Casey M.’s Birth Center Birth- Baby #3
Baby #3 Birth Story...
VIEW HER BIRTH VIDEO HERE!
Short version:
Broke my water, few hours later crawled in bathtub, wham, bam, thank you ma’am, baby.
Long version:
My blood pressure had been climbing for the last few weeks of my pregnancy and to avoid “risking out” out of the birth center we decided it was better to get baby out sooner, rather than later.
So starting on my due date I had my membranes swept and went home to do castor oil and pumping. I did that 3 days in a row, each day contractions would begin while pumping and quickly fizzled out when done pumping. I was dilated a bit, but baby wasn’t engaged enough to break my water, plus baby had his arm above his head at one point, so not an optimal labor position.
Saturday morning I woke up before everyone and did the Miles Circuit to try to get baby in better position. That day at 2:30 I met with my midwife for a blood pressure check and to see if baby was more engaged. I was dilated to 2-3cm, 75% effaced, and baby was engaged so we decided to break my water to kickstart labor.
They broke my water at 3:05 and I started bouncing on a yoga ball and pumping in the green room at the birth center to see if anything started and if I needed to stay or go home and wait for things to get rolling... as AROM (artificial rupture of membranes) to start labor ‘can’ be a long process (apparently not for us).
I felt my first contraction at 4:45, but didn’t think I was truly in labor yet since I had contractions with pumping each day before. I stopped pumping at 5:45 to see if the contractions fizzled out or stayed. Surprisingly they stayed. But, I still wasn’t 100% sure if it was labor.
All of a sudden, I was super tired and freezing. So cold I was shaking. Then the contractions were coming hard without much break in between. So, I asked our midwife to fill the tub. I was so cold I couldn’t even wait for the tub to be full to get in. I got in the tub around 6:45pm and they covered me with a warm towel.
I thought getting in the tub would slow things down (as it did with Araleigh), but it didn’t. The contractions were strong and real, but I still couldn’t believe at the time I was in labor because it was so quick. Once the midwives/nurse stopped leaving the room between checks and surrounded me in the tub I knew things were real. I requested to be checked, and I was fully dilated. I couldn’t believe that I went from almost nothing to fully dilated in just a few hours.
We realized the birth would be soon and the people we had invited to be at the birth weren’t there, including my sister-in-law who was going to take photos and bug brother (our 4 year old) who really wanted to be there for the birth.
Right at 8:00 his head started to crown with each push and then retract back in. It felt like this happened forever, slightly out and back in over and over. But, I could feel his full head of hair which kept me motivated during the hardest part of labor.
At 8:12 he was born, crying immediately, and completely covered in vernix. Hubby hopped in the tub to snuggle the new baby with me (this was a complete surprise and I would have never guessed he would do that). It took us a full 5 minutes or so of soaking him up before we even checked the gender (the midwife had to ask if we’d checked yet). His chunky cheeks, adorable double chin, and broad shoulders had us mesmerized.
We stayed in the tub over an hour just soaking him up. Hubby got out of the tub, dried off, and did skin-to-skin while the midwife team helped me out of the tub and into a big queen sized bed.
We called our families to let the know baby was here already, and asked them to come and bring big brother and sister to meet their newest sibling.
When they arrived, big brother ‘looked’ at the gender first and announced to our little room of visitors “I think it looks like a penis”. The midwife came back to take his measurements, weight, temp, etc. I love that they let initial bonding happen before doing so. He was our biggest baby yet at 8 pounds, 8 ounces and 21.5 inches long. It took us forever to finalize his name, we had two picked out and then had to decide how we wanted to spell it. He almost went home nameless.
We left shortly after midnight and I was starving! So after some late night Taco Bell (trying to hide the visible Ziploc bag with the placenta sitting between us from the drive-thru worker) we headed home. Everyone was asleep when we got home, so we crawled into bed and dozed off thinking that this could have all been a whirlwind of a dream since it happened so quickly.
They say 3rd births can be a wild-card and it sure was... Fast, furious and intense. Both of the other kids’ labors were longer and felt like running a marathon up a slight hill, gradually increasing in intensity. This was a full sprint on a plateaued mountain top. It was hard, but I wouldn’t change it!
With every baby, I’ve always worried how can I love another one as much as I love the others. But man, your heart just grows and once he was born I couldn’t envision our lives without him.
VIEW HER BIRTH VIDEO HERE!