Q's birth story

A couple of notes about the birth stories:

1. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in. They are long.
2. They contain stuff that some people may consider TMI. Mucus plugs, bloody show, tearing "down there," etc. You have been warned.
3. They were all written within days of the respective births. That means that they are a good indication of my perspective and mindset at the time of the birth. In some cases (especially regarding Littles' birth), my perspective/mindset has changed with time.
4. Hypnobabies users: You may want to use your BOP. All birth stories contain standard terminology (no "birthing time" or "pressure waves" here...) Littles' mentions p**n a few times; Noob's and Q's do not.

Still want to read? OK. Here goes...

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On Sunday, July 1st, I was two days away from my due date. I was hoping for a few more days of pregnancy to wrap up some stuff at work, but I was happy to have made it into July (Littles and I both have late June birthdays, so it's a crowded birthday month in our house) and was on high baby alert, since Noob was born two days before his due date as well.

I had light contractions throughout the day. This wasn't too unusual on its own, but they were accompanied by a lot of pressure in my bottom, like I had to poop, but I didn't. I knew that was the baby moving down.

I started trying to time contractions at about 3 pm, but they were still too light and far apart to even be timeable. Soon after, Noob called for me from his room, where he was supposedly napping. "Lay down!" he told me. I did, and fell asleep, waking up every so often to another light contraction (and to Noob playing and not napping at all).

I got up with Noob at about 4:30. I finally let my husband know that I was feeling some contractions, but nothing major yet. Noob wanted to go swimming, so we went out to the pool. The water felt good and my contractions died down. Baby got the hiccups, and I realized, "This could be the last time I feel this baby hiccupping in my belly. This could be the last time I feel hiccups in my belly, ever." Noob was exhausted from not getting a nap and actually ended up falling asleep on my shoulder in the water -- very rare for him at his current age. I just sat there for a while in the pool, savoring that moment with my current "baby" in my arms, even as my body worked to push a new one into them.

We got out of the pool for dinner. Contractions continued sporadically.

7:13 pm - My husband pleaded with me to contact our midwife, C, so I texted her to let her know what was going on. She said exactly what I expected her to say, let her know if things progressed, or otherwise she'd see me at our scheduled appointment the next morning. I also texted our doula, M, as a heads-up.

Meanwhile, it was my turn to do bathtime for the older kids, so off we went. Normally, whichever parent does bathtime reads Littles her bedtime stories, while the other parent reads to Noob. But my mother-in-law happened to be there (she was staying with us for a few nights because the air conditioning was out at her house), and she offered to read to Littles instead. This night, I didn't mind relinquishing that responsibility. I headed into my home office to finish up the kids' sibling shirts and some last-minute things at work. Contractions were intensifying to the point where I sometimes stopped what I was doing to focus through them.

About 9 pm - Littles came in asking for another story. I figured I'd take the opportunity to clue her in on what was going on. I told her that Q might be coming soon, maybe even that night. A contraction came, and I went into self-hypnosis (Hypnobabies) to get through it. I can't talk while in self-hypnosis, so I think Littles thought I had fallen asleep :) She was poking me and saying, "Mommmmmm! Mommmmmmm! Come ONNNNNNNN!" Once the contraction subsided, I told her that my body was giving Q big hugs, and sometimes, I really had to concentrate while it was doing that, and I couldn't talk. Satisfied with that explanation, she picked out Angel in the Waters to read. We've read it quite a bit this pregnancy, although not for a few months now. It was good timing, to remind her of what Q was going through at that very moment.

After I finished reading, I went back into my office and kept working.

10:10 pm - M texted me to see how things were going and to say that I should probably try to get some sleep. I knew she was right. My husband came into my office shortly after, and I relayed that to him. He agreed. By now, contractions were lasting about 1 minute every 5-8 minutes, and I was often stopping what I was doing to lean over the yoga ball I've been using as an office chair for the past few weeks. But I was able to talk through the contractions when my husband was in the room, so I figured they weren't too serious yet.

10:40 pm - At my husband's urging, I texted an update to C. I also texted our birth photographer, E, so that she was aware. My husband said he was going to go read for about 20 minutes and then come get me for bed.

10:42 pm - I finished updating my maternity leave backup documents and emailed them to my manager.

11 pm - My husband came up to get me. I was in the midst of a contraction leaning over the yoga ball. Like the awesome labor coach that he is, he waited quietly for it to finish. Then he told me that he wanted to call M. She lives just a few minutes away from us, so it wouldn't be a big deal to call her over even if contractions ended up petering out.

I wanted to take a shower, to get clean just in case, so I went downstairs and got in. It was hard because standing up made the contractions more frequent. My husband came in and saw me sitting down in the shower and said, "OK, I'm calling M." I didn't argue.

11:23 pm - My husband called M. I eventually finished in the shower and managed to get out, but had to keep taking breaks to lie down through contractions. The tile floor in the bathroom wasn't real comfortable, so I was lying down in the carpeted walk-in closet that's adjacent to the bathroom. I told my husband to keep M out if she arrived, so that she wouldn't see me completely naked, while I worked on getting dressed between contractions. "I'm still in the modest phase," I noted to myself. "Can't be serious yet."

I also told my husband to make up the futon in the baby's room, so M would have someplace to sleep if it turned out to be a long night. I was still pretty convinced that if I could just lie down for a bit, the contractions would let up and we could all get some sleep while waiting for things to intensify.

