The Day The World Stopped (or, the birth of my first child)

This is a very detailed account of my childbirth. It is more for my records.


On Wednesday the 16th, I was getting ready for bed and said to Weston:
         "We're going to go to bed one night, and the next night we are going to have a baby. It's that quick and we'll have our little one."

I guess I had a little prophetic moment there.

Thursday was the day everything got started. My mother stopped by to pick up some things from our apartment to store for us with my two niece and nephew Eli and Lyric. We were all planning on going to the pool at my mother's after for a much needed soak. However, life had different plans. At exactly the moment I rounded the corner to leave the apartment, liquid ran down the inside of my leg. I stood there in shock for a moment, unable to move. Weston was out the door already talking with the Elders who live below us and I yelled for him. But of course he didn't hear me. So I hobble/walk around the corner, and yell at him again: "Whatever you are saying, I take precedent!"

He comes running up the stairs and I tell him, 'My water just broke!' It was a totally surreal moment. The moment when I realized we were going to have a baby today. I jumped on the toilet and we called the midwife. They asked me to come in at 4:00p to get a check-up. Mom was still at the house, so we did some last minute clean up, got our bag together and finally headed out the door. The birthing center was only 5 minutes away so the drive was quick, but uncomfortable.

Once we got there the midwives did a quick check on the position of the baby, at the moment anterior, my vitals and the fluid. Shock and awe, it was amniotic fluid! I had figured that part out when the blood had started to flow. They sent me home and asked me to come back when the contractions had reached a point where they were five minutes apart, 1 minute long, for at least 1 hour (511). Since the contractions hadn't started in earnest yet, we decided to go to Beto's Mexican restaurant for some dinner. I am thankful because it was the last thing I ate for nearly 20 hours.

At home, we started to keep track of the contractions via an app my husband has on his phone. It was great! It took each contractions length between and duration, averaged them all out and also could send it to you via email if you needed to share it with someone. For the first hour or so (5-6p) my contractions were 3 minutes apart lasting about one minute long. We were starting to get excited, thinking I might be an anomaly and give birth to my first baby really quickly! Hahaha! Weren't we funny?! I was able to sit through most of these, just taking a moment to be quiet when they came. We were sitting on the couches across from each other and I remember thinking, 'this is really happening, we are going to have a baby'.

The contractions began to take on a strange pattern at this point. They would stay consistent at 4 minutes apart 1 minute long for four or five contractions, then one would be 10 minutes later. This pattern 4,4,4,10 or   3,3,3,15 lasted for the next 4 hours. I sat on my birthing ball, on the computer chair, but constantly with Weston by my side. My parents showed up having dropped off my niece and nephew off with a baby sitter, around 7ish. They were both crazy tired because they hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, and now, they knew they weren't going to get any that night either. I had always had this vision of what I wanted my hair to look like when I gave birth to my first child, so my mother and I sat and figured it out while I was in early labor. I sat at the computer and pulled up the how to on the crown braid for mom to do.

After a particularly long contraction, we decide to call the midwives about what to do next. They told me to get into the tub and see if the that helps regulate the contractions. The water was amazing!!!! The contractions did indeed regulate, coming every 3 minutes with them at least 1 minute long. We called them back after an hour and they told us to come over. HOWEVER, they both were in Orem, so we had to wait until 12:15am before we could go over. That hour went by crazy fast and suddenly we were having to drive over to the center.

The drive sucked! At this point the contractions were enough that I was having to moan through them and really zone out. The car just made everything worse. I put on the special place hypnobabies CD and listened to that on the drive over. Weston parked the car at the front walk way, pulling my door up to the walk way (and we subsequently left it there all night!) and we managed to get inside. I had a total of 3 contractions on the way to the center, stupid car!

Once we got there, they did a vitals check as well as a v. check. I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. When I heard that, my little heart fell. I thought for sure I must have been farther along then that! Of course everyone say's that doesn't mean anything, but it was a little discouraging. After a quick discussion amoungst themselves, they said they wanted to send me home. WHAT? Home? There was no way in hell I was going to be able drive home in the pain I was in. They wanted me to try and sleep. At this point the contractions were strong enough that I was moaning through them, and they wanted me to sleep. Right. . .

After putting my foot, my mother's foot and Weston's foot down, we made our way upstairs and into the tub.  The water was heavenly! I loved it! It was warm and soft and it helped with the contractions. That was until they asked me to lay on my left side. Laying on my left side was horrible. The contractions began coming faster and much stronger. I really didn't like being on my left side. They checked me again, and I was now dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced. 2 cm in 2 hours, I guess that was better.

Over the next few hours, I went into a few positions. On all fours on the bed with pillows propping me up (this position was okay, not as good as the tub, but okay), sitting on the toilet while holding onto Weston (dilated to a 5), and then again laying on my left side on the bed. This position began the hours that I call 'The Hell Hours'. The next three hours I never got a break. The pain would peak, then lesson, but never went away. Most of that was because Michael had decided to move posterior and with every contraction fighting what was happening. He would move, against the contraction, moving against it. The midwives were very surprised that he was moving during the contractions. Weston was able to watch as Michael would move during and between each contraction. It was making the pain about ten times worse the it needed to be.

