Violet Adele's Freebirth Story (10-07-11)

Thursday morning started with me waking up to more bloody show. I had some 2 days earlier, along with losing my mucus plug. I had some random contractions throughout the day that caught my attention but nothing too strong to make me think labor was soon.

After cooking a hearty steak dinner I put Lucy to bed. Later I randomly told Eddie that I was going to have a baby by this weekend. I just felt so "weird". I knew labor had to be close, I just didn't think it was going to be THAT close. He feel asleep right away and I stayed up watching Mythbusters. It was getting late so I decided to lay down and try to fall asleep even though I was barely tired. About five minutes after laying down I was hit with an intense contraction. I was relaxing and breathing through the contraction when I felt a "POP". It was so strange, it was like a shock wave! I completely froze at that point because I was honestly scared to move. I really didn't want my water to have broken so I was searching my brain for other possible things that could cause such a feeling. Like, did the baby just give me some kind of super hard kick? Then I felt another contraction coming which caused the fluid to start leaking out. I said out loud "OH SHIT" as I jumped out of bed, which immediately woke Eddie asking what was wrong. I told him my waters broke and that he could go back to bed if he wanted because it might be awhile. Of course how could he sleep after that so he got up and started prepping the room for the birth. I looked at the clock, it was a little after 1 am. I put on a pad and laid back down in bed to start timing a few contractions.

I figured since Lucy's birth had started in a similar fashion, I should have a baby by 8am. Little did I know what a mistake making that comparison would be, this wasn't going to be anything like Lucy's birth! Contractions started immediately, about every 4 minutes, lasting a minute. They were INTENSE. Like whoa. I did my best to stay laying on my side but that wasn't working. Laying down HURT. In fact, everything I had done to cope with the contractions during Lucy's birth was NOT working for me during this one. Breathing through contractions wasn't cutting it either, I ended up vocalizing through them instead. I walked around the house, sat on the toilet, sat on the birth stool, squatted on the floor. I couldn't stop moving or the pain was too intense. At one point I got out my fetoscope to listen to the baby's heartbeat, I found it right away and it was nice and strong. That brought me a lot of peace as I had a little worry about how much fluid I was leaking and maybe the baby no longer being engaged causing a possible cord prolapse.

At around 3 am I needed to get in the shower. I was trying so hard to hold off because I still thought birth was 4-5 hours away. The shower was amazing! I stood hanging on the shower bar with the water pouring down my back. I don't know how long I stayed in the shower but at one point I got out and sat on the toilet. I eventually made my way back into the bedroom to sit on the birth stool.

This is when things got really intense and I started to get super discouraged. I looked at the clock and it was only a little after 4 am! Contractions were coming on top of each other now and relaxing through them was becoming very difficult. I had a lot of pressure in my bottom but no urge to push. So I waited and continued moving around hoping that the urge to push would come earlier than I had orignally thought. I was already starting to freak out a little because I didn't see how I could make it to 7 or 8 am like this! In hindsight I think this might have been transition because I definitely hit a wall where I didn't think I could handle this anymore.

Sometime before 5am, maybe 4:45?  I got back in the shower. I wasn't in there for long before it became obvious it wasn't going to do anything for me. The water wasn't helping with the pressure or pain. I started having some intense pain in my legs with every contraction. I was no longer relaxing with my contractions, in fact I was running away from them! I thought I should check myself to see if birth was close but I couldn't feel anything in there. So very discouraging.

At this point I have no idea what time it was but I decided I would get out of the shower and sit on the birth stool and try pushing gently with a contraction and see if anything happened. I immediately started to feel relief when pushing with the contractions. I had no idea if this was a good thing to be doing but it just felt right so I went with it! After making myself push with a couple contractions the urge to push hit me and my body took over. I could no longer NOT push! Eddie went to get a mirror and a flashlight(yes, he had a flashlight, this totally made me laugh), he took a look and said "I see a head!" to which I replied "really?!" and looked for myself and said "oh thank god!". The head slowly moved down with each contraction until I hit the "ring of fire", as they call it. I moved off the birth stool and squatted on the floor, trying to breath through the contractions to allow myself time to stretch. WOW was that difficult! I didn't realize how incredibly hard it is to not push when the urge is so strong. My body was bearing down all on its own!

I remember saying to Eddie that the baby was coming or the head was coming, something that was completely obvious! He had a towel and asked what he should do, I said "nothing". Shortly after that the head came out and the body came with it, right into my hands! I placed the baby on the floor for a second to look her over before quickly picking her back up. She was crying right away and she was indeed a she! I said "you're a girl!", which we already knew but it's always good to be 100% sure! Eddie took a couple pictures and started taking a video when we noticed the time was 5:42am, so we guessed 5:40am was the time of birth.  Then he ran, literally, to get Lucy and wake her up to meet her new baby sister. (which we caught all of video tape!)

