The Birth Story (from Mary's perspective)

Ethan came sooner and faster than we had anticipated.  Because first time mothers often go past the due date, our philosophy throughout the pregnancy was to pretty much count on him coming about 10 days late and see it as a pleasant surprise if he decided to come sooner.  I wanted to be able to enjoy the whole pregnancy without getting impatient at the end.  I think it was somewhere around 35 weeks that we started hearing a bunch of stories of babies coming early and decided we had better prepare mentally in case he did come earlier than expected.  I think that was a blessing from Heavenly Father because even with some mental preparation it was still hard to convince ourselves that this really was the day!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Terral gave me a blessing before we laid down to try to get some sleep.  It was a very comforting blessing.  I was worried that in spite of all the reading and preparation I had done, I wouldn't be able to remember what I needed to do.  I was assured in the blessing that I would be able to apply the things I had studied and my body would work the way it was supposed to.  One of the reasons I felt so comfortable with our decision to do a homebirth was because I have faith that Heavenly Father made my body to do this.  I have the ability because He gave it to me, and the blessing was a wonderful reassurance of that.

We had discussed several different methods of pain management with our midwife, but the biggest thing we had concentrated on was relaxing using the Bradley method.  Terral and I read a couple books together about how to do it and had practiced it.  The husband is supposed to act as a coach, but because we had so many things to gather and get ready, Terral stayed pretty busy doing that while I concentrated on relaxing.  I really feel that the practice we had done together helped me to do it on my own.  And it was important to me to know that he was taking care of things.  He always came quickly whenever I called his name.

In some of the books we read, contractions were described as starting at the top of the belly and extending down as the contraction peaked (if it wasn't back labor).  I never really felt anything above my belly button.  At one point when I was laboring in the tub, Terral was pouring hot water over my belly to help, and he started pouring it at the top of my belly during the contraction.  I didn't like that and asked him to do it from the belly button down.  Well, maybe I told him rather than asked. : )  You don't have much energy to waste on words.  I didn't really realize until afterward how quiet I had been and how Terral really didn't know where we were at in the process.

When I was timing contractions, I tended to not count the beginning and end of it, I guess because I didn't want to think I was further along than I really was.  I also had "aftershock" contractions that I didn't really count.  Between good long contractions I would sometimes have a short, less intense contraction that would only last 15-20 seconds, sometimes less.  I guess it goes back to not really believing the time had come!  The labor progressed faster than I thought it would.

When I called Janae the second time at about 4:00 in the morning, I was between contractions.  At that point, I was getting some good rest between.  You know how women say that you forget the pain of childbirth?  It was kind of like that after every contraction.  She asked me to describe the contractions, and I said I definitely needed to stop and concentrate on them, but was handling them fine.  I guess I sounded too confident, because she decided it would probably still be several hours and I should call when they got more intense.  About an hour later, I realized we should probably call her when I felt like crying and had fleeting thoughts of, "I'm not sure I can do this on my own".  So Terral called her and she started on her way. 

I didn't really vocalize that feeling of doubt, but I do remember saying "I can't" twice.  Once was when I was laboring on the bed shortly after we called Janae that last time.  Terral was trying to tell me to relax as we had practiced, but I just didn't feel like I could anymore.  I wiggled my toes and made some other movements to distract myself.  I think from that point on I mostly relied on counter-tension.  When I was in the tub I would sometimes lean on Terral and squeeze him really tightly.

Soon after I moved to the tub, I couldn't ignore the urge to push.  I kind of wanted to hold off because Janae wasn't there yet, but it made the contractions easier to handle and I knew this baby was coming one way or another.  I tried not to push as hard as I could though because I didn't want to tear, and of course I wanted Janae to be there.  About 15 minutes before Janae got there I was in the middle of a contraction/push when suddenly I felt a pop and gush and I knew the water had broken.  I gasped a little.  I thought Terral had heard the noise, but found out later he didn't even know I was pushing.

When Janae arrived she came with a calm and confident air that helped put me at ease.
I told her I was pushing.  She checked me and said, "No wonder!  You're at a 10 and his head is right there."  With the next push I could feel him descending.  There was definitely no real restimg between contractions anymore.  Janae checked the baby's heartbeat and said everything was fine.

Janae asked me (maybe before this?) if I wanted to go to the living room or stay where I was and drain the tub.  I said I didn't want to move, so she dragged all of the stuff into the bathroom.  It's pretty amazing that we all fit in there.  I later joked that our apartment wasn't small enough--I had to pick the smallest room we had!  Because of the small and awkward space, Janae told me I would need to guide his head.  This was the second time I said I didn't think I could.  I was sitting in the tub and leang back some, and when I would push I lifted myself up on both hands and leaned over to the right.

