Anastasia

The birth story is written not to my daughter, but to all the women interested in birth. Birth stories pass along knowledge and knowledge is power, and power is what you need to bring your precious child into this world.

Our story begins with me waking up early feeling pain everywhere. Even the covers laying over me hurt me. I got up and searched for a comfortable seat. I ended up in the new rocking chair in front of our sliding glass doors. I rocked and watched the morning mature and evolve. After a few hours the pain began to ebb only to return. I began to wonder if this might be contractions...but there were no peaks...so no, they couldn't be, I told myself. My husband got up and began getting ready for work. It was Saturday, but he'd been told he needed to work. As we talked I began to get peaks, so yes these were contractions...but only about 3 an hour...no reason to fuss. I mentioned to my husband that this discomfort could be related to the baby. I was interested to hear his read without my input. He often can determine I'm in pain before I admit it to myself. He said he was sure it wasn't related to labor and nothing would happen today. As he drug his feet and decided not to go in early like he usually does on Saturday, I got a little concerned and thought about telling him, but I didn't want to be wrong and have him skip work.  I was sure I was in labor, but was prepared for it to last days...just in case. He eventually left and I got dressed and jumped into doing laundry and moving boxes out of the nursery to the basement. I found that if I was moving during a contraction I didn't even get a peak, so definitely early, I kept telling myself.

About 7 pm I was bringing up the last load of laundry in the house and the basket was touching my belly when the contraction started. That hurt, but once I moved the basket, the contraction returned to being pressure without pain. I decided to sit down and time the contractions for a while. I didn't have a second hand on the clocks in the house and I couldn't stand to sit in any chair but the rocker, so I couldn't use the computer. None the less, it seemed like they were coming every 5 minutes, but still not painful. I tried not to pay too much attention as I didn't want to start tensing up anticipating them.

At 8 pm, I decided it was time to start welcoming the contractions. So when each one would happen, I would start talking to the baby out loud. I would tell the baby how my job was to get really big and their job was to turn and slide out. I began to imagine the vertical muscles pulling up the horizontal ones and that morphed into a girl lifting a hoop skirt dress...I don't know why, but the image worked for me.

At 9 pm, there was still no mucus, blood, or poop to suggest that things were really progressing. The contractions still didn't hurt. I was still talking through them. They weren't getting any closer together. So, while I was sure I was in labor, it didn't seem like birth was getting closer. So I decided on a shower. I took a 30 minute shower and didn't have a single contraction. So I decided I was earlier in labor than I thought and prepared myself for this to take a few days as I dried off. Then I had a bowel movement that was a bit painful and had a few drops of blood on the paper. Finally some progress. I got dressed and headed out to the living room. By the time I got the 20 feet to the living room I realized I needed a bathroom again and scooted past the chair to the guest bath. I sat down and my water broke.

Once it slowed down I went to my bathroom for a pad. As I got back to the living room, I had another contraction and another gush of fluid. I headed back to the bathroom for a depends. Once that was under control, I called my husband. I expected he'd be part way home, but he wasn't. I told him to head home now and not wait. I told him not to rush, but leave now. He had a 90 minute drive and I worried about him rushing home and having an accident.

At this point, I got up and packed our bag for the birth center. Then I packed food to take including bagging up frozen and cold things so they could be grabbed quickly on the way out the door. By 10 pm everything was packed, but I was too restless to really sit still. I tried to listen to my hypnobabies scripts, but I just didn't want to sit still. At 10:15 I called the birth center. Clarice called right back and I told her it was time to admit I was in labor and I gave her some details about my day. We chatted for about 5 minutes and I had a contraction during that talk without her knowing it, so I was confident I still had time.  I told her we'd be there about midnight.

Once that call was done, I was out of things to do. As I sat in the chair talking to the baby with each contraction, I realize my visual had shifted to my water gushing all over the floor as I continued to gush with each contraction. So I decided to head to the bathroom so I wouldn't have to worry about the mess.  As soon as I sat on the toilet the contractions picked up. They still didn't hurt, but they seemed a lot closer together. I called my husband to see how close he was. He was about 30 minutes out. I decided there was no point calling friends to take me in as they would take 20 minutes or so to get over here. During our 5 minute conversation I had 3 contractions and had to set the phone down for each one. For the third one I was lifting myself off the toilet and vocalizing. Michael realized the baby would beat him to the house. I still had my doubts about that. We agreed he'd call the birth center.

