William's birth story

CageyMack · March 2013

Well, here is William's birth story . . .

I'd been having contractions on and off for a few weeks, but nothing regular. On Wednesday (40w, 2d), a regular check-up revealed that I was 2 and a half cm dilated. I realized at that appointment that my whole birth plan was based on things that didn't matter, mainly that our OB was now out of town for 3 weeks. I would be driving a long way to go to a hospital (selected because that was my OB's preference), and then I would just be handed to whatever OB was on-call. I freaked out a little since I wanted someone who was LGBT positive, ran to the hippy kind of birth plan, and someone I could trust when things got hard. I felt like I had let myself, my wife and our baby down with my slip-shod planning. But then, I ran into an awesome midwife that night who encouraged me to look into solutions that would empower me. So Thurdsay morning I called around and found an amazing all-women practice not 10 minutes from my house who deliver at the amazing 8 bed, hospital connected birth center that is one of the most natural-birth centered practices around. Thursday at 1 pm, I was seen by this great new practice's head doc, who proclaimed me 3.5 cm dilated, to be carrying a 7 and a half pound baby, and said things looked great. She took me on (at 40w3days!) and made sure to introduce me to the one other doc there that day, and to schedule me for my next appointment to meet the other doctors; she got it that I wanted to feel comfortable with the delivering person. Thank goodness! 3 docs and one CNM and I liked the office philosophy so much. Yay! Then we (my MIL, whom I had just picked up from the airport not an hour before the appointment) toured the great birth center. WONDERFUL! Just the place I wanted to give birth and all the staff were right on the money with great, professional, warm, and compassionate attitudes. Booyah!

At our house, Saturday morning is our "action day," the day that all of our household members head out and get their fitness on. So at 10:30 I took DD to swim team, and spent some of the time walking up and down in an effort to get the baby to drop. DW went to crossfit at 11am. DD and I ran back to the house for lunch, picked up MIL, and went to capoeira at noon. The good midwife I mentioned previously happens to be the owner there, so she gave me good vibes, offered to strip my membranes, and laughingly told me to "just forget" that I was pregnant.

So after lunch I walked four blocks to drop DD off at her friend's house and briskly walked home. With nothing on our hands to do but kill time, MIL and DW and I headed out to do some whale watching. I was having contractions by this time, but they were erratic and not that intense. I started to log them on my phone because I wanted to see if there was a pattern. We ate some delicious dinner at a local place and were heading home.

I was mentioning the contractions, because the joke has been that I would just shoot this baby out one day because my last labor was fast and I have a pretty high pain tolerance. That isn't a humble brag; it is actually kind of nerve wracking when you want to make sure you DO NOT give birth at home. I was, in fact, quite concerned that I would not know I was in real labor until it was too late to get to the center. But I don't really want to go to the center only to be turned away; again, my contractions were not "five minutes apart and one minute long." They were all over the place.

But DW and MIL insist we go. On the monitor for a forty minutes and, yep, still all over the place, not that strong, etc. We could tell the intake nurse was probably just going to send me home. She was about to do my pelvic when she steps out, and returns with a tall blonde woman who turns out to be the CNM from my new practice! Hooray! So the CNM introduces herself, gloves up and starts to check me.

"HOLY MOLY!" she blurts, quickly removing her fingers.

"I'm not sure you should say that to a very pregnant woman!" I respond.

"You're 5 cm and the bag of waters is filling your vagina," she says.

She had gotten out of there so quickly because, she said, if she broke it things would get pretty exciting pretty quickly. So, they admitted me. : )

That was about 6pm. From then until 11pm I had steady contractions, no pain meds and the best wife ever. My CNM was around regularly and the nurses were wonderful. Between contractions I felt totally fine, and when I had one I would just pause and conversation would go on over my head. I mostly stood and walked the halls. Rocking, squatting, regular stuff. At around 11pm, contractions got more intense and I would kneel and put my head on the couch. CNM offered to break the waters whenever I wanted, but I kind of liked the intensity, since it was pretty easy to deal with. We were also hedging toward a St. Pat's baby, and since it was already around 11:30 pm, I thought it wouldn't take much to get there.

After some discussion, we thought I could get checked, and I just had a "lip" left, which she said I could push through. CNM suggested I try pushing on my side, but when I rolled over, the baby's heartrate dipped to 60 instead of the nice strong 150 it had been (I'd had wireless monitors the whole time.) We quickly put me on my left side instead, and the heartrate returned, but CNM said, "Baby's saying he should get out now." So I decided to get this show on the road--no fun birthday is worth ANY drama. CNM advised me to get in three pushes for every "urge," which helped baby moved down and stay down. So in three of those phases, baby's head was out.

Suddenly, I could sense the tension and CNM said, with a firm urgency, "Don't push. Wait right there."

And I heard "nuchal cord" and " . . . a second." I knew the baby had the cord around his neck, so I just waited as still as I could. My darling and beloved wife had held my leg and hand and I had buried my head in her side for the whole pushing and she had rubbed my back and walked with me during labor. Later, when we recollected this moment, she said she had been looking at the birth and seen our baby's blue head and when she saw the cords she described it as like the necklaces of African tribeswomen, stacked and stacked and stacked. She had to look away.

The CNM cut them away in double quick time. I heard the cutting and in just a few seconds she asked me to push again and the whole baby came out and free and up in the air. I knew if he came toward me he was okay; if he went away, things were bad.

"He's our miracle baby!" the CNM said firmly as she set him firmly on my chest.

And that is where he stayed for over an hour. My heart just about broke right then.

And that was our birth. He never left our sight that night, he was perfect and darling and nursed like a champ for over half an hour. He did skin to skin with me and with DW and we all snuggled and cuddled and loved each other.

Nuchal cord is not that uncommon, and not always a big deal. I think ours wasn't really either, but it was around an awful lot of times. At least three, the CNM later said. And she was good and quick and professional and all is well. When we saw her the next day, she said that she had woken up in the morning and realized what a wonderful thing it was that she had not ever broken my water, because then he would have descended so quickly that it might have been much more dramatic than it was. As it was, he came down pretty slowly and so the only real moment of crisis was when she was all ready for it with good, strong surgical sheers.

So that's our story! DW said that when she accompanied William to the nursery for his hearing test the nurse asked what William would call her.

"I don't know," my wife said, "but I'm sure we'll figure it out."

And the nurse responded, "Well, I'm sure it will be just right. He is a very lucky kid to have two moms."

And later that day, we walked out of the hospital with our darling boy, two of the happiest people you've ever seen. Which is today, and we are still just that happy.

GoaliesWife123 · March 2013

What a spectacular birth story!!! He is just darling!

clairmeij · March 2013

Such a wonderful story. Thank you so much for sharing. And what a precious boy! Congrats again mama!

Twinkler2011 · March 2013

Cagey, what an amazing birth story. So happy for you and your DW. I shouldnt have read this at work....waterworks here!

Good Luck with the new one at home!

A

JGY · March 2013

Thanks for leaving me a sniveling mess this morning with that beautiful birth story. I am so SO happy for you and your family, what a wonderful experience and what a lucky little boy!