The Birth Story

I have written the story of each of my kids births- as most people do, but the first two happened before I had a blog. I have never written Nolan's, and it would be nice to do it before I forget most of the details. Don't worry, I won't be TOO detailed. :) (after all, there are no pictures) And, it won't be a sad story, because it was a great birth!

Nolan was due on October 3rd by my midwife's calculations. I felt it was more like the 5th or 6th. I went through my pregnancy pretty stressed this time- we found out we were expecting the same week we put our house up for sale. Then I got seriously sick- bronchitis and such that lasted months. Add morning sickness to that and I was a wreck. The blog posts at that time mostly discussed the house selling situation. Most days, I spent the day cleaning the house, then going out (sick) in the snow and staying out until showings were over. A lot of times it was a 2-4 hr. window where we would need to be gone. E was sick a lot too. (okay, I guess this part is sad)

I am one who has contractions a lot and starting early on in pregnancy, so those started around April/May and got continually stronger. Nothing serious, just obnoxious. I did okay when we went to Disneyland in April, and was able to stay active without too much overheating. I started gaining weight in May/June, as I had lost a bunch at the beginning. That didn't stop me from looking VERY pregnant, however. All my appointments were encouraging, I measured well and Nolan's heartbeat was great every time. On May 5, we went in for our ultrasound and saw him, he was a cute little boy in there snuggling with the placenta and kicking around. My mom, dad, and sister, along with DH and the boys, all came to see. I was ready to start sewing, and started the boyish burpcloths and diapers and blankets and such. It was fun to think of a name and I think we decided on Nolan Ray in about June.

Fast forward to October. I was very large and uncomfortable, was ready to be done. I was SO excited to meet my baby, and to be done with pregnancy. I was sure he'd come around his due date, but he hung in there. About the 5th, we started having storms with a lot of pressure. I would be up all night laboring with pretty strong contractions, then come morning, they would stop. We started walking a few miles each night to try to get things going. It was awful never being able to sleep, so I was getting pretty tired. Around the 7th, I stopped having contractions and was able to at least rest, if not sleep. One of my ribs felt broken, or like a foot was lodged in between a few of them, so it hurt to lay down, but I would try to sleep in a chair. I got worried on the 8th, so my midwife's partner came to check on me because mine was in Logan that day. She said I was finally starting to dialate- to like a 2. She was surprised I hadn't gone into labor and suggested I was too stressed or worried. That was encouraging to me and I sent the boys to my mom's and was able to be alone and relax, which started the contractions coming.

I had read that when you're in labor a good thing to do was to start baking cookies and when you start to burn them, you know the baby will be there soon since you can't focus anymore. So I made and made and made chocolate chip cookies. They were really good, but I could still focus just fine. I turned on music and sang and danced for a few hours. I am glad nobody saw that- I'm sure my gigantic body looked funny. I bounced on the exercise ball and then when my DH got home we walked and walked around the neighborhood. We had dinner (a frozen pizza- yum ;) and then watched "the Office" since it was the Jim/Pam wedding episode. My contractions stopped while it was on and didn't really start back up. Great. We went to bed around 10:00 and got a few hours sleep. We considered going to my mom's to get the boys to come home to sleep, but decided it was late so even though the baby probably wasn't coming, we'd leave them there for the night.

I woke up at midnight to pee (of course) and never really could go back to sleep, I was pretty sure active labor had finally started! We called the midwife to come over at around 1:00. It took her 45 minutes to get here. I spent the time walking around the during contractions, leaning over the bathroom counter or the kitchen counter and swaying back and forth trying to take deep breaths. When she arrived, I was hoping she would tell me that I was at least to about a 5 by now, because the contractions were wearing me out. I expected her to say 4 at the most though. When she checked, I was an 8 and I was really surprised, I had been thinking we called her too soon. I hadn't done the shivering thing I did in my other labors when transition hit, so I thought there was no way I was past a 7, but I guess I got to skip that this time, which was nice. I did feel like I was going to throw up a few times, but I never did. I was doing a water birth, so DH started filling the birth pool at that time, with a sterile hose attached to our shower head. It took SO long to fill, he really should have started earlier, but we didn't know. I was still standing at the counter/walking and had started to push, so the midwife said "we need to get her into the pool!"

I was shocked it was time to push, because I was still so with it. Normally I am totally in Labor Land by this time, but I was aware of the songs playing on the ipod and everything. I got into the warm pool and it felt SO nice. I can't imagine an epidural would have provided much more relief than that. I tried to sit but that felt so painful on my tailbone so I knelt up and leaned over the side and PUSHED. After 3 minutes or so, I felt a big POP! and a gush of fluid into the pool, the water had broken! I reached down and felt his head and was so excited that he was almost here. I pushed like this for another 2 minutes or so, and then was told to stand up. His shoulders had gotten stuck so I had to be out of the water at that point for safety. The midwife reached under his arms and tugged and his shoulders came out, followed by a whole baby! There was a huge amount of fluid that came out after him, he had been blocking most of it when the membranes ruptured. It was about 3:15am that he was born. They (DH helped catch) passed him to me through my legs and I sat down and held him. He was so slippery and big! I checked to make sure he was really a HE, and he was, so I pronounced him "Nolan." It was one of the proudest moments of my life.







We found out later he weighed 10 lbs. 2 oz. and was 22" long. I didn't tear with his head, just his shoulders. Can blame that frame on his daddy!

I feel blessed to have had such a calm and amazing birth in my own home where I felt comfortable and happy. The story from that point is upsetting and traumatic, but I'll just say that I am grateful that the midwife was so good at what she does. She had oxygen waiting and was so prepared and professional. He was in good hands, and without knowing his birth defects, we did our best with the information we had. Several expert doctors at Primary Children's told us frankly that the place of his birth had made no difference in his condition or outcome.