Sabine's Birth

This is the made for TV version of her birth story. no majorly "sordid" details but longer than the ten second overview. this way normal people, including guys can read it if they want to. the sordid detail version may just be for me. we'll see

to me the story starts at our last visit with nancy and continues to the visit to the vet's office to confirm that sabine was head down. that is already recorded in the blog so i can leave it out of the story. for the rest of the week though, my body was setting up for the birth. by friday evening i was having contractions and a backache but i wasn't paying close attention to it. when my mom called that evening i did mention that i was feeling anxious in my body. i wasn't thinking myself into anxiety, but my body felt it. she guessed the baby would be born on Sunday.

Saturday Oct 11. we decided to go to Carytown because i wanted to find a baby photograph book to be her baby book and i also wanted to look for a gift for max as 'baby daddy.' so around noon we arrived in carytown and the first place we went was to mongrel to look for the photo album. we looked at a few things and then max walked away to the other side of the store. that was when i felt a little 'gush' as i called it of fluid. followed by another. i froze and then sort of smiled and tried to look over my big belly to see if my pants were wet (i couldn't tell and didn't want to feel myself right there). i debated whether to do anything about it or just ignore the feeling but when i took a few steps and it happened again i figured my water had broken.

i walked over to max and said 'i need to leave' and he said 'why' and i said ' i felt something and i think my water broke' so we made our way to the door. of course, on our way out the man at the counter stopped us to chat because he is also my boss at YS's husband. i don't know what we said and i think we eventually just wandered away from him in a daze.

quickly i dashed up to YS to use the bathroom to make sure it was my water and not anything else. i confirmed clear fluid. max picked me up and we called Nancy. 12:15 on a saturday, i'm sure we made her day. on the phone we went back and forth with her trying to decide if it was actually the waters or just a lot of discharge. the only way to tell would be to pH test it. she decided we should call back at 4pm and she would know whether we needed to test or not. if it continued we'd test, if not probably just discharge.

so we went home. i quilted on a baby quilt i'd started. max went to the grocery store for us and then hung out in the garage with car stuff. and i kept noticing the little 'gushes' so i started noting the times that they happened and i started noting contractions. but i noted them as braxton-hicks "contractions" because they were really nothing to worry about, not organized, and sometimes i couldn't tell if it was happening or not.

4pm Oct 11. i call nancy and tell her i'd had 8-10 of the gushes and no organized contractions. she says it sounds like the waters. she's going to call me back at 5pm when she gets home and we'll go over so she can test to be sure. 5 pm comes, i've just finished cleaning up my sewing stuff from the quilt. nancy doesn't call. 6 pm comes and i'm wondering if i was supposed to call her or just show up... totally don't trust my pregnant brain. and in that hour of waiting with nothing to do i notice the 'contractions' getting organized but still barely feel them. 6 pm she calls and apologizes for running late. tells us to come on over.

620 pm we arrive at her house. and in one of the most surreal moments of the whole experience nancy answers the door holding a tiny monkey wearing a diaper. i'm out of it and notice but it isn't weird to me. max was like "THERE'S a MONKEY wearing a DIAPER!" freaked out

so we go in and she checks me and at first, just like everything with this baby, she can't get a clear read. but after poking around in there she gets a good gush and confirms amniotic fluid. at this point she says i'm 1cm and still 80%. she says i've done good work this week. (that's good because i barely noticed it). she watches and sees that i'm having contractions 5 minutes apart and my only complaint is backache, but nothing worse than when i practice yoga wrong.

NOW the dilema. my water is broken. it broke at 12 noon. that means to avoid infection and dangers to me and baby we really need to have this girl by 12 noon on sunday. Here is where working with a homebirth midwife made a REAL and drastic difference in my care and the progression of my labor. she told us, if we were going to the hospital the OB would start me on pitocin at midnight if my labor wasn't up and going by then. that would hopefully guarantee that the baby would be born in time. but she knew i probably still had a good 4 to 6 hours after midnight before things would get going. pitocin could drastically drastically change the course of my labor. so then we were stuck with deciding what to do. we didn't expect complications but if something did arise and we needed to go to the hospital and it was after noon on sunday the OBs etc would NOT be happy and i might end up with a C-section very quickly. Nancy has a 'drink' that is very effective in starting labor. but as we were sitting there at almost 7 pm she was reluctant to give it to me because it would start labor in 3 to 6 hours and that would set us up to labor in the middle of the night. no good for anybody including nancy.

