A Birth With a Change of Plans

We had our baby at 35 weeks. He is doing well and we're home thankfully. He weighed 5 lbs 14 oz and was 19 1/2 " long. he's a cutie and we love him and are glad that things turned out well. My water broke Saturday morning in a slow trickle, my midwife confirmed that it was amniotic fluid and so we went to Good Samaritan's Hospital in Lafayette. I was really nervous about how they would receive me as a homebirth transfer. But they were extremely respectful.

When I got there they confirmed as well that it was fluid. Did an u/s to confirm baby was head down and then the on call OB talked to us about options. He said that typically they would want to start pitocin to get baby out that babies at 35 weeks fair so well that the risk of infection was greater. That was my gut feeling as well. But he told me that it was my decision ultimately and that I could wait as long as I wanted to and they would just monitor for signs of infection. I told him thanks and that I wanted to hold off on pitocin in order to get things going naturally. He told me about a study that showed that "walking the halls didn't decrease labor time but just helped with pain management." I smiled and said thanks but I felt that I could get things going on my own. I use hypnosis and felt that I could use that to get things going.

So after we got everything settled. Dh ran out to get my Hypnobabies CDs from home, including Baby Come Out and bought me a cute skirt from Motherhood Maternity that I could birth in and my sports bra. I called my family and let them know what was going on and wrapped my head around the fact that this was actually happening then the NICU nurse came in to talk to us. She said that only 10% of babies at 35 weeks need to go to the NICU. After that I felt like I could fully release and let myself go into my birthing time (ie labor).

My midwife went to run errands and let us have some time to ourselves. My dh kept things light which I appreciated, laughing helped. They periodically monitored me (with no belts, just handheld doppler which was great). I hadn't eaten much that morning so I had dh go buy some food and snuck a burger for lunch and then some Subway for dinner :) and some Lara bars, etc for snacks. mmmm, that helped.

By 9 pm I decided to go walk the halls. As soon as I stepped out my pressure waves (ie contractions) started to get more intense. I walked and stopped for about 5 and then went back into the room. They slowed down for a bit at 10 pm, only had 4-5 the whole hour which was a nice break and then at 11 pm I did some belly lifts and got things going in earnest. My goal was to have a 5 hour labor and I made the mental goal to have the baby by 2-3 am. I was receiving antibiotics since the GBS status wasn't back yet and I was fine with that given the break in waters. But I didn't want ds to have too much. I called my midwife at 11:30 pm to come back and gratefully she had been waiting in the lobby and was right there good woman. By 2:15 am I was heading into transition and asked that they call the Dr by 2:30 am and get the team assembled in case ds had any issues. I started to push but held off until everyone got there. The silly nurse wanted to do a cervical check before she called the Dr (the only time I yelled, "Get out!"), baby was starting to crown. My midwife said later she was thinking, "Can you not see her bottom bulging?".

Ds was born at 2:58 am after a few good pushes on my side. The on call OB was great about honoring my impromptu birth plan for all of the natural stuff (let the cord pulse, any position for pushing, etc). My only complaint was a nurse named Shauna who was the NICU nurse (the other one didn't make it initially). She grabbed the baby and started aggressively scrubbing him with a scratchy, awful towel yelling that she needed to make him cry after I told her to be gentle. She calmed down after a few seconds and we got to cuddle. Ds's lungs needed some help so the nicer NICU nurse got to work on him for about 1/2 an hour doing chest percussions and oxygen. Finally he was able to maintain his O2 rate. The next day I spent staving off the recovery nurses from wanting to supplement him by nursing and pumping. He had a sleepy, preemie nursing style of one good nurse to 2-3 lazy non-nursings. So we had to use the SNS feeding tube and syringes a few times to get him back on track but did it with my own milk thankfully.

Then we got to come home Monday afternoon. All in all it was a great birth although unexpected. I feel happy to have been able to utilize my mind-body connection and felt like I was in great hands having my midwife plus a great staff at Good Sam there.

Baby Kellam's Quick Arrival

It is hard to believe that I was in labor over a month ago anticipating the arrival of my sweet Kellam and my “perfect” birth. Through my whole pregnancy my sweet sister told me not to plan anything because I would be sadly disappointed if things didn’t go the way I wanted them too. Boy was she right! I should have listened to my younger wiser sister. Thanks for trying Jess! (;

