Hellobee

Baby Brother Stroller is already 12 weeks old. It’s crazy how quickly time is passing, and even crazier that things are only getting marginally easier now. We’ve had a rough go of it. Before it’s all a distant memory I want to share my birth story.

Labor was only about 14 hours long, which is a full 20 hours less than with Little Stroller. I had back labor the entire time again, but didn’t know it because I was using a TENS unit provided by my doula. It was nothing short of amazing.

From weeks 36-40 I had contractions most nights that would wake me up. It was totally new to me since with Little Stroller when my contractions started it was go-time. I’d prepared mentally to go for a full 40 weeks since Little Stroller was born on his due date. But at my 37w appointment my midwife told me I looked “end of pregnancy pregnant” and that she thought “we’d have a baby this week.” It knocked me off my game and I spent the next few weeks stressing about when I’d go into labor, whether Mr. Stroller would be home and who would be able to take care of Little S.

At 39 weeks I had an induction massage that really got things going – I was afraid I wasn’t going to make the 45 minute drive home – but contractions stalled out after a couple of hours. It was just enough to kick me into gear to pack my hospital bag! I was 2-3cm at my 39w appointment and because I was so uncomfortable, not sleeping at night, and just so ready to be done, I had my membranes swept. Contractions started again and again they stalled a few hours later.

On Sunday, the day before I was exactly 40 weeks, Mr. Stroller suggested we take a few photos of my belly. I hadn’t taken a single belly shot during my entire pregnancy whereas with Little Stroller I had taken them every week. All of a sudden my belly had gotten HUGE during the last two weeks and I was so uncomfortable, but I agreed. I’m so glad I did, we ended up using one of the photos as one of our Christmas card photos.

That night we had a special potential “last dinner” with Little S of fondue. I ate so much cheese! After we put Little S to bed, we stayed up way too late reading baby name books together and narrowing down our list of potential names to a solid 75 options. It was close to midnight when we finally said goodnight and went to our separate rooms – my big belly and all its necessary pillows had kicked Mr. S to the guest room a few weeks earlier.

Around 2am I woke up from a dream where my water had broken. I got up to use the bathroom and when I stood up from the toilet a trickle of something-not-pee came down my leg. I put on a big pad, stuck Little S’s waterproof mattress cover on top of my sheets, texted my doula and called Mr. S. Mr. S hunted down the giant pads that they give you at the hospital that we’d used at changing table covers for Little S three years ago. I put one on, confident there was no way any bodily fluids were coming anywhere near our mattress, and got back in bed. Then he reminded me that I needed to put the TENS unit from my doula on early in labor for it to be most effective. So we got out of bed and hooked it all up.

I slept on and off through the contractions that came every 2.5 minutes for about 30 seconds at a time. At one point I fell into a deep sleep and was woken by Little S telling us the green light on his tot clock was on at 7am. We got up and while I showered, Mr. S called his mom to come pick up Little S at 8:30. My contractions became longer – 1 minute, but farther apart – 3-5 minutes – while I was in the shower. Nevertheless my doula said she’d drop her daughter at school and then head our way.

Mr. S fed Little S breakfast while I showered and put together the last of the stuff for my hospital bag. He came up and put my TENS unit back on and we all hung out upstairs while we waited for my MIL to arrive. Little S asked me why I had a boo-boo when I had to stop to breathe through contractions. He was very curious and attentive. When my mother in law arrived I didn’t go downstairs; I just couldn’t handle conversations at that point. Instead I kneeled on my bedroom floor and hugged Little S for a long time and cried.

My doula arrived shortly after my MIL and Little S left for his big overnight adventure. We called my midwife who had been on-call since Saturday. She’d agreed to deliver my baby instead of handing off to one of the other two midwives in the practice, something she does for her repeat moms. At this point I was still breathing through the contractions without much issue – I’d have to lean on the kitchen counter, but I was able to talk between contractions. The TENS unit was feeling good – much less like a weird buzzing feeling and more soothing. An hour later around 10:30am I went downstairs to use the bathroom and suddenly got nervous about delivering at home. I am a labor-at-home-as-long-as-possible kinda gal so I took it as a sign that I should consider going to the hospital. I walked upstairs and told Mr. S and my doula that I was ready to go. It felt weird to want to go to the hospital so soon since with Little S I didn’t want to leave my cozy house at all.

T H E  H O S P I T A L

We arrived at the hospital around 11am – it’s only a few blocks from my house. I decided to go with Mr. S to park the car, but I was having such strong contractions that I didn’t think I’d be able to walk inside. He kept asking if I wanted him to bring me back to the front entrance, but I’d cry no. He was so confused! We met my doula right at the entrance to the mother & baby unit and walked down to L&D. I stopped for contractions at almost the exact place I did when I was in labor with Little S. It was so surreal. I handed the admitting person my ID and she took us around to a room.

I decided to keep my clothes on just as I had with my labor with Little Stroller. I hadn’t planned it, but I was wearing the same long sleeved white T and yoga pants I’d worn for my first labor. I refused all IV fluids and was drinking water and Nuun like crazy; however, I had requested a hep-loc just in case emergency fluids were needed at any point. It took three tries to get the IV in my hand – they tried my left hand, left arm and then finally got it in my left hand on the third try. I was bruised for six weeks.