11:45-midnight - I think M arrived somewhere in here. By that time, I had gotten dressed, and had brushed my teeth... still lying on the closet floor. She came in and I got up to spit out the toothpaste and she said, "Oh, don't get up on my account!" I said, "No, I just have to spit." :) Then I grabbed my hairbrush to brush my hair, and went to lay down in bed while doing it. M was laughing at the fact that I was concerned about my hair at that moment, and I said, "Hey, I forgot to brush my hair after I got out of the shower during labor with Littles, and it was a huge mess!" (There is a lovely picture in this post.)

Over the baby monitor in our bedroom, we heard Noob wake up. He does this sometimes and usually settles right back to sleep, but this night, he was having none of it. It's like he knew something big was going on. Eventually, my husband woke up his mom to lay with Noob, so that he could come back down to be with me.

12:07 am - I was lying in bed when I felt my water break. Of course it would break in bed: We just bought a brand new mattress a few weeks ago :) Luckily, I had made up the bed as recommended a few days earlier, with a waterproof mattress cover over the mattress, then a set of sheets on top, then another waterproof cover and another set of sheets. So I knew the mattress was protected, and cleanup would be easy, since all the midwives would have to do is strip off the top set of sheets and cover, leaving the clean sheets underneath.

M checked my water to make sure it was clear. She helped me get my wet shorts and underwear off. I asked my husband to bring me some clean pants and underwear, but nice underwear, not my old ones that have elastic hanging off and stuff. He brought me about 5 pairs of underwear, because he wasn't sure what "nice" meant. Since I was leaking more water with every contraction, and putting on pants/underwear just seemed like too much effort, I ended up staying bottomless for the rest of labor. And I kept finding underwear in the bed!

12:08 am - Prior to the underwear discussion, I had called C to let her know about my water breaking. She asked if I wanted her to come over. I said yes. I knew there was no turning back now -- with my water broken, baby's arrival was imminent, one way or another -- so it would probably be good to get her there. But I still felt I had a ways to go.

I also asked C to call E. They live close and sometimes ride to births together. E had to nurse her own baby first, so she told C to go ahead without her and she'd follow a few minutes behind.

Back at our house, my husband told M that the futon was ready for her if she wanted to get some sleep. M was like, "Ummmm, I'm not going anywhere!" My husband said, "OK, well, I might try to lie down and nap for an hour or two." I wasn't the only one in denial :)

To that point, I should explain how I was feeling through contractions. They started with a very sharp tightening in my upper belly. When that happened, I usually shifted to my hands and knees (if I wasn't there already) and breathed deeply all the way through my abdomen. My lower abdomen, in particular, always felt tight to start and as soon as I breathed it out, the contraction felt like it pretty much subsided. I could detect some lingering tightness in my belly and back, and the tightness eventually went away, but that was it. Sometimes, that tightness persisted for what seemed like a long time, which made me wonder whether that was a very short contraction, i.e. just the initial sharp tightening, with the lingering tightness being just how I felt between contractions... or a very long one, i.e. the entire length of time that I felt tightening. Given all that, I couldn't tell if the contractions were intense and frequent enough to make my cervix change like it needed to. And if I wasn't sure, I'm sure the people watching me were even more confused.

I kept working through those I-think-these-are-contractions while we waited on C's arrival. My hair was in my face and annoying me and I was worried about a repeat of my birds-nest hairdo after Littles' birth, but I was too focused on what my body was doing to say anything. Somehow, M read my mind and asked me if there was a hair band handy that she could grab for me. She found one, and I managed to get my hair up. What a relief. M is amazing in that way -- she had moments like that during Noob's birth, too, where she just seemed to know exactly what I needed, big or small.

12:45 am - C must've arrived somewhere around this time. She asked me if I wanted my cervix checked and I said no. Then she checked my vitals between contractions: temperature, pulse, blood pressure, baby's heartbeat. All good.

Not long after C's arrival, I started grunting and pushing through contractions. This feeling was familiar to me from Noob's birth. I knew that I was entering second stage labor. I was really surprised because like I said, all the way up to that point, I wasn't convinced that my contractions were all that intense. I guess I wasn't the only one fooled: C was telling E (who was en route) not to get a speeding ticket, she still had some time to make it over, and M was just getting started filling up the bathtub for me to get into. But I did ask my husband to go wake up Littles -- she wanted to be there for the birth itself. She came down, still a bit groggy, and curled up in the glider in the corner of our room to watch, a sleepy smile on her face. I hoped it wouldn't take too long, for her sake.

It didn't. Pretty soon, I could feel the head coming all the way down. C said, "Do you want to get in the tub?" I replied, "I'm not gonna make it!" The tub was only half full anyway. Good thing I didn't have my heart set on waterbirth :)

The pushing phase was the main thing I wanted to change from Littles' and Noob's births. With Littles, I had never felt an overwhelming urge to push, so I had to push very consciously. I did feel the urge to push with Noob, but because of my experience with Littles, I didn't really "trust" it, and so I still put a lot of conscious effort behind each push. In both cases, the pushing phase was short (around 30 minutes), and so I probably didn't need to push as much as I did. Furthermore, I suspect that putting my own force behind what my body was already doing was part of the reason why I ended up tearing with both. So, this time, when I started grunting/pushing with contractions, I trusted my body, and let it push on its own.

And it did a damn good job. It was probably just a minute or two after C asked if I wanted to get in the tub that she said, "You're crowning... Head is out... Reach down and grab your baby!" I was still on my hands and knees, so I couldn't see what was going on, but I heard my husband say, "It's a girl!"

I slid down to find a baby between my legs! I pulled her -- oooooooohhhhh, HER!-- up to my chest. Littles and my husband climbed onto the bed with us, and we all just stared in amazement at our newest family member. She cried a little at first, just to let us know she was OK, but immediately quieted down and stared back in equal amazement at us.

