Life of (Sweeite) Pi: A birth story

I've been feeling mildly gross the last few days.  Every night for the past few days while trying to make dinner, I've had some semi-intense contractions--intense enough that I'd rush through dinner and think "Well, we'll eat dinner and then head down to the birth center" but by the time dinner rolled around they'd be done and I'd still be pregnant.  And it was ok, because I was sure this baby would follow the pattern of all the others and wait until my mom was settled in on Saturday.

And then...
5:20 am: A few pops jolted me awake.  I thought my water broke, but it was much more violent then when my water broke with Alice, so I also considered that it might be a dream.  I got up anyway, and sure enough, my water broke.  This time I was smart and woke Greg up right away.  He showered while I ate breakfast, gathered the last of my things, and made the bed.  Yes, I made the bed, because, as mentioned in my previous post, I hate coming home to a dirty house.

6 am: Becky, our wonderful neighbor, came over to sit with the kids, we called the midwife and were off.  We left at the perfect time so we didn't hit any traffic, but it was starting to get that way--this had been a major concern and cause of much discussion in our house.  There are two way to get to the birth center and both run through major areas of business, so which way to go?  We took my way, the freeway, and were fine.

6:40 am: We arrive in Fort Mill, but the midwife wasn't at the birth center yet, so we headed to Bojangles to get Greg some breakfast and then sat in the parking lot of the birth center for a few minutes while we waited for the midwife.  All the while I seriously needed to go to the bathroom, which was uncomfortable, confounded by the mild labor I was in.  Needless to say I was excited when the midwife arrived.

7 am: We enter the birth center.  I basically run/waddle to the bathroom and do my business while the midwife and Greg get everything all settled in.  Then I commence on the labor plan I had worked out in my head.  Because Alice's birth was so lovely, I decided to repeat it.  I didn't feel like showering, so I skipped that step and turned on my Hypnobirthing and lay down for a while, but it didn't do it for me.  I was too far into labor to be able to really relax and I couldn't get comfortable and I had to go to the bathroom again.  So I did.  Greg said I lasted about 15 minutes laying down before I went to the bathroom.  Then I decided to change out of my jammies and into my birthing clothes.  I also considered getting in the shower again but skipped it again.  And then I had to go to the bathroom again. So I did, only then I realized I didn't need to expel human waste I needed to expel a human baby.  I called Greg and told him to go get the midwife. But she was already in the room.  I hobbled out of the bathroom and leaned on Greg while the midwife put some pads on the floor.  And then the feeling passed so I thought it was just a bad contraction.  And then it came again and I decided I didn't want to have a baby anymore so I wasn't going to push.  I was just going to wait for the baby to fall out.  So I didn't push, but that didn't really work out.  So then I decided to just push really hard and get it over as fast as possible, but that didn't feel so good either, so I switched back to method one of not pushing and just waiting for the baby to fall out by himself, then I changed my mind again.  This went on for two contractions or so.  Then I gave myself a little pep talk.  I said--Heather, you've done this before, just get the head out and then things will feel better.  And then it was time to push again, so I did.  And the head came out, but I forgot that you also have to push the shoulders out so I did and out he came.

8 am: Baby was out! And the midwife did exactly what midwives do--she told me to reach down and catch him.  But I could not.  You see when you deliver at a birth center with a midwife, you don't have to get in bed and lay flat on your back in the worst possible position to deliver a baby.  I was swatting and my leg and arm muscles were about to give out, so I had the midwife hold baby for a few seconds while I sat down, then I took baby.  And it was done.

Seconds after being born--sorry it's blurry but we were a little busy

Ok, that was a lie.  Labor does not stop once the baby's out.  They tell you this on TV but it's not true.  Labor is more like, here run a marathon and then when you finish that run a 10K.  The 10K isn't too bad--totally manageable, expect that you just ran a marathon.  So Baby is born, Greg and the midwife help me move to the bed then I have to deliver the placenta--which, as mentioned, isn't much compared to a baby, but after the baby is out I just wanted to be done.  But no, I had to just sit there having more contractions, much more mild ones, but more contractions nonetheless for another 30 minutes or so until the placenta came, and then I was done.  And then I felt sooo much better.