As soon as I hung up I broke out in sweat and felt sick. I felt really isolated all of the sudden. I called our friends. I woke them up and they headed over. I was bummed. I really hadn't wanted them to come over, per se, I just wanted human contact in the form of someone to talk to. I got into the tub as I was lifting myself off the toilet seat for contractions. I tried to squat, but I couldn't get my knees far enough apart. I had a sensation like a bowling ball between my thighs and just knew there wasn't enough room. So I stood up. That felt right. After the next contraction I told myself that my vocalizations were high pitched and the books all said you needed to keep your sounds low to open things up. The following contraction told me that I had no more control over the pitch of the sounds than I did of the pushing my body was doing.

About that time the house phone rang, but it was too far to the kitchen to answer it. I heard Clarice on the answering machine, but I couldn't bring myself to step out of the tub. Then our friends called on the cell to ask if I needed an ambulance. Oddly, the idea had never crossed my mind. I told them I didn't see any need for one. I was completely calm about the fact that the baby would be born here in the dry bath tub.  That call did remind me that I could check to see how things were progressing, so I did. To my amazement, I found a soft squishy head just 2 inches inside. I had no idea the head would feel like that.  It was so uneven I wondered if the cord was over it. Then the next contraction happened and I realized it didn't matter; there was no time to do anything.

I should note that as each contraction happened I would feel it begin and then my mind would go black. I would be aware that I vocalized and that I reached out to balance against the shower walls, but I didn't feel anything during the contractions.

As the next contraction started I felt the head stretch my perineum and thought I'd get a break soon to determine how I was going to catch the baby. 

The next thing I know I'm standing there clutching a screaming baby to my chest. She was spread eagle screaming at the top of her lungs. I have one brief glimpse of her back and underarm. I think that's how I caught her, but I don't know.

I looked around and saw that there was poop and blood in the tub. I didn't want to sit on it and considered trying to slide it out of the area I was going to sit in, but as soon as I began to lift my foot I felt like I was going to slide. I decided I was more willing to sit in it than I was to risk falling with my baby. I sat down and began trying to rub the cream cheese like vernix into her skin. I found myself chanting "you're ok" over and over as she screamed. After a few minutes I decided to check to see if she was a boy or girl. It registered that she wasn't a boy, but I wasn't convinced I trusted my assessment that it was a girl. It didn't really matter, they were here and healthy.

A few minutes later our friends arrived. The wife came in and followed her cries to the bathroom. She asked about the gender and I checked again to be sure. She went out to tell her husband. Then she came back in asked if I wanted an ambulance or a ride to the hospital. I said no. She asked about cutting the cord; I said no. My husband pulled in a few minutes later and our friend told him it was a girl.

Daddy came in and helped get a towel for the baby to cover her up. I checked to be sure he was still comfortable with the name we'd chosen before addressing the baby as Anastasia for the first time. 

Everyone wanted to know what to do. I had Daddy call the birth center. Clarice told him about getting ready for the placenta and then talked to me. We discussed going to the birth center, but I couldn't imagine getting in a car. So she arranged for Audra to come check us out.

I was in a hurry to get out of the tub. It was gross. I had a few contractions and tried to get to a squat to pass the placenta, but I got dizzy and couldn't manage it. I got a fruit popsicle and tried again without contractions. I could get to a squat, but without contractions all I did was cause more bleeding. I nursed Anastasia hoping to cause more contractions, but nope. Finally I had to just sit back and wait. 90 minutes after I gave birth, I finally passed the placenta. I never purposely pushed for the baby, so the placenta seemed like more effort in an odd way. 

After the placenta was born, our friend took Anastasia into the bedroom so I could get out of the tub.  Unfortunately, I was too dizzy to manage to stand. So I insisted on rinsing me and the tub. A few minutes later Audra arrived. She checked me out and instructed the men to warm blankets in the dryer and to make me tea with lots of honey. After the tea I was able to make it the bed. Audra and our friend cut the cord and brought Anastasia back to me.

We cuddled in the warmed blankets under our big comforter. Our friends left and Audra retreated to the living room. An hour or so later, Audra came back in and checked on me and did Anastasia's height and weight and such. Audra stayed a couple of hours to keep watch before leaving us to rest with our new bundle of joy.

The ladies at the birth center were a great support and comfort throughout a scary pregnancy. The birth was never scary and I'm sure that's because of the quiet confidence the midwives at the birth center had all displayed throughout our care.

Thank you so much, ladies! These words fall short of expressing all the gratitude we feel to you, but they are the best we can do. We feel blessed to have found you for our care and could not have received better care. Thank you.