It was 1:11 am. 2 hours 29 minutes since I had emailed my maternity leave plans to my boss.

E ran in a few minutes later. Good thing C didn't wait for her! :) The assisting midwife, K, also showed up shortly afterwards.

(Here is a link to the sneak peek of the pictures that E took: http://earthmamaphotography.com/blog/2012/07/07/samantha-july-2-2012-flower-mound-irving-dallas-birth-photography/)

We heard Noob over the monitor again, so my husband went upstairs to get him, along with my mother-in-law. We weren't planning to wake Noob for the birth, but it worked out perfectly that he was up anyway. It was fun for E, in particular, to see him again, since she hadn't seen him since *his* birth! And he did amazingly well. I mean, it was the middle of the night, he hadn't napped (very unusual for him), and, well, he's a 2-year-old mama's boy who had just gotten displaced as the baby of the family. He could've been a super-clingy overtired mess of a toddler... but he was in a great mood, really sweet with his new baby sister, and even accepting of the fact that she was indeed a girl. (He's just learning the difference between boys and girls, and had been insisting that Q was a boy for the last few weeks.)

We all just hung out in bed until I was ready to deliver the placenta. C asked me if I wanted to clamp/cut the cord first. It was really short, so I opted to do so. Littles wanted to help my husband with the cutting, although it was pretty thick and tough, and the scissors weren't exactly made for 5-year-old fingers, so he ended up doing it mostly himself.

Once the cord was cut and the placenta delivered, I was able to get Q (who did have an actual name by this point :) up to my breast to nurse. She latched on pretty well for a first timer. When she was done, C inspected my bottom. Intact perineum, but three stitches for an internal tear -- apparently, baby girl threw me an elbow on her way out!

C also got my placenta cleaned up and gave Littles, Noob, and me a little tour of it. (My husband opted out.) This was something I was too chicken to do with my previous two births, but I'm so glad I looked this time, because it's pretty neat to see! My side and Q's side looked completely different. Hers was way cooler :) With the amniotic sac still attached (there are actually two sacs that you can see), the umbilical cord and "tree of life" veins spidering through it, etc. Littles even got to touch it ("it feels squishy!") and she says that this was her favorite part of the birth.

Then my husband took the older kids up to bed while M ran an herbal bath for Q and me. Yep, I finally got to get in the tub. Haha! Admittedly, some of the romanticism of a relaxing herbal bath post-birth was taken away by the fact that Q kept pooping :) But it was still nice to just relax in there. E showed me how to hold her out in front of me in the water, and it was amazing how she instantly relaxed and went right to sleep. She's been chillin' in water for the last nine months; I guess it just feels like home.

Eventually, we got out, and C and K did the newborn exam. Q weighed in at 9 lbs 4 oz -- 3 oz smaller than Littles (born at 42 weeks), 9 oz heavier than Noob (also born at 39 weeks). Considering this was after about 3 hours and a *lot* of pooping, she was probably at least as heavy as Littles was when she was actually born, quite possibly even more. (Littles was weighed within minutes of birth.)

Q passed her exam with flying colors and everyone packed up to leave. We finally went to bed about 5 AM.

Recovery has been a breeze. I have to consciously remind myself to slow down, I just had a baby, because I don’t feel that way at all. My husband has been waiting on me hand and foot so that I can relax and rest up. Having an intact perineum, even with the internal tear, has helped so much -- my bottom is a lot less sore when sitting around than I was with the other two. The main thing bugging me is the afterpains (cramping due to my uterus contracting back to its original size), but those are manageable. Q has been really chill thus far and the older kids are both great with her. We are so blessed :)

Noob's birth story

A couple of notes about the birth stories:

1. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in. They are long.
2. They contain stuff that some people may consider TMI. Mucus plugs, bloody show, tearing "down there," etc. You have been warned.
3. They were all written within days of the respective births. That means that they are a good indication of my perspective and mindset at the time of the birth. In some cases (especially regarding Littles' birth), my perspective/mindset has changed with time.
4. Hypnobabies users: You may want to use your BOP. All birth stories contain standard terminology (no "birthing time" or "pressure waves" here...) Littles' mentions p**n a few times; Noob's and Q's do not.

Still want to read? OK. Here goes...

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I was supposed to spend most of Saturday, January 30, 2010, coaching at a lacrosse playday about an hour away from home. But rain on Friday cancelled those plans, so instead, we just practiced at our home field around midday. In retrospect, this was a good thing!

I stopped by Joann's on my way home for a few things. When I was waiting in line, at about 3 PM, I felt my pants get a little wet and thought, "Great, I'm peeing myself. How embarrassing." But then I remembered that I have good bladder control, even when pregnant... and that a slow amniotic fluid leak can feel like you're peeing. When it happened again, I realized it probably wasn't pee. I paid for my items and hustled home, where I quickly confirmed that yes, my underwear was wet and no, it was not pee.

I called C, my midwife, to discuss this. She said that it could definitely be amniotic fluid, but time would tell. She asked me to call again if I started having regular contractions, or at around 6-7 PM regardless. My husband and Littles had just gotten home from visiting some friends, so I filled them in. We put Littles down for a nap while we cleaned up the house, just in case.

We called M, our doula, too, and were a little surprised when she didn't call back immediately. But there was no urgent need to speak to her so we just waited. She finally called back at around 6 PM -- she was at another birth! That mom was nearly two weeks overdue, and we had always expected me to go well into February, so our doula never thought we'd end up overlapping. The power of a full moon! Luckily, the other mom was getting close to pushing, so I wasn't too worried about M being available when we needed her.

