Miles' Birth

In typical second child fashion Miles is 10 months old and I am sitting down to type his birth story. I felt like every pregnant woman felt at 40 weeks-I'm going to stay pregnant forever. 
     I'd been having occasional contractions for a couple of weeks, but they would always fizzle out quickly. I worked until a few days over 39 weeks, but my gracious, nurse-midwife co-workers gave me time off starting a couple of days before Thanksgiving. We had planned a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal with Brian's parents of purchased, homemade tamales, but I did make a pecan and pumpkin pie. 
     I thought maybe the spicy tamales would put me in to labor, but Thanksgiving day came and went and I arrived at my due date, November 28th, the day after Thanksgiving, and my mother-in-law, Beth's birthday. Beth and Mike (my father-in-law) were hoping the baby would come before they had to go back, but Beth had planned to stay if the baby came and then Mike would come back the next weekend to pick her up. So I was really hoping labor would start any day (second) now. 
    I had a few of those same occasional, nothing-to-get-excited about contractions throughout the day and spent most of the day sitting on the exercise ball watching Bob the Builder the Snow something or other for the millionth time and finishing putting out Christmas decorations. I think we also went on a walk. After my 5th serving of left over pumpkin pie (hey, what if I go into labor and it's really long and I don't feel like eating and I'll need my strength) Brian and I decided to go to Wal-Mart because I remember I wanted a heating pad for cramps after the birth. In Wal-Mart I had a couple contractions that I would classify as very mild, but still thought I'd be pregnant forever so did not think too much of them. 
     We got home and I read Colin stories and put him to bed, thinking that even though I was uncomfortable, I needed to cherish the time spent with him since soon we would grow to a family of four. As I was falling asleep around 11:00, I had a few contractions in a row and thought maybe this is labor, but they went away and I fell asleep. At 12:30 AM I woke up with a moderately uncomfortable contraction and thought that I probably just needed to get up and empty my bladder so I got up and then very quickly had another contraction. I started my contraction timer because you want to be able to tell the nurses how far apart your contractions are even as a midwife. I decided to shower and before I could hop in, I had another contraction and it had only been 1.5 minutes. 
     After a contraction in the shower, I decided to see if a bath would help so I tried out the bath for about one contraction and then decided to call Nancy, one of the nurse-midwives to tell her that even though I'd only been contracting for 15 minutes, I thought I was in labor. (As an aside, the other nurse-midwives are Pam, Nancy, and Dinny. They had decided that whoever was on call would be the catcher, but Pam was out of town for Thanksgiving, and I was still supposed to call both Nancy and Dinny, who would both come. Dinny was on call at this point, so I did not want to wake her up yet if it wasn't really time). 
    I called Nancy and told her that I was pretty sure I was in labor, but was finishing up packing a few things. Shortly after I hung up the phone, my water started to break over our new carpet, so I leaped to the bathroom where it could safely break over easily cleanable tile. I immediately called Nancy back and said we're coming now, call Dinny, as I could feel that this was obviously the real thing.
    We woke up Beth who would be coming with us and we all kind of hurried out to the car. Mike stayed at home with Colin. Mike staying another night was really an answer to prayer because I really wanted Beth to be there for Miles' birth.  I thought I would be in labor a long time again since Colin's labor was 14+ hours. I did not know how dilated I was because I had resisted being checked since knowing the dilation really does not tell you when you will give birth. Brian called my parents on the way to the hospital and I texted a few friends the quick message of "water broke" in between contractions. The drive probably took about 7 minutes. 
