Caleb Micah Griffin was due on August 25th but arrived four days early. Since I had spent the last month of my pregnancy persuading the little guy that he could not come until Julia Bower, our midwife was back, I was not really anxious for him to come early and did not expect him before his due date. Greg and I figured that he'd come after the weekend, maybe Sunday or Monday. I also wanted to have my 39 week appointment with Julia on Friday to discuss a few topics.
We went to bed late Wednesday. We had a few household projects that kept us up late, like shelving in the laundry room that fell down that afternoon and Zachary spraying bug spray all over the carpet and me steam cleaning the carpets at 9 pm. I finally settled into sleep after midnight and at that point, decided that I was now ready to have the baby and he could come when he was ready. Overnight, I woke up a few times with crazy contractions but figured they were the same belly distorting Braxton-Hicks contractions I'd been having the past few months. But I wonder in those early hours if these were different and reminded myself of Julia's instructions to go back to sleep if in early labor. So I settled myself and fell back asleep.
Greg woke up with Zachary in the 6-o-clock hour and took him downstairs to eat breakfast and to let me have another hour and half of sleep before leaving for work. I woke up before 7 am with another huge contraction and decided that I'd better get up and use the bathroom before I had an accident in bed. Getting up from bed brought on another contraction and I went to the toilet. Sitting on the toilet trying to pee, another contraction started and I began to consider to myself if these were different from Braxtons-Hicks or not. This last contraction was so big I felt it strongly in my back and the tightness wrapped around to my belly and the huge contracting portion of my uterus. I wondered if I should go downstairs and ask Greg to delay going into work just in case I was really in labor, but then wondered how many times I might think I was in labor before really being there. I got up and went to the sink and brushed my teeth and started to walk into the bedroom and felt a small amount of wetness drip down my leg. I hopped back into the bathroom onto the hard floor from the carpeted bedroom. Just in case, I thought, if this is my water breaking. Then another small gush and looking down at the floor, a small puddle of water accumulated. I smiled, knowing that my water had broke and that Greg was still home and we were in labor. I grabbed a towel and stuck it between my legs and called to Greg downstairs. He was outside eating with Zachary so he didn't hear me. I threw on my favorite green maternity dress and headed downstairs. I walked outside the screen door to the patio and Greg greeted me with surprise that I was up so early, since it was only 7 am and I normally slept a little later. I told him that I was having some big contractions and that my water had broke and I flashed him my lovely towel and watch his face light up. He asked if I was certain and I moved onto the flagstone, removed the towel and promptly leaked a little. He got excited and we told Zachary we were going to have the baby. It was so strange to stand there, outside in the morning, leaking amniotic fluid onto the patio, but yet so normal. Greg promptly asked me what I wanted for breakfast, since I needed to start eating to keep my energy up. I asked for a bowl of oatmeal with peaches, brown sugar and cream and some coffee. I sat down in the Adirondack chair but it made my knees go higher than my hips and I didn't want the babe to flip to posterior again, so I sat in a different chair. I ate my oatmeal while Greg looked over the instructions from Julia on when to call. She and I had agreed that I'd call when I went first went into labor since I had such a fast labor with Zachary. But since my contractions were still a bit erratic, varying from 4 minutes to 7 minutes, we decided to wait till 8 am, when her instructions asked us to call. At 7:30 I decided to call Rebecca and Peter before they headed off to work to let them know that we'd need Zachary care for the day and I'd need my doula friend at some point. We told them we'd let them know when to head over and they agreed to come by after Peter finished a project at the office and Rebecca took their dog to the vet for an early morning appointment. I then had Greg call our neighbor to also let her know that my water had broke just in case we needed her to watch Zachary. Bella also then emailed my Blessingway friends to light a candle because baby was coming.
