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.
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