Throughout this time, I did keep leaking slightly, and I lost more of my mucus plug. (I had lost some of it in the morning, before lacrosse.) I also had some sporadic contractions, but nothing major. I called C shortly before 7 PM, fully expecting her to say that this was a false alarm. Instead, she said, "If you are still leaking, your water is broken. For most women, that means spontaneous labor will kick in within 24 hours."

I didn't really believe her :) But we started preparing just in case, checking in with M and "E," our birth photographer [not to be confused with our doula from Littles' birth], lining up friends to help with Littles, getting my mom to fly out on the first flight from Atlanta in the morning. Other than that, it was a pretty normal evening. I cooked chili for dinner, and we did Littles' bedtime routine. Knowing that this might be our last night as a family of 3, we spent a little extra time on bedtime stories, finishing up with On the Day You Were Born, which has long been one of my favorites, and was especially poignant that night.

I went to bed around midnight, and woke up to pee at about 1:30 AM. When I did, I lost more of my mucus plug and started bleeding. That's when I realized that C was right. This was it.

My reaction was to panic. I don't really know why, because I had been looking forward to this moment for months, even years. But when faced with it, it was overwhelming and scary. I laid back down and put on a Hypnobabies track, and that helped me relax a little bit.

My husband was sleeping on the couch, leaving the bedroom to me, but at around 2 AM, I heard him get up to use the bathroom and called to him. He was a little freaked out as well. This was our first experience with spontaneous labor, and we had warned both C and M ahead of time that we were pretty nervous about it.

We decided to call M, as we felt like we could really use her presence. She was finishing up at her other birth but agreed to come over as soon as she could. In the meantime, I timed some contractions and they were roughly 7 mins apart, lasting around a minute. I texted a quick update to C and E.

M arrived around 3:30 AM. We talked with her for a bit and she encouraged both of us to get some sleep. We got her set up in our guest bedroom so she could do the same, since she needed it just as much as we did! I did fall asleep, occasionally waking up to contractions. It reminded me a lot of the wee morning hours of labor with Littles, when I was contracting on Cervidil and things were starting to pick up. I had a few contractions that I wasn't sure I could get through on my own, but I didn't want to disturb my husband, so I did.

At about 8 AM, my husband and I both got up, as did M. We checked in again with C and E. I ate a little fruit, but was starting to reach the not-hungry stage. The contractions were starting to pick up, so I walked around when they hit.

I still felt fine in between them, so I puttered around a bit. My husband and I had just bought some broccoli to cut up, cook, and freeze, so I cut that up in between contractions for a while. Then M and I started to work on making the bed -- a set of sheets on the bottom, a waterproof pad in the middle, and then another set of sheets on top. That way, if anything got on the sheets, it would only be on the top set, and the midwives could easily strip those off to leave us with a clean set of sheets. Unfortunately for M, leaning over to put the bottom fitted sheet on triggered a strong contraction, and I walked off. After that, I was pretty much done puttering, and just focusing on the contractions. Bless her, she finished making the bed on her own.

Littles slept in until about 9:30 -- rare for her, but she was fighting a cold and needed the rest. It worked out well anyway, to have that extra time without having to worry about her. When she did wake up, we had two of our friends come over to help with her. They live just a short walk away, and are planning a natural birth for their first baby (due in July), so they were a perfect choice. I went into the bedroom, relaxed, and listened to some Hypnobabies scripts while my husband cooked breakfast for everyone.

I quickly figured out that rocking on my hands and knees was the best way to get through contractions. At one point, after getting through a contraction that way on the floor of our room, I flipped over and looked up at M, who was watching me from the bed. I said, "I thought I had a lot of freedom to move with Littles, but I had no idea what I was missing. This is so much better." I'm not sure how I would have dealt with that position in the hospital -- on the hospital floor? Ick. In the hospital bed? Not a ton of room there, compared to our king bed at home. Not to mention what the drive TO the hospital would have been like!

Hypnobabies helped a lot, too. I reminded myself that I was only feeling pressure and tension, and used my "peace" cue word a lot. One of the Hypnobabies birthing day scripts had an affirmation that went something like: "I am safe, and my baby is safe, no matter how much power flows through my body," and I loved envisioning all that power moving through me during contractions.

Somewhere in there, someone called C and E to get them to head over. I think they arrived around 10:30 AM, but I had lost track of time by that point. C quickly checked my vitals -- good blood pressure, no fever, baby still head down and sounding great.

We mostly stayed in the master bedroom. I was still on my hands and knees most of the time, on our bed. That is the domain of our cat, so she often wandered under my belly and between my arms during contractions, and it was comforting to have her there. My husband or M or both applied counterpressure on my back during contractions, and M had brought a rice sock that she heated up to put on my back too. It all felt great. I usually looked up after a contraction and saw C -- she was just hanging back, quietly encouraging me, and checking in on the baby with the doppler every so often. E just disappeared; I was occasionally aware of the flash of her camera, but barely noticed her presence.

Littles, our two friends, and my mom (who arrived shortly before C and E) were out in the living room, but Littles came in every so often to say hello. As with the cat, her presence was always a welcome distraction. At one point, C wanted me to eat something, so M made me a plate of apples and peanut butter, and Littles jumped right up on the bed to share them with me and drink out of my water bottle.

Then she showed E her "monkeys jumping on the bed" routine. She was totally unfazed by the entire experience. On the contrary, she seemed excited by all these people in her house and enjoyed showing off for them!

At some point, probably around 12:30, I started noticing that the contractions were getting really long, and more on top of one another. There was one in particular where I had been walking around in the hallway and went back in to the bedroom. It ended up being just my husband and me in there. He was behind me, and I leaned back into him and we swayed. The contraction seemed to subside, but then it picked right back up and I noted the time. It was two minutes from that point until it went away for good, so the entire contraction must have been at least three to four minutes long. I knew I was probably in transition. It wasn't bad or awful in any way. Just different.