Then we called my parents to tell them they could come over now. The plan was for them to come immediately after the birth in case we need help with Lucy, and honestly I wanted my mom to make me some breakfast! It was after 6 am now and we decided to cut the cord. It was longer than Lucy's had been but it was still bothering me and I thought it would be easier to squat over the bowl to deliver the placenta without holding the baby. Eddie clamped and cut the cord, then he took the baby for me. I squatted and gave a little push and the placenta came out with ease. My bleeding was looking good so I sat on a clean chux pad on the couch and nursed the baby.

My parents showed up after that and everyone chatted about the birth and doted over the baby. Ed made a bunch of phone calls, he was on as much of a birth high as I was! The baby was still nameless at this point so we were all throwing around the names we liked, Stella and Violet were the main two. I wanted to get cleaned up so I gave my mom the baby and took a quick shower. After I got out Eddie said he wanted to name the baby Violet and I asked if he was sure because we originally thought it would be Stella Rose. He said he no longer liked Stella. I said Violet was great *if* her middle name could be Adele! After a short pause he agreed and yay, Violet Adele it was!

Finally we tried to weigh her, which apparently we did completely wrong because we got 6 lbs 7 oz and when we weighed her the next day it was 6 lbs 14 oz. Awesome huh? So we are going with, 6 lbs 14 oz and 19 inches long! Everyone hung out a little longer. My mom made us some breakfast & helped clean up everything before leaving with my father. It was absolutely perfect.

Introducing...

Violet Adele

Born free into her mommy's hands

on October 7th 2011 at 5:40am.

Weighing 6 lbs 14 oz and 19 inches long.

Birth story to follow...

The Birth Story of Lucille Marie (02-02-08)

It was 10 days past my due date. On Friday night, my husband and I went out to dinner with my parents. The whole time we were at dinner I kept having to run to the bathroom to "pee", I was having these really intense contractions, which I assumed were just braxton hicks, and I thought the pressure was making me pee my pants a little. Well I had no idea my water had broke and that was what this liquid was.

When we got home I took off my dress, I wanted to check out what was going on, I was starting to wonder if it really was pee, right then a small gush of water trickled down my legs. I was so excited, I wrapped a towel around me and waddled into the living room to tell my parents and husband. I didn't call the midwife right away, I laid down first because I wanted to time my contractions. They started right away and were about 10 minutes apart. Around 9 PM I paged the midwife and waited for a call back. I was so happy when I learned that my favorite midwife, Amber, was on call that night. She was already at the birth center with another woman in labor, Amber told me to lay on my side and call her when my contractions were closer together. I laid in bed until the contractions became very strong, I don't know exactly how close together they were(maybe 3-5 minutes?) because I wasn't counting anymore, I was in "laborland". At 12 AM we called and said we were ready, she was very surprised and thought I wouldn't be in so quick, she asked me to come in an hour and the room would be ready. I didn't mind because I honestly wasn't looking forward to the car ride anyway. We hung out for about 45 minutes and then we left. When we got there it was a little after 1 AM and my contractions were about every 2 or 3 minutes. She checked me and said I was 6 cm! yay!

I was planning on having a water birth, the birth center has a nice tub. But the down side is there is only 2 rooms at the birth center and no guarantee you will get the one with a tub. And because a woman was already in labor, I did not get the tub room. They do have a birthing pool but it was being stored at someone's house a couple hours away, and it was the middle of the night, but I was going to have this baby before the pool would even arrive, let only be filled with water.

So I took a shower! Which felt amazing, but made my contractions much more intense because I was standing. So I got out and sat on the toilet, which is where I stayed until I felt an urge to push. I was in a lot of pain by now and I was trying to continue relaxing though my contractions, which was not working anymore because my body did not want to relax, it wanted to push. I told my husband Ed (who was by my side making me smile and laugh throughout my whole labor. Best husband ever!), that I could not do this anymore. He said we should go to the bed and have the midwife check me. She did and I was complete. 10cm and ready for pushing!

I started pushing on my back, which the baby wasn't liking, so I turned on my side. Pushing on my side was much more comfortable. Pushing was the most painful part for me, I was thinking it would be more relieving but it hurt so bad! I pushed for about 10 minutes and she started crowning, I reached down and touched my baby! I continued pushing with a couple more contractions and at 2:45am, on February 2nd 2008 her head popped out, the rest of her came too! She kind of flew out all at once while splashing water all over my poor midwife and her assistant. Ed helped catch her and put her on my chest. I think it was about 5 minutes after birth when I asked for the cord to be cut. Her cord was very short and I was trying to pull her up to my chest and it was very uncomfortable because it was rubbing against a small tear I had on my vagina. The placenta delivered about 15 minutes later. After that we tried breastfeeding for the first time, Lucy quickly latched on. Then they checked me for any tears, I did, I wasn't surprised, I was pushing too fast and wasn't allowing time to stretch. Plus Lucy's hand was up by her face the whole time(no wonder pushing hurt so bad!). Ed held the baby while Amber gave me a couple stitches. After that I showered and Lucy had her newborn examine. 6lbs 8oz and 20 in long! We nursed once more before heading back home around 6/6:30-ish AM. Best day of my life. :)