Welcoming baby Julia Joy on 1-15-2011

We are officially Six Under Eight now! I will tell you, this baby transition has been much easier than any of the other infants I welcomed into my life, in part because my other children are much older and capable of entertaining themselves and in part because I have learned how important it is to ask for help or to hire help. I also thank God for answering my prayers for an easy, compliant child. (So far. She is only a week old!)

I'm going to post here a fairly detailed version of her birth, for my own recollection and enjoyment more than for sharing information with my friends. If you would prefer not to hear details about my cervix, then by all means, stop reading. If, however, you are like many moms out there who enjoy every goopy detail, then you have come to the right place!

God led me to a relaxation program called Hypnobabies when I was just 20 weeks pregnant. My midwife in Chattanooga actually taught the course, but when we moved to Memphis, I couldn't find any teachers, so I ordered the home study. I "practiced" every night by listening to MP3 tracks on my iPhone as I fell asleep. While they call it "hypnosis," cuing red flags from Christians hesitant about New-Age or Eastern Mysticism, I would simply label it relaxation sessions. I used the Hypnobabies techniques throughout my pregnancy to help me fall asleep or to soothe restless legs, and my confidence was high that it would help relieve the pain of my pregnancy. (They also, in this program, replace words with negative connotations, like "contractions" and "pain" with more positive words, like "pressure waves" and "pressure.") For that reason, the note I posted on the Hypnobabies forum reads much differently than this one!

Chris and I had hoped this child would be born on 1-11-11, because, well, that's just a cool birthdate. But Tuesday came and went without even one contraction. I attended my appointment with my midwife on Thursday, and she asked if I wanted to make an appointment for next week, to which I responded, admittedly whining, "I don't want to make an appointment! I want this baby to be born!"

Friday, I shopped at Walmart for three hours, collecting not just our standard weekly grocery items, but also enough food for 16 casseroles to put away in the freezer. I felt minor contractions the entirety of that trip, and I'm so thankful that my boys were so well behaved during that time! I didn't realize I was in labor at the time. I suppose I just assumed they were Braxton Hicks contractions, which I had been having my entire pregnancy.

By the afternoon, I told Chris I thought I was in labor, so I spent the evening relaxing on the couch while he took care of the kids. The contractions were very far apart and very mild, but they were regular. When I turned in for the night, I put on a Hypnobabies track, but my legs were so achy that I couldn't sleep. I assume the 3-hour shopping trip caused the incredible ache.

At midnight, I decided to draw a bath to relax my legs so I could go to sleep. While in the tub, my contractions sped to just 3 minutes apart. I had chosen not to time them, but when they came so close together, I got out of the tub and had Chris time them. They still were not painful. We decided to call the midwife, just because they were so close together. She arrived about 4am and checked my cervix. She said it was easily 3 cm dilated, maybe 4.

Lynda, the midwife, had not been able to reach her doula, Penny, at 2am, so she brought someone I had never met--Dee. Dee and Lynda slept on the recliner and the futon while I alternated between the bathtub and the bed, sleeping when I could. I had asked Lynda and my family, who were in the house, to leave me alone unless I needed something. Chris had set up a recliner in the bathroom, and he spent his time there puttering on his laptop unless I asked him for something. It was serene and tranquil.

At 10am, eight hours after I called Lynda and six hours after she checked me and said I was 3 cm dilated, I was still laughing and joking between contractions, and handling them beautifully and peacefully. I admitted to Lynda that I certainly felt like I was in the easy first stage of labor. She checked my cervix and said she thought I was an easy 5 but I could be a six. "If you're a six, we'll stay. But if not, we'll probably go home for a little while," she said. She had Dee check because she just wasn't quite sure of her measurement, because my cervix was "stretchy." Dee's face clouded, and she said, "I wouldn't even call you 3 at this point."

She gave some technical reason why, and I said, "Wow, that's so strange. That's so different from my other labors!"

She replied, "Well, I don't even think you're in labor now. Your cervix could have been like this for a month! It feels like a multipara cervix. When you actually start labor, it might be fast."

So she and Lynda left. Dee recommended that I take a nap or go to my kids' ballgame (which I'm SO glad I didn't do!) to distract me, and then call them later that night, or even the next day, when she anticipated the contractions would pick up.

I did take a nap--Chris and I both did. We probably napped a full hour! We had hired someone to watch the kids, and we had a rare hour of peace and quiet! The nap refreshed me, and when I awoke, I ventured downstairs, where Chris' parents and my sister-in-law were patiently waiting. During my little jaunt, the contractions started coming right on top of each other, but they were still completely manageable. I found Chris and made him hold me while I swayed during the contractions. I joked with him that I wasn't really in labor, but if these contractions didn't get any harder than this, I could handle this all day.