A few contractions later, I was back on my hands and knees on the bed. Midway through the contraction, I stopped the low vocalization that I had been doing and started to grunt. I felt my body pushing and it felt good. When it was over, M asked, "Did that feel different?" and I said, "I think so. I couldn't tell if I needed to push or if I just wasn't doing a good job of relaxing through that contraction." M said, "Well, let's see what the next one feels like."

The next one felt much the same. This was a really different experience for me, as I never really had the urge to push with Littles. G, the assisting midwife, had arrived a little while earlier, and she got to work on filling up the tub. C came in to see what was going on, and it was clear that it was time to push. This picture was taken right around that time:

A funny aside: I never once had my cervix checked. Not prenatally, not during labor. Apparently, out in the living room, my mom made a comment to C along the lines of, "When I was in labor, they were able to tell me how far along I was by giving me a number." Of course, that's the norm with most births today, too! But C just told her, "I can tell how far along she is by watching her. It's obvious." And I guess it was!

With another contraction, I pushed, and suddenly felt a pop and a huge gush of fluid -- my water had finally broken completely. I got scared because it was stained yellow, and I knew that meant meconium. When the contraction was over, I rolled to my side and asked C, "It's meconium, right?" and she said, "It's very light. Nothing to worry about."

Soon, it was time to get in the tub. It felt wonderful! My contractions disappeared for a bit and I wondered if maybe the tub was a little TOO effective at relaxing me, but soon enough, I started contracting again.

I remember pushing feeling really good with Littles, but this time, it didn't really feel good at all. I wanted it over with, so I held my husband's hand and pushed hard with each contraction. C applied counterpressure to my perineum (to help with tearing and hemorrhoids, two big concerns of mine), and G checked in on the baby with the doppler every so often. C asked my husband and me a few times if we wanted Littles to come in, but not knowing how much longer it would take, we decided to let her stay out in the living room until the baby came out.

After a few contractions in the tub, C told me that the head was right there and that my tissues were stretching. I could feel it all, and felt the head slide back up when the contraction ended. With the next contraction, I pushed the head all the way out, and was instantly more comfortable. It was wild to look down and see my baby's head there, under the water, and I asked C if it was OK for it to hang out like that! She said, "Yes, the umbilical cord is still providing oxygen right now." Then she told me that the body would come out on the next push.

And it did! I opened my eyes to see C pulling my baby up. And then came the moment I had anticipated for nine long months: My husband yelled out, "It's a boy!" I cannot even put it into words, the excitement and pride in his voice. It was amazing, hearing my husband say those words rather than an ultrasound tech, coming with all the emotion of seeing our baby -- OUR BABY! -- for the very first time. Hands down, one of the highlights of my life.

C put him right on my chest and we just started to laugh and cry. He picked his head right up and looked at us, like he was saying, "Hello, Mom! Hello, Dad!"

He was very quiet initially, just looking around with his deep blue eyes, taking it all in. After a few minutes with no noise, C got concerned about his breathing, so she did a lot of suctioning and finally he started crying. She asked if I wanted to move to the bed to deliver the placenta, but I was pretty comfortable in the tub, so we stayed in there for a bit.

They covered me up with towels, and we had our two friends and my mom bring Littles in to meet her new baby brother! Someone asked her what she thought and she said, "I have a big nose!" Everyone started laughing, but since she was standing right next to me, I heard her follow up quietly with, "He has a little nose." Very true, Littles. Very true.

My husband was on the phone calling people to tell them the news. He kept saying, "Just one more person!" And he'd call that person and then say, "Oh wait, I have just more person to call!" Proud daddy! Everyone kept asking what his weight was, but we didn't know yet, because he hadn't had his newborn exam.

C was getting a little concerned that my placenta wasn't coming out, and she suggested that I try nursing to cause my uterus to contract. I had some trouble because the cord was a little short, so C checked to see that it had stopped pulsating, and then she got my husband to cut it.

I tried nursing, but Noob had some trouble latching on. After a few more minutes, C asked my husband to take Noob so that I could try squatting to get the placenta out.

That didn't work either, even when I did some pushes, so we drained the tub and moved to the bed.

C felt my stomach and said she could feel some bleeding behind the placenta. She asked a couple of times if I was feeling faint, which I wasn't, thankfully. But I was starting to get a little nervous. E asked, "When was the last time she emptied her bladder?" and C said, "That's a good question!" I knew it had been a while. So C and G helped me to the toilet, where I tried soooooooooooo hard to pee... and I just couldn't! They were just outside the toilet room, writing some stuff down, and C told me to try pushing a bit again. I felt it come sliding right out. Whew. C and G didn't notice, so C asked, "Any luck?" And I said, "Well, something just came out, it was the placenta, another baby, or the biggest poop of my life" :) Then she asked if I had been able to pee, and as if on cue... "ssssssssssss." LOL! I got up and she confirmed it was the placenta. Whew!

While all that was going on, Noob took a HUGE poop. I missed it all, but my husband said he was covered from practically the shoulders down. Luckily, the new towels that we bought are dark brown :)

I got back in bed just as E was showing M the best way to put a prefold on a newborn :) I had specifically put some easier diapers into the box of diapers, figuring no one else would want to mess with prefolds. But E's tips made it really easy. My husband has been doing most diaper changes while I recover, and he loves the prefolds!

Once Noob's first diaper was on, I tried nursing again. E suggested trying the football hold, and that worked out really well. He latched on for quite a while, and made up for his lack of noise when he first came out by murmuring contentedly throughout the entire nursing session.

