Emma's Birth Story

(I love reading birth stories and awhile ago, I promised that I would post mine here - so here's the first!)

July 12, 2001

At 4:15am on Thursday (the due date!) I noticed some fluid beginning to come out as I lay in bed, I thought it was just the same discharge I had been experiencing, and then I noticed it was a little more than I was used to. I got up quickly and went to the bathroom and knew right away that my water had broken. I was shocked, excited, disappointed (as I didn't want my water to break first). I woke Brian up at 5 am and told him - he freaked for just a few minutes. We called the midwife and she said to shower, eat and come in when we were ready, but not to rush as I really wasn't having contractions yet. They started off slow and not very painful - I was expecting a long day ahead of us. At around 6ish they started coming more often - like every 5 minutes and they were hard. They were never more than 5 minutes apart and some were only 2-4 minutes. I was a little shocked! We called the doula and she got up and decided to come over around 7:45 am. My parents came and got the dog. :)
Around 8 am - the contractions were really hard. I never had a chance to just walk through them or ignore them. I found getting on my knees with my head and arms on the edge of the bed the best way for me to cope and relax through them. They were getting closer together - more like every 2 minutes. I decided it was time to go - I just didn't want to be in the car for hard labor. Both Brian and the doula asked me if I was sure I wanted to leave for the hospital, since I always had said that I wanted to labor at home for as long as I could. But, for some reason, I knew it was time to go!
The car ride was not very fun! The contractions were every 2 minutes and very painful. It was the only time that I even thought of an epidural – or actually realized why people wanted one! We got to the hospital and I had 2 contractions while trying to get to my room (and they didn't even make us stop to sign anything yet). I had to be hooked up to the monitors right away and the heartbeat was about 150. She wasn't responding to the contractions, so they made me stay in bed for awhile which was really hard. I hadn't eaten (as I was nauseous during the contractions). So they gave me some apple juice and ate a couple of bites of a fruit bar and immediately she started moving and they got their reading and let me get up. The midwife came and checked me around 9:30 am and I was already at 5 cm! We were all so shocked! It’s a good thing I listened to my gut and didn’t wait too long!
The contractions were really hurting and mainly in my back and my behind which was very strange for me. It took everything within me to relax through them - but dh and the doula were so wonderful. I made a whole lot of noise through them, but it helped to moan. The nurse assigned to us was amazing. She never bothered us, but just encouraged me, never made me do anything I didn't want, never offered me drugs (which I hadn't thought about since the car ride). I tried laboring in the shower, but the water wasn't warm enough. I labored on the bed sitting down, as that helped me focus on relaxing my behind. It was obvious Emma was descending pretty quickly. I also labored on my knees with my upper body resting on the birthing ball and on my knees on the bed with my upper body resting against the back of the bed. I soon felt the urge to push and it was spontaneous - but it was more like I just had to go to the bathroom. So we tried sitting on the toilet, but nothing was coming out. Almost every contraction I felt that urge. My doula kept asking me if I had a lot of pressure and when the nurse watched me through a contraction, she said, "let's have you checked". So she checked me and I was at 9 cm! That was like sometime around 11:30 or something. We were shocked. I labored a little more and then the midwife came in and checked me and I was at 10!
I couldn't believe it when they said it was time to push- I was really in shock and not prepared at all. I thought I would be laboring forever! So we got the squatting bar up and put a sheet around it and I pulled myself up with the ends of the sheet and began to push. They kept saying this was the good part and would feel better - but it hurt like crazy! I wasn't enjoying it so much! They set a mirror up and I sometimes was able to watch myself. It took some practice to get the pushing right and for me to have enough in me to push through the entire contraction. But then I could see the bulge coming, pushing on the perineum and I was just shocked! Finally we started seeing some hair (she has a lot!) and I kept pushing - of course, with every push out, she goes back in a little bit. So frustrating! She crowned and it hurt so bad! It really was the ring of fire and I was quite vocal about it! :) Of course the contraction ended and I had to wait for the next one before I could push the rest of her head out! Finally the head popped out, such relief, but then we had to get the shoulders. So I pushed for those and then she just slid out at 12:26 pm (just 8 hours after my water broke, 6 hours since the contractions started and about 4 hours since we got to the hospital). It was amazing! We just started balling and I couldn't believe that I had just had a baby. It was absolutely so amazing. Brian was supposed to announce the sex, but when they held her up and I looked down, I couldn't help but yell in shock, “It's a girl!” I was truly surprised! Her apgars were 9 and 9 and she was 7 lbs 10 oz and 18 inches long (we're short people!). :)
Just when you think it's over, you still have to get the placenta out and it hurt having people pushing on your stomach (that used to be big and hard and was now just floppy and deflated!). I had a 2nd degree tear and so had to be stitched up which wasn't fun.
I couldn't have been more pleased with my labor and birth and my experience. It was exactly what I wanted - no interventions, no one interfering or anything. We labored exactly as we wanted to and now have a perfect beautiful daughter to account for it. Just truly amazing.

My Day...

No real health discoveries here or anything. Just had to vent about my day today and what a joke it was!

Today was our home inspection and I've really been looking forward to it - mainly because it was the first time I could get into the house since the contract was signed. So I could really look around since it was going to be "mine!" But, unfortunately, the home inspection became not so important.

My prenatal appt was rescheduled from yesterday until this morning at 9:30 am (just before I was supposed to be at the house). So, just as I pull up to the curb at her house, I hit the sewer part of the curb and gauged the tire! I could hear the air hissing out of it. Awesome! Fortunately, we have Honda Roadside Assistance (remind me to renew that when it runs out!) and I called them to come and change the tire for me, b/c there was no way I could do that right now. Of course, then it hit me, we can't find the wheel lock key. Stupid Honda thinks that the minivan tires are in pretty high demand by all those tire thieves out there. And you have to have the key to get it off. We have no idea where it is!

So anyway, I couldn't think about that because I needed to go in for my prenatal appointment which was not very fun since I had both kids and both were not letting me talk or pay any attention to what was going on. And my phone kept ringing with Honda calling me back telling me when they were going to be there.

So, after the appointment, I called my mom because I had a sinking feeling that I wasn't going to get my tire changed, but was going to get towed. :( Fortunately, she was only 10 min away and was waiting for my call anyway to go to the inspection with me. Sure enough, the tow truck guy confirmed what I was afraid of - we couldn't change the tire without taking it to the shop and manually removing it. Lovely.

He towed the car away and we headed to the house for the remainder of the inspection. (We had to send my dad there who happened to be working from home to pay the inspector just in case he left before I could get there.) But we made it there in time and got the details of the inspection (nothing that's a deal breaker, fortunately!).

Meanwhile, the tire place called to say that they didn't have my tire in stock! So, they put the spare on (which is only a donut). We ended up taking the car to Wal-mart to get the tire replaced. And 2 hours later - it was good as new! And it only cost me $230! $70 for the tow, $25 to remove the lock on the wheel and $130 for the new tire ($10 was for the tire warranty!). :)

It was a great day!!! Forutnately, my parents were awesome and they totally came to my rescue, since my husband has been out of town since Saturday and I've been on my own. No pressure for someone who is 32 weeks pregnant! :)

We finally found a house!

We are so relieved and happy to be done with this whole buying and selling houses process. It's been 11 months now! I can hardly believe it. I'm so glad to not have to guess where we'll live and what school Emma will go to or who our neighbors will be... It's been exhausting on my pregnant and emotional body! :)

So, we found an old house, built in 1958, and in a great neighborhood. One of my friends from college actually lives directly across the street! Our realtor lives down the street and his sister lives down the street as well. There is also another family whom I have met in the past, who live within walking distance as well and they have a 5 yr old daughter starting kindergarten too! We are thrilled and feel so blessed.

We'll have a lot of work to do on the house (which we are hiring a contractor for). Hopefully he'll be able to start soon as we're going to wait to move in for a little bit. I'm going to have plenty of zeolite on hand to help with the fumes from any chemicals that they might be using. And we'll also be painting everything as well, but will be using a low-VOC paint that you can get from just about any store. That will help with the fumes from the paint, as well as using lots of zeolite in there too.

We settle on August 31st, so not too much longer to go! And hopefully we'll be moved in before the baby comes!

30 Weeks Pregnant!

Sorry I've been out of the loop here. We've been swamped with trying to buy a house and that is just so mentally exhausting for me! All of the back and forth, having to picture yourself in every house, is it the right neighborhood, is it safe, is it a good investment... So hard! We meet with a contractor tomorrow to see if we can put an addition onto a house that we're interested in. Even then, that will only work if we can get the sellers to lower the price. Ugh.

So anyway, apparently, I'm pregnant too! :) Sometimes, it's easy to forget with all of the other stuff going on. Did I mention that my 5 yr old is supposed to start school in 2 weeks? But we can't register her until we get a contract.

I had my 30 week appt with the midwife this week and everything looks good. My bp was 100/60 or something like that. I gained 2 lbs for a total of about 18 lbs. And I measured about 29 cm. My iron is a little low, so I'm taking an iron supplement called Floridix which I can tell has already helped with my energy level. I was getting pretty tired during the day and evenings. I declined the blood glucose test (where you drink the sugary drink and they draw your blood) because I never drink or eat that much sugar at one time and I think my body would go absolutely crazy! So, we did a random blood sugar test and that was normal as well.

Brian mentioned tonight that we only have 10 more Sundays until the baby is due! Yikes! We have absolutely no baby clothes, diapers or gear with us in our temporary housing. So, we're going to have to move in and get everything out of storage before this baby comes! :) No pressure!

I guess that's about it for now. I promise not to be so absent from my blog! :)