She asked if I could straighten myself out.  I knelt to do so and suddenly he was crowning!  We all felt his head.  In this position, I felt I could guide him much easier.  Janae told me to take it slow and just give little pushes. The intense urge to push wasn't there anymore, and I felt like I could control it and do as she asked.  She said I would need to guide his head when it came and then she said something about adjusting so his shoulders could come.  On most of the births we watched, the baby would rotate before the rest came out, but Ethan slipped out all at once, "like a wet seal" as one of my sisters put it.  I caught his head, but then he kept going in the water and Terral caught the rest of him.  He was the normal purpley/blueish color, but he quickly became a wonderful healthy pink.  Really, I don't know if pink is the right description.  He had such a normal skin color.  Just healthy is really the best way to describe it.  He scored 9 and 10 on the Apgar. 

Terral handed Ethan to me pretty quickly and I just knelt there for a minute in the tub looking at my baby, hardly believing he was here.  Janae said he didn't have a very long cord, and she asked Terral to hold him close to me while she helped me out of the tub.  I handed the baby back to Terral, and then we saw that the placenta was already out!  I hadn't even noticed.  Janae helped me out of the tub and onto the mat.  She had set up a pillow against the tub with a towel over it so I could lean back while she checked me.  When I was laying down, Terral handed me the baby again and a he was kept warm by my body, a little cap, and a warm receiving blanket.  Janae checked the placenta to make sure it was all there, which it was.  Then she cleaned me up and checked for tearing. While she was doing that, Terral brought me some orange juice, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I did have a small tear, and Janae said if I didn't want to sit with my legs together for a week, it would be best to stitch it together.  I only needed one though.

We moved to the living room to take care of that and all of the other after care.  It was amazing to hold my baby.  I kept looking to see familiar features, but I thought he just looked like himself.  In the time since there have been moments when he's looked like various family members.

Ethan did so little crying that first day.  He is amazing!  Other than a few bursts right at the beginning, he was just so chill.  Janae said he wouldn't like a few things, like cleaning the ink off his feet after getting his footprint, but he never cried.  He's made up for that since then. ; )  But really he's been such a good baby.  We're just new to this whole parenting thing, so it's taken a little while to figure out a few things.

I can't get enough of looking at this miracle of a boy.  He is so sweet  We love him so much and are so grateful to be his parents.  Heavenly Father has truly blessed us.

The Birth (from Terral's perspective)

I thought it would be fun to write the birth story from both my perspective and Mary's. It all started on Wednesday the 29th. Mary was tossing and turning in bed that morning. We had slept in although we were both planning on getting up. Right now I know it was divine intervention that led to our sleeping in since we haven't had much sleep since. She was uncomfortable and was apparently having very small contractions. She didn't tell me about it until later that day when she had a few random contractions. We both passed them off as Braxton Hicks contractions and didn't think they were actually leading to anything. That night I was working late on a project and Mary came in and said she had what they call a bloody show. The description isn't pleasant but it basically means that real labor is right around the corner. She also told me that she had been having regular contractions for a little while. They were about 8 minutes apart.

At this point we didn't really know what to do but since it was kind of late I thought that we should go to bed while Mary would be able to get some sleep before she couldn't. She, of course, began to worry about all the things we would need to get ready for the birth since we were planning on having him at home. She wanted to clean the bathroom, at least since she would be laboring in the bath tub. I protested a little bit because I though that rest was more important for her than a clean bathroom but she said she probably wouldn't sleep if she was worried about it. I knew from experience that this is true.

After we cleaned the bathroom the contractions had continued to strengthen and were more regular at about 7 minutes apart. We decided to call our midwife who lives in St. George so that she would have a heads up. She told us to call when the contractions were 4-5 minutes apart and about 40 seconds long. We went to bed at sometime after 12:30 a.m. but between the excitement and the contractions getting stronger it was impossible to sleep. We finally just got up to prepare. It wasn't long that Mary couldn't do much because the contractions were getting strong enough that they took most of her concentration. I was supposed to be coaching her though them but there were so many things that we needed to do and she seemed to be doing perfectly on her own so I went out and shoveled snow so the midwife would have a place to park. I also began getting out all the baby stuff and preparing towels, etc. Right when I got done with the snow Mary had called the midwife because the contractions were getting less far apart and longer. The midwife thought that if she left right then, she would have to wait here for a long time (which is not that unusual). She said just to call back when the contractions were more intense.

