Its amazing to me to look back one week ago and realize how different our life will be from now on. I don’t know what I was expecting from Joel’s birth, but it was nothing like what I had planned on it being. I know they say that each birth is different, but I guess that didn’t sink in for me beforehand. Everyone had been saying the labor would be shorter, and I think mentally I took that to mean it would be easier, ha! Not only was it much harder, but it was just as long as Lucy’s. (granted I realize that things could always be worse, but to me it was a very challenging experience).
We had done our fair share of research beforehand and planned to birth Joel at home as long as nothing was alarming or medically excluded us from this process. The CPM program for the state of WI has a pretty black and white list of what they can and cannot do in terms of helping women birth at home. Some things, like diabetes and hypertension automatically exclude women from being able to birth at home in this state.
Ian and I, similar to Lucy’s birth had gone out to dinner on Wednesday night, our 9th wedding anniversary. We picked Lucy up from my parents and went to bed like any other night. I woke around 1:30 am to go to the bathroom and thought I may be leaking fluid, but I didn’t want to get excited about it since I wasn’t really having contractions. I tried (SO HARD) to sleep, but maybe slept 20 minutes here and there, watched some tv shows and sat in the recliner in the living room for awhile. At 3:30 I got up to go to the bathroom again and knew for sure my water had broken....I made my way to the bathroom and noted it was clear. I called our midwife and let her know, I still wasn’t having contractions. She told me to call her when I was having them. I slept again maybe a few stretches of short intervals until morning when Deb called me for an update. No real contractions. She said the goal is to be having regular contractions within 18 hours of broken water, which we were calling at 3:30. I was getting tired of sitting around so I called my acupuncturist who was wonderful and accommodated me at 10:30 am. We went down to her office in Bayview, Ian and Lucy went to the birth center to pick up the birth pool and to Alterra for coffee and a cookie while I had acupuncture. I wasn’t noticing contractions much during or after the treatment. I talked to Deb on the way home and she suggested that if nothing happened by mid afternoon to try using a breast pump. I again, was tired of waiting so did it immediately when we got home, and then we went for a walk to Wick Field, just down the street from our house so Lucy could play at the park.
Before we even left I started having contractions 2 minutes apart, and the whole time we were there I was walking around and having them 2 minutes apart. I made sure to have Ian take a picture of me, since it would be my last pregnant picture and it was 39 weeks exactly. We took the long way home, walking around the block. We walked past Lucy’s favorite house, they have a coy pond and little bridge a street down from us. I talked to a few people, the midwife, my doula, Alison and coordinated timing for when they would come. I didn’t want people sitting around waiting while I was in early labor, as it seemed like it was taking longer than I thought it would. By the time we got back my mom had come from work to play with Lucy.... we sat and talked for a little while, Lucy had lunch and I did a few last minute things I wanted, I made some homemade gatorade concentrate for labor. By about 2 or so Ian and I went on another walk and that is when I remember the contractions getting stronger and I was stopping each time I had one to wait till it was gone. I remember asking Ian while we were walking down Washington Blvd. if it would be weird if I knelt down on all fours while I had a contraction and he told me to wait till we rounded the corner :). I remarked to Ian when we were on 53rd, that it was funny that we were married at the church right on the corner 9 years prior (on June 5th) and now we were bringing our child into the world.....a neat memory for sure....By the time we got home our midwife and doula had arrived and were setting up all their supplies. I sat around chatting with Alison and my mom....I went in and out of the bedroom, I remember wanting to be a part of the action in the living room, so I went out there every once in awhile. Eventually the contractions were getting really tough...I wouldn’t call what I had as back labor, but I remember feeling contractions much stronger than with Lucy....maybe it was because I was just expecting it to go faster that they felt more intense to me....but they were....strong...challenging...I was so thankful to have Ian be so supportive. He was doing acupressure on my back (on a spot for pain relief) with most of the contractions. When he wasn’t, Alison was right there. Then, when they started to get really bad he would push on the ones on my wrists to help with nausea....and the ones on my feet to help with heartburn. I am so thankful that I didn’t throw up once during the labor (nor did Ian!) an accomplishment for both of us....I was throwing up for Lucy’s entire labor, which made me have to get IV fluids in the hospital....both Lucy and I ended up with way more fluid than we needed, which caused her to lose extra weight and me to look/feel super puffy after her birth. This time I was thankful to have my nausea and heartburn mostly relieved by acupressure. And the spots on my back when Ian would push really helped with the pain. I noticed that I wasn’t moaning as much when he pushed on them.... I remember at one point I heard Alison trying to 'shush' Jadon, her 9 month old, thinking maybe it was disturbing me, and I remember saying in our bedroom for someone to tell her that he was fine, it wasn't bothering me at all. I enjoyed hearing Jadon from the other room, it was comforting to me to hear normal noises, like Jadon and Lucy playing...