At 8 am, I called Julia. She answered the phone, with a bit of giddiness in her voice and I jokingly asked her if it would be okay if I had a baby today and if she'd mind helping us. We talked briefly and she asked me if I was on all fours, which I wasn't and she asked why - I was having breakfast outside with the family and having fun and all - and she promptly told me to go and get on my birth ball on all four so babe stayed anterior and that she would go shower and get her stuff together and be over shortly. I went inside and laid another clean towel underneath me and got on the ball and started moving my hips and doing the cat/cow pelvic rocks that Julia had reminded me to do. Greg straightened up the house and was buzzing around getting things together, calling the office to tell them he would not be coming into work today, writing down the start and stop times on contractions, all while I hung out on the ball in the living room. I then decided that I needed to take a shower and I went upstairs and tried to shower on all 4 on the ball in the shower. That didn't work, so the ball got shoved out of the shower enclosure and I took a quick shower and decided to dry my hair. Of course, the hair dryer was broken and I debated letting it air dry. By now, the family was gathered in the bedroom, Zachary watching morning PBS, me on my ball at the foot of the bed with the laptop set up on the bench typing away emails, letting friends know I wouldn't be at the swimming playgroup today and asking my mom's group to light a candle. I then decided I really did want a hair dryer and I instant messaged my neighbor Lori and asked if she'd be going for a morning walk and if so, could she drop by with a hair dryer. She of course jumped at the chance to see me laboring and showed up shortly thereafter with a dryer and the kids in the jog stroller. I chatted with her on the porch and had a few contractions, all this before 9 am. I completely enjoyed being in labor in the early morning sunlight on my front porch in a floppy dress knowing that, yes, today I would have a baby and I would do it in this house and that my neighbors were dropping by to check on me and wish me well. Crazy. I went inside, dried my hair and made my way back downstairs to the ball and got on my hands and knees again. Greg asked if I wanted food and I asked for the cut up fruit. He grimaced, because he didn't realize I'd been keeping the fridge stocked with fruit and muffins for snacking on in labor, just in case, and he'd eaten it all. I laughed and then tried to get Zachary to make some muffins with him. I had this strong want to make food, kinda like all the laboring moms in various books who make a birthday cake while in labor. But we could not get Zachary interested and instead Greg got me a hard boiled egg and the Kanteen filled with orange Recharge. About that time, the contractions started feeling less like erratic uterus, Braxtons and started feeling like real contractions. They had moved to my low belly, like strong period cramps and sometimes pulled into my back. I was excited to feel real contractions, since with Zachary most of my labor was back labor. I remarked on how easy these contractions felt and that they were not hurting or painful, just unpleasant. Occasionally I had to stop talking to Greg and concentrate on the contraction, but usually only the peak of a contraction required me to stop and breath through the unpleasant sensation. Sometime in here, I had Greg call Rebecca and tell her to come over sooner than later since when we talked earlier I was not really in labor and now the contractions were 4 to 5 minutes apart. She let us know that she'd be on her way, but that Peter was stuck at the office for another hour or so.
Around 9:30 am, Julia arrived. She brought bag upon bag of birthing supplies and put them in the kitchen. I remember admiring the various bags that she had her equipment in and laughed that even in labor, I still have a bag fetish.
She came over, gave me a hug and started taking out equipment while checking on me. She took my blood pressure and pulse and got the fetal doppler out and checked the baby. She asked about contractions and then made herself comfortable in the living room. We chatted about plans and the morning and she used the doppler on my belly during a few contractions, listening to the baby. Zachary meandered in and out of the room, talking to Julia and wanting to play with her equipment, telling Julia that "your friend GB has that at her office too." Julia let Zachary know that GB would be joining us soon too and we talked to him about baby brother coming today. Zachary brought the orange race car he'd borrowed from Julia's office into the room and played with it with us. He of course danced and chatted up a storm, making us all laugh.
