Soooo, What Happened?! (Isaac's Birth Story)

Hi friends! Sorry it's taken me several days to get this update published. Our world has been turned upside down -- in the BEST of ways, but upside down nonetheless! :)

We now have our sweet baby boy, who I am now able to hold in my ARMS instead of my belly! Finally! :) Isaac Patrick arrived Monday morning, 9/13/10, at 9:39 am. He weighed in at 7 lbs, 12.9 oz and is 19 & 1/2 in. long. We had quite an intense labor/delivery experience, which I will try to explain here. "TRY" being the key word. :) There are a lot of details, I'm sure, that I don't remember.

Our plan from the beginning was to have a home birth, in the water. I have believed firmly in home birth (not that some pregnancies don't require hospital births, but I believe that most healthy women with normal pregnancies should be able to deliver at home if they choose. I'll save my home birth soap box for another time. :) ) for about 10 years, ever since I was present at the home birth of my friend Andrea's son Josiah in 2001.

Anyway, so we planned a home water birth, interviewed and "enlisted" our midwives, Suzanne and Sarah, and went ahead with all of our prenatal care taking place in our home. It was wonderful. Sarah and Suzanne have done an amazing job taking care of us, teaching and coaching us, etc.

Saturday night the 11th, I went into labor around 5pm, with contractions becoming more regular and intense around 7:30 pm. We *TRIED* to sleep that night, with me having to get out of bed every time I had a contraction, stand up to breathe and work through it, then getting back in bed and waiting for the next one.... this continued all night, and then around 5:30am we decided we really needed some support so Sarah, our doula (who is nearly finished with her own midwifery training) went ahead and came over. Soon after, I was in the water birth pool in our living room and, with the help of Sarah, Stan, and our friend Camilla, focused on breathing through my contractions, which by that point were becoming very, very intense.

At some point that morning Suzanne came over also....AND my mom arrived via plane from North Carolina (thanks to Tracy for picking her up from the airport!!), and from then on things are really a blur to me. I remember standing outside on the front porch with Stan sometime Sunday morning and working through several contractions out there, with Stan holding me up and me virtually hanging on him through the contractions. It was a gorgeous morning.... I remember the morning air feeling really refreshing to me. I was already pretty exhausted. I remember being in and out of the water during the day on Sunday, just trying to find positions that would help me cope with the pain. I remember laboring on the birth ball (like an exercise ball) for a while, kinda on my knees with my upper body hanging over the ball. Our midwives had me try all kinds of different positions... I had no idea you could labor in so many positions.

At some point I took them up on their offer of a medication for pain that lasted about 2 hours and allowed me to sleep between contractions.... but only between them. Stan and I went to bed and during the contractions, which by this point were agonizing, he would push on my hips to take some of the pressure off of my pelvis....and between contractions we slept.

Sometime Sunday evening I remember asking our midwives if I was in a normal amount of pain for a first time mom...or if what I was experiencing was abnormal. They said it seemed to them like my contractions were more painful than they are for other first time moms.

I won't go into all the details of the next several hours (for the sake of anyone who is of the male gender who might be reading. :) ), but suffice it to say we tried several different things to get my body to continue progressing, dilating, etc....to bring me to a point where I could push the baby out.....and push I did, though without much success. It was by far the worst pain I have ever dreamed I could live through. Holy cow. But I had such a phenomenal support system around me (Stan, Suzanne, Sarah, my mom, Camilla, and Tracy), and the grace of God really carried me through those few hours. But WOW, it hurt. Sometime around 3am, they checked me and I had REgressed dilation-wise, but was still in absolute agony with every contraction. At that point I knew I was at the end of what I could handle and still have anything left in me to be able to push....and so.....

I had this inner conversation with the Lord about going to the hospital. I have believed so firmly in home birth, and there are things about giving birth in the hospital that I really did not want Isaac or myself to be subjected to. So it really tore at me to have to consider transferring. However, I felt the Lord challenge me, basically speaking to my heart, "You have to trust Me and LET GO." So I did. It was so hard for me.... Wow, I'm almost in tears as I write over how hard it was for me to "give in" and go to the hospital.

Anyway...so a little after 3am Monday morning we quickly packed a few things and our whole crew drove to Shawnee Mission Med Center. The car ride was horrible for me... I was stuck at 9 centimeters.... and the pain was just insane. We anticipated a looooonnng wait before I would be able to receive an epidural so that I could rest in order to have any strength at all to push. BUT.... our midwife Suzanne had gone ahead of us and by the time we got there, there was a wheelchair waiting for me. They rushed me PAST the front desk where they normally stop you and make you fill out all kinds of paperwork....straight into Labor and Delivery. It turned out that Isaac was facing the wrong direction as he tried to come through the birth canal, which apparently was the cause of some of the extra pain during my contractions. He hadn't BEEN positioned wrongly, but had done a ton of moving around during my labor (the OTHER cause of the extra intensity) and had somehow gotten himself turned around. The L & D nurses were absolutely great...I got my epidural in what seemed like maybe only a half an hour, and at that point was ready to go to SLEEP....which I did. I don't know how long I was asleep, but it was the BEST thing in the world. While I slept I dilated to 10 cm (finally!!!) and around 7:30 Monday morning I was ready to push....and push....and push....for about 2 hours. Whew. FINALLY, at 9:39 Monday morning, Isaac was born with the help of a vacuum (only took one push with the vacuum, for which I was so thankful, since I HATED the idea of Isaac's head being "sucked on" by a vacuum).


As I lay in the hospital bed after he was born, I watched Isaac while the nurses toweled him off and suctioned him out. He was beautiful. I remember thinking, "If we were at home, he'd be in my arms right now." The thought tore at my heart. It may have been the longest 15 minutes of my life, waiting to hold my son, knowing I was missing out on precious bonding time with him. Finally, they placed him in my arms. He was so perfect. I couldn't believe he was finally here....


I'll go ahead and stop for now, and try to write another post in the next few days to bring you up to the present. I wanted to go ahead and get this out there so our friends can know our birth story. It was definitely the most intense 38 hours of my entire life, but Isaac is so, so worth it. He is amazing and we are falling madly in love with him. :) More to come.