Baby LC is born! :)

On September 24th at 6h19 pm, our son, baby LC was born.

I woke up at 7h30am with something that felt like it could be contractions. I decided to time them and see if they had a pattern of some sort… sure enough, they were coming every 8 minutes and lasted between a minute and a minute and a half. I had read everywhere that there is such a thing as ‘false’ labor that often comes before the real thing, and I thought that this could possibly be what I was experiencing… Also, everybody said that it could take forever before active labor begins, especially since this was my first child, so I said to my husband that he should go to work and that if it picked up I would call him. My husband’s busy time at work is always the last few days of the month, so I felt like he should go and finish things off at work so that he could be back for the birth without having to worry about work… But he decided to stay instead, and that IF things stalled, he would head off to work…

Thank goodness he did. He ran a few errands to get ready for the birth, just a few things we had mot picked up… During that time, my contractions went all the way to 5 minutes apart… I was calm, thinking of my hypnobirthing techniques, remembering the words on the hypnobirthing CD something to the extent of ‘my birth will be easy because I am so confident’… I had my iPod and this handy app I downloaded where I could track contractions. That helped so much because if I kept an eye on it, I could tell when the next contraction was coming. Some things happened with my… um… digestive system, that made me realize that maybe this was really labor… So I emailed my doula and mentioned where things were and she said that labor had most likely started and that I should keep my energy and have a nap… Knowing that this was probably the real deal made me focus even more on what was going on.

I couldn’t believe that this could really be it because it simply felt like a menstrual cramp that would come for 1:30 minutes and then would go away… A slight cyclical discomfort – I could tell myself to relax when it started, that when my iPod said it had been 1:30 minutes, I would feel comfortable again… The husband came back from his errands and I told him it was time, and he reorganized our living room to get it ready for the birth. Move all the furniture along the walls, inflate the birth pool, fill it up with water, etc.

By 1pm, the contractions were more intense, I was doing ok, but I had to concentrate on them, I couldn’t help the husband anymore. They were 3:30 to 4 minutes apart. I remembered that the doula said to call her when they got to 6 minutes apart, that the midwifes wanted to get the call when I got between 3 and 5 minutes apart… I figured I should call the midwifes, if anything they would check me and see if I made any progress – I was still doubting that this was real! They came over at 1pm, and at that point my contractions were 3 minutes apart… and I was 7cm dilated! O M G! Really?

I asked the husband to call the doula while my midwife helped me to go in the pool, which the husband had just finished filling – talk about good timing! I sat in the pool as I started the ‘transition’ part of labor – the part that is so intense you are supposed to want to give up and yell at people… Everybody seemed genuinely surprised at how calm I was, at how quiet I was. I was just concentrating on my contractions, sitting in the pool…

I was thinking more and more about how I would push a baby out of me, and I started thinking of relaxing my muscles down there. You know just thinking of relaxing my muscles… Things were getting pretty intense and I really appreciated that everybody in the room would shut up when I was having contractions – that was the key to my being so concentrated when the contractions hit.

I was thinking also about how I was in my house, about to have a baby, drug free, in the water, just the way I wanted. It felt so right! But as ‘transition’ progressed with my water still intact, I started to feel like it just wouldn’t break. Like I had a giant beach ball full of water inside of me, and that this is what I was going to have to push out of my body. The midwife was assuring me that it would probably break soon, but that if I wanted, as soon as her assistant showed up, she could check me, and if I was at 10cm, she could break the water for me.

Now, my goal for the birth had been to avoid any intervention, that was what I wished for, all along. That included breaking the water. But the thought of removing that pressure from my body was so comforting – I decided to go for it.

Unfortunately, the baby’s heartbeat briefly slowed at that point so the midwives became more cautious. They asked that I not return in the water to be safe. This is when I realized that plan B was now in effect – which was ok with me. So long as I stayed calm, things could still go very well – at that point it didn’t matter how I would give birth anymore, all that mattered to me was for the baby to be healthy. It was time to push, and after trying the birth stool I was asked to lie on my back – the one way to push I had been so against, but you know what, I honestly didn’t care anymore! I pushed, I was very concentrated, I know things were being said, but I was not paying attention. I felt my husband sitting on the floor, holding my head, not saying a thing, as requested – It was perfect

I pushed for an hour and out came baby LC! at 6h19 pm! So depending on where you start counting, first contraction or ‘active labor’, I was in labor for either 11 hours or 7 hours… Pretty short no?

I was exhausted so when they put him on my chest and all I could see was the blurry top of his head (I wasn’t wearing my glasses anymore:), all I was concerned about was whether or not I had a tear!

NO tear! woo hoo!!! This is even more surprising because I later found out that all the talk amongst the midwives as I was pushing… was about the fact that the baby came out with his arm behind his head! As in the head and the arm came out at the same time… I am so happy to be able to say that I didn’t tear even in these conditions!!! Tearing was my biggest fear and I was looking all over the internet for stories of ladies who had no tears as they gave birth to encourage myself and think that it doesn’t happen to everyone… If someday someone like me is searching the net for a story like this, there will be one to read

Baby LC weighed 7 lbs 13 oz – which brings me to another example of a story I would’ve liked to read. I gained 65 lbs during my pregnancy (from 157 to 222) and I was worried that the fact that I gained extra weight would mean I would get a huge baby – nope! It doesn’t always mean that your baby will be huge if you gain more than the recommended amount of weight! Although it is best to gain the recommended amount and keep eating healthy… At this point, I’m down to 195lbs *gulp* more than I have ever weighed… oh well

So yeah… My how I was not anticipating that taking care of a baby would be this difficult. But I am assuming that sleep at night will come back at some point, right? RIGHT? Boy are growth spurts tough! I am slowly becoming more comfortable with the baby, but I am nowhere as comfortable as many women I see out there – I tackle a little challenge at a time, at first it was going to pee, then getting out of the second floor of my house, then taking care or him on my own while my husband was away, taking him outside, then on a car ride, etc. If it weren’t for my husband I don’t know what I would’ve done – I had no clue how to change a diaper, he had to teach me! lol

He turned one month yesterday and my life is all about him now – my how things change!

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