finally it was decided: she wrote me a prescription for antibiotics. she didn't even want to do that because of the over prescribing of antibiotics these days but when i told her i'd been on antibiotics like 5 times in my life she said she thought this was best. so antibiotics to knock out anything that might cause problems down the line.... sort-of to cover our bases. then if labor didn't get going, we'd come back in at 8 am and get checked and she'd give us 'the drink.'

as we left i told max 'we're not coming back in at 8 tomorrow' he said 'why' and i told him we wouldn't need to the baby would be on the way. we called my mom and told her to come to town and then we went and picked up the antibiotics and got smoothies.

and in another surreal moment.... the guy at smoothie king was like WAY WAY WAY into smoothies. and spent a really long time helping us decide what to get. then he spent a while asking about the pregnancy. we told him we were due the next day and he said it looked like i'd dropped. we did NOT tell him i was actually in labor and the baby WOULD be born the next day. we just laughed together about that.

Homeward bound.
at home we finished up everything. i set up the birth space, max walked tyco. i sent email and then we tried to get some rest. i took my antibiotics at 8pm and max laughed as he set his alarm for midnight for the next dose. nancy suggested tylenol pm to help me sleep so i took that around 9:20 and max read to me as we settled in. just before trying to sleep i re-read my birth invitation helping to really clarify in my mind how i wanted this to go.
and then.... max passed out. and i laid awake. and was awake. i tried to be in the position nancy suggested but wasn't comfortable. the contractions intensified but not SO bad yet. and i just tried to sleep. not happening. my brain wouldn't stop.
around 11 i called nancy as she'd said we could check in if we wanted/if things intensified. things had intensified but not so much. she was very reassuring though. she said at 12 when i took my meds to also have half a glass of wine to calm my brain and hopefully sleep. she also told me to call her anytime in the night if i needed to and that if it was daytime she'd have me call at 3 so to call at 3 am if needed. or if things intensified to 3 minutes apart. she assured me that she was very good at talking on the phone and then immediately going right back to sleep. it was all very reassuring.
so at midnight i took my antibiotics and max and i each had half a glass of white wine with ice in it because it was warm. this time i went to sleep. max did not. so max got up and when he came back to bed at 1:30 i woke up and knew i wasn't getting back to sleep.
from 2-3:30 am i kept trying to sleep. i went into my office and listened to my relaxation CD and dosed but contractions would wake me up. around 3:30 i was hungry and went downstairs. i made an english muffin and tried to snack on it in the living room but it was too bright in there. finally i got comfortable sitting backwards on a dining room chair facing the counter with my head on my arms. when a contraction would come i would breath my way through it but was still sitting down. i just thought about doing a sun salutation from yoga and did that breathing, then it was over. around 3:50 i decided the contractions were more organized and maybe i should time them. so i would glance at the kitchen clock every time one started. my reading was that they were 5 min apart, 3 min apart, 4 min apart, 8 min apart... i decided they weren't organized.

Oct 12 4am. max decided to check on me and make me take my antibiotics. turns out he didn't trust me timing my own contractions so he got his iPhone and sat on the floor to time them. unfortunately it meant i had to pay WAY more attention to them so i could tell him when they were starting and ending. so i'd tell him and then he'd say 'that one lasted 40 seconds and was 2:40 since the last one' in all honesty this was annoying because it felt like he was making them stronger and more organized. (totally not true, i just was doing a good job of ignoring it). so around 4:20 we called nancy to tell her we'd hit 3 min apart. she told me to take a shower or bath, to get on the birth ball... do any of those things.. we were probably around 4 cm. those comforts would feel good now, but wouldn't help later. she told us to call back at 7 am.

so from 4-6 i tried different things. sitting in the kitchen was ruined now. so i tried the shower with max's suggestion of taking the birth ball in there. max sat on the floor in the bathroom and listened to my breath. that didn't really work. finally i went back in my office and took the birth ball. max went back to bed. i set myself up sitting on my meditation cushions and draped my body over the birth ball. and went to sleep.

Oct 12 6 am. hard labor started to kick in. i was draped over the birth ball, a contraction would hit and i'd shove the ball aside, get on my hands and knees and breathe. in between i'd grab the ball, drape myself over it and GO TO SLEEP. seriously, i thought my labor had spread WAY WAY out. with the contractions at first i was quiet, then i started breathing harder, then i added a 'HA' sound to the breath. at this point max asked if i was ok. 'yes' was my answer. he stayed in bed and i stayed in my office. until about 6:45 i went in to our bedroom for some support. max immediately wanted to start timing and i told him "NO WAY" then i softened and told him he could time them, but he couldn't tell me about it.

