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Cheyenne Dawn's Birth Story
At almost 38 weeks, I started losing my mucous plug and was starting to nest- I set up the changing table with diapers and clothes, stocked up at the grocery store and made the birthday cake to eat after the baby was born. I had some labor contractions while making the cake - a huge carrot cake which I froze on Tuesday the 1st of October, 2002. They went away when I laid down to rest. Then I woke up Wednesday the 2nd with contractions fairly regular. We called the midwife- she came and the contractions went away again- I was dilated 4 cm though, I had been 1.5 cm the week before but this time didn't want to know how far I was dilated.
When the contractions came again Wednesday evening about 10 pm , we wanted to be sure it was the real McCoy. So for about 4 hours we monitored the contractions, I did try to sleep for a couple of those hours. They were only 30 seconds long but very intense, about 5-7 minutes apart. We called our midwife at 3 am, she got there around 4. We also had another midwife, an assistant, and a doula for the boys who was our Bradley instructor. She also took pictures and videotaped the birth! I put on my birthing bracelet that my friend Julie made for me and gave me on Wednesday, since I was fairly sure we wouldn't make it til Sunday, when the blessing way was supposed to happen! We had put the plastic sheet on the bed the night before, thank goodness. I was able to just get into bed and relax during contractions, after letting my husband know I needed coaching to relax through each contraction. I got up and took a shower at some point close to transition and the contractions were coming every couple of minutes. I kept drinking water and getting up to pee, but it was getting increasingly difficult to move.
The boys woke up around 7 am, and things were really moving by then. I was having frequent contractions and needing to moan through them. I remembered to keep my voice low and it really helped to vocalize. Sometime around transition, I had to throw up. This kind of freaked out the boys, Jan had to explain to them why I threw up. She also told me that each time I moaned or cried out, Jeff would jump up to check on me. Then I started saying, "I've got to get out of here." It was probably close to 9 am at this point. Dana (our midwife) checked me and I was almost completely dilated, with just a lip of cervix. She also suggested we break the amniotic sac, as it was very strong and may have been impeding the baby coming down. So she did that while I tried to get away from her fingers. But it was a big relief to have the sac break.
Then I had the hardest job- pushing the baby out. It was very intense and I'm not sure how long it lasted- 5-10 minutes, but I was trying to go the other way instead of pushing down, which wasn't very effective. I realize now that I needed to rest against my husband or have him help me squat, but I was on my side and things were happening too fast, so I was trying to push up! I was concerned with letting him catch the baby. Once I finally started pushing down, I felt the ring of fire and then I just wanted the baby out. It was very hard work, and my belly and my bottom hurt! They did do perineal counter pressure, and I was able to push past the point and I pushed her out finally! I think I pushed for 10 minutes, tops.
Dave was there to catch the baby and he said: "It's a boy!" He went out to email everyone with the news. Then they covered the baby up on my chest and we gave oxygen to "him" because he wasn't very pink. We were considering names for boys at that point, as we had none chosen. It was probably another 20 minutes before anyone else looked at the baby. Trish, our other midwife, said, "This is a funny looking boy!" That's when we discovered it was a girl!!! So we named her Cheyenne Dawn and Dave went out to correct the emails! She had a nice juicy curly cord, and I delivered the placenta while she was being looked over.
I did nurse her at some point in time, she nursed pretty well and then went into sleep mode. Dave held her while I showered and he snoozed a bit, while the boys oohed and aahed over her. Both of them were so excited, Leif held her shortly after she was born and Jeff held her soon after. She was sleepy for 2 days and I had to wake her and work on her latch- her mouth is small and she wouldn't flare out her lip properly to nurse. Now she's nursing fine, although I have to watch her lips at night.
We are so blessed to have Cheyenne- the birth was truly amazing and very intense. I'm glad my husband was there for me and that my boys got to see her come into the world. I think it's something they'll always remember. I love holding my new daughter and feeling her silky head on my cheek. She gets kissed so much by me and the boys that her head sometimes smells like spit!!! She is loved. Welcome to the world, Cheyenne Dawn. Love, Mommy
8/31/01
Twenty minutes later, I had a strong contraction. Then another. Charlie came to bed a couple of hours later, and I was still having them. At 1:00 a.m., I got out of bed and paced and slept on the sofa and tried all sorts of things like taking a bath, which helped for a while. I finished packing for the hospital. I had planned on letting Charlie sleep as long as he could, so he would be fresh when I REALLY needed him, but I only made it to 3:00 a.m. before I started thinking I was losing my mind. I woke him up, and he coached me through contractions and made me drink water and such for a few hours. At 5:15 a.m., we decided this was definitely not going away, and called the midwife, who, when we described the situation, said we could feel free to go to the hospital at any time and to call her when we were leaving.