Alison, Ian and Deb (our midwife) were all working on getting the birth pool set up while my labor was getting noticeably more intense. Alison’s husband Jon came by at one point and figured it out thankfully. I remember just telling them to forget it at one point....I didn’t have my heart set on a water birth and felt like I was dealing with the contractions well enough. They got the birth pool set up finally and thanks to our very hot water it was filled and plenty warm for me to get in. Once I got in I was so thankful we had it. At some point before I got in, Deb checked my cervix for the first time and I requested she not tell me how far dilated I was. I remember with Lucy’s birth I was so focused on the numbers, and if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear I would have been really disappointed and mentally focused on how my body wasn’t working well. Thankfully I never heard numbers I was disappointed with, but it could have gone worse. With Joel’s labor, Deb checked my cervix twice total and both times (after learning what the numbers were after the fact, I am glad she didn’t tell me). I did ask her what station the baby was at as I felt that the labor was taking longer than I anticipated (it was). But that wasn’t enough to dash my hopes....Anyway, the water felt so good. Don’t get me wrong, this labor was still very intense and harder to deal with than Lucy’s....I don’t know what I would have done without the water and acupressure..... Lucy was in and out of the bedroom while I was in labor. She loved the birth tub and wanted to play in/get in it. We had to tell her not to touch the water....(my water was broken) Ian and I were surprised at how calm she was. We thought she would get anxious and want to leave with my mom. They stayed till about 7pm and left for her house for the night (and Kopp’s custard which I found out later!) I remember getting out of the birth pool one last time to go to the bathroom, which was such an enormous chore....I don’t know how long it really took but it felt to me like at least 30 minutes....Having contractions while sitting on the toilet hurt really bad....not that they didn’t hurt already! I remember after this point having transitional thoughts going through my head....thinking I can’t do this, how nice a c-section or epidural would be at this point...I don’t know specifically how long transition lasted but it seemed like forever. I remember saying a few of those phrases out loud to Ian...including things like this sucks! Other thoughts that roamed through my head were things like, why is this taking so long? I wanted to yell at Ian for the longest time to just push on my back (acupressure points) with every contraction, why do I have to ask them to do this every time? (Later on Ian told me that they were having a hard time telling when my contractions were coming because I was so internal). They said they had a hard time communicating with me for quite awhile between contractions...I remember taking awhile to answer them, I also remember falling asleep a few times....Remember, I had been up on and off since 1:30am the previous night and it was now around 8pm..... So before I got back in the birth pool for what I knew would be the last time, Deb checked me one more time and all she told me was that I was getting close....I felt like she was encouraging me to stay out of the birth pool, or sensed that she thought it might slow things down, but that was all I wanted to do at that point. I asked her what station the baby was at, and I think she said 0 station, but she might have said -1. Which to me felt slightly disheartening....I think I was already at a 0 station before going into labor with Lucy, I felt like this baby was taking forever to come out (because I was convinced beforehand I would have a short labor). So, I got back in the birth pool, I have no idea how much time passed but my body started to push. I remember feeling like no progress was being made and frustrated that the pushing was doing nothing. With Lucy I remember feeling like pushing felt like a relief and felt so good and I could clearly feel the decent down the birth canal....this time it just felt like contractions (i.e. painful) with me pushing. Thank God it only lasted like this for 20 minutes :). I would have felt quite disheartened if it took longer.....so after 20 minutes my body pushed really hard and all of a sudden his head was out....while it happened I remember thinking that it felt like his whole body had come out it felt so big compared to Lucy. With Lucy I remember feeling the ‘ring of fire’ and feeling like it wasn’t so bad.....with Joel it just felt like a full sized basketball was passing through my pelvis, literally. and it HURT! And before I or anyone else knew it, the rest of him came out which felt just slightly smaller than a full sized basketball. So from what everyone recalled, he came out in about a push and a half. Deb said she barely had time to catch him. I told Alison prior that she is welcome to catch if she wanted and from what it sounds like (I was on my hands and knees so I couldn’t see what was happening) Deb had put her hands down to check for crowning and caught his head and before she knew it his body was out....she passed him over to Alison to lift out of the water and hand to me. I was told the student midwife was running out to her car to get more gloves and almost missed it! I had to turn over carefully in the water because the cord/placenta was still attached, before I even sat down I saw that it was a boy and said, ‘oh its a boy’, like I wasn’t surprised at all....which I wasn’t, but since we have Lucy a foreign subject to me thus far....Alison handed him to me and my first thoughts were so different than with