May 16, 2012, was a normal feeling day for me. Jack and I woke up to our normal routine. He watched his favorite program and I was tired but began some house work. Around 11 am I looked in the pantry to decide on lunch and realized that I had not been to the grocery store in almost two weeks due to the fact my husband’s grandmother had been in the hospital and then had passed away on Mother’s day and we buried her on that Tuesday. Needless to say we needed food. Jack and I loaded up and went to the grocery store. I had felt some strong Braxton Hicks contractions but I had been having them “strong” since I was 36 weeks along. Along with lots of “false labor.” Which I have renamed “getting me ready to deliver in hours labor.” I was 39 weeks 3 days and was very pregnant so moving around the grocery store with a toddler that had his own cart took a long time. Almost two hours later we were home unloading the groceries. After unloading them I fixed us lunch and was extremely tired. So nap time it was. My husband Brad arrived home from working around 6? I had had some “pressure down there” and had a burst of energy. (Should have been a sign.) Brad made dinner for us. After dinner he had to go run an errand and I decided to clean up the kitchen. Around 7:30 pm I started having irregular contractions. I was cleaning and Brad had gotten home. It was 9:30 pm at this point. I calmly told Brad that “I maybe in labor” mind you false labor was still on my mind. I text members of my birth team gave them the heads up. I told them I was in early labor. I believed I was since everything I knew stated that contractions became regular during real active labor. I called my midwife around 10 pm she believed I had a ways to go yet and said she would send her student midwife who was an hour away at the time and she would be along shortly. I continued to labor contractions were getting really intense fast. I decided to get in a warm bath to help ease them. I laid on my right side and felt relief for a bit. The pressure began to build again. I decided to get out and get on my yoga ball. I bounced, rotated clockwise and counter clockwise. Still climbing with intensity my instinct was to go sit on the toilet. Sitting on the toilet helped greatly. It helped relieve the pressure from “down there.” Around 11:15 Christine my midwives student arrived. She took my vitals and then helped Brad with the birth pool. I went back to sit on the toilet. I decided I needed to get back in the water. The birth pool was not ready so I ran a tub of water. I realized that after the fact I probably should not have done that since I need to fill the birth tub with warm water. In the bath tub I began to feel myself enter into “labor land.” My midwife arrived at some point. At this point I had lost track of time and was working calmly through each intense contraction. I don’t remember when I decided to get out of the bath tub but I did and moved to the toilet. Vicky came and asked me if I wanted to be checked and to my surprise I said yes. Something I had not planned on. She checked me and I was 8 cm! I was so shocked! I turned to Brad who was on his way to Walgreens to get a few things and said I am 8 cm. That didn’t seem to make him moved he said “okay how is that relation to when the baby gets here?” I smiled because this was a honest question and he really had no clue. This also told me how much he listened to the birth stories I told him about! Brad went to the store. Pressure and contractions were intense I was breathing and doing really well on the toilet. I tried to sit down on the toilet and that was a no go. I yelled to Vicky I think I need to push. She instructed me to go get in the birth pool to see if that relieved the pressure. AWWW….sweet relief!!! I highly recommend being in a large warm tub of water while in labor! The contractions were still coming fast but there was so much pressure relieved I could finally breathe. Well, for a minute anyway. Christine kneeled down in front of me and helped talk me through the contractions. I was breathing but the turning point came very quickly I was calm on the outside but very irrational on the inside. I was panicing in my head. I was scared and afraid of all of this at once. I even told myself in my head that it would be easier to go to the hospital. I laugh now because there is nothing they could have done for me at that point. I snapped myself out of it and told myself I could do this, I wanted to do this and I was going to do this. I also reminded myself that I knew when I had gotten to this “panic” feeling my baby would be here in my arms soon. I finally began to vocalize and moan a bit. My midwife jumped up and I heard Christine say “She knows what that means!” She did I looked up and said “ohhhhh I need to push!” She said go ahead. Well I barely began to push when my body began to work all on its own. The most amazing thing I have ever experienced!!! My body was pushing all on its own! I was in the birth pool on my hands and knees leaning over the side. I heard a “pop” and asked what was that? Christine told me it was my waters breaking. My body then gave my baby an eviction notice so fast I barely felt the crowning of the babies head. I felt my baby move out of my body. I felt his head, his shoulders, body, legs and feet. It was amazing!! My midwife almost couldn’t reach the baby to help me bring him up. She almost ended up in the birth pool with me!! I grabbed him and brought him out of the water. He was so cute. All I could say was how cute he was over and over. I felt relief that was very nice!! I had the overwhelming but most welcomed feeling of oxytocin! That was an unbelievable high!! It was wonderful. I was smiling like a Cheshire Cat! Grinning from ear to ear!! There are no other words other than AMAZING!! That describes this kind of experience and feeling. You cannot buy this kind of high. The baby came out looking to nurse so as soon as the cord stopped pulsating and the placenta was delivered which was like 5 mins later then we moved to the couch and began to nurse. He nursed like a champ!! Which made me even more excited!! Big brother woke up was very excited that he had a “cute” as he put it baby brother. Jack held him with pride.

I loved this experienced and although I didn’t get my video or pictures I am very happy with the labor being fast! Kellam McCommas Taylor was born May 17, 2012 at 1:26 am, weighing 7 pounds 9 oz 20 ¾ in long.