When my midwife walked in she took one look at me and asked if I felt all the contractions in my back. Apparently the baby was posterior, but because of the TENS unit I didn’t feel the back pain at all. The contractions were totally manageable and I was at about 5cm. We tried several different positions to turn the baby, but nothing was comfortable and nothing really worked. I decided to take a walk around the hallways. We were in the mother & baby unit when a wave of nausea hit and I turned and threw up in a trash can that a member of the cleaning staff was pushing down the hall. Thank goodness she was there! After that we walked on back to my room and I labored a little closer to my own trashcan. I never threw up with my first labor and I was excited that this might mean I was close to 8cm and in transition as my birth classes from three years ago suggested.

I was getting tired and my midwife suggested a bag of fluids to help hydrate me a little more. A short while later around 2pm I started to feel the urge to push. I was in bed, on my back and everything was set up for delivery. My midwife checked me but I was still 9cm. She tried to push the last bit of cervix away. Twice. It was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt. I was pissed. I had been so focused and so in the zone with the help of “my button” on the TENS unit, and it totally wrecked my peaceful place. I remember screaming “no hands!” And then I asked (demanded) everyone except my doula and Mr. S to leave so I could labor down.

L A B O R I N G  D O W N

Laboring down is when you let the contraction push the baby farther down without doing any pushing yourself. It’s easy with an epidural, but holy cow it is not without. The room was dark and peaceful even though I was throwing up a little bit into a cup after each contraction. They were going to let me labor down for about fifteen minutes, but it ended up being an hour before I started to push involuntarily. And that’s when I asked for an epidural.

If you think you want an epidural for pushing, when you’re 10cm and you’ve labored down for an hour is not the right time to ask. My midwife said I could have one (I couldn’t imagine sitting up and hunching over at this point) but suggested I try pushing a few times first.

I was still using my beloved “button” which required one free hand. However, my doula, a nurse and my midwife told me I had to pull back on my legs and push as the same time thereby using up my free hand. At the time those instructions were impossible to understand, didn’t feel right and it was nearly impossible to do. Mr. Stroller was alternating between wiping my mouth and pushing on a pressure point on my arm that I didn’t want him to stop touching. Apparently I wasn’t holding my legs properly, people were talking sternly to me and it felt like chaos. I like calm and quiet. It was not.

T H E  B I R T H

Baby Brother Stroller turned from his sunny side up position just as his head came through my cervix. My midwife said it was amazing to see. I was in too much pain to care. A few more pushes and he was out at 4:04pm. My midwife lifted him up and said, “oh my goodness, he’s big.” My eyes had been closed for house, but I opened them for a second and gasped to Mr. S, “oh my, he’s so ugly.” He was huge and puffy and just so not pretty. Baby Brother Stroller was 9lbs 3oz and 21.5” long.

My doula had helped me take my shirt off during the final pushes. She took off my bra and they placed the baby on my chest per my birth preferences requests that I had recycled from my first labor. I was in so much pain and so out of it that I could not understand why they were putting this baby, who had not been cleaned and whose umbilical cord was still attached, on my chest. My eyes were still closed and I couldn’t use my arms – someone else was holding him on me. At the same time I was getting a few stitches even though the numbing medication hadn’t taken. I recall saying, “ok that’s enough, take him” and someone saying “the umbilical cord is still attached, are you ready to cut it?” In my mind I had no idea why his umbilical cord was still attached.

I nursed Baby Brother a little with the help of my doula, but it was nearly two hours before I felt well enough to open my eyes. I tried to stand up to use the bathroom, but had to sit back down. We didn’t get settled in our room in the mother & baby wing until after 6:30pm. We ordered dinner straight away and I fell into bed. I kept requesting that the hep-loc be removed from my hand because it was hard to nurse with it and nearly impossible to wash my hands, but was told I needed to use the bathroom at least twice before they’d take it out. My midwife stopped by on her way home and I asked her to please get it out. She did.

My midwife and doula have said on a few occasions that I had a beautiful birth. Even though I got the med-free birth I had wanted so badly with my first, I just don’t feel the same way. My labor was excellent, and the TENS unit was amazing. But delivery felt chaotic and overwhelming. However, our stay in the hospital was peaceful and amazing. Baby Brother Stroller lost a lot of his “puffiness” and was down a pound within 24 hours and got much cuter – his pediatrician thinks he was super bloated from the high sodium fondue meal I ate. Oops! We spent our time deliberating over a name, loving our new little baby, and taking lots of photos. Little Stroller’s first introductions to his baby brother went amazingly well. Things were just blissful.

It may not have been a beautiful delivery, but it was a beautiful hospital stay. And as Little Stroller had predicted when he announced all summer long that, “baby brother coming home when it snow,” it was spitting snow on Wednesday when Mr. Stroller, Baby Brother Stroller, and I drove the few blocks home to become a new family of four.