Lucy- I don’t remember thinking much. I remember just wanting to hold him tight. He wasn’t breathing for about 30 seconds and was a little blue-apparently it scared Ian....I wasn’t concerned because he wasn’t floppy at all and he had done a little breath while Alison had him....he then started breathing/crying and pinked up (his 1 minute apgar was 7) so the whole episode wasn’t a big deal, just scary to a non medically trained person.....Ian was sobbing and I remember not seeing him well because it was dark in the room....I wanted to see him so badly (that was one of my favorite memories from Lucy’s birth). My favorite part immediately after Joel came out was kissing his head....he was decently covered in vernix (which Lucy was not being 41 weeks)....i remember during the labor wanting/needing chapstick so badly and never asking for it. Anyway, I rubbed the vernix in to my lips, it was like the most moisturizing chapstick ever, a huge relief for my chapped lips. Shortly after Joel started breathing well they helped me get out of the birth pool and onto the bed to birth the placenta. I don’t even really remember it coming out to be honest. With Lucy I remember the sensation, it felt bigger than I expected. This time I don’t even remember it it was so little compared to Joel. :) I remember Deb remarking that I was hardly bleeding at all which was nice. I hadn’t really even torn, there was a small tear, barely a first degree which she gave me the option of having repaired or not (so thankful for having a practitioner that let me make the decisions about my own health). I attribute my lack of tearing with Joel’s fast passage to nutrition and position. My body wanted to be in the hands and knees position no matter what else I tried and I did everything I could to eat well....lots of animal fats (raw milk!) and in the last few weeks I was taking a grass fed collagen supplement to help with tissue strength/repair. I also attribute the lack of bleeding to my eating lots of leafy greens the last few weeks and drinking nettle tea/infusions (high in vitamin K1). My second favorite part after seeing Ian cry was watching him be weight in the sling (traditionally a homebirth practice) I took a picture of it, and remember feeling so happy and thankful for homebirth....and proud of myself for making it to that point....this was no walk in the park compared to Lucy’s labor....I remember thinking/saying several times that I don’t want to do that again...it was that bad. My body/mind has since forgotten the sensation :). Joel had a pretty big bruise over his face since he came so fast. I remember thinking that there was some kind of anomaly looking at his ear when he first came out...it looked to me like one of those cauliflower ears that boxers get....and he had a racoon mask over his right eye for about 24 hours (Thanks to homeopathic arnica for taking care of it so quickly). Anyway, I remember being SO proud that Joel was over the 8 lb. mark....and thankful that he wasn’t overdue since he would have been closer to 9lbs! I had wanted a bigger baby this time, knowing that they would be healthier, especially with the difference in my diet in this pregnancy compared to Lucy’s. I also loved watching the placenta exam, Ian had to leave the room. :) Joel’s amniotic sac was still intact around the placenta which was so cool to see (another sign of good health) and the placenta looked so much healthier than Lucy’s....which also made me happy. Joel was contently nursing at this point....we saved the placenta for encapsulation, which I am so thankful we did....Deb and Brandi stayed about 2 hours after Joel was born, doing all their assessments, helping me get situated. I can honestly say that everything was so different this time. The first time I got up to go to the bathroom I thought i could just walk like normal (because I did last time and felt fine)....but this time I was short of breath. Deb said from having no support with no baby there pushing on my lungs and she was right. I had to hunch over to go to the bathroom the rest of the night so I didn’t lose my breath....but all in all the recovery has been slower, but easier than Lucy’s. Joel has been such a blessing to us already, I can see his personality coming out already. He is a lot like Ian-not subtle about what he wants but very gentle....he is so content-he only cries when he’s really really hungry or when I’m changing his diaper. at two weeks old he had already gained well over a pound, we haven’t worried about him one bit! I can’t wait to see him grow and mold our family more and more over the coming months and years. I feel so incredibly blessed to have him and all the wonderfully supportive people in our life. Ian is the most wonderfully supportive husband (ESPECIALLY in labor :) ) and my friend Alison has the epitomy of a servants heart. She has been bringing us raw milk since Joel was born, I couldn’t ask for a better friend that supports me unconditionally and gets all the crazy things I do/am. My mom, even though she was scared to death about us having a home birth was there nonetheless taking care of Lucy and helping out. Our midwife Deb is just what I was hoping for in a homebirth midwife. Someone that presents all the options, risks, outcome possibilities and lets me decide for myself. Thats how health professionals should be....and the rest of our family that has come by to welcome Joel, bring us meals, play with Lucy, etc. Joel is a very blessed boy to be a part of this family and we are blessed to have him in our lives.
Joel Barton Westermann
6/6/13 8:35 pm
8 lbs. 2 oz. 20 inches
P.S. i can't say that I'm resurrecting my blog, just needed somewhere to post this. :)
P.P.S For those of you interested, here is Lucy's birth story.