Rebecca came over after 10 am and Zachary was excited to see his friend. Greg then decided to give us a little time alone and to get some groceries and snack food and he took Zachary to the store. Rebecca settled into the armchair and Julia sat on the floor across from me. The 3 of us talked about birthing, gardening, Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", about giant basil plants and pesto making. We had this great conversation while I hung out on my ball, rocking my hips and having contractions. Rebecca, 16 weeks pregnant, asked about the contractions and how they felt and if I was having any. Sweet Julia replied that, yes I was, and that I was just making them look easy and by gracefully disguising them while talking. I was having them, but the conversation was making them so easy that I'd just breath through the tough peaks of them or take a quiet moment in my conversation and close my eyes and send my breath into the painful portions, like in yoga practice where you breath into the tight spots to relieve the soreness. By this time, the contractions were somewhere around 3 to 4 minutes apart. Julia could tell by my conversation when a contraction was starting and when it peaked and acknowledged it with small looks while we talked. The contractions started to get closer and more intense and I could no longer chat with them through them. I had to stop talking, close my eyes and breathe through them. My breath was not silent and I moaned with each contraction. The vocalized breath resonated through me and helped me remove my concentration from the pain and instead listen to the sound. I was creating a quiet place inside my head to clear away the pain of each and to acknowledge each of them but to move through them easily. I commented to Julia that they were different than with Zachary and that I was enjoying feeling them. They were similar to really bad menstrual cramps with a little added kick. I was feeling them in my back, not in a back labor way, but as a pressure and slight pain.
Julia headed upstairs to start setting up the bed and the room. At one point she called downstairs to me and asked which side of the bed did I want to be on. What?! I thought, which side? What service. I replied I didn't care, I slept on both and she suggested the right side, since it was closer to the dresser and away from the windows.
Greg and Zachary came back from the store with fruit and baked goods. I suggested he go upstairs and help Julia with the room and finding the birth kit. Zachary was all excited that the house was filling up with his friends and Rebecca took over Zachary care, playing with him upstairs in the playroom, giving Greg, me and Julia some quiet time together. I asked Greg to get the ipod so that I could listen to my birth music that I'd compiled into a playlist. He plugged it into the receiver and I fumbled with it between contractions trying to put it on shuffle and than asked Greg to do it. He and Julia started talking about ipods and her ipod shuffle and how she could hook it up to her computer to listen to it. The only time I got annoyed by the two of them was this point, which cracks me up. Greg had the door to the cabinet where the receiver was open, which was poking me a bit in my right side. Julia was looking over me to the ipod as Greg showed her how to hook it up and I was having a few contractions and nobody was paying attention to me. I snapped at them "could we talk about this later" and the two of them jumped to action and began to take care of me. Silly people. I got to listen to my music and sway to it through the surges on my ball and relish that with this birth, I truly would get the chance to use my music.
My contractions had begun to pick up and were coming more frequently and with more intensity. I began to vocalize through them with low moans that flowed with my breath. I focused on putting my breath into the tightness and relax with each one. I swayed side to side on the ball. Julia sat in the room with me, this silent figure that watched each surge with knowledgeable and comforting eyes. Every now and then the surges would get bigger and my moans would grown in intensity and get louder. I was amazed that Zachary was walking around the downstairs watching and barely noticing his half naked mother singing her birth song on a big bouncy ball in the living room. Rebecca took over watching Zachary so Greg could be nearby. Zachary sat at the kitchen table and enjoyed a chocolate covered doughnut and talked to Rebecca about picking Peter up from work. Greg busied himself with airing up the birth pool in the kitchen. I just kept doing what I was doing, enjoying myself and my body doing it's work of birthing a baby. Then things began to pick up and I felt myself have to give into the next few contractions. They started fast and hard and quickly moved to the next one and were intense in my back. Not back labor painful like with Zachary's labor, but still painful. Julia reminded me that I could move between contractions and I didn't have to stay on all fours. I tried to sit up but it made my back ache and I found that being on all fours helped. Julia asked if they were getting stronger and asked if she could check my cervix. We headed upstairs and man alive, I barely made it upstairs before the next one. Julia had transformed the bedroom into this wonderful peaceful birthing room. The bed was stripped of the linens and made up with the other bedding. Pillows had different cases on them and were stacked up at the back. We talked about what I wanted with Zachary and if I wanted him present for the delivery or to come back afterward. I decided that when it got hard, I wanted Zachary out of the house because I was afraid he might get worried when I got really loud but that I did want him there when the baby was born.