     Nancy met us in the parking lot and I proceeded to take the stairs up to labor and delivery because I thought that I really did not want to get stuck in the elevator and maybe the stairs would help the positioning of the baby's head. I was a little worried about how far dilated I would be when I arrived because I was only 2 cm when I got to the hospital with Colin. Dinny was already at the hospital for someone else and checked me and I was 6 cm! yay! (And I think 100%/-1 for you labor nurses). 
    I labored on my hands and knees, leaning over the bed, standing, sitting on an exercise ball. Had some moments of saying "I can't do this." I continued to try to focus on Brian and breathe slowly through the contractions. The thing that helped me the most was Nancy, Dinny, Brian, and Beth's support of telling me how I was strong and I could do it. My labor nurses Julie and Ila were awesome as well-starting my IV when I was leaning over the back of the bed and encouraging me throughout labor. Nancy checked at some point about an hour after I arrived and I was 7 cm. I then got up to use the bathroom in hopes the position change would help the pain and baby's position. Right before this I was feeling nauseous and I said and thought- maybe this is transition if I'm following the textbook's definition of transition. 
     While I was up in the bathroom I could feel the baby move inside and make a dramatic position change and then all of a sudden I felt the urge to push. I did not want to give birth in the bathroom so I scurried back to bed and was checked and at 9 cm. Nancy started filming and I began to push and wanted to deliver on my side so was lying on my right side. After a couple of contractions, I could definitely feel the head and I asked if the baby was almost out. They said we can see the eyebrows or something along those lines and being a midwife you know that if you are the one sitting there waiting on the baby and the baby is out to his eyebrows, but is not born that this is probably a big baby so these are the thoughts I had as I pushed as hard as I could to bring my baby into the world. Then the head was out and then I rolled to my back to give a little more pushing effort to get the rest of him here.
    I reached down and Dinny handed him to me as we looked and said "It's a boy!" He was born at 3:00 AM. He cried and the nurses and I dried him off as he got his cord blood. They weighed him and I was shocked to see that he was 8 pounds and 14 ounces.  We called my parents, since neither of them made it in time and shared his name, Miles Aaron. After all the after birth stuff I rolled to my side to nurse him. They had to take his blood sugar since he was a big kid so I wanted to make sure he was well fed. Myranda was our nursery nurse that evening and she made sure he got to nurse as much as possible and did all of her assessments in the room. My mom arrived about 45 minutes after he was born. We both wanted her to be there, but he just did not want to wait! 
    My Dad came around breakfast time and Colin with Brian's dad shortly after. Colin was pretty excited about Miles and the toys that Miles picked out for him. Miles mostly stayed in the room with us, but he occasionally went to the nursery to hang out with my trustworthy co-workers so I could get a little nap. I am so thankful for my nurse-midwives, nurses, and support staff who took wonderful care of me and who take wonderful care of all of our mamas who are not midwives. 
    I share Miles' story so that I'll remember what happened years from now and so that women will know they have options and are strong and capable. I might not have believed that I could have gone through labor and birth, but my nurse-midwives, nurses, and family believed in me and told me I could and that's what got me through.

