BabyM's Birth

I don't think I ever told the world about the birth of BabyM. I mean, everyone (at least everyone who reads this blog) knows that she was birthed, but I wanted to recount the story of "how."

Don't worry, I wont get "too" graphic. If you don't like this kind of thing, then don't keep reading. It is a wonderful memory for me!

Well, b/c of our finances and lack of decent insurance at the time, we had decided to have her at my mom's house instead of a hospital.

We found these two midwives in Midland (about 2 hours away from my mom's house going the speed limit). We did prenatal visits in their clinic, had all of our questions answered, and on the third day past my due date after walking and walking and walking all around Lubbock, my water broke at about 12:30 in the morning. The breaking was much less violent than it sounds, and so I wasn't entirely sure that it had broken and I didn't want to wake everybody up over a false alarm.

Finally, after some Internet research, at 2:00am, I woke up Brandon to call the midwives. Now, if you didn't know, my labor with Deacon was like 5 hours long, it had already been 1.5 hours and the midwives were 2 hours away. They told Brandon to time the contractions and call back when they were 5 minutes apart. Well, they never were consistently 5 minutes apart. Well, we called back at like 3am and they said they would come. They fell back asleep.

They showed up at 6:30am and BabyM had not yet showed up. About that time I got into the bath hoping to ease some of my pain. My contractions were all over the place. Some lasted 60 seconds, and my longest lasted over 3 minutes. 3 minutes can be a very long time.

Anyway, a little while later I got out of the bath and after a check, found out I was dilated to a 9 and had transitioned in the tub. I HIGHLY recommend that. Transition with BoyD was so hard that I didn't think I would make it through, but this was totally doable!

It took a long time to go from a 9 to a 10 b/c for me at least, moving made the pain worse, and the midwives were very laid back. All that to say, finally, they got me on the floor on my knees to move it along.

It worked. I dilated the rest of the way in about 10 minutes. It was the longest 10 minutes of my life, but then it was finally time to push. I pushed through 3 contractions before the midwife said "ok...stop pushing NOW" to which I said "I CAN'T" (b/c stopping pushing when you feel the urge to push is really impossible) and she said "you can and you will."

Turns out that it appeared that BabyM's umbilical cord was around her neck and one of her hands was coming out with her head. Those can both be problematic.

Well, it all turned out ok, and she was born at 9:56am. Having her at home ended up being such a blessing. After she was born, I got her on in my arms for like an hour! They did the after birth check with her there with me and it was so calm and wonderful. She didn't scream and she nursed so well right away. The midwives stayed and checked us all our for a couple of hours, and then they left us to our selves! Brandon did all of the post birth checks like temperature, pulse, respirations, mushing my mushy belly, etc.

Oh, at about 7:30am when BoyD woke up, I was in the bath tub and my brother came to get him and he hung out at their house until after lunch when he came back to my mom's house to meet the baby, see me, and take his afternoon nap.

All in all, it was beautiful! Here are some photos.

The extra people in the photos are first my mom, and then the two midwives.