Julia checked me and I was 4 centimeters. This was the first time she'd done an internal exam since I was 34 weeks along and I really appreciated not having those numbers known along the way. Julia decided now would be a good time for me to get into the pool so that we could slow down the contractions and take some of the pressure off of my back. We headed back downstairs and Julia told Greg to go ahead and fill up the pool. She commented that I had probably at least 2 hours left, saying that I'd probably progress 1 cm an hour if not quicker. Greg started filling the pool and Julia called GB to tell her how things were coming along. Then things started picking up. Quickly. I got slammed with a really intense contraction that grabbed my breath. It startled me to feel such intensity so quickly. Julia came to my side and leaned my head against her leg and tucked her hand under my chin. She held me this way through several more contractions and the strength that I found from her touch comforted me and helped me regain focus and control. When the surges began to gain in pain in my back, she laid her hands on my back and applied counter pressure. But just like with labor with Zachary, the pressure shot pain down my back. Instead of the pressure, she then just laid her hand on the spot on my back and her hand was like an ice pack and helped cool the spot and helped me focus my breath on that point. I found myself getting louder and really moving and loudly moaning the deep, throaty moans of intense labor. I asked for Zachary to be taken to lunch with Rebecca. I also wanted to not scare poor Rebecca, 16 weeks pregnant herself, out of natural childbirth, since I knew things were about to get really loud! I guess at this point Rebecca asked how long and Greg told her 4 to 6 hours. Greg hustled them outside and later I learned, that yes, you could hear me outside, which was one of my original fears about homebirth - silly one yes!
Shortly afterwards I felt a contraction that made my stomach curl under and over my uterus. I let out a panicky cry and another one quickly followed. Greg had just come back in the house and was going back to his task of manning the birth tub filling. Julia looked over at me as I had another curling over contraction and I knew then that the pushy feeling of those contractions were signaling that I was in transition. Julia picked up her phone again and called GB and I heard her describing the neighborhood and where to stop and then the front door opens and sunlight streams in and GB walks in. I get another curling over-pushy contraction as she walks in. She stops, looks at me and then Julia and asks how long I've been doing that. I say hello and that I'm happy she made it just in time and her and Julia begin calmly busying themselves getting the bags together. GB asks if I'm having this baby downstairs or in the bedroom upstairs. I cordially and amenably reply "wherever" not really wanting to head upstairs but also not wanting them to have to move everything. The midwives answer me that I should head upstairs and they begin floating around the house moving bags and equipment upstairs. During this time I have several of my toughest contractions and everyone is busy getting ready and nobody was by my side. I kinda freak out and get through them and am amazed how hard they are and how much easier the surges were with Julia next to me looking in my eyes or standing next to me. Greg comes to me and moves the sweaty hair from my eyes and holds me. Julia comes back downstairs and says I need to go up. They help me up and I have a whopper of a contraction at the bottom of the stairs. I say something about just having the baby on the stairs. They pick me back up and we go up. I get slammed again at the landing and hang onto the window ledge for support. Julia says to me to go. NOW. before the next one. I race myself up the stairs and land on the bed at an angle as the next contraction races through my body. I struggle to get myself up onto my hands and knees, the only way I feel comfortable. Julia and GB are digging through their bags getting supplies out. Fetal doppler, charts, oxygen tank, Chux pads, gloves. GB is using my orange African woven basket as a staging spot for all the things necessary for the baby - bulb syringe, cord clamps, baby hat. I love that the items from my life are incorporated into my labor.
