The birth story in brief

Hello all – Rachel here! I got lots of sleep this morning (NOT last night) and wanted to share a quick version of Anna’s birth with you all… it was pretty exciting for us and I know there are some out there wanting the nitty gritty details. 🙂

I woke up at 4ish on Tuesday morning (the 17th) with fairly strong contractions that I couldn’t sleep through. An hour later, I lost my mucus plug so I was excited that this was hopefully the real thing! I talked with the midwives off and on over the next twelve hours as my contractions stayed about the same in frequency (4-7 minutes usually) but grew progressively but SLOWLY more intense. I was doing great with “dealing with” them – just relaxing the rest of my body as much as possible to let my body do its thing.

We had Kelly, the midwife assistant out about 3:30 and she said everythign looked great with Anna (heart rate and such) and she hung out until about 7:30, going to Subway with us and encouraging us to keep “doing what we’re doing.” I had a few mondo contractions peppered through here, but there was no other sign that labor was moving along. They were expecting a little bit of bleeding from me if I was really dialating much from knowledge about my cervix… so I was getting very discouraged at this point, because I was struggling a lot more with the pain during contractions… and was not hearing any words of encouragement that I would have my baby any time soon!

So Brian and Kelly did their magic (that’s what it must have been!) and got me almost asleep for half an hour… oh, it was blessed rest! Kelly headed out and had another midwife planning on showing up in a couple hours. A few contractions later (big, strong ones that were really spaced apart)… so, about half an hour later or so, I heard a “pop” with a contraction. Was it my water breaking???? I sat up because I had to burp…. my water broke in a small gush, my burp turned into a rather icky display of throwing up all over the floor…… and labor REALLY began!

Brian was so present with me the whole day and God was gracious to me… the next phase was primarily in the shower (the hot water felt good) and only lasted just over an hour. The contractions were intense! They were frequent and they were hard – not something that I’m putting a whole lot of effort into remembering! Kelly turned her car around and got back faster than she had left and she updated the other midwives so that they could think about coming out.

Kelly saw me (and heard me!) and announced that I “had arrived.” 🙂 I knew that!!! But it wasn’t bad to hear! Brian went and filled the birth tub – had a little drama there… and then it was cold, because I’d used all the water in the shower. Rats! Oh well, I was plenty lightheaded from the hot shower already and didn’t really want in it anymore. So Brian came back and let me squeeze his hand in half and put a cold rag on my face whenever I could stand it (it felt great sometimes!). Kelly did midwife stuff and called the midwives with more urgency this time. She was great, by the way, boiling water for the birth tub and doing other midwife stuff, I dont’ even know about.

I told her that I was feeling like I should push soon. She said to not fight it, but don’t force it… after all, didn’t I want the regular midwives there? I told her I didn’t really care (I wanted her OUT!!!) and she smiled and said, “well, let’s have a baby!” Not long later, I crawled onto the bed, needing to push with most contractions and not wanting to wait for another pot of hot water to be added to the tub. Brian and Kelly helped keep me comfortable and not afraid, reminding me to relax between contractions. It was so exciting when I felt her start moving down! This pushing was working! (for some reason I was worried it wouldn’t)

I felt the very top of her head, just inside me… Kate, a midwife ran in and told Kelly she’s doing great – Kelly had Kate step in anyway… and in one big push, I popped Anna’s head out! This surprised everybody, i guess, because I should have been several contractions from pushing her out. Nahhhh – she was ready! One push later and our little bundle of pink was in Kate’s arms and being set onto my tummy. They wrapped a blanket around her and she was ours!

Our little beautiful girl was born! She is the most precious thing… indescribable, really. Brian and I are very much in love. The midwives checked me out (apparently, I didn’t hardly bleed, so that’s great), eventually we cut the cord, they stitched me up (pushing babies out like torpedos isn’t so good if you don’t want a little tear) and did Anna’s stats. Her Apgars (scores) were 10/10 – perfect! She cried a cute little cry the moment she was out and then just stared at us.

She slept on my chest as we lay in our bed… (no worries about me rolling over to smother her – I wasn’t moving an inch! Give me tylenol!) She is adorable, beautiful, amazing and getting cuter every day. She weighed 7lbs 8oz. and I’m curious what she’ll weigh today on her third day when the midwives come out for another checkup. Poor thing, she’ll get her heel prick test today!

So we are well – Anna fussed through until about 2AM last night and then wouldn’t sleep except in our arms. I guess we’ll have to work on that! Luckily, we slept this morning.

Oops! I hear her now – mothering calls.