New Seasons

I haven't written in a while because one-I have been busily finishing up my last term of all course work and two-every time I think about blogging all I can think to blog about is sleep (or lack of). By the grace of God I have made it through two terms of school with an infant. I have also had tons of help from family and my husband. Through it all still though, I am so glad that I am studying to a be a midwife. I know that God has put a desire in my heart to be a mom and a midwife and He is providing the time for me to do both. Since I started a Bible study in September I have been working hard to be diligent with my time so that I can spend time with my husband and friends while still getting school work completed on time. Some weeks I do better than others. I am becoming slightly braver when it comes to going out of the apartment with Colin. I have been to the grocery store multiple times, gone to the mall and even breastfed at the mall in an open area (with one of those nursing cover things...didn't say I was a lot more brave) because the nursing room just plain grossed me out. Moms have told me that they have left full carts at the grocery store when their child started to melt down. Well, I have to say that I am one of those moms that heads to the check out with my screaming baby because I did not make the trip to Wal-mart for nothing! I just want to tell the other people in the store who are staring at me "Moms have to shop too!" Now, I'm not going to keep browsing the aisles while my baby is hungry or tired, but I want to at least buy what I have already put in my cart.

All that to say, times are changing! I am slowly integrated my "mom" self with my other selves. Brian actually said yesterday to a friend, "We are slowly learning how to do the things we did before Colin with Colin." So just as I am moving past the novice stage, I have to deal with a new monster-day care. Right now the plan is to have Colin in day care while Brian is working and I start clinicals. We found a nice, clean, and safe day care. The only downside is that they have pretty much refused to use cloth diapers. They had some bad experiences in the past, so I guess I can understand. I am just praying that they will open up to the idea because those of you who use cloth diapers know that it really isn't all that bad. So after much anxiety and (even more) sleepless nights Colin had his first afternoon of day care.  He came home in one piece. Both afternoons that I have picked him up he has been asleep in the teacher's arms while being rocked. So that makes me feel slightly better about the whole day care situation.

I am working hard to let go of the anxiety I have about his wellbeing and health. I know that he is a healthy boy and he will be make it through germ exposures and sleeping on his stomach, but it is hard to really know it, know it. Praise God for his Word that has taught me more about His power, protection, and love over the past few months. What a God who sent His perfect son to the earth as a human so that he might relate to us. Not only relate to us, but to die on the cross for our sins once and for all.

Hebrews 10:19-25
¹⁹ Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Let me take that energy that I spend worrying and use it serve and encourage others and praise God for his marvelous gifts.

Pacifier Pickle

During pregnancy and after birth the jury was still out for me on pacifier use. I knew I didn't want to give one to Colin for sure until breastfeeding was well established, but did I want him to have one at all? I went to my source for all things breastfeeding-The La Leche League. (More on LLLI in a later post I hope). I found an article about pacifier use. Sucking can be calming to babies, but they also claim that pacifier use can decrease milk supply in the mom because the baby spends less time at the breast. Then another article from the American Academy of Pediatrics said that it doesn't affect breastfeeding if not introduced before the first week and can decrease the risk of SIDS. What do you do when you receive conflicting information? Make a decision you can live with I guess. So I decided to wait as long as possible. Then, when Colin was a few days shy of 3 weeks he had been screaming for a long while and he would not calm down and I told Brian to get the pacifier- now! After all my internal struggles of deciding whether or not to give him a pacifier-he wouldn't take it.

Epilogue

Colin will take the pacifier occasionally now if he is not already too frantic. The pacifier decision led me to think about the other decisions we as parents make. Some trivial and some more important. What do you do when your baby poops and then promptly falls asleep? Do you wake them up to change it immediately or let them sleep a while? When they are sleeping do you do things that you want to get done or things that need to get done? As one parenting dilemma is resolved, another one pops up.

Sleep

Sleep has been getting better, mostly thanks to my mom who gets up with Colin when he is crying and not needing to breastfeed. Brian also helped over the weekend, but during the week we try to let him sleep since he is working with heavy machinery. :) This morning is the first morning that I was able to go back to sleep after the last early morning feeding...so yay for sleeping in until 5:15! While working night shift has helped me function a little better during the day after not getting much sleep, I am still noticing some of the effects of sleep deprivation. This weekend I went to take a shower  and the water was cold. Sometimes our warm water runs out and we had done laundry all day so I decided to try the other shower because we think that it might run off a different water heater (due to living in an apartment building). Thankfully it was warm because I really do not like cold showers and was so sleepy I probably would have skipped it all together! The next day I went to take a shower again in our shower and it felt cold, I started to turn the knob and realized that I had been turning it the wrong way the night before...to colder instead of hotter...no wonder it wasn't getting warmer. Guess I was sleepy.

Colin and I also survived our first (and only so far) outing alone together to the post office! I was a little nervous and even though the drive is about 2 minutes I kept repeating to myself "take the baby, take the baby" because he was sleeping and I did not want to forget him in the back seat! Thankfully I was second in line and he slept the whole time and no one tried to touch him.

