Salmon and Souvlaki

In honor of Mark’s first birthday, I’m sharing his birth story with you.  It’s very long so my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t read the whole thing!  It’s so long, in fact, that I’ve broken it up into four parts.  Here’s part one, part two, and part three.

(I’ve written this as a letter to Mark.)

After having the classic “doubting moment’ (a la Bradley Method), the midwife asked me to lay down on the bed so that she could check to see how dilated I was.  And hallelujah, the number she announced was TEN!!  (That, my boy, meant that finally, we knew that we were going to see you soon!)  My water still hadn’t broken.  Throughout the day, Lucille had offered several times to break my water for me to try to speed the process along but I always refused. (I didn’t want the contractions to get out of control for me).  Later, one of my friends who is also a midwife told me that refusing was the best thing I could have done because it allowed you to move back into the right position before I had to push you out.

But at this point, I was ready to push so Lucille asked me to push down with my next contraction at a place where she was putting pressure.  That’s all it took – a gigantic gush of water came out of me!!  (I didn’t get to experience this with your sister because I was in the tub when it happened.)  That happened at 10:10.  When my water broke, pretty immediately the midwives (another midwife was there to observe) could see your head and they could tell that you were a big boy.  Later, they told me that they were worried that you were going to have a hard time coming out so they starting helping me by stretching my perineum.  This, my boy, did not feel good!

Almost immediately after my water broke, I started pushing.  For the first push, I was lying on my back (from when the midwife was checking my dilation).  It was the strangest thing – I didn’t know how to push.  I knew I wanted to but it felt all wrong.  When I said, “This feels weird,” they told me to flip over to my side.  So I did and that changed everything!  I was on my left side so the nurse held up my right leg and I started pushing!!  Your head came out in two pushes and three pushes later so did your body!  At 10:23, you were born, all 9 pounds, 4 ounces of you.  You actually came out more easily than Ellie, who was 33% smaller than you when she was born.  (So those midwives were wrong!)  Just because you were big didn’t mean it was hard for me to push you out! For a few seconds after you came out, all I could think was, “It’s OVER.  I don’t have to do this anymore.” But then I wanted you – give me my baby!!!  And they did!

Five days after you were born, I wrote a lot more about why you came out so slowly.  You just weren’t in the best position for most of the day and that’s why I had to work so hard to get you out.  But do you know the crazy thing?  Even though your labor lasted for 18 hours and even though you came ten days later than Ellie did (meaning I was pregnant for 10 days longer), I healed more quickly with you than with Ellie!  I guess my body just knew what to do to heal quickly!

when you were 2 minutes old!

After you were born and I got to hold you for a few minutes, I handed you to Baba for some skin-to-skin bonding time so the midwives could help me deliver the placenta. I was so tired that I was having a hard time getting it out.  So they had me squat (on the bed) and it came right out!  That only took a few minutes so 10:30 is when I was officially considered “done” with labor.  While they were stitching one very small tear for me, you started trying to nurse on Baba’s chest!  He didn’t like that very much! So as soon as we could, I took you back and you started nursing. You wanted to nurse constantly for the first few hours after you were born.  That good nursing pattern continued once we got home and you and I have had a great, easy nursing relationship ever since, thankfully!

when you were 90 minutes old

The birth center has a rule that the mama and baby have to stay for at least four hours after the end of labor and should not leave until bothy baby and mama have eaten and cleaned up.  (Well, the cleaned-up part is mostly for the mama.  You didn’t need a bath!)  When Ellie was born, it took us more like 7 hours to feel like we were ready to leave the birth center.  With you, I was ready in three!  For some reason, they didn’t start the 4-hour clock until 11:00 pm.  So we just had to sit around until 3:00 am before they would let us go home.  The nurse told us we could sleep there and then go home in the morning but Baba still felt great and said that he would like us to go home.  That was fine with me too.

right before we left to go home at 3:00 am.  We look pretty good, I’d say. (You did not appreciate the picture taking, evidently!)