 Baby, on the other hand, was awesome.  He cried as soon as his head was out, stopped for a minutes and then started up again, and then he started nursing.  For an hour.  Seriously, he latched right on and got straight to business.  So I let him.  After an hour, I decided he should switch sides and in the interim, we might as well weigh him.  He was not a fan of this idea, but he lost and we weighed him.  7 pounds 15 ounces--just a bit bigger than Alice was.  Then he ate himself to sleep.

Side story: Cutting the cord: For his birthday Greg bought a super fancy knife made out of super fancy something or other.  He decided that it would be cool to cut the umbilical cord with this knife and then give the knife to the baby as a graduation or 1st child present.  Pretty crazy I know, but his knife sliced right through the cord, unlike the crappy scissors they normally use and require some pretty mad hacking skills.

By this time it was about 10 and I decided that the two showers I had passed up earlier in the day sounded grand.  I handed baby off to Greg, who had spent that last two hours texting family  and friends and uploading pictures to his favorite knife forum.  While I showered, Greg and the midwife tortured poor baby--I think they decided to change his diaper and see how long he is (20.5 inches).  He screamed most of the time I was in the shower.

Being tortured by the midwife

falling back to sleep

When I got out, he'd fallen asleep on the changing table, so Greg and I being the experienced parents that we are, left him there--never touch a sleeping baby.  I got dressed, did my make up, blow dried my hair, picked a name for the baby, filled out paper work and then we waited.  And waited.  And waited--ok it was really only like 20 minutes, but we were getting bored and were ready to go home.  Finally the midwife came back, checked a few more things out, gave us some more paper work, helped us pack our things up and we were gone.  We drove through the Chick-Fil-A drive through on our way home, discussed the merits of hospital v. birth center births and how birth centers are at least 1 million times better than hospitals.   We were bored about 3 hours after the birth and were ready to go home, let alone having to stay for 3 days.  Yuck. We also decided that we can't have very many more children with the way these labors are going (Rex was just over 4 hours; Alice was right at 4 hours; Henry was 2 hours and 40 minutes--we may need to do planned home births from now on). 

Waiting to leave--see how excited I was to just be chilling at the birth center

Also very ready to go.

Walking right out of our room and straight to the car--no crazy security, no bands to cut nothing.  Just off we went.  So relaxed, so casual.

We got home a little after noon, ate lunch, set up the baby's bed, got the rest of the baby gear out of the attic and then Greg ran over to the neighbors to get the other children.  We spent the rest of the day chilling at home.  Rex played games on the tablet; I read Alice stories; Rex and Alice watched some TV; I took a nap; Greg responded to all the crazy comments about his knife on his knife forum and Henry slept on the floor because this is our third time around and if a baby is happily sleeping on the floor then you leave him there.  And now all three kids are in bed asleep and Greg and I are debating napping before we have to go get my mother from the airport or just staying up...I think napping wins.

meeting the siblings

Rex responded to Henry about the same way he responded to Alice--he was super excited, to hold Henry right away, sang Rock-a-Bye Baby to him; got bored and went outside to practice T-ball.

Alice, on the other hand, is a bit more enthralled.  She's asked to hold the baby several times.  She wanted to watch me change his diaper, then she helped me feed him by putting every blanket she could find on top of him and then leaning on him.  Then she yelled at me for being too loud because the baby was sleeping.

And for those of you who haven't had children yet, don't worry, labor and birthing still isn't over at the Baker household.  Now that baby is out I get to spend the next few days with fairly server menstrual cramps as my uterus goes back to it's normal tiny size and just as that's finishing my milk will come in, which feels like someone stuffing your chest full of rocks and then letting a screaming wolverine suck on it.  It may be worse than the actual birth.  I'm undecided.

So welcome our little Pi Day baby: Henry Hampton Baker born at 8 am March 14, 2014 (if we'd waited until next year he really would've been a pi baby 3.1415) weighing 7 pounds 15 ounces and 20.5 inches long.