Maybe sometime soon I'll make the blog look a little fancier since I have now posted twice, which means I may actually post on a regular basis.

Colin's Birth

I have always enjoyed reading birth stories—I think it helps me feel encouraged to be a better nurse, to be a better future nurse-midwife, and while I was pregnant to be inspired for my own child’s birth.  So here is our story. It probably is too detailed for some, but what can you expect from a labor nurse who loved watching the Miracle of Life in 7^th grade? During the week leading up to Colin’s birth I had a live audio presentation I had to make on Monday, another assignment due Wednesday, and then a work baby shower on Friday evening so I knew I wanted to make it through that week before he made his appearance! Originally, I also wanted to make it through the weekend so I could see Harry Potter, but decided I wouldn’t be able to sit through it comfortably anyways. At my doctor’s appointment that Tuesday I was dilated a fingertip, was 50-60% effaced, and he (which we did not know beforehand) was at a -2 station. I had been having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions and a rare contraction that was uncomfortable. On Thursday after I woke up from sleeping after work, I was feeling a little cramping with accompanying stomach symptoms. I figured it was just from sleeping terribly and being 37 weeks pregnant. Thursday night I felt some more cramping, but was not getting too excited because women come into the hospital all the time for cramping and then don’t give birth for another 2 weeks. Friday morning I was pretty tired, but not feeling as crampy. I was not feeling as hungry as usual which I thought was weird, but still tried to eat in case labor was coming! A friend who is also pregnant who I work with for whom the baby shower was also for and I went to lunch and Target and by the time I got home I was feeling a little more yucky. I took a short nap and when I woke up felt a lot of cramping and felt like I needed to take a bath to make it better. I took a quick bath and then Brian took me to work for the baby shower. I was just contracting occasionally during the shower, but not terribly. When I got home about 7ish I told Brian I was having contractions, but I could still talk and work through them. He wanted to start timing them with the fancy Itouch App. They were about 4-6 minutes apart and 20-30 seconds long. I thought it would be a good idea anyways to put away all the nice baby things that my wonderful coworkers so thoughtfully blessed us with! At about 8:30 or so we decided Brian should go to the store to get a bassinette pad that we never got and some food. I started packing our bag for the hospital too, just in case. I had made a list before, but knew that I would have plenty of time to pack when I started contracting! I went to bed about 1030 or so, the contractions had gotten a little stronger and a little closer together. I listened to my labor play list and relaxed through them. They must have spaced out at some point because I woke up and hit the contraction timer and it had been an hour. It was about midnight and I got up to use the bathroom and had a little bloody show. I was starting to think this could be labor! I decided to get up and do something else for a while because I felt like I couldn’t rest. I tried to eat a few snacks throughout the night and sat on the birthing ball and read for class and just kept changing positions. Somewhere in there I called triage to get their opinion on whether it was labor or not, which is really funny because you don’t really know if you were in early labor or false labor until afterwards and it is especially hard to tell over the phone if someone is in labor or not! I did not know whether or not to call my parents yet to tell them to head this way. They were only 3ish hours away opposed to the normal 8. I woke Brian up at 4 or so to evaluate if my contractions had gotten stronger in his opinion. I was having a slightly more difficult time talking through them so he thought I should call my parents. They decided to get up and get ready and then call me before they left. I also called the charge nurse to see who my nurse might be if I decided to come in. She said that she was going to have to find someone else to work anyways and so she called a fellow night shift nurse to see if she would come in and be my nurse. We started watching a Lie to Me which ended up being a kind of dark episode so I wanted to watch something else so we went with Where the Heart Is. We got about 20 minutes into it and my contractions were about 2-4 minutes apart and lasting 40-50 seconds. Brian was getting a little nervous and I was curious too so we decided just to go and see where things were at. We got to the hospital about 7ish and my nurse checked me and I was a 2/85%/-2. Well…I said all along I wanted to get to the hospital and be a 6. I was slightly disappointed, but