So we drove home and thankfully you slept the whole way.  When we got home, we crashed in bed for a few hours.  When I woke up, I called Yiayia and asked her to bring Ellie back.  I hadn’t seen her in 24 hours, which was the longest I’d ever been away from her.  I was really anxious to be back together with her again.  So Ellie came home from Yiayia’s house and she was so excited to meet you for the first time!

first meeting!

In the months since you’ve been born, here are the three things that I’ve told people many times over:

1. We had our “second baby” labor with Ellie and our “first baby” labor with you!  We clearly had to earn our “natural child birth” badge for real and delivering you was probably the hardest I’ve ever worked for anything.
2. I never could have made it through that long hard day without your amazing Baba.  Getting you out was definitely a team effort and a team accomplishment.
3. We were so grateful that we delivered at Special Beginnings rather than in a hospital.  With such a long, slow labor, we almost certainly would have been pressured by the labor clock, by offers of pitocin, and by threats of “failure to progress, so you need a C-section.”  There was nothing wrong with the way you and I labored together – it just took a long time!  And we will always be grateful that we were given the time that it took to deliver you.

We’re so glad you’re in our family now, Mark. We can’t imagine life without you!  We love you so very, very much.

Love,
your mama

In honor of Mark’s first birthday, I’m sharing his birth story with you.  It’s very long so my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t read the whole thing!  It’s so long, in fact, that I’ve broken it up into four parts. Here’s part one and part two. 

(I’ve written this as a letter to Mark.)

Between 1:00 and 4:00, Baba and I walked and walked and walked.  There is a synagogue across the street from the birth center and it has a big parking lot with a field next to it.  So we walked many, many laps around that place.  Thankfully, it was an abnormally warm January day because I hadn’t even brought a warm coat (not figuring I’d need to be walking around outside).  Around 2:30, my water finally broke (just a little bit) and we were so glad to finally see some progress.  During this time, I also did a lot of bouncing on the exercise ball, trying to get you to move into the right position for birth.  I bounced so much, my muscles got sore!  At 4:00, the midwife checked me and I was finally 5 centimeters dilated.  This meant that I was also finally allowed to get into the birthing tub, which I had been wanting to do for hours.  I was in there for some time (maybe an hour) but the water was too hot and I overheated.  So I had to get out to cool down.  Sadly, I never did get to get back in. My contractions were slowing down when I was in the water and Lucille was worried that they might slow down too much.  So I started doing much of my laboring sitting on the toilet, facing the back of the toilet.  Your poor Baba – I was crushing his hand a lot through that time!

We also did a lot of laps through the hallway and kitchen at the birth center, trying to walk you out.  I would stop to breath through a contraction while leaning on Baba and then keep walking.  I was really tired of that hallway by the time this was done! At some point during this time, I developed a sharp pain in my lower back, which didn’t go away.  So it wasn’t contraction pain.  This was probably the worst pain of the labor!  The contractions were totally manageable but I just wanted you to be born so that other pain would go away!  (Later, my chiropractor told me she thought that pain was probably because your head wasn’t optimally positioned and so was pushing where it shouldn’t have been.)

By 8:30, I was finally 8 centimeters dilated – but all that work and only 8! So I kept on breathing (a special breathing pattern that Lucille gave me to use), crushing Baba’s hand through the contractions, walking, eating chocolate almond granola bars (it’s a good thing we brought a lot), drinking water and grape juice, and sitting on the toilet.   For awhile, I rested on the bed and kept asking (begging!) if I could get back in the tub.  Lucille kept telling me, “Just a couple more contractions and then we’ll see!”  But the truth is, they were worried that my body was too tired at this point to deal with contractions slowing down so I don’t think they ever intended to let me get back in.

At 10:00 pm, after so much hard work, Baba and I looked at each other and decided that you probably just didn’t want to have a cool birthday like “one three one three” and that you probably weren’t going to come out until the next day or maybe not ever.  We held onto each other, looked into each other’s eyes and tried to prepare ourselves for what we thought was a really long road ahead of us.  (In the meantime, I was still having lots of really strong contractions so we should have known better!)

to be continued…(part four)

In honor of Mark’s first birthday, I’m sharing his birth story with you.  It’s very long so my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t read the whole thing!  It’s so long, in fact, that I’ve broken it up into four parts. Here’s Part One. 