Julia and GB gather behind me. GB uses the doppler to get the babes heart rate. I begin to get all super pushy and my belly turns over on top of my uterus and I shudder as the involuntary urge to push races through my body. My literal brain then begins to tell my birthing body that, no, it is not time for me to push. Julia just checked you and you were 4 cm. That was less than 30 minutes ago. The birth pool is only three quarters full and you've got hours left. No way. So I start to resist pushing, which makes me sing this high pitched moan that only occurs when you are resisting the pain and pushing it away as your body does what it is supposed to do. A few more of these whiney screams escape my body. I feel the baby heading down inside of me and begin to realize, that yes, I really am pushing. My birthing brain begins to register that things are really about to happen and that I really am about to have this baby. Everything is ready. Julia begins to apply steaming hot warm compresses against my perineum. The heat is excrutiating and incredible all at the same time. She presses them firmly against my bulging bottom and I'm told to go ahead and push. I question her once or twice and then realize that I can push. I ask GB if I can really push, even though I feel my baby's head. GB then shouts to Greg that the baby is crowning and to get up here. Poor Greg was trying to use the bathroom and suddenly women are shouting at him, including me who know realizes that yes, that is the babes head. He races back in. GB says something about the baby's heart rate being low and having trouble with it. Julia takes the doppler and they both start searching around my belly as I push looking for the heart tones. Things begin to take a more serious tone and I'm told to push as I have the next contraction. I'm still doing this scream moan at this point and granted it has been less than 10 minutes that I've been upstairs and barely 30 minutes since I was four centimeters. Julia tells me to stop letting my voice escape through my top and to focus my escaping breath to my bottom. I instantly know what she means and realize that my scream was from my fear of pushing too early and become aware of how important it is for me to really focus on pushing, that the babes heart rate is low and I need to get him out now. With the next contraction, I instantly change my mindset and send all my power into my pelvic floor and push the baby. The power that I was using to push was immense and incredible and the hardest work I have ever done. The midwives put oxygen on me and have me lay on my side to push. They have Greg grab my right leg and I try to push that way. The pain in my back in excrutiating and the babes tones don't improve with this new position. They swiftly flip me back onto all fours. Julia has Greg apply the hot compresses on my perineum. She tells me that there is a lip of cervix left and she tries to move it out of the way, which causes some discomfort. I feel the babe there but realize that I really feel like I need 5 or 10 more minutes to bring the baby down and to stretch everything well. I am pushing and sending every ounce of myself into each push and I think inbetween contractions that I just don't know where I can get any more strength, that I just need more time. Julia then tells me that she'd like to cut a small episiotomy. She almost whispers it to me in such an apologitic tone and tells me she is sorry but that we need to do this to help me get the baby out on the next push. I tell her to do whatever she needs, firmly trusting her and knowing that this will be the 2nd one she's ever cut and that she'd only do it if she felt it necessary. She digs out the scissors from the bottom of the bag and her and GB decide if they are the right ones, which totally makes me laugh that they weren't initally sure and makes me trust their decision even more. I feel Julia begin to cut this tiny incision. So tiny if feels like a papercut. GB says something about that not being an epis, and that she needs to cut more. She has me push with the next contraction and then she apologizes again and says she needs to cut more. Still, it feels so small and tiny and like a small sting that I barely notice. But then my body begins to push down on itself and I go back to work. GB puts her face next to mine and tells me that this needs to be the push. With this push I need to get the baby out. I bare down with everything and pray that I have the power to get him out on this push so that he is safe. I feel his head come out. The feeling of his body being out of mine but still inside me was incredible. With the next push I feel his shoulders come out and his body slither out of mine as he enters the world. They untangle the cord from around his neck and pass him immediatly between my legs and lay him on blankets. I reach down and touch him, exclaiming still with an oxygen mask on my face. GB suctions him and Julia rubs him down and dries him and untangles the cord. They help me pick him up and wrap a blanket around him and put his little midwife cap on him. Caleb Micah Griffin is blue but crying out his birth song. I exclaim out loud the immensity of the whole situation, how quickly he came, that he is here on the outside and my disbelief that things came so fast. I have just given birth on my own terms to my baby. The power of the moment was overwhelming and incredible. The rite of passage that I had just undertaken was immense. I scoot back in the bed and hold my son while the miwives put pillows behind me. I breath in my child. I touch his vernix covered skin. My hands hold him tight against my chest as we get to know him.
