PB&J's Birth Story

The Beginning
I had a scheduled midwife appointment on Tuesday, the 21st of September. They were only allowed to let me go two weeks past due and this was my one week past appointment. We were going to discuss what natural ways we could try to get labor jump started. DH was of the opinion I was in labor the whole time and just didn’t realize it and the baby would be born by the end of the day. He was wrong, sort of. I knew I had been having contractions, and when we did the non-stress test, it showed quite a few contractions. The midwife checked dilation and did a “stretch and sweep” and applied evening primrose oil. During the exam, I went from barely two cms to three.

We went home planning on walking a lot and seeing if that jump started anything. Between 1230pm and 130pm, all of my contractions were within five minutes of each other but nothing too much to take notice of, although they did get stronger. I called the birth center and the midwife told us to come on in. We were back there by 230 and when I was checked at three by my regular midwife (she wanted to see if she should stay or go to a scheduled meeting) I was four cms.

We took a walk through townfor a couple of hours, stopping by DH’s favorite deli and getting an early dinner and window shopping. We got back to the birth center and my contractions were frequent but easy to handle. I tried the birth ball, then stayed in the tub for a little more than an hour. The Jacuzzi was being used by another woman so I had to make do with the deep tub.


The Second Beginning
I had expected my body to push like what happened with DS, but instead I pushed through the pain. I wanted it to be over with. A few pushes and they held the mirror up for me to see her head, a couple more and I felt this searing pain that made me jump and cry out. They assured me that it was just her head, we found out later that I had torn one of my inner (minor) labia. I think that’s what it’s called. While I waited for another contraction, they urged me to push her body out. DH said later that she was turning blue, even though there was no cord wrapped around her neck. That’s why they urged me to hurry up. One more big push and she was out, riding a gush of water according to DH. In the rush, we forgot we wanted him to catch her, but he said he touched her as she came out, and besides, he was scared of trying to catch such a tiny slippery person. Then she was on my chest and being rubbed dry. I held her while they rubbed her and assessed her, touching the cord and looking at her, trying to get her to look at me. But she squeezed her eyes shut, as if pretending that she was still inside. After the cord stopped pulsing, they clamped it off and DH cut it. I nursed our little daughter, who started right off like a champ.

After a few hours and being checked over, eating and making sure all was well, we went home. We decided to leave DS at my friends, not wanting to get them up in the middle of the night. The next morning, DH went to pick him up as soon as everyone was awake and C got to meet his little sister. The love and awe you could see in his face was magic. Thankfully, we have pictures.

So that’s the story of our daughter, born at 1:25 am on September 22nd. She weighed 8lbs, 8oz and was 21ins.