(I’ve written this as a letter to Mark.)

Even though I was only one centimeter dilated, they let us stay in our assigned room.  I was exhausted because I’d been awake since 4:00 with contractions and I was still having them.  I rested while Baba brought in our bags.  Then, he and I realized that we were going to be at the birth center for a long time and we didn’t have nearly enough food.  So while he went to Safeway to buy us some more food and juice, I took a nap.

At 10:30, I was only 2 centimeters dilated.  (I know this doesn’t mean much to you but what it told the midwives was that you were taking your good sweet time coming out!)  Because I was dilating so slowly, they told us that we would need to leave for a few hours.  Thankfully, my friend Emily’s parents live in Annapolis and they very kindly offered their house to us so that we wouldn’t have to get a hotel room or drive all the way home.

Before we left the birth center, though, Lucille told us that I had to have a non-stress test to make sure that you were doing OK inside of me.  (I think this was basically an insurance thing to make sure they knew you were doing OK before they released us from their care.)  A non-stress test meant that I had to sit in a chair with fetal monitors strapped to me.  Although your heart rate was super strong and healthy, you were sleeping and wouldn’t move around.  This meant that they couldn’t see “surges” on the test results.  In order to pass the test, we had to have a certain number of surges too.  They had me drink some really cold sweet (yucky!) juice, guaranteed to wake up a baby.  It didn’t help.  Katya, our nurse, even shook my belly, hard.  You moved a bit and went back to sleep.  Finally, after about 45 minutes (when it was only supposed to take 20), Lucille told us to go get some lunch, walk around, and try to wake you up.  We were supposed to report back in one hour to have another test.  I asked her what would happen if you didn’t wake up and start moving on that test.

“In that case, you’ll have to go to the hospital to deliver your baby, because now you’ll be considered high-risk.”

When she told me this, I almost panicked.  I definitely started crying.  I was definitely super worried and angry.  (None of those being good emotions for getting a baby to come out!)  I knew you were OK, I knew I was fine, I knew there was absolutely no reason for us to go to the hospital.  And I didn’t drive 2 hours round-trip for every prenatal visit just to deliver in a hospital!!!  Katya reassured us that she would do all she could to help us pass that test.

So we went to Safeway, got some lunch at the deli, sat in the Starbucks lounge area and tried to eat and calm down.  I called some people (like Auntie Meggan and Nana, I think) who helped me calm down a little.  In the meantime, my contractions were starting to finally feel really real.  I had to breath a little through them and I wanted to be moving.  I managed to choke down some food and then we went back to the birth center at around 12:30.  When we got there, I told them that I still hadn’t felt you move, that in fact, during the last couple months of my pregnancy, you had never moved in the middle of the day.  So they gave me a giant hunk of delicious chocolate to eat and told me to drink lots of ice water.  I ate that chocolate, drank more icy-cold water than I could comfortably hold, and you still didn’t move.

Finally, they told us that we had to start the test.  So almost in tears, I sat down in that chair, they strapped on the monitors, and you didn’t move. By this time, I was having contractions almost every three minutes and contractions are NO FUN when you have to remain motionless.  You still weren’t moving.  Baba and I kept looking at each other, wondering if we were going to have to fight to stay at the birth center, wondering what to do.  At some point, Katya came in with a bag of ice and told me to put it on the top of my belly, right where your bottom was.  This made you move a little bit!  Clearly you did not like the cold.  Finally, two other midwives came in to look at the test print out.  They said that although you hadn’t moved enough, that my contractions were strong enough to make it a contraction stress test (not a non-stress test) which changed the requirements and that meant that we passed!  One midwife also said, “Wow, looks like you’re having lots of contractions now.”  To which I wanted to say [very sarcastically], “Really, no kidding?  I hadn’t noticed.  I’ve just been strapped in this chair enjoying myself for 45 minutes.”

So, all this testing started because they were going to make us leave but by the time the ordeal was over, my contractions were moving along enough so that they let us stay.  So we didn’t have to go anywhere!  It took me a few minutes to calm down and stop my tears and then as we walked back upstairs to the birth center part of the building, Katya told us, “I think you’ll be having a baby who sleeps a lot in the middle of the day.”  She was right!  You took super long naps through the middle of the day for several weeks after you were born!

to be continued…(part three)

In honor of Mark’s first birthday, I’m sharing his birth story with you.  It’s very long so my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t read the whole thing!  It’s so long, in fact, that I’ve broken it up into four parts.  (And here’s Ellie’s birth story if you’re interested!)

I of course had the best of intentions to writing Mark’s birth story just after he was born but instead I’ve written it over the couple months (i.e. one year after it happened).  Thankfully, just after he was born, I did write an post about the timing of Mark’s birth  (“The Moral of the Story Is…”) so I’ve used that as my template to fill in what details I remember.  What I do know without a shadow of a doubt is that our lives are so much richer with Mark and we’re so glad that he’s part of our family!

One word of explanation:  As with Ellie, we chose to deliver at the Special Beginnings Birth Center near Annapolis, Maryland because we wanted an intervention and drug-free birth.  It’s the only free-standing birth center in Maryland and about an hour’s drive away.  You’ll read references to the birth center in the story below.

Dear Mark,

In the week or two before you were due, I kept saying things like, “Well, if the baby doesn’t come tomorrow, then I’ll do this.”  Although we know you could be late, your sister Ellie came a week early and so deep down, I was hoping that you would too.  If you had, you would have been born before Christmas.  So I had all our Christmas presents made, wrapped, and mailed/delivered by the middle of December.   After that, I just started accomplishing not so important tasks that needed to be done but weren’t crucial.  For example, I’d been wanting to deep clear the upstairs but didn’t want to do it too soon and bring on early labor.  Right before Christmas, I thought, “Let’s get this baby out,” so I cleaned the whole upstairs.  It was beautifully clean and ready for Auntie’s Meggan’s visit, I was in lots of pain from working too hard, and you didn’t come out.

We celebrated Christmas with our family and then, since you still hadn’t come, we started on the really bonus list.  For example, we went to the mall something like 3 times in 4 days – returning/exchanging presents, shopping the sales, keeping ourselves busy.  As you will learn as you get a bit older, neither your Baba or I like to shop – at all.  So clearly, something weird was going on.  One morning, Ellie and Baba went to the mall and I stayed home and totally reorganized the kitchen.  When they got home, Baba said with a very hopeful look, “You’re nesting!!”

“I’m not nesting.  This has been on the ‘to-do after Christmas if the baby hasn’t come’ list for a long time.”  Oh well.  We had a clean kitchen but you still didn’t come out.

Then I started obsessing about the rest of the house being clean, including all the Christmas decorations being totally put away.  While accomplishing all that, I even vacuumed the couches under the cushions.  And you still didn’t come.  Finally, I decided to finish our living room Roman shades that had been hanging unfinished for two months.  I did that and posted about it on our blog late in the evening on January 2nd.

The next morning, I woke up at 4:00 am with contractions.  (Had I known that you were waiting for me to finish the shades, I would have finished them weeks earlier!)  I timed them myself for about an hour and they were coming close enough together that at 5:00 I woke up Baba.  By 5:30, I called Special Beginnings.  When the midwife called me back, I reminded her about Ellie’s really quick labor and so she told me to count for awhile longer.  In the meantime, we called Yiayia to come stay with Ellie.  I was really worried about you coming out too quickly because you were the second baby and I didn’t want to have you in the car on the drive to SB!  So by 6:00, the contractions were coming quickly and strongly enough that the midwife on call told us we should drive down.

We left our house around 6:30 and on the drive down there, I was chatting away with Baba, feeling pretty carefree and not in much discomfort at all.  I told him during the drive that I was prepared to be not that far along when we got there because I definitely felt different than I had felt when we were driving down there for Ellie’s birth.  However, when we got to the birth centerat around 7:30 am, Lucille, our midwife, checked me and I was only one centimeter dilated.  That, my boy, is NOTHING.  It’s hardly even begun.   It meant that we should have stayed at home for a lot longer.  It meant that everything they told me about hurrying in because you were going to come quickly just wasn’t true.  It meant that we were in for a very long day.

to be continued…(part two)