Meanwhile, C and G were cleaning up the placenta. C asked if I wanted to see it? Nooooooooooo. E asked if I wanted a picture? Noooooooooooo. Thanks for asking though, ladies. And thanks to M for taking it and throwing it away for us!

Once Noob finished nursing, my husband took him again while C and G inspected my bottom. They initially thought I hadn't torn at all, but it turned out I did need a few stitches. I figure it was probably my fault for pushing so hard, rather than letting my tissues stretch slowly, but oh well! It still wasn't as bad as last time, and both midwives said the tear was pretty clean and should heal up fine.

Then it was time for William's exam. Everyone guessed on his weight. My husband thought he was under 8 lbs, but all the ladies guessed in the 8 lb 9 oz to 8 lb 13 oz range -- and they were right on! He was 8 lbs 11 oz. He measured 21" long, nearly 1" longer than Littles, despite being over half a pound lighter. C and G ran through the rest of his exam on the edge of our bed, checking everything from his palette to his ear placement to his hip movement.

Once that was all done, around 4:30 PM, everyone packed up to leave. Pretty soon, it was just our new little family, along with my mom. Noob and I spent the rest of the evening cuddling in bed, relaxing, and nursing (which he got the hang of pretty quickly). Littles came in many times to visit with her baby brother -- still insisting, as she did for most of the final weeks of my pregnancy, that he is a girl :)

My husband and I went to bed with Noob at around 11 PM. We soon discovered that he wasn't a real fan of the pack-n-play, so he spent that first night sleeping in between us -- something that would not have been an option in the hospital at all, where the bed was definitely not big enough for two adults and co-sleeping was strongly discouraged anyway.

We woke William to nurse every few hours. After his 3 AM feed, I spent about an hour just laying in bed, cat on one side, my two boys on the other side, reviewing all the incredible events of the day in my head, completely blissed out.

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When C, G, M, and E left, they all came over one by one to give me a hug. When it was C's turn, she asked, "Are you glad you sent that email?" Because when I initially emailed her to set up an interview, I told her that I'd been thinking about sending that very email for months, and had finally decided to just do it. That email, of course, is what put us on this path towards homebirth.

I told her "yes," but really, that little word doesn't to justice to how glad I am. I had been very wary about seeking the "perfect" birth, because one thing that Littles' birth taught me is that there is so much that is outside your control when it comes to giving birth. But the experience ended up being about as close to perfect as I could have ever imagined.

One of my favorite parts of the movie "The Business of Being Born" has always been a line that goes something like this: "A woman will always remember the way she felt -- the way she was made to feel while giving birth." With Littles' birth, I felt strong, powerful, in control, in awe of my incredible body and all it could do. But I also felt like the people around me had "their" way of doing things that they followed, regardless of my desires. From the saline IV that the nurse just assumed I needed, to my OB tugging on the cord to get the placenta out without asking me, to even my doula asking for cervical exams when I wasn't sure I felt like lying on my back to hear semi-useless news of "progress."

Noob's birth was my way, all the way. I felt just as strong and powerful as I had with Littles. But I was also made to feel completely comfortable, and completely supported. Nothing happened to me, like it had in the hospital; I was asked at every step of the way what I wanted.

With Littles' birth, I was in awe of my body. With Noob's birth, I was in tune with my body. After Littles' birth, I felt like I had conquered a mountain -- because my body had taken everything the hospital had thrown at it, and overcome it. After Noob's birth, I just felt normal -- because my body had been allowed to do exactly what it wanted.

I still feel that Littles' birth was the way that SHE needed to be born, and I still consider it to be a really positive experience. But Noob's birth... well, as Littles loves to say, "Oh wow."

Bradley vs. Hypnobabies

I concluded my last post by saying that it's important to choose a childbirth class that feels right to you, which may or may not be what feels right to me. I figured it might be helpful to talk a little more about the specifics of Bradley and Hypnobabies, to help other women figure out which one does feel right to them.

Bradley classes
A "classic" Bradley method course series is 12 classes. Many instructors compress it somewhat. Mine covered the material in 10 classes.

The classes include:

• Three classes on staying comfortable and healthy throughout your pregnancy (exercise, nutrition, etc.)
• Two classes focused on the coach's role (typically the husband)
• Four classes on the mechanics of first and second stage labor, as well as tips for pain management and coaching during each stage
• One class on planning (birth plans, packing the hospital bag, etc.)
• One class on unexpected situations (c-sections, etc.)
• One class on basic newborn care (breastfeeding, baby soothing, etc.)

A typical class for us lasted between 1-2 hours. We usually reviewed the material in the workbook we were given, with plenty of time to ask questions. We often watched videos related to the material we were covering. We also did relaxation practice, which typically involved me lying down, breathing deeply, while my husband rubbed/massaged me and helped identify any areas of tension. Later in the class series, we did some full-on labor rehearsals, where I tried different positions, our instructor pretended to be a nurse "interrupting" and my husband had to gently handle her so she wouldn't bother me, etc.

Homework between classes included keeping a food log, some pregnancy exercises (pelvic tilts, tailor sitting, squats, kegels), and relaxation practice.

Hypnobabies home study
The Hypnobabies home study class consists of a workbook, a quick reference/birth partner guide, and a folder full of CDs.

