It's LITERALLY been years since I've blogged! Like since 2011... Lol but I wanted to share our newest member of the family's birth story! so here goes-
On Tuesday January 12th (three weeks before my due date) at 4:45am I woke up to a bad dream, decided to get up and you the restroom since I was awake anyhow. Now some may feel this is TMI but reminder: THIS IS A BIRTH STORY😁 anyways- went to the bathroom and as I was going I felt a little extra something in my pee. Now ladies during pregnancy I am an avid checker of "what's on the toilet paper". I think having had a miscarriage (another blog post another time maybe?) has made me cautious. So that morning like I always do especially with the "extra" I felt in my pee, I checked the toliet paper. Low and behold it was mucus (which had been happening since New Years) but this time it had a pink tint to it! I looked down into the toliet and whoa, hello bloody show! I holler at my husband Ryan, who is sound asleep, tell him to look in the toliet...He kind of mumbles out in a panic "Should we call an ambulance?!" 😂 I reply no of course. By now I'm feeling some cramping,(which had also been happening for a week prior) but this is more intense. At this point we've done some googling and decided this is legit labor and my mucus plug has come out! So I "find my project" like my amazing book "Birthing from Within" suggested. My project was a load of laundry, a nice shower, blow dried, curled my hair and filled in my eyebrows. Because I mean who wants to look a hot mess when their baby sees their face for the first time?! As I'm working on my projects the "cramps" intensify so Ryan suggests we should time them. This was about an hour after the mucus plug came out and they were five minutes apart... Then they were four... Ryan is getting our big kids (Tyler Ryan 10, Brookelyn Lee 8) up and ready for school by now. He doesn't worry about making breakfast, he just got them ready for school and the three of them headed to get donuts. By the time Ryan took the kids my contractions were three or four minutes apart and we had contacted my midwife, who told us to go ahead and come on in after dropping kids off to school. Well pretty much as soon as he left I had a pretty big contraction and I panicked! I thought "oh no, what if I'm that girl that's at a 9 and here I am home alone, twenty minutes from my birthing center!" So I called Ryan and said he needed to come back. I told him to call our friend Lauren, drop the kids off with her and let's get to the birthing center ASAP. In the car ride the traffic was so clear! Praise Jesus! My contractions were now about three minutes apart and I felt myself drifting off into "Labor land". When we arrived at Inanna Birthing Center which is in Denton, tx (highly recommend!!) my midwife Samantha was there and preped a room for me. She checked me out and I was already at a 7! So I labored around the room for a while in different positions. I got on my knees, held myself up in a chair. I layed on my side on the bed. I got a bouncy ball and got on my knees holding myself up on that. Finally I got into a warm bath and that was my jam. Loved laboring in the bathtub. I guess about an hour in I started to feel "pushy" when a contraction came. Within three hours I was ready to start delivering our little guy. Samantha had me get out of the bath to check me, discovering that apparently the lip of my cervix was basically in the way of Rip being able to drop all the way down. This was why I had not made much progression which she was confused by because my labor had happening so quickly we all assumed I wouldnt push long! During a contraction/push she had to reach in and push that lip to the side so his little head could continue to drop. We had to give this a go several times... When we finally had that out of the way I continued to push.. and push.. and push.. and push. We were about two hours in of pushing and I secretly was starting to wonder am I pushing wrong? My labor was so quick why am I still pushing? Why does everyone keep saying he's almost out? Sure doesn't feel like it. My midwife reassured me that he WAS almost out and Im doing great. This is where it gets kind of fuzzy for me as far as time goes. Im not sure if it was before or after those little thoughts popped in my head did we discover the umbilical cord was wrapped around Rip Ryan's neck. This was why he was stuck in the birthing canal and my progression was going so slow. The last 30 minutes of pushing turned into some what of a panic with those around me. I say that because I could feel the ora of the room shift. It got heavy. It got serious. It got real quiet. It was like I was in a bubble though, like those feelings didn't enter me, I did not feel the way the room felt. I could just sense those feelings with Ryan and our midwives. I can with all the confidence in the world say- I NEVER doubted the Lord, myself or my ability to labor naturally and birth my son. Those feelings weren't mine and I felt this overwhelming strength of just knowing it was all okay and I needed to show everyone "I got this". It pumped me up if anything. My midwife looked at me and said we HAD to get him out now. The entire time he was stuck in the birthing canal his heart rate had been fine but now it had dropped. She discovered she could not just lift the umbilical cord up and off his neck. It actually tightened when she tried and she told our doula to go get the head midwife. As our doula went to get her, I gave two huge pushes and FINALLY our little boy was born just as Gene (head midwife) was walking into the room! I was in complete and utter euphoria after he was out. Like PURE relief of the body, you just turn to mush almost because you've been in this battle called birth and FINALLY! FINALLY! VICTORY!! haha I didnt realize at the time he was super blue, wasn't taking his first breath, and my poor husband was pretty upset. Im sure it was just a few seconds but Rip Ryan finally cried and they laid him on my chest. I was still feeling euphoric so it was hard to take it all in. Just pure victory, like thank you Lord kind of victory! I was sooo relieved and giggly. Relieved to have him in my arms, giggly because he was here, relieved to no longer having to push, giggly because he was absolutely, positively perfect, except for that poor cone head... boy oh boy! haha Poor guy was stuck for a while so I was all about getting a hat on that head asap! haha As Im just enjoying myself on another level Samantha tells me she's going to push on me to get the placenta out...
SERIOUSLY THE WORST PART. (because everyone asks) It was sooo uncomfortable for them to push on your stomach like that! I totally winced! The placenta was out and we realized we forgot a cooler to place it in so that we could send it to be incapsulated. Ryan had to go next door to CVS. Again I am fuzzy with timing but at this point my family had arrived. My mom (Lulu) my brother, our grandparents and my sweet Bigs (Tyler & Brookelyn) were there too. They were so in love with their new baby brother.
Meanwhile Ryan came back with TUPPERWARE for the placenta... they didnt have a cooler! We had a good laugh with that. Luckily the sweet lady who would be incapsulating it brought a cooler and picked it up later that day. I'll make a post solely about placenta incapsulation another time.
I have to say this was the very best experience ever. I never felt any true pain. It was just so natural feeling and you just let go and your body does what it's supposed to. It was absolutely HARD WORK but my memory isnt of feeling hard core pain. Its very difficult to put into words. I just had to believe 100% in my God given ability to birth a child and I did.
I had to eat a meal and urinate before we were allowed to go home. We left the birthing center about 5pm that night. I was so so ready to get home. I was puffy eyed, and anxious to be in my own space. OH! and yall I had busted little vessels in my head and neck from pushing! My eyes were also blood shot for a while too! The little blood vessels healed fast but my eyes were blood shot for a few weeks. I was so so thankful to my midwives though. I definitely could not imagine having anyone else other than Samantha deliver my baby boy. She was so calm, quiet, and gentle. She made me believe I could do this. Ryan was incredible during the whole thing. He really just allowed me to do my thing and give me nothing but words of encouragement. It was really cute hearing him get excited as he watched Rip (slowly haha) entering the world. My favorite part of the whole deal was watching the kids basically run into the room so so curious to just see what this baby was all about. They could not get over how TINY he was they kept saying and how he looks like ME, no ME they would say. As a mom it was just so sweet to witness such a LOVE between siblings. It was and still is their baby.
I have to add I dont judge or discriminate women that choose not to deliver the way I chose to. Giving birth period is something I admire in any gal! It is no joke! Power on mommas however you chose! Im simply sharing my own experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment