With all of my kids being born in February, I start to worry during the last 2 weeks of January, "Oh no, What if the baby comes early!?!" Then when I am still pregnant a month later I start to ask myself "What was I so worried about?" I also really started to believe the many people I heard tell me that the more babies you have the more likely your baby will be born early... I am pretty sure that is a myth! Anyway, the bottom line is that I had been ready for this baby to be born for a long time! The "Due date" by ultrasound was February 7th....ten long days later Oaklee finally made her debut. Here is the story... (I am giving the long version of the story here, so if you just want the birth part skip to the end).
As we were deciding on where to have our baby I interviewed multiple midwives and even visited American Fork Hospital, but none of the options I found felt right. Then I was searching the web and found Sherri Price's website:
http://www.birthingathome.com/ where I read Sherri's bio and I felt like
"Wow! This is my midwife!" I called Sherri and set up an appointment to meet with her. Then the next week before meeting her I went back to her website and ended up bawling reading about her and some of the birth stories on her site. I made Andy promise that he wouldn't tell Sherri that I had been bawling looking at her website. I did already feel pretty confident that she was probably going to be my choice for a midwife before ever meeting her.
When we did meet to "interview" Sherri it was such a nice change from my interactions with the other midwives I had met. The other meetings just felt somewhat odd and very formal. I had my list of questions that I asked them and they responded, but I felt like I wasn't quite sure how much I could trust of what they were saying. When I met Sherri I didn't even have to look at my list of questions to ask her. She told me what she believed and she was very honest and open with all her answers. I felt comfortable asking her anything that came to mind.
Prenatal appointments with Sherri were a welcome change from my past experience in a clinical settings for a number of reasons:
- Sherri addressed my concerns at the beginning of every visit
- I got to meet with Sherri for every prenatal instead of rotating through 5 midwives
- I actually asked my questions, whereas in the past I didn't, either because I didn't feel comfortable asking, or I didn't want to raise any red flags that the midwives could use as a reason for the need of some sort of intervention
- I didn't have to spend time toward the end of my pregnancy printing out and telling Sherri my "birthing plan" because her philosophies of what birth should be like are similar to mine
Oaklee is my 4th baby, so I have 3 other personal experiences to draw from as I was preparing for this birth. With Gideon and Allana my water was broken at the hospital at the beginning of my labor. With Corinne I was dilated to about a 4 or 5 when my water broke on it's own and then she was born about 1/2 hour later. With Oaklee I was really expecting my birth experience to be similar to Corinne's birth, since that is the only birth experience that I had without any intervention at all.
Friday February 15th I had my last prenatal appointment and I was dilated to a 2 or 3? I can't remember for sure. Then multiple times during the day on Saturday February 16th I had blood tinged mucous discharge. This is exciting because usually that is a sign that the baby is getting close to coming. At about 1am on February 17th I started having enough contractions that I couldn't get back to sleep. It wasn't that the contractions were super intense, but strong enough that I could feel that they were doing some work. I think mostly I couldn't sleep because I was excited that this could be the real deal!
I finally got Andy up at about 2am for some company and took a warm bath to relax and see if the contractions continued. If they continued like they were, I was guessing (based off of my experience with Corinne) that the baby should be born by about 5 or 6am. With Corinne I got to a 5 and then with once my water broke dilated completely to a 10 right away. I called Sherri basing my timing guess off of this past experience and she got here at about 4am and checked me. She said that I was at about a 5.5 and that she would call her assistants to get them to come. Andy and I helped her get everything set up and the assistants arrived at 5am.
I felt so funny calling someone in the middle of the night (even if it is my midwife) and maybe that is one reason my contractions slowed down, I felt bad that I was getting people up and having them leave their own family in the middle of the night... Anyway, the contractions seemed to slow down and the midwives took a nap. I really tried to sleep, but without much success. I just wanted to have the baby here! I did lay down and rest and listened to Andy snore :) We got up and danced a waltz at one point to see if more contractions would come. Of course contractions were continuing, but my water wasn't breaking like I had expected it to once I was this far dilated and the contractions didn't seem to be picking up in intensity.
Sherri's son was giving his homecoming talk that morning. Sherri checked to see if I had progressed since 4am and I was still about the same. Sherri left to go and be with her son when he reported to the Stake president. Sherri told me "We don't chase labor. Labor comes to us." So I really tried to get some sleep and slept a little from 6:30-7:30am. When I got out of bed in the morning we ate some breakfast and everyone just hung around the house while I labored. We sent the kids to the Crabb's house to play just in case things picked up in intensity. Angie and Mariah made some homemade heat packs that felt great on my lower back and belly. I spent the morning in my "yoga" clothes crawling and lunging and stretching. Occasionally Andy or Sherri would "help" with a contraction by putting gentle pressure on my lower back and bottom of my belly.
At one point, maybe around 10am I was dilated to about 7.5 or 8 centimeters and Andy and I decided that we would go and dance. We danced rumba, west coast swing, and cha cha. The rumba was to a 4 minute long song and I had at least 6 contractions during that song. Sherri, Angie, Mariah, and Katie were all sitting on the floor watching, laughing, and cheering at the end of the songs. Andy was being pretty funny and so I was having fun dancing and laughing. I only had to stop a couple times to take a few extra breaths during a contraction. Most of the time I could just dance through the contractions. Dancing with Andy was definitely a highlight of the day. Not the usual way we spend our Sunday mornings. Angie videoed us dancing. I need to see if I can get a clip of it from her.
The dancing must have done the trick because the contractions really did pick up to the point where I felt like I needed to lay down and take a rest. Andy came in and told me that Sherri was going to leave to go to her son's homecoming talk. I just said "That's fine, she can go." Sherri checked me and I was at a 9 and so she decided to stay and have one of her daughters facetime with her so that she could still hear her son, Larsen's talk.
The next little bit is all kind of a blur to me.... I was sitting on the birthing stool and relaxing through contractions. I had Andy go and get Allana from the Crabb's house so that she could be there for the birth. I loved seeing the huge smile on Allana's face as she came in and sat next to me. She was a good support during the birth. Someone had their phone tuned in to the sacrament meeting, so I remember hearing a hymn playing before Larsen began speaking. Sherri had told me that if I felt pressure that it was okay for me to push. During that next contraction it felt great to push with it and as I did my water broke (yes, right as Sherri's missionary was starting his talk).
As my water broke, Andy got showered by what the midwives call "baby pee". Allana said that Andy made a pretty funny face as he flinched from the splash. Allana left to use the toilet and when she came back there were so many people around me she wasn't quite sure what to do so she went out to the dining room and made me the sweetest card. I'll have to see if I can scan it in. One side said:
"Dear Mom,
I hope you can come to church with me.
I love you.
Love,
Allana"
Along with that note it had a picture of me standing in a field of flowers with white fluffy clouds overhead. On the other side of the card there was the sweetest poem anyone has ever written for me:
Happy Flowers by Allana
Happy flowers sing. Happy flowers
dance. My mom is a flower. So
sweet and tender. I love
you mom, as much as I can.
Allana ran in right as Oaklee was being born. Andy said that the huge look of surprise and delight on Allana's face as she saw Oaklee being birthed was priceless! Allana was in charge of warm towels from the dryer to keep Oaklee warm. In the meantime, Allana brought me her cute note and told me, "I love you, mom!" Allana kept coming to me and kissing me and telling me how much she loved me over and over before she left for church. She was very relieved that I was okay and that Oaklee was safe. It made me feel very bonded to Allana and thankful for the amazing girl that she is. She is only 7 years old, but she can already do so much. I felt very supported by her and was happy that she was there for the birth. In some ways I wish I had given her the camera and had her take pictures of the birth so that she would have had a "job" to do, but then I wouldn't have gotten the thoughtful card that she made me, which will be one of my treasures. If I do have another baby I would love to have Allana there again to be part of my support group (if she wants to come).
I need to find out the actual time it took from the time my water broke to the birth... it was probably about 1/2 hour. Something didn't feel quite right about sitting on the birthing stool, but I had planned that is where I wanted to be for the birth, so the thought didn't occur to me to change my position. Sherri, however, had me move because she didn't think that was the best position for me. She had me push for a few contractions on my side. I really did not like this position and Sherri was reaching to nudge the baby's head. At the time, I wondered why she was doing that, but it was because Oaklee was posterior (trying to come out face up instead of face down). Sherri got Oaklee to turn a little bit and then the progress was better.
We switched back to the birthing stool and I was able to push Oaklee out in a couple more contractions. She wasn't completely posterior anymore, she had turned slightly sideways, but she also decided to come out in what Sherri called "Military" position, like she was standing with her head straight to salute. That made it so that she was birthed with the largest part of her head coming out, instead of with her head tipped so that the crown of the head could come out first.
The sensation of her head being birthed did make me think of the expression "ring of fire" since there was an intense burning sensation by my perineum. Though I would not want to experience that sensation everyday, I still don't think it is painful. It is exciting and relieving because it is the feeling of, "Yeah! That is my baby actually coming out!!!" and in this situation I felt like, "Finally!" It was a much longer pushing stage than I am used to... And as I was birthing Oaklee I had no idea why it was just as challenging as pushing out my 10 pound boy with a gargantuan head! It was only afterwards that Andy explained to me that she came out with the biggest part of her head! So I was expecting the easy 2 push birth I had with Corinne and I got the 10 push version instead.
After she was born, my first thought was, how small she was! She was a good size though, 8lbs 7ounces and 20 inches long. I got to snuggle with her in the warm towels straight from the dryer. She did a great job nursing right away. The placenta delivery is pretty easy, like delivering jello. Mariah got a bath going and Oaklee and I got to soak in the tub.
I felt pretty tired after the birth since I had been up essentially all night long. Grandma Young took the kids to primary because Allana and Corinne were very excited to go to church to be spotlighted for their birthdays. After church she took all the kids to her house to spend the night. That worked out well since the next day was President's day.
Andy got to spend the morning taking care of me and he got to work "processing the placenta". He washed it off and cut it up and dehydrated it. Then he pulverized it into placenta dust and filled empty capsules to make me my "placenta pills". It is hard to say if the pills have helped or not, but they seem to. Day 10 after Oaklee was born was the first day I stopped taking the pills and it was the first day that I felt like crying for no real reason at all. Overall I have felt really great.
The day after Oaklee was born as Andy worked in the kitchen and I was snuggling with Oaklee I asked Andy, "Doesn't that make you feel sad that this could be our very last baby?" Andy didn't even have to think about it and with a shrug he responded "No." I guess he wants to get back to retirement before he is too old :) I was shedding a few tears mourning the fact that I may not have any more babies.
The home birth experience was so amazing and even though I have had 2 births before Oaklee without any medications in the hospital setting, the home birth was so much better and less stressful in so many ways. I wish I would have considered it as an option for our past births. If we do end up having another baby I will definitely plan to have it at home. They don't have a dance floor at the hospital that I can dance with my husband as I go through transition for the baby to come :)