Mary had labored in and out of the bath tub, but decided that the tub was better so at this point we were pretty much in the bathroom the whole time. She was working pretty hard with the contractions and I could tell that they were intense. She looked at me and said, very sternly, "call Janae!" I called her and she began getting ready. From there the labor was getting pretty serious pretty fast. I thought that there would still be several more hours so I wasn't too worried about the midwife getting here on time. I was, however, worried about the snowy roads since the weather was so bad. Mary had begun making a little bit of noise though the contractions and she would squeeze my hand but she handled it very well. What I didn't know at the time was that the urge to push had begun. Soon after that she was pushing and I thought it was just some hard contractions.

We had read all about the different stages of labor and the last stage usually accompanies self-doubt. They all said that the mother would say something like, "I don't think I can do it!" Mary never said anything like this. The only thing she said was, "where's Janae!?". This was part of the reason I didn't think that labor had progressed as far as it really had. Our midwife finally came and checked Mary. She told us that she was dilated to a 10 and that he was well on his way. Only a few minutes later he was crowning. Janae asked us if we wanted to drain the tub and have the baby in the other room where we had everything laid out and ready to go but by that time it was too late to move. Little Fox was almost with us. Janae asked Mary to straighten out a little bit and either lean back or squat. As soon as Mary got on her knees to straighten out he started coming. Mary made some smaller pushes and then one big push and he was out. Our midwife was there to guide us but we pretty much delivered the baby by ourselves. Mary reached down to get him but he came out so fast that he sort of slipped through her hands and into the water. We were not planning on doing a water birth but that's just the way it happened. I picked him up and handed him to Mary. I can't exactly explain how it felt but we were both very happy. After that I got the shakes so bad that when I put weight on my toes I bounced up and down like Tigger!

We are very grateful and we feel very blessed to have him with us!

It Begins

So much for catching up on things before the baby gets here. :)  I can hardly believe it, but I'm in labor.  I kept passing it off as prelabor or Braxton Hicks or something, but it's continued for about four hours now, so I guess I just have to accept it!  I can hardly believe that by this time tomorrow our little boy will be with us.

Last Thursday (the 23rd) we had a midwife appointment.  She checked to see if I had dilated or effaced, and there wasn't any progress.  So we traveled to Delta the next day to celebrate Christmas with my family.  Terral was quite nervous about that at first, but then we both felt good about it.  We ended up staying until Tuesday.  On the way home I was quite uncomfortable and I knew something was in the works.  Up to that point I hadn't experienced any Braxton Hicks or anything.  Even though I could tell the process had started, I was still expecting it to be at least a week before I really went into labor.

This morning (or rather, yesterday morning) I woke up quite a bit because of an uncomfortable crampy feeling.  At one point, I thought, "I should look at the clock in case this turns out to be something."  When I did finally look at the clock it was around 10:00 am.  We somehow slept in quite late because we hadn't slept all that well at my parents' and it was very overcast this morning so we didn't have sunlight to wake us.  I guess it's a good thing we did, though.  It's probably the last long sleep we'll have in a long time!

I had mild contractions the rest of the day, but they were really sporadic and I didn't keep track.  Finally sometime after 11:00 pm I decided they were coming close enough I should probably start tracking them.  We called Janae (our midwife) at about midnight.  The last set had been about 8 minutes apart and we thought we should give her a heads up just in case.

I told Terral I really wanted the bathroom clean before we went to bed, so he suggested that I read the Book of Mormon out loud while he cleaned.  (We were on 3rd Nephi chapter 18)  We finished cleaning together, and then Terral gave me a wonderful blessing.  Finally we went to bed to try to get some sleep while we could.  I almost drifted off a few times, but eventually I decided the contractions were intense enough and close enough there really was no way I was going to sleep.  Especially not when I kept thinking of things we needed to do before Janae got here.  So we got up, and now Terral is out  shoveling snow while I write this post. :)  Of course our baby's birth coincides with a winter storm when we've been having such mild weather.  I think the majority of the snow has passed though, so traveling should be manageable for Janae.

I can't explain the emotions I have right now.  I've done as much preparing as I could in these months leading up to the birth, but now I feel so unprepared.  Well, I guess that feeling has mostly subsided since the blessing Terral gave me.  We've got all the essentials.  The projects I wanted to do will just have to wait.  I've got something more important to concentrate on now. :)