On Friday night, January 30th, I was watching a movie with Micah when I noticed that I was having subtle contractions every 4-5 minutes. My first ever Braxton Hicks contractions. When I got up and moved around, they went away.
On Monday night, February 2nd, Micah was refusing to go to bed and going back and forth about it with Michael, so I picked him up, threw him over my shoulder, and brought him upstairs. I don't necessarily think that particular incident is relevent, but I had some more menstrual cramp type contractions after that. They seemed to go away also and we went to bed.
At 2:30am, Micah woke up crying and I went into his room to give him a kiss. I noticed then that I was having more contractions. I got back to sleep, a bit restlessly, and woke up at 4:30 with stronger contractions. They seemed to be just a few minutes apart but still very manageable although too strong to sleep with. I woke Michael up, told him I thought I was having contractions and went to take a shower and see if they went away. Just a minute into the shower, it was clear that they were not going to go away, so I kept it short and got out to get ready. I told Michael and we agreed to start getting things together, but weren't ready to leave yet.
I had been told to wait for the first "painful" contraction before coming in but that's a really hard distinction to make. We waited until around 5:45 to call Erin, the babysitter, to ask if she would come to the house until Micah woke up. She suggested bringing him there since she would have to wake him up by 7 to bring him to her house when the other kids she sits for start arriving. Micahel went upstairs to wake Micah while I called the Midwife Center.
The Midwife on call said they had just had three births and would need 30-45 minutes to clean a room. She suggested it still sounded a little early but to go ahead and come in. At this point I was having fairly painful contractions, I could still function and talk during them, but they required some breathing to get through and definitely paused whatever I was doing a bit. Michael got Micah dressed but left him laying in bed while he brought our bags to the car and went out to warm it up (it was 8 degrees outside).
I went upstairs to tell Micah what was going on. I said, "Do you know what's going on?" He said, "No." I said, "The baby says it's time to come out." He immediately put his hand to my belly to touch it. I told him that he was going to go to Erin's house and he started to break down crying. "No I don't want to go to Erin's house, I want to go with you to help the baby come out!" He ended up agreeing and went to the sitter very heavily packed. He had his normal diaper bag, the overnight bag we had packed for labor (not actually needed as it turns out), and he also brought two stuffed animals that he likes to sleep with. He was so good. When we got there, Michael brought his things in and I got out of the car to give him a kiss and a hug and tell him I love him.
At this point, 6am, the most comfortable way to weather the contractions was to pace, so I was outside, with an unzipped jacket, in 8 degree weather, pacing the middle of the street while Micahel brought Micah in to the sitter for the day.
We got to the Midwife Center around 6:30, the room I had hoped to birth in was the one that was available and it was almost clean. The nurse was just making the bed. I don't know when the shift happened, but at this point, my contractions were getting hard to bear. I rested my hands on the bed, leaned over, breathing and moaning to manage the pain while they finished getting the room ready. Michael parked the car and I got changed into a dress for labor. The nurse came over with a dopplar to find the best position to listen to the baby's heart while the midwife got ready to examine me after my next contraction was over. I had to crawl into the bed and lay down to be examined (changing positions is of course not something I wanted to do because I am apparently the most disagreeable laboring woman). The midwife was checking to feel for the baby's head when my water broke like a dam exploding.
At that point, I was already fully dialated. She told me there was a lot of meconium. She said they would have to transfer me to the hospital unless I have this baby right now and that I had to start pushing with my next contraction. Of couse, being disagreeable, this seemed insane to me since my body wasn't ready to push. Of course, she insisted. So I tried to push with every contraction even though it didn't feel like it was doing any good. They were so supportive, telling me, very sincerely that I was going a great job. They made me do all sorts of things I didn't want to do, holding onto my knees to crunch down when I was pushing for example.
Then they listened to the baby's heartrate while I was pushing and it dropped to around 50 beats per minute. Very bad. They put an oxygen mask on me immediately. They had me turn onto my side for the next contraction and it came right back. But that kind of elevated the whole thing to a new level. At this point I had two nurses and two midwives in the room. One of the midwives had a machine prepped to suction out the baby's lungs if needed. This is of course a place where theoretically you would expect to labor with very little intervention and support would take the form of guidance rather than assistance.
Everyone was conferring with each other. I asked that they just tell me what they were talking about (which of course they were telling me everything that was going on), but they were debating on how long to let me labor before transferring me to the hospital and I think they were just trying to come to some consensus. I think they let me push through a couple contractions after the heart rate was back up but then they decided to call 911 and get me to the hospital. I said (of course) that I did not want to get into an ambulance at this point. I asked if I had the baby before the ambulance came, could we stay and the answer was yes. On the next contraction, I felt the burning that told me she was close.
Penelope came out literally moments before the paramedics walked into the room. 7:25am. She came out pink and screaming and covered in poop. I did not care, it was so nice to have her on my chest, the umbilical cord still draped from between my legs. They cleaned her off, suctioned out her nose and mouth with a little bulb suction, they let the cord finish pulsing before they cut it. It was a vividly different experience than the hospital experience I had loved so much when I had Micah.
I had no tearing. I felt great almost as soon as she was out. I was able to just walk into the shower to rinse off while Michael held the baby skin to skin under his shirt. The nurse cooked us breakfast in bed. Scrambled eggs with earth balance margarine for me, an omlette for Michael, english muffins. Since we were the last of four babies born that night, the nurse asked if it was okay for us to stay a little longer than usual. We left 8 hours after she was born, twice the minimum length you have to stay. We got home before Micah was back from the sitter. Almost before Michael's mom had even gotten here from NJ.
It's amazing how quickly everything is changing day to day. The first night, we spent a lot of time pacing with her while she cried. It seemed like she was just so hungry and not getting enough milk. The pediatrician reassured us the next day that she was doing great, had only lost a few ounces from her birth weight, had had two dirty diapers already and was wetting diapers as well which is an indication that she's getting plenty. On the second night, she wanted to nurse every single hour, but she went right to sleep afterward, the third night, she nursed every two hours. Last night I went to bed at 10pm after nursing her and handing her over to Michael. He brought her up when she demanded milk at 11 and again at 12. Then he got in bed and I took over for the night. She woke up at 3:30am and then at 7am. It was a great night.
And of course, the other component of the story is Micah. I don't think he even really saw her the first day, but I brought her down to spend time with him on day two and he has been just completely in love with her. Immediately he wanted to show her his toys, he suggested that he thought she wanted me to put her down on the ground so that he could show her some toys. He kisses her constantly when she is within reach (unfortunate since he's got a rough cold going on right now). He talks about the things he's going to teach her, asks if she can talk yet, if she can crawl yet, wants to read books to her.
Yesterday, Friday, I enjoyed spending some time with him and her both. I put Micah down for a nap while Michael held the baby. I got him after his nap and we sat on the sofa eating a snack and watching tv while I held the baby and had my other arm around him. This morning, all four of us snuggled in bed together for a while. I think this is all going to work out.
