The Mom Crowd

I had a great time enjoying my maternity leave from The Mom Crowd. Thank you so much for all the guest bloggers that filled in for myself, McKenna, Dawn, and Amelia while we either having a baby, going on vacation, or going to Eastern Europe to bring home a new adopted member of the family!

I LOVE hearing labor and delivery stories and I thought I would share how my second delivery went in my first post back. I love how having a blog forces me to write out my story. I know years from now I am going to be glad I wrote this story.

Roman’s Birth Story

I woke up March 3rd at 5:41 a.m. with my first contraction. I was already dilated to 3 cm and the baby was in -1 station before my labor began. The day before my lower back hurt really bad, but I still went walking with my friend Barb around an outdoor mall here in San Antonio to help induce my labor. Looks like walking worked!

For the first hour my contractions were every 10 minutes apart. I woke up my husband after the first hour and he began to time them. I am super thankful that my 22-month-old daughter had Mother’s Day Out (MDO) that day and my husband managed to get her there on time. We also made arrangements for other people to take care of her the rest of the day after MDO. I laid in bed all morning watching t.v. in between contractions.

There was a fear that my baby was still facing my belly button instead of facing my back. So I would get on my hands and knees for a few minutes at a time to ensure the baby was getting in the correct position.

There were a few people that wanted to be at the birth of baby. When we told Kara, Melia, my mother-in-law (Felicia), and sister-in-law (Denise) that I was in labor, my contractions slowed down. My husband and I figured out that my body was having a psychological effect, because of my anxiety of having people waiting on me. I hate it when people are waiting on me in a check out line or waiting for an email response. I had to mentally tell myself to get over it and I tried not think about them so my contractions would return to normal.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law met us at my house. Here is a photo of us right before we left for the birth center.

Here is a photo of my husband, Daniel, massaging my back during a contraction.

Around 11:30 a.m. my contractions started being five minutes apart and we left around 12:20 p.m. to head to the Birth Center. As we were leaving I stopped to put some make-up on. I don’t know why I did that.

On the way to the San Antonio Birth Center I was playing with my iPod and listening to songs in my birthing mix. The contractions started coming 3 minutes apart in the car.

When we got to the center I had to pee and the midwife asked if I could pee in a cup. I quickly realized that I could not pee in a cup by myself and I called my husband into the bathroom. He graciously helped me get the job done while we laughed about it. My midwife, Holly, heard us laughing and didn’t think that I was that far along. Her face was very surprised when she checked and found that I was almost 8 cm’s along.

Holly suggested that if I wanted to birth in the jacuzzi tub to do an enema to flush anything out so it wouldn’t get in the water. I hesitated, but with Daniel’s and my mother-in-law (who is a nurse) urging, I decided to go ahead with it. This was my one regret of the entire day. Again, my husband helped me out, but my contractions were now coming faster and I didn’t have time for the whole enema process to work.

I got into their bed and a few minutes later my water broke. Then a few contractions later I had the urge to push. I quickly realized that I needed some other help down there and asked out loud, “Is someone going to help me with my butt juice!?” Gross.

My friends, Melia and Kara, and the midwife’s assistants had just arrived when I started to push. I asked which position I should be in and Holly said that laying on my side was a great position to labor in. So my husband held my leg and my mother-in-law held my hands. Right before the baby came out, my husband shifted down to catch, my mother-in-law held my leg and my sister-in-law held my hands.

While pushing Holly told me to just go with what my body was telling me and try not to push so hard, but let the baby come out slowly. This was counter-intuitive to what I was used to. I still asked my mom-in-law to count to 10 when I pushed, because it really helped me focus. While pushing Holly told me, “It feels like you are going to split in two, but you are going to be fine.” This was exactly what I need to hear at that point.

As I was pushing I could feel my baby crowning and I said, “Just take him out!” But they couldn’t do that and I felt the baby go back in when my contraction ended. I asked Holly how many more contractions and she said, “2.” So I knew I could do it. Then two contractions came and I was able to push him out with his hand next to his head! My husband was there to catch and pull him out of me. My mother-in-law yelled, “It’s a boy!” at 2:18 p.m.

They quickly put him on my belly while they tended to him and the other business going on down there. It was cool and weird to hold my baby on me while the umbilical cord was still attached inside of me.

I forgot that I still had to deliver the placenta. Luckily that was easy and wasn’t a big deal. I also tore while pushing and I was able to focus on my new baby and my husband next to me while Holly stitched me up. She gave me a local anesthetic to numb me before she did.

We named our new son Roman. Then we just hung out with the baby while the birth center staff did there thing. They didn’t take him from me until I asked for him to be weighed. He was 9 pounds and 1 ounce! I nursed him, ate some Chick-fil- a lunch, and did the out-processing stuff. We left the Birth Center 4 1/2 hours after Roman was born. We were anxious to get home, so Daniel and I could lay our daughter down to bed. We could have stayed as long as we needed, but there wasn’t anything left to do there and it was nice getting home.

Here is a photo of our new family of 4 that evening!