Dax's Birth Story

I wrote this just a couple days after Dax was born, so keep in mind that I was sleep deprived, and the pain was still pretty fresh on my mind. After those first few weeks, that pain became more of a fuzzy memory. Now, almost 5 months after his birth, I actually look forward to laboring and giving birth again, sans medication. It's funny how that works. Some have said that the human race would have died out long ago if women actually vividly remembered the pain of childbearing, but I digress.

Once upon a time...

First of all, I still don't know how I did this. I'm just in shock that I actually made it through this labor without pain meds. I always thought I had a high pain tolerance, but dang, this hurt.

My water broke Tuesday morning (May 13, two days before my due date) around 6:45 or so, after a sleepless night of coughing and blowing my nose. I honestly think that might have triggered it. I had my first true labor contraction about 30 minutes later, on the way to the birth center to get checked out. My midwife checked the baby's heart rate, just to make sure the head wasn't pressing down on the cord. She didn't want to do too many internal exams since my water was no longer intact, so she didn't do a cervical check just then. She sent me home with a Doppler and had me call in every so often to give updates.

I walked around, did some cleaning, sat on the birth ball, surfed the net - the usual. I paced up and down the breezeways of our apartment building to get things moving, and I called the birth center periodically to update them on my progress.

Fast forward about 12 hours - the contractions started getting pretty painful, and although they were only lasting about 30-40 seconds, they were coming pretty close together - about 2 minutes apart. We called the birth center, and she told us to come on in. We called Molly, our doula, and had her meet us there.

The MW felt my uterus and timed a few contractions. She said we were welcome to stay, but she felt that we might do better going back home to let the contractions warm up some more. She had a feeling that since I had never labored before, perhaps adrenaline and anxiety were making my contractions so short and close together. So we decided that relaxing, watching a movie, and distracting myself might help my body relax and make the contractions more efficient.

So, we went home. I immediately started bawling in the car. I had no idea how I was going to cope with these contractions. I couldn't imagine anything distracting me from the pain. They were already coming so close and intense, and I thought for sure I was in transition. I was nauseated. I was hot, then cold. I was shaking. The pain was so intense, I swore up and down that I wouldn't make it. Tim was amazing. He kept reminding me of how far I'd come and how strong I was. He told me I was doing great, and even though I didn't believe him at the time, it was really helpful to hear him being so positive.

After about an hour of super painful contractions at home, we called Molly, and had her come over to our house. Like Tim, she was really great at staying positive and reminding me how well I was doing (which, again, I didn't believe). I just felt calmer somehow when she and Tim both were with me. They had different roles, but both worked together really well.

After another hour of contractions, Molly decided to call the MW and let her know how things were progressing. She told her that she could see my uterus contracting, and the contractions definitely seemed stronger. I talked to the MW on the phone (which was pretty much impossible) about how the contractions felt and such. We all decided that we should go ahead and come back to the birth center.

We got there around 9pm, I think (I was pretty out of it). As soon as we got there, we decided that a cervical check would probably be a good idea, so I could know how far I'd progressed. I was 5cm, which was somewhat of a relief since getting from 1-5 takes the longest, even though I knew I still had some way to go. I sat on the birthing ball and leaned against the bed with Tim in a chair behind me, and Molly sat on the bed in front of me.

The next few hours are almost a complete blur to me right now. I was one of those women that falls asleep between every.single.contraction. I head heard of it, but I never imagined it happening to me. I absolutely could not keep my eyes open. I remember falling asleep, dreaming, talking in my sleep, then waking up, thinking "did I just say that?" The contractions were so extreme, too. I would wake up as the contractions started, but I hadn't had a chance to prepare for them, so it was really difficult for me to stay on top of it and "ride the wave", as my Molly said. My MW told me to breathe like I was fogging up a mirror, which helped keep my jaw loose and my throat open. It did help a lot. If I actually managed to stay awake between two contractions (which happened a few times when they were super close together), the second contraction would be much easier to handle since I was awake and ready, but it was near impossible for me to stay awake. I fell completely and fully asleep between contractions. I actually started snoring, and my head bobbed up and down and woke me up a few times. It was quite the spectacle, I imagine.

Eventually, I started pushing spontaneously with the contractions, which actually felt good. It made them a little easier to tolerate. This entire time, though, my contractions were still only 30-45 seconds long, and they were coming just as close as they were before - about a minute and a half to two minutes apart. The MW was not sure that she wanted me to get in the tub (I had planned a waterbirth) until the contractions started lasting longer - more like 60-75 second - and they just hadn't gotten to that point. She was afraid that my labor would stall, so she wanted me to wait as long as possible, which I understood - although I couldn't help but think that getting into water would immensely help the pain.

I think it was around 12:30 when we decided to do another cervical check to see how I'd progressed. Much to my relief, I was 9cm. Woot! My MW had me do a practice push. She said I wasn't quite ready to push yet, so I sat on the edge of the bed for another 30 minutes or so. She asked me how important having a waterbirth was to me, and I said that I really wanted to avoid tearing. I believed that being in water would help with that, not to mention the pain relief aspect. She said that with such an unusual contraction pattern as mine, she was still afraid to get me in the water, since I had progressed so well being out of the water. She said it was really unusual for women to progress all the way to 9cm with that kind of pattern, and she was afraid that making a change to the tub might mess things up. Molly reassured me that she was excellent and preventing tears. I trusted her. I knew they'd attended a lot of births together, so I believed her.

Confident that I could do it without being in the tub, and confident in my MW, I decided to go ahead and deliver out of the tub, in the birthing room. We did another cervical check, and I was ready to push, so I went ahead. I thought I was going to explode. I really don't know how I did it. I felt like my entire body was turning inside out.

She knew that I wanted to catch the baby, so when the head started to crown, she had me reach down and touch it. It was soft and squishy. She told me to keep my hands down there so I could catch. I guided the head out (with her help). When I heard Molly talking about how cute the face was, I knew it wasn't going to be too long. I pushed the shoulders out (man, that felt weird), and my midwife said, "Here it comes, catch your baby!"

After 45 minutes of pushing, I guided the body out, and pulled him to my chest. He looked so tiny compared to the 10lb 8oz baby I delivered before! I think the first thing I said was "Hey baby!" I think Tim was the first to point out that it was a boy, and I verified by turning him over so I could look myself. Sure enough, my radar was right. I had a feeling when I was pregnant that this baby was a boy.

Tim cut the cord, and a little while later, Molly went with him to go weigh the baby - 8lbs 13oz. After the placenta was delivered, the MW checked me over, and amazingly, I only had one small superficial tear that wouldn't even require a stitch at all, so Molly was right - she knows her stuff when it comes to reducing tears. Tim said she used almost an entire bottle of olive oil on me while I was pushing.

Dax nursed within 30 minutes of birth, and he latched on perfectly. My mom and dad brought Jett in a little bit later so he could see his new little brother.

Of course, I must add a few pictures (nothing graphic - no crowning baby pics, or anything like that). Thanks to Molly for taking the middle 3 pictures.

This was taken during early labor. I call it "Tinkerbelly":




Tim holding Dax for the first time:




Nursing for the first time (yes, I still had some blood on my hands and arms):




Meeting big brother, Jett, for the first time (that's my mom holding Jett):




Getting checked out, shortly after birth:



I may also post Jett's birth story here sometime soon. I haven't actually written it out yet. Some of the circumstances following his birth are hard for me to think about, but I really believe it might be cathartic for me to get it out in writing.

I'll leave you with one more picture of Dax, from a week ago-ish: