Norah's Birth Story

 
Our sweet Norah Jane is just over 2 weeks old now. It has been a wonderful 2 weeks with her, and I have finally found the time to write up the birth story so many friends have asked to read! We also got our labor/birth pictures back from our amazing photographer the other day, so I added a slideshow of many of them at the end of this post. Before I get into the story of Norah's birth, though, I want to back up and briefly explain why we planned this birth a bit differently than our first, since many have asked.

When we found out we were pregnant this time around, we knew we wanted a different experience from the last. With Charlie we had given birth at St. Joe's Hospital in St. Paul. Overall, we had a fine experience there, and a better experience than we probably would have at most other hospitals. It was a pretty natural-birth-friendly hospital with the lowest C-section rate in the state, and we had mostly wonderful nurses and midwives who tried their best to follow our birth plan. Still, after Charlie's birth, I began researching home birth, because I wanted a more peaceful experience. I knew part of the reason for my long labor with Charlie was due to fear as well as being in the hospital setting, trying to fight for the type of birth we wanted with minimal interventions. I felt less in charge of my own birth and more like a patient following orders. I wanted to be somewhere familiar, with only people I knew well and wanted at the birth. I wanted to listen to my body during labor and do whatever I needed to do to have a comfortable, peaceful birth. I also wanted to make informed choices about my pregnancy and birth alongside my caregiver, instead of being told what would be done based on policies, many of which were not evidence based. I have had several friends choose to have home births, so I had heard about their wonderful experiences and had also done plenty of research before deciding it was the best option for us. Thankfully Dan was totally on board and enthusiastic about having a home birth. Though many feel the opposite, we felt so much safer being home with our midwife than in the hospital. I could say a lot more on this topic, but I will just leave you with a link to a blog post by a midwife in our area that concisely debunks the myths about home birth (and answers many common questions we have received). If you're interested, check it out!
The Myths of Home Birth

Now on to the birth story...

My "guess date" for this pregnancy was August 22, and since Charlie had been 10 days overdue, I assumed I would go late again this time. I was almost planning on a Labor Day birth (which would have been 11 days late) since I thought that would be so fitting! I wasn't in any hurry for baby to come since, thankfully, I was physically very comfortable up until the day she was born, and there was so much (it seemed) to do ahead of time! Still, I was excited to meet our baby and find out if it was a boy or a girl! We had found out ahead of time with Charlie, so this time we wanted to be surprised at the birth. Throughout the entire pregnancy my intuition said girl and I was almost positive it was a girl, but doubted myself towards the end, because boys just run in our families! I thought I would most likely just have a house full of boys (which would have been fun, too :)

On Wednesday morning, August 28, I noticed some signs that labor was probably in the near future. So that day I made sure to finish up my "to-do-before-the-birth list" which included vacuuming, and cleaning the bathtub. Ha. Everything else had been done weeks ahead of time, just in case, and I was getting a bit tired of keeping the house clean. I decided to take a nap while Charlie napped, and while I lay in bed around 3:30pm, I felt my first mild contraction. The next one didn't happen for 45 more minutes, so of course I didn't know if this was it or not. The following contractions were between 20 and 30 minutes apart, and by 5:00pm, 15 to 20 minutes apart. They were still mild and I could pretty much ignore them while going about my day. I kept our midwife up to date every so often, as she had been at another birth all day and would have to figure out when, if necessary, she would have to leave and come to assist us. I told her it really could be another day or so, since the contractions were so mild and irregular. At 6:00pm I started timing the contractions on my phone in one of those neat apps that recorded and averaged the frequency and length of contractions. Still, I didn't pay much attention to them, and started making dinner- homemade tomato basil tart pizza. From 6:00 to 8:00pm they were 8 to 15 minutes apart, yet quite manageable and I still didn't know if this would continue or maybe fizzle out when it would be time to go to bed. So our dilemma became whether we should send Charlie to a friend's house for the evening or put him to bed here. I honestly thought it might be another day of labor, since Charlie's 23 hour labor had started out at around 3-7 minutes apart! Thankfully, we decided to drop him off and put him to bed at our friends' home close by. So after eating a late dinner as a family, Dan took Charlie around 8:00pm. I was at home alone and decided to lie down and stop timing the contractions for a bit. I listened to some Scripture Lullabies- Hidden in My Heart, which was so peaceful. I highly recommend that album... so many memories of listening to it during Charlie's sleepless nights as a baby and praying the words of the songs when sleeplessness made everything seem hopeless and impossible. There is so much peace associated for me with that cd, so it was wonderful to listen to during labor, too.

As soon as I lay down and stopped timing the contractions, I had my first really intense one that took my breath away. I also noticed they seemed to be a lot closer together all of a sudden. Dan got back around 8:30pm and I asked him to call the midwife and let her know things seemed to be picking up. She was still at this other birth with another midwife, but was going to leave shortly to come to us. I had told Dan around this time that I was starting to shake and feel nauseous, which I immediately recognized as signs of transition. This really surprised me, because I thought I was still so far from that point. I also had Dan call our birth photographer to come as I realized the contractions were now about 5-7 minutes apart and were getting much harder. I had to really stop, close my eyes, and breathe through them, focusing on relaxing every muscle in my body. Dan was picking up around the house, in communication with our birth team, and constantly getting me water or asking what I needed. I told Dan I really needed him to be with me and coach me through each one now. One of the tools we used from our birth class was for Dan to put his hand on my shoulder and say "relax" during a contraction. Since we had practiced this throughout our pregnancy, my body knew to just relax my muscles each time he did so. Since we had eaten a late dinner, I don't think I ended up eating anything during active labor, but felt fine energy-wise. During this time, I chose to mostly be sitting on our exercise/birth ball leaning on a stack of pillows on our couch, leaning over the birth ball while on my knees on the floor, or sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. I still felt very composed and confident about handling each contraction that came. Although they were increasingly more intense, they were definitely manageable. After sitting on the toilet for awhile, our photographer arrived and I moved back out to the living room to chat for a moment. She commented that I was still smiling between contractions and didn't need to be away from people yet, so I still must have some time to go yet. In my head, I agreed. This was probably around 9:30pm or so. Soon, however, the contractions seemed to be right on top of each other. They got really hard and really uncomfortable, and we soon found out after timing them that they were only 2 or 3 minutes apart and lasting up to 2.5 minutes in length! I wanted to get into the birth tub badly, at this point, as my back was starting to really hurt, but I wanted to wait until the midwife got there because I knew that sometimes the water can speed the birth up, since it helps you relax. I got really serious and a little anxious at that point about when the midwife would get there, as I sensed things were different and the baby was probably coming soon. Dan assured me she was on her way, but she had gotten lost since she was coming from a different direction straight from another birth (and that poor lady she had been assisting in labor still hadn't had her baby!). So I decided to get into the tub at that point. It must have been around 10pm. The water felt so soothing and relaxing. I was alone for a few minutes and just enjoyed the dim lights, familiar and cozy space of our bedroom, and the picture/posters on my wall that I had written up ahead of time that reminded me to "relax," "open," and that I could do "all things, through Christ who strengthened me." A few moments later, the assistant/apprenticing midwife arrived and quietly smiled, asking if I needed anything. Our photographer was quietly in the other room or hallway capturing some pictures without us even hardly noticing. It was mostly just me and Dan in our room and it was so peaceful. I knew I was in transition then, because the contractions were incredibly intense, close together, difficult to manage even in the water, my back was killing me, and I felt a bit panicky each time. Around 10:45pm our midwife finally arrived. Boy, was I glad to see her! She too entered quietly and calmly, and let Dan and I pretty much be alone until it seemed we could use some extra support. She listened to the baby's heart tones under the water with the Doppler and reassured us baby was doing just fine. I believe she only listened twice before our baby was born! Otherwise, we had no exams/checks during labor (or before), and no interventions whatsoever. Jeanne, our midwife, started supporting me alongside Dan as I needed, and our photographer sat on our bed in the background quietly. It started to seem necessary for me to either say/sing, "peace" or "ahhh" in a low voice through each contraction which really helped me deal with them. Then Dan, seeing that it was getting really difficult, offered to get in the tub with me to push on my back each time. Such a sweet husband! So, I would face my midwife, close my eyes and move around in the water as seemed to help baby come down or get into better position, while Dan pushed on my back and I prayed for God's help/strength. Although the water didn't help quite as much as I had hoped, I couldn't imagine not being in the water at that point. I remember saying over and over during the difficult contractions, "Help me, Jesus...help me Jesus..." and my midwife would sweetly say to me, "He's right here with you."