The workbook is divided into an introduction, five classes, and a maintenance program. Each class is designed to take one week, although I started early in my pregnancy (about 24 weeks with both Noob and Q) and often chose to take two weeks before moving on to the next class. The classes cover:

1. Positive childbirth (hypnosis and how it can help you overcome the fear/tension/pain cycle during childbirth)
2. Staying healthy and low risk (exercise, nutrition, etc.)
3. Birthing choices (risks and benefits of common interventions such as Pitocin, IVs, etc., birth plans)
4. First stage labor
5. Second stage labor and breastfeeding

So, basically the same topics as Bradley. The approach is a little different, e.g. the Hypnobabies materials remind you over and over again that birth is easy, and they replace the usual birthing-related words with more positive ones (birthing time instead of labor, pressure waves instead of contractions, etc.)

Each week, you read the appropriate section of the workbook. The section also gives you your homework for the week. It's the same as Bradley homework -- food log, pregnancy exercises, and relaxation practice.

The relaxation practice is another key difference from Bradley. The practice is guided by self-hypnosis "scripts" on the CDs. The workbook section tells you which tracks you should listen to each week -- there are two per week, which you listen to on alternate nights. It also includes the hypnotic suggestions that are on each track. This is nice for people like me who always fall asleep while listening to the tracks :) By reading the workbook, I'm able to find out just what I'm listening to while I'm sleeping!

If you want to get a sense of what the scripts are like, there's a sample track on the Hypnobabies website that you can download and listen to for free.

For the first week or two, the scripts walk you through deep breathing to relax and enter hypnosis. Later on, you learn to enter hypnosis by using your "lightswitch." You also practice self-hypnosis using your lightswitch 5 times a day, outside of your script listening. It only takes a few minutes.

On top of this, you also listen to the "Pregnancy Affirmations" track daily. This is not a self-hypnosis track, so you can listen to it while driving, working, etc. It's about 30 minutes of positive statements about childbirth, such as:

• Pregnancy is natural, normal, healthy, and safe for me and my baby.
• My changing body is radiantly beautiful.
• I will give birth in comfort and in peace.

Once you're done with the five classes, you enter the maintenance program until you give birth. No more weekly reading, but you keep up with the exercises, nutrition, and relaxation practice. For the scripts, there's a weekly rotation of tracks to listen to, plus the daily pregnancy affirmations.

If that sounds like a lot... it's really not. The workbook reading takes maybe 30-45 minutes per week. The exercises are maybe 20-30 minutes per day if you're religious about doing them, which I'm not :) As for the scripts, I always queue up the script of the day plus the pregnancy affirmations track at bedtime. I usually fall asleep within a few minutes, but that's fine: My conscious mind knows what's on the tracks from reading the workbook, and my subconscious mind is still listening even when I'm asleep.

Hopefully that gives you a better idea of what you're in for if you choose either Bradley or Hypnobabies. They are both great courses, so choose what fits your personality and mindset the best! You can't go wrong with either one :)

Childbirth preparation classes

With Littles
My hospital offered childbirth preparation classes, but in my early research, I came across references to classes focused specifically on medication-free birth. I asked Dr. S about them at a prenatal appointment at around 16 weeks. He brushed them off, saying it wasn't necessary, that all classes were pretty much the same.

In retrospect, this was the first of many red flags regarding Dr. S. (This was the same appointment where he told me, "That's fine if you don't want an epidural. I mean, 85% of my patients go into labor knowing they want an epidural, and most of the rest of them end up getting one anyway... but if you don't want one, that's fine.") But I just ignored the comment, and continued researching my class options.

I eventually settled on Bradley method classes. A couple of things appealed to me about Bradley, as compared to other childbirth methods. One is that it teaches the husband (or other birth partner) to play a key role in the birth. From the first time I brought up med-free birth, my husband was super supportive and involved, so we both really liked the idea of a class that would honor that. Also, Bradley seemed a little more "scientific." None of this woo-woo about hypnotizing yourself into a pain-free childbirth or creating a birth space to help you open, or other craziness like that.

We found a nearby instructor and started classes when I was about 23 weeks. We both found them incredibly helpful. My husband isn't the type to sit down and read a bunch of books about childbirth, but he was an enthusiastic participant in the classes. They gave him the knowledge and confidence he needed to be a great birth partner. I think that's so important. I might be the one giving birth, but it's my husband's baby, too. I want him to enjoy the childbirth experience, just as much as I do. Bradley classes helped him do that.

As for me, I am the type to sit down and read a bunch of books about childbirth :) But I still found the classes to be helpful. Probably the best part was being able to sit down with a real live woman who had been through a med-free birth experience. (Actually, two of them, plus a third birth that occurred midway through our class series.) She brought such a sense of normalcy to childbirth. This was so powerful, especially when combined with the positive way that my mother had always described my own birth. So many pregnant women get bombarded with horror stories about labor and delivery. I wasn't. In fact, I got the opposite: I was surrounded by positive stories and experiences.

I think that made a tremendous difference in my mindset going into labor.

With Noob
As much as I had enjoyed Bradley classes, I opted to make a change with Noob. One reason for this was that I felt the relaxation techniques I'd practiced in class were less than useful during labor. I'd always practiced relaxation lying on my left side, but when I got into labor, I found that lying on my left side was intensely painful. And then I felt a little lost -- like, what do I do now? It worked out OK anyway. I ended up finding other comfortable positions to labor in. And as one of my friends pointed out to me later, it's likely that all the practice did pay off in helping me stay relaxed throughout labor, even if I didn't do it in the same position I'd practiced. Still, with Noob, I wanted to find a method that gave me more flexibility in how I labored.

For this reason, I started looking at Hypnobabies -- one of those methods that I had dismissed as too "woo-woo" with Littles. The basic premise of Hypnobabies is that you can experience labor as being pain-free through self-hypnosis. I know... woo-woo :) But one of the things I really liked about it, compared to Bradley, was that it gives you a variety of self-hypnosis scripts to listen to in preparation for labor, as well as during labor itself. It also teaches "eyes open hypnosis," where you're able to move around and labor in different positions, while remaining under hypnosis. This appealed to me more than Bradley's left-side relaxation.