I felt silly calling Lynda back just one hour after they told me I wasn't really in labor, and my contractions still weren't painful, so I just didn't call her. Chris and I moved back to the bathroom, where I filled up the tub again, put on a tank top, and hopped in with my earbuds in, playing my Hypnobabies material. I sat straight up through a contraction, and it hurt like the dickens! I thought, "Shees, I'm not doing this position again!" and I shifted to leaning over the edge of the tub, on my knees. The contractions were very close together, and they took my breath away! I was able to start them with a long, slow breath, but by the time they ended, I was moaning and panting in pain.

After a few of these in the tub, I felt like I had to, um, empty my bowels, so I hopped onto the toilet, and I had a contraction there, and ended it with an uncontrollable push. But no bm. So I asked Chris to call Lynda, because I was feeling pushy, and I complained to him as I climbed back into the tub that I couldn't handle this kind of pain for another four hours. I estimated four hours based on my experience with my second child, Kora, where I spent four hours in transition.

During the next contraction, which also ended in a little push, I moaned and groaned and panted, and when it ended, I whined to Chris, "I lost control." He looked up from his computer and said very gently, "I know you feel like you've lost control, but you have to tell yourself that you have control." I nodded assent and asked him to call Lynda again.

On the next contraction, I thought I felt the stinging pain we call the "Ring of Fire" as the baby's head crowns. Absolutely stunned, I reached my hand down to confirm that the baby's head was, in fact, crowning, and as I did, my water broke. I said aloud, "Water broke!"

Chris responded, "Seriously?"

I said, "Yup" as I made another push and the whole head popped out into my hand. It was so big in my hand that I wondered if maybe it was a different body part! Grunting, I said, "There's the head." Chris said, "Are you pushing?!" I said, "Uh-huh." He said, "Well, stop!" And then I pushed out the body, into my hand, and I lifted her up. She was gray, covered in vernix, strangely swollen, huge lips, and huge hands. I heard Lynda's voice say, "Is the baby okay?" and then I realized Chris had called her and put her on speakerphone as he pulled out my earbuds and hopped to the tub to assist me. The baby answered with a cry. She pinked up quickly and cried a few more times. I was very astounded by how bloody the bathwater had become, and I reached down to drain the water, very aware that I was sitting in bloody water, but not so aware that draining post-birth water would seriously clog up the drain!

Chris yelled out the door, "We have a baby!" but his mother was the only one in the house at the time. We had expected to have the midwife, her assistant, my mother-in-law, my mother, and my sister-in-law present for the birth, but none of them were even in the house when the surprise came!

By the time the tub drained, my legs had weakened, and I just wanted to sit down, but the cord had not yet been cut, and I didn't feel like I had enough leeway to sit. I waited patiently while Chris called his sister, a doctor, to get instructions on clamping and cutting the cord. We had two clamps, but no scissors, in our birthing kit, so Chris' mom rummaged around the bathroom until she found some scissors. Chris clamped and cut the cord, I fell back into the tub, and they encouraged me to get into the bed, where Chris gave me a sponge bath. That could have been romantic under other circumstances. =) He propped me up on fourteen pillows, and I nursed Julia for 45 minutes. Lynda and Penny showed up an hour or two later, weighed the baby and check out the momma. Julia weighed a whopping 9 lb and 2 oz, and during that one behemoth contraction and push, I had no tears requiring stitches.

I lay in bed the rest of the day, and, of course, posted updates on Facebook for all my friends following the story. We took a few pictures, but my stinking camera was on the blink, and I sent it in for repairs the next day. Chris took plenty on his iPhone, though. I was so excited about the birth that I couldn't even nap!

The whole experience was serene, tranquil, peaceful, beautiful, and I wouldn't change anything about it. I would never, ever recommend an unattended birth, because so many things could go wrong, but in hindsight, I loved everything about this birth. Only the last twenty minutes hurt. My body responded exactly the way it was supposed to. The baby is perfect and healthy. It was everything I prayed for. Our miracle!

Now we have to go through paperwork nightmares to prove to the state of Arkansas that I really was pregnant and did, in fact, have a baby on 1-15-2011 at 1:45pm, with only Chris and myself as witnesses. But I have confidence it will work out. On the bright side, if we can't get her a birth certificate, she can always run for president. ;-)