The midwives had to keep reminding me to pull the tone of my 'ohhhs' down. Lower registers help relax the muscles and help keep them relaxed. At the peak of the contractions, my 'ohhs' began to sound more like 'aaah' then back down to 'ohhh'. But somewhere in the middle, my body began to push with each contraction at the peak. It wasn't that I was pushing, by my body pushed without my help. This was the strangest sensation because I was not in control of my body.

I was over the moon on the pushing. Once it was obvious my body was ready to push this baby out, the midwives had me set up on a birthing stool. A birthing stool is a horse shoe shaped stool that the midwives can sit on the floor beneath and see everything that is going on. Weston was behind me, holding my hands and supporting my back. I would bare down, pushing with all my might. I felt the 'burning ring of  fire' pretty soon, and even was able to feel little man's head just under the skin. It was the strangest feeling, the pressure of his head coming down the birth canal. It was amazing! I started to talk to Michael saying things like 'Come on baby', 'It's okay to come now', 'I want you to come', 'Come on, come on!' etc . . . The people in the room said it was very cute how I was talking to him.

Pushing was the best part of the whole birth process. It felt so good to push, to bare down and really give it my all. And after just a short 39 minutes, little Michael came out. His hand actually came out first, followed immediately by his head. When he came out, everyone in the room said 'There's a hand, it's a hand' but nobody explained why they were saying it. It wasn't until after he was born that they explained it to me. They had to turn his head because he was a little stuck, but once he was completely turned, he shot out like a bullet. I was so focused that it took me a few breaths to realize that there was a baby in my arms.

He was so warm and soft, his body melted right into me. The midwives quickly clamped the cord and Weston got to cut it. They handed Michael to Weston and quickly got me onto the floor. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was bleeding heavily. Enough that they were concerned about me hemorrhaging. Once on the floor they gave me an injection and my mother gave me a glass of water with helicrysm, a doTERRA oil to help with the bleeding as well. They worked on my stomach for a little bit, massaging me and checking me over. Because of the way he came out, I had a 2nd degree tear on my vaginal wall. But my perineum didn't tear, which was both a surprise and a blessing! Once they determined I wasn't hemorrhaging, they all picked me up and got me onto the bed, up on the pillows.

I finally got to really hold my little one. Because of the blood loss, I was pretty shaky and totally freezing, but snuggling with little man helped a ton! We got to hold him for an hour, looking at his total cuteness and beauty. He didn't have hardly any vernex on him. Because of the tests they took, they deduced that he was 42 weeks. He was 9lbs 10 oz, 21 inches long, his head was 14 1/2 in circumference and his APGAR was 10/10 at one minute. He was born at 7:21am, 17 hours after my water broke.

It was an amazing experience, tiring, but amazing. He was my little miracle. I was pretty shaky and exhausted for about two days until I was really able to feel the elation of having a new baby. But now, I can't imagine my life without him. He's only been with us know for 17 days, but it feels like he's been here for a long time.

Michael, moments after birth

Mommy and Michael a few hours after birth

The King and Crown

 

Beautiful Blue 

Why Negative Birth Stories Are Not Helpful

The first time you see that white stick with two pink lines, or the word 'pregnant', the world stops. Any noise disappears, all thoughts stop as you look down on the indication that your life has changed forever. The next impulse is to share the news with everyone you know. When Weston and I found out, we called my parents and told them. His mother was in town and he called her to come over NOW! We were so excited that we didn't sleep much that night. There was nothing but excitement and joy in our house. We are having a baby!!!

But with the information that you're having a baby, comes the inevitable horror stories. Women who feel the need to share their horrific tale of giving birth. Our society has gotten very good at creating a social atmosphere of fear around something that is natural, beautiful and the closest to heaven we can be. Perfect strangers feel they can, and should, say whatever they want about your pregnancy/how to birth your child.

My first experience with this was at the Superbowl party that my sister was hosting. I was newly pregnant, only 3 months or so, and we had just started telling people outside of immediate family. A good friend of the family was also at the party, whom I really do love. We told her we were pregnant and she seemed excited, but immediately dove into her terrifying, horror film kind of story of giving birth. I sat there at the kitchen table astounded that instead of sharing in the joy and love both myself and my husband have for the little apple baby that was inside me, she told me a story that would make any woman want to get an abortion.

After that wonderful (eye roll) experience, I started to shy away from people that wanted to tell me their birthing experience. Being a big fan of the movie The Business of Being Born produced by Ricki Lake, I found a book called Pushed by Jennifer Block recommended by Ricki Lake. This book is a great informative book about the health industry and what they have done to the pregnant women over the years. While it was a good book, I found myself getting paranoid about what was happening to my baby and terrified I was getting of hospitals. I stopped reading it about half-way through the book because I was starting to obsess over what COULD go wrong.

Over the months I have created something of a bubble around myself and others that wish to share their birth experience unless I KNOW they are going to be positive and uplifting. Not that I want to ignore other people and their experience, I firmly believe in the idea that we create our existence through our thoughts and actions. The more a soon to be mommy hears that birthing is horrible, they will believe it is horrible. But if she is like me, determined to create a beautiful, peaceful, heavenly experience with my child's birth, we are reinforcing that belief through uplifting stories and joy and excitement.

So if we meet on the street, grocery store, or church, know that I love you; but I will stop you if you share a 'birthing horror story' with me. Help me create a beautiful birth of my little boy!