Not more than a few minutes after I felt like I couldn't do it any longer (I remember telling my midwife, "I don't know about this..." more than a few times... or "what if this baby doesn't ever come out?" haha), I started having the urge to push. This was the hardest part of all, and seemed like it went on for an eternity because of its intensity, being the only part of labor that felt almost unbearable, but later I was told I only pushed for 16 minutes! Wow, so short compared to 2 hours of pushing with Charlie! Those 16 minutes I felt incredibly loud. Somehow, the only thing that helped me deal with it was vocalizing (which turned into yelling), but it did help. I still don't know how women can be quiet during pushing! Still, I was pleased that this time I felt less mentally out of control. When thoughts of, "I can't do this," or "What if this never ends?" came into my head this time, I could combat them with truth: "I can do this and am doing it with God's help" and "It will end and I'll be holding a baby soon." So I'm very thankful to God that he calmed my mind and my heart during this labor and of course that it was so much shorter than last time (23 hours of active labor with Charlie!). In between pushing contractions I remember feeling somewhat calm, too, which surprised me. I reached down and actually felt our baby's head before the last few pushes and could even feel the bag of water that hadn't broken yet! It was really cool, and I knew baby would be coming soon. Soon my water broke and I could feel the hair on our baby's head! I announced to Dan that he or she had hair. A few more pushes and our baby was out at 11:31pm! I couldn't believe it. Our midwife caught and immediately handed me our baby! My first thoughts (besides, thank goodness that's over!) were that the baby was so tiny compared to Charlie and that he or she had long delicate fingers. Pretty quickly I remembered to check and see if we had a boy or a girl! I remember looking down and seeing the umbilical cord. For a split second I thought we had a boy! Haha. Oh, wait. I checked under the cord and couldn't believe my eyes. A GIRL! I said, "Oh my gosh, it's a girl..." over and over again. I never thought I'd have a girl! I just held her and stared at her while we waited for the cord to stop pulsing. I think it was about 15 minutes. I delivered the placenta and they cut the cord. Then I got out of the water and onto our bed where I continued to hold Norah and they covered us in warm towels. They checked me over to make sure I was doing well, I held Norah and she started nursing right away! Then they let Dan and I have time alone with our new little girl. A little while later they checked her out, weighed her, etc. We found out she weighed 7 lbs, 7 oz. and measured 20 inches in length. A true newborn! Charlie was a whole pound and 5 oz bigger, and an inch and a half longer, barely fitting into his newborn clothes. Norah seemed so tiny in comparison. We noticed her long skinny feet and toes, and how alert she was, just like Charlie. Eyes wide open from birth looking intently at us. Oh, and she loved having her hands/arms by her face constantly. Dan said she was sucking her thumb almost immediately after being born, and our midwife said she came out with her hand by her face. She came out crying and was pink immediately. She calmed down quickly after holding her, though. Her Apgar scores at 2 minutes and 5 minutes after birth were perfect 10's.

After a few hours, our midwives and photographer left us with our new baby. Though it was the middle of the night, we called our parents with the news. It was exciting to announce to my parents that they had their first granddaughter after 6 grandsons! Though we were supposed to try to sleep, it was almost impossible. I just wanted to stare at her all night long. I loved being able to be in our own bed right away. It was all just so peaceful and perfect. No nurses or doctors interrupting our sleep all night, no beeping machines or uncomfortable chair-beds to sleep on for Dan :) I felt overwhelmed with gratitude at God's kindness. Not only for a beautifully healthy baby girl, but for even giving us a beautifully peaceful birth. I teared up that night just looking at Norah. Couldn't believe she was reality. "God is too kind!" was my thought.

Looking back over the labor, I couldn't believe how quickly everything happened. I'm still not sure how to count how long it was because honestly, throughout most of it I was uncertain if it was really "it"! At it's absolute longest, from the first contraction to her first cries, it was 8 hours. From "active labor", it was about 3 hours. From the first moments of feeling like I couldn't do it or I could hardly manage the pain/intensity, it was only about an hour...maybe less. If you had told me around 7 pm while I was making dinner that I would have a baby that evening, I would have laughed at you. Even at that point I thought it might be another day or so. Wow! From 23 hours to 3 hours from first baby to second. Not bad. God was again so faithful and gracious to us.