I lean back on the pillows and put him to my breast and begin to nurse him. He was slow to latch and GB has me use my pinkie finger. He suckles that and then moves to latch on. I am still in this euphoric high of birth and the midwives clean up and stand aside, waiting for me to birth the placenta. The cord eventually stops pulsing and Greg cuts it. Eventually I begin to feel crampy and they have me push. The feeling is a big blurb as the placenta is delivered. GB catches it in the big metal salad bowl and takes it to the bathroom to inspect it. She comments on how it is the most beautiful placenta she's seen, which I'm sure she tells everyone. We lay it down and inspect it, the placenta where it attached to my uterus, the bag and the place where it broke. She turns it inside out and shows us the tree of life and the view that Caleb had from the inside.
Caleb nurses and we call Rebecca back and ask her to bring Zachary home. They'd just picked up Peter and were finished eating and about to play at the playground. It's barely been an hour since they'd left. Greg gets me fruit and a pastry and a glass of milk. We stare at the baby. Then he is weighed and measured on my bed. The tape that came with the birth kit breaks in half, so we laugh at our inabilities to do math as they try to take his measurements. Then Julia, Greg and GB try and decide an official time of birth and we settle on the middle time, based on GB's iphone's atomic clock time. Zachary comes home and is introduced to his brother. He is sweet and checks him out and then decides that the heating pad that is covering Caleb is more interesting. Greg takes him back downstairs and they hang out with GB. My birthing music is on the stereo and Caleb and I baske in the motherlove hormones. Julia steams herbs downstairs and draws me the most luxiourious bath. She takes Caleb and helps me into the tub and I immerse myself in the dark brown herb scented water. She sits against the bathroom cabinets and holds the baby and finally gets a quiet moment to check the little guy out. Then she brings him to me and lowers him slowly into the water and holds him between my legs. He relaxes into the water in this unbelieveably relaxed state and proceeds to fall asleep in the most peaceful way. He lays his hand back against the water and reminds me of some old man relaxing in the slow lapping ocean water. We wash him and rub the vernix into his skin. Maya joins us on the tub edge, checking out the baby and the water. Julia takes the baby, wraps him in a towel and finds a diaper and swaddles him. She helps me out of the bath, dries me off and helps me into clothing. We go downstairs and join the our friends. I eat more food and drink water. Julia checks Caleb and mines temperature and my blood pressure and leaves us with instructions to go over. We say good bye to her and then bid farewell to our birth attendents, Rebecca and Peter. We sit in the light as a family of four, taking in the craziness of the day. It is only 4 pm now. Julie drops by with a roasted chicken, veggies, a salad, flowers from her garden and champagne. We eat dinner together, looking at the newborn member of the family laying peacefully in his Moses basket.
The birth of Caleb happened over the space of one work day, starting just after Zachary and Greg's morning breakfast outside and ending shortly after lunch. By dinner, we had grown in our love as we sat together, watching Caleb sleep. I am so thankful for this amazing birth. For the respect and love shown to me by Julia and the support from GB. They were an amazing team and danced together so well to the choreography of my birth. Greg was strong and confident and supportive. He was able to stand back and allow Julia to take care of me and watch and enjoy the birth. I had such an incredible time and truly enjoyed myself. I would never choose to birth any other way. At home, with midwives was amazing. I truly enjoyed myself and wish I could do it again.
Today is Caleb's 6 month birthday. Seems so old to me and I can't believe how quickly time flies with the second child. Caleb is rolling, trying to sit up and wanting to crawl and run after Zachary. Zachary is his favorite person and daddy second. He is the worlds biggest smiler and will work a room to get a grin. His eyes are starting to turn brown and I'm thinking he might also inherit his brothers long lashes. He still loves to hold my hand when nursing and strokes my side, which melts my heart every time. He also has outgrown all of the clothing that Zachary was wearing up to 9 months and is our pudgy baby.