felt like I was in labor and that was change from Tuesday so I decided to walk since it was more comfortable and then come back in a little while and see if things had changed. When I walked the contractions got stronger and when I got checked again a little before 9, I was a 3/90/-2. So yay change! My nurse just started  a saline lock with no fluids per my request and I just hydrated with water and Gatorade. Went through all the admit questions while the baby was on the monitor to make sure he was okay. My doctor came in about 930 maybe and I was a 4 and stretchy to a 5! Yay! On a side note, I had talked to my doctor about what I wanted for the birth and his only stipulation was no rap music. I could definitely comply with that. So he didn’t break my water as would normally happen. Since baby looked good on the monitor I was able to be without them for almost the whole time, with just the occasional listen. The contractions were getting a little stronger and I kept changing positions and walking. A few hours later the nurse checked me and I was still a 4. Bummer. My doctor called at some point and said that if I was still a 4 at 1 pm then he would recommend having my water broken. I was a tiny bit more than a 4 then and my water was leaking so we decided to not have him come. I kept on changing positions and walking… a little bit later I was a 5…and then still a 5…so I did everything I could to change, I squatted, lunged, walked faster. My bag of water was still partially intact so I was hoping it would break the rest of the way on its own, but I knew it would get more painful after that…but after only changing 1 cm in 8 hours, I said that my doctor could come finish breaking my water. He got there about 530 and broke my water and then things got really intense! Before that I felt totally in control even though the contractions hurt. After that I felt way out of control. My nurse and Brian were helping me relax and focus, but it was really hard. At this point I told Brian that my mom and his mom could come in because delivery was probably getting somewhat close. They were all great. They rubbed my legs and told me how strong I was. They all knew I really didn’t want an epidural or pain medication and none of them suggested it at anytime! Brian did so great, I am so proud of him for all the support he gave me throughout my pregnancy and labor. A little bit after my water broke I asked my nurse to check me and I was a 7.5…I really wanted to be completely dilated then and was so ready to give birth that I told my nurse to call my doctor and tell him to come and use forceps to deliver my baby! He is really talented at using forceps, but that situation was slightly implausible. I continued to dilate and throw up and change positions frequently and attempt to breathe and make noises through contractions. I had read a lot that making your mouth in an O shape helped to open things up and I was all for that. So I tried to focus on that and rubbing my legs and telling myself it will get better. It was hard to think in the future though when the contractions would stop. I kept saying I just wanted a break! I also told my mom and mother-in-law that their natural labors were not as hard as mine! I guess that was transition talking. I was finally dilated almost completely and started pushing a little after 8 pm and made good progress. When he came down more some of the pressure was relieved on my hips and it felt so much better to push. My doctor came in at some point before he was born. I wanted to give birth on my side and I ended up being kind of half on my back and half on my side with my nurse holding my left leg and someone asked if I wanted to be more on my side, but I said I couldn’t move. I was also asked if I wanted a mirror, but I had to close my eyes to push so I didn’t think I would be able to see anyways. My doctor asked me if I wanted a pudendal block which would numb just the exit, but I told him I felt everything so far I want to feel the rest! It was really nice of him to offer though! I pushed really hard, but at the end tried to breathe some so that I wouldn’t tear too badly. He was born and Brian announced that it was a boy! I was so happy and relieved. I tore just a little and did OK my doctor to use lidocaine to sew me up. Every person in the room during the birth was wonderful! I am so glad every single one of them was there. The charge nurse even videoed for us.  About 20 minutes after the birth I got up and got cleaned up and then breastfed Colin for 40 minutes. The granddads came in at some point too and got to hold the new grandbaby. It was such a special day that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I am so thankful for the opportunity to give birth and have a son. He is such a blessing already. It is wonderful to think that God already has such big plans for Colin and they started with his birth. God placed the perfect people there to support us.