August is always a bittersweet month for me. This is the time of year when my daughter goes back to school and my son turns a year older. I often become reflective of the summer and wish I had taken more time away from technology and spent more face to face time with the kids. I think back to years ago when I gave birth to my son and the memories of his birth.
We were lucky to have an amazing birth experience with both of our kids thanks to our local birth center. They have an phenomenal staff and facility. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to give birth and I’m so thankful I had an alternative so I didn’t have to have a hospital birth. Not only does the birth center have a great facility for prenatal care and birthing, they have an amazing community for creating new friendships after the birth of your baby. Just this weekend the birth center hosted a pool party with the team at celebrate with past, present and future clients and children. It was great spending time with fellow natural birthing, babywearing and breastfeeding parents. I absolutely love this community and hope to be able to give to them just as much as they have given to me.
While I am on the topic of the birth center and my sons birthday is today I’ll go ahead and share his birth story. I always love reliving his birth story, through writing and reading it. Just a little warning before you read any further. This is my childbirth story. My childbirth talk can get rather graphic. So just a fair warning. : )
When I was pregnant with my second little one everyone told me that no two births are the same. Boy were they right. With my daughter I had about as peaceful of a childbirth as one could get. I still look back on her birth and think of how beautiful it was despite the pain. With my son, however, I look back on it and think to myself Thank God that’s over with.
I found out at 5:00 August 11th at my 39 week check up that my son was in the posterior position (meaning instead of being face down he was sunny side up). I went home and immediately started doing exercises and stretches to try to get him to turn. I was hoping with my due date still a week away, only being dilated to 2cm and barely effacement that I had some time to get him turned. Little did I know I would wake up to a little surprise later that night.
I woke up at about 4am panicked thinking I had started to pee on myself. I ran to the bathroom to realize I wasn’t peeing on myself as I just kept leaking. I knew as soon as I started to come out of my coma that it was show time. About 30 minutes after my water broke the contractions started. So I have a midwife paged to figure out what to do from here. She told me that I could either come on in and be checked or I could relax at home a little while longer and possibly wait to come in at 8am when the birth center opened. I told her I would feel better waiting it out at home for a little bit to see what happened and would be in touch if things go worse.
My mil comes to pick up our daughter around 5am since we knew we would for sure be at the birth center delivering at some point during the day. After she picked up my daughter the contractions started coming like clock work. They were getting pretty intense so I decided there was no way I would be able to wait until 8am when the birth center opened. So I call the midwife back (who is already at the birth center with 3 other ladies delivering) and she tells me to come on in.
I’ll just start by saying I really feel for my midwife and think she did a wonderful job with my delivery. I went from a calm, rational easy breathing mom to a screaming banshee yelling at my baby to GET OUT! with every push. When we arrived at the birth center I got a quick check to find I was 5 1/2 cm dilated. This is where things start to get really different between my daughter’s birth and my son.
The birth center only has 4 birthing rooms. 4 birthing rooms is normally plenty for the center except this particular night a bunch of us moms decided to have our babies at the same time. So we had to wait for a room that had just been cleaned and sanitized to dry. We didn’t have to wait long but it sure was different from being the only one in the center and having my pick of rooms. Which leads me to another difference.
I didn’t get the room with the birthing tub so there was no water birth this time (which considering my particular delivery I probably couldn’t have delivered in the water anyways). So I get in my room and decide to get in the bathtub for at least a little bit of my labor to help ease the pain. I stay in the bathtub until I start feeling the urge to push. At that point the midwife and my husband help me out of the tub and onto the bed. Now this is where the tricky part comes in.
Trying to figure out a good pushing position as there seemed to be no comfortable position at this point. I hadn’t had time to get my boy turned out of the posterior position so he was still coming out face up and giving me horrible back labor. At one point when I was on my hands and knees pushing hubby said he could actually seeing the baby in my back. OUCH! With my daughter I only had to push about 10-15 minutes and she was out. With this little guy I pushed for about 45 minutes to an hour. And the midwife and nurses had to really work to help me get him out. God bless those poor ladies! They were truly a God send during that time for me.
After what seemed like an eternity of pushing I finally had the relief of feeling him come out. That relief was short lived when I realized he was being rushed out of the room instead of immediately handed to me like my daughter was. I hear my husband rushing around asking what’s wrong and I hear them tell him he’s been taken to the warmer to get his heart rate and breathing back to normal because the cord was wrapped around his neck. Seconds later I hear his sweet little cry and my husband comes back in the room with our sweet boy in his arms.
Everything from that point on has been perfect. He has been latching on a nursing beautifully. His sister absolutely adores him and loves talking to him and tries to get him to play. And of course his daddy and I are just in awe of him. I just feel so lucky to have a healthy daughter and son now. And I’m so thankful for the birth center. Even though I didn’t have the easiest birth in the world I know I had the best birth I could have had at the birth center. I thought my care was phenomenal. I doubt I could have had better care anywhere else. And it was so nice to be at home less than 24 hours after going into labor.
