. They arrived 2 hours before the birth.

All morning I kept saying to Devan, "We did it. I can't believe we did it." And he would say, "You did it. I didn't do anything." And in a way that's true. He learned this time not to try to touch me without me asking and not to talk to me while I was having a contraction. But it was his silent support the whole time that got me through it. Through my worst contractions I'd reach out and squeeze his hand and loving him so much got me through it. Sometimes I get mad that he can be so unemotional, but he's my rock. I'd never have been able to survive that day, and I'd never be able to survive so many of the speedbumps I encounter in my life without him.

This birth was such a miracle. I’m so grateful that I had such a skilled midwife. I know that between the posterior position and the heart rate dropping because of the cord wrap that if I’d been in a hospital I’d have had a C-section. It’s a touchy subject because I know that lots of people do have necessary C-sections and I’m so grateful that the technology is there to save babies when it is needed. However, in this case, we didn’t need it, but I know that they wouldn’t have been willing to wait and see in a hospital. As hard as this labor was, I’m just so grateful that 48 hours later I’m sitting in my own bed with my baby and not laying in a hospital bed with staples in my stomach.

It was so amazing to was able to walk from the bathroom where I gave birth to my own bed and lay there until everyone left at around 6:30am. Then Devan, Joshua, and I went to sleep. The sleep only lasted about 2 hours, but after the 24 hours I’d had before, I was happy to take whatever sleep I could get.