Oct 12 7 am i called nancy who said she'd been up since 6 and was ready to come over because she felt like my labor would be kicking in around then. (wonder woman!) i told her my contractions were much stronger but they had spaced out. she said 'really? because you just had 3 contractions in 7 minutes?" on the phone with her then max confirmed they had NOT spaced out and were closer together. nancy was super reassuring on the phone and asked if she should come. and i said 'No not yet.' (she told me later this made her a little nervous because she wasn't sure if i'd have her come in time because i was so stoic and strong about the whole thing) so she said i should call back at 8 or sooner if i wanted. she suggested that max and i go outside and watch the sunrise and feel the energy of the day building.

so we tried going outside. i made it through one contraction on our deck but was having to make the "HA" sound and felt too exposed out there. back inside we went. for the next 40 minutes or so we labored inside. when a contraction would come i'd get on my knees by the bed or i'd put my hands on the bed and max would push on my hips to give some counter pressure. at first i'd think it was awful to have that pressure, like he was bringing on the contraction but then it would hit and i'd be SO grateful for him there. he helped me breathe and stay focused. in one of those strong contractions right at the end of it i felt my abs gather up and i sort of pushed. WHAT! i knew i wasn't supposed to be doing that and it wasn't time yet, but i also knew my body was doing it without me. i told max we had to call nancy NOW!

so nancy was on her way and her assistant therese was called and was on her way. and we waited. and labored. and i kept having those little pushes and was getting a little worried. i remember saying to max at one point 'nancy better get here soon' and what i meant was 'she'd better get here because this baby is COMING' then max slipped away to open the door and on my next contraction i felt someone rubbing my back and looked back and it was nancy. she was so reassuring that i was doing a good job, just right!

max helped her carry her things in and she quickly pulled out the doppler... baby sounded great. in between contractions she checked me and i was at a 'stretchy' 8 and moving fast. she looked at max and said 'fill up the tub' with a sense of urgency. the next 45 minutes was really interesting. on the one hand i was totally in labor and was having these really strong contractions that would take me to my knees pretty much. and in between i felt totally lucid and was able to direct nancy where to find things, to tell max to get the jasmine essence for the tub water, and to turn on my own music to listen to in the tub. at the same time it definitely felt like the contractions got further and further apart even though they were still very strong. in this time nancy also called therese again and made sure she was on here way. i heard her saying 'when i got here she was 8 and just about ready to go'

there was some difficulty getting the tub filled but it was finally ready. as soon as they said i could get in i stripped down and climbed in. as i was getting in i asked 'can i push?' and nancy said i could do anything my body told me to do. therese arrived right around that time and i noted it in my mind but never was able to greet her out loud. i kept thinking 'i should say hi therese' but never could do it. funny. anyways into the tub. the first two contractions felt crazy. i felt like a flopping fish and nancy was right there to calm me, almost like i was a spooked horse. and then it settled. i felt totally different. i pushed once or twice and then nancy checked me and said i had just a small lip left. so i breathed through one contraction then it was time to go.

Oct 12 9:10 am. finally pushing. i pushed for an hour and 13 minutes. and actually it was fine. it hurt i know but i was entirely not connected to the pain. or i wasn't connected to this was my body and this was happening to me. i just did what i was told by nancy and trusted my body to be able to do what it was supposed to do. max sat behind me and supported me under my arms at times or he'd wipe my face and neck. nancy was to my right and therese was at the other end of the tub taking pictures and holding the flashlight for nancy. nancy would have me in one position pushing some, then have me switch positions. she said it was to rock the bones. and the whole thing was fine. i'd just wait for the contraction, take a deep breath and then push with all my might for about 3 or 4 pushes. it felt like the contractions were hours apart. and in between i'd take sips of water or tea and close my eyes and rest. i never felt afraid or like i couldn't do it.
and then with one push i heard 'the head is out' and i remember thinking 'really?' that wasn't so bad. i looked down and saw her head and it looked just like the babies in the waterbirth video, and i closed my eyes again. they told me to pause. then push slowly. then i heard nancy say 'reach down' and i did and there was her little body. and with nancy's help we brought her up out of the water and there she was on my chest.

Sabine was born at 10:23 am. she had tons of black hair which at first surprised me. and she was covered, covered in vernix. and i just held her close to me and looked up at max and smiled. i didn't cry but beamed instead. i said 'i can't believe we have a baby' and nancy and therese just laughed.

(so i'll leave the story here because i know it is extremely long, but i will also try to post about the immediate post partum with nancy because it is incredible too!)