In addition, actually going through birth had changed my entire mindset on it. With Littles, I expected labor to be most painful experience of my life, because everyone told me it would be. It wasn't. As I've mentioned previously, I found labor to be more like my Ironman triathlon experience: It was intense, and challenging (both physically and mentally) -- but not "painful" in the same way that, say, getting whacked in the head with a lacrosse stick is painful. (Yep, I've had that happen, too, on more than one occasion...)

This put me somewhat at odds with Bradley, which teaches pain management techniques: Why would I need pain management for something that's not painful? Interestingly, this is right in line with Hypnobabies' philosophy. Really, Hypnobabies and Bradley are more alike than they are different, but there is one subtle distinction between the two: Instead of teaching pain management, Hypnobabies teaches that childbirth is pain-free. That sounds crazy to a lot of people, but it made perfect sense to me.

I'll give a quick example to better explain this distinction. In labor, there is a period called "transition," which is when your body switches from dilating your cervix to pushing your baby out. Most childbirth classes, Bradley included, talk about this being the most painful part of labor. So when I was laboring with Littles, I kept waiting for it to get really painful and difficult. I was hoping to feel that, because it would be an indication that I was almost done. As it turns out, transition didn't feel much different from the rest of labor for me -- but in my head, I was trying to make it feel worse than it actually did. Pretty counterintuitive.

Hypnobabies is different. For starters, it shies away from using childbirth-related words with negative connotations, so "transition" is called "transformation." And it teaches that transformation is pain-free, just like the rest of your "birthing time" (aka labor).

With Noob, I remember very clearly when I entered transformation. The house was full of people by that point, but somehow, I ended up alone in my bedroom. My husband came up behind me just as a contraction (or "birthing wave," in Hypnobabies terminology) hit, so I leaned back into him and swayed a bit while he supported me. The contraction ended and I opened my eyes and noted the time. As I did, the contraction started right back up again, so I leaned back into my husband and we swayed again. When it ended and I opened my eyes again, I saw that the second contraction had been a full 2 minutes. Long, back-to-back contractions like that are a hallmark of transformation, and I knew it. But they weren't "painful" in the normal sense of the word. This is hard to explain. I felt many things. I felt the power of my body, I felt my baby moving into position to come out, I felt the love of my husband supporting me -- but I didn't feel pain.

I can't say for sure why the two experiences were so different. Certainly, it could have been because I was expecting transition to be painful with Littles, and I was expecting transformation to be pain-free with Noob. But it also could have been that I was more relaxed in the comfortable surroundings of my own home, as compared to the hospital. It could have been that I was experiencing spontaneous birthing waves, rather than Pitocin-induced contractions. It could have been that Noob's labor was just easier.

But after that experience, I knew I'd use Hypnobabies for any future births.

With Q
I'm 25 weeks right now, and I've been doing my Hypnobabies scripts for the past two weeks now. With Noob and with Q, I've chosen to do the Hypnobabies home study course. This was another thing that appealed to me about Hypnobabies: We can study it on our own, rather than having to go somewhere to take classes. This is really convenient, especially since now we'd have to find child care if we wanted to take live classes!

Of course, by doing the home study course, I lose the benefit of having access to a live instructor, which I found so valuable during my Bradley classes. I'm OK with this now that I have my own childbirth experiences to draw on, but I think it would have been less than ideal for my first pregnancy. (There are live Hypnobabies classes available as well.)

Also, with Noob, I found that my husband was less involved in childbirth preparation than he had been with Littles. Hypnobabies does have a lot of information for the birth partner, but as I said before, my husband is not the type to sit down and read a bunch of stuff on childbirth. He did read a bit of the home study material, and he remembered a lot of the basics from our Bradley classes anyway, so it worked out fine and he was still a wonderful support to me during labor. But I'd love to get him a little more involved this time around.

So, is Hypnobabies better than Bradley?
No, I don't think it's necessarily "better." Just different.

When it comes to childbirth classes, whether a mom is planning to forego the epidural or not, I think it's incredibly important that she and her birth partner take childbirth preparation classes that are not affiliated with a hospital. The reason for taking non-hospital-affiliated classes is that they'll help you explore all your options, not just the ones that are available at your hospital. For example, childbirth preparation classes at a hospital without birthing tubs are unlikely to spend a lot of time talking about all the benefits of waterbirth. A non-hospital-affiliated class will likely discuss waterbirth, allow you to figure out whether or not that's something you're interested in doing, and possibly help you make the decision to change hospitals if having that option is important enough to you.

In fact, taking non-hospital-affiliated childbirth prep classes is the single biggest recommendation I make to expectant parents. There are tons of other things to consider, such as choosing a supportive OB or midwife, learning about all the options available to you during birth (eating and drinking in labor, different positions for laboring, relaxation techniques, waterbirth, episiotomies vs. tearing naturall, etc.), ensuring the birth partner knows as much about childbirth as the mom herself, considering whether a doula might be beneficial (I'll do another post on doulas in the future), etc... but a good childbirth prep class will cover all of that. Hence why it's the single biggest recommendation I make :)

As for Hypnobabies vs. Bradley and other "methods," I don't think the particular method is very important. Obviously, I've chosen Hypnobabies for myself, but I know it's not for everyone. Heck, it wasn't even the right method for me, during my first pregnancy! I always encourage women to choose a childbirth prep class that feels comfortable to them. Which may or may not be what feels comfortable to me.