At 6:30 a.m. (I think. I was losing track, cause the contractions were getting stronger), we called Adrianna (our primary doula, the trained one who was also our Bradley instructor) and let her know things were happening, so she could get her kids to a sitter and be ready when we needed her.
The contractions kept coming harder and stronger and quite painful. During the night, I had been upset that I wasn’t able to sleep, but in retrospect, I think I would have been in even more agony had I slept. As it was, I was delirious from exhaustion, which helped put me in a nightmare-fuzzy-like state. The endorphins must have helped, too. (:
At probably 7 a.m., we called Jen and let her know I was in labor. Charlie talked to her and he thought it would be good if I talked to her, so he gave the phone to me. I spoke with her a little, but a contraction hit while I was talking, and I broke into high-pitched whines of pain. Jen told me that I needed to lower my tone, that it would help me relax and open up. I tried. I gave the phone back to Charlie and she repeated her instructions to him. He coached me on lowering my tone during the rest of labor. An hour later, she called us and apparently was happy that I was making much lower sounds. She also told us that we should have our doula come over. We called Adrianna and she came over shortly thereafter. Charlie had put on classical music for me in the background, which helped. Adrianna held my hand and talked me through quite a few contractions. I was still lying in bed at this point, with Charlie and Adrianna on either side of me. Adrianna tried to get me to drink water. My lips were extremely dry. I was probably dehydrating. Every time I lifted my head or moved, I had a contraction, so I was pretty much afraid to move. She also fed me a tiny bit of a Nutrigrain bar. About 10 minutes later, I felt more nauseous than before, and Charlie got me the basin I had requested hours earlier. This time I really needed to use it, and Charlie and Adrianna held me while I got sick. I had contractions during this, which was extremely uncomfortable. The contractions actually seemed to trigger my stomach rejecting any food. That was the last time I attempted to eat for the remainder of the labor.
I tried walking around, which actually helped distract me a little, but I found that I couldn’t support my weight when the contractions hit. I had to lean really hard on furniture to be able to stand, and often I was forced to a hands and knees position on the couch or floor. I finally settled on the couch. I was really starting to lose my cool at this point. I had been in labor for nearly 11 hours, and I started saying things like, “It’s already been 10 hours, and the contractions are only 5 minutes apart, and I can’t imagine doing this for another 10. I can’t handle it.” Adrianna took the clock down from the living room wall when I started talking about the time. She told me that I couldn’t focus on how long it had been, that I had to take one contraction at a time. Turned out that taking the clock down was crucial to my sanity. I had been timing the contractions during the first 6 hours or so, using a watch, but Charlie took over doing that. Adrianna started writing down the time that each contraction started, so we could keep track. Around 11, she left to go to class. I was feeling more sane, and I told her it was fine for her to go.
She left, and Charlie sat beside me in a chair and pet my face and talked to me. I was delirious with exhaustion and pain. I was saying things like, “Let’s just go have a C-section,” and “Just let me die.” I was probably 50% serious, but it made me feel better to think of those possibilities, to think of being able to escape the pain. Charlie kept talking to me and timing the contractions. He offered me water extremely often, and was very persistent in getting me to drink some of it, in spite of my protests of not wanting to move. After a little while, he went to the kitchen, saying he was going to make something to make me feel better. He came back with a little glass of apple juice. He had bought apple juice and orange juice for the labor and delivery. He told me to drink it, and after more protesting, I did. After I finally finished the glass, he explained that it would help me be able to sleep between contractions. Sure enough, probably two contractions later, I found myself waking up to a contraction instead of being awake dreading it. I slept quite often between contractions after that. It was quite a relief. He also said that it would make the contractions more intense, to make the uterus work more effectively. He had added sodium potassium to the apple juice for this purpose. I don’t fully grasp the science, all I know is, it worked.
Throughout labor, I would periodically ask Charlie to pet me or rub my back or something. Most of the time, though, even if he would barely touch me, it would be agonizing or uncomfortable and I’d immediately ask him to stop. It was hard to know what I needed. So much for being alert and cognizant. I had seriously underestimated how intense labor was going to be.
Another couple of hours went by (times are estimated because I was too delirious to be sure of much). Contractions were still between 2 and 6 minutes apart, to my dismay. But then, suddenly, I had this powerful urge to use the bathroom. I went in and tried to do so, but nothing happened. The urge was incredibly strong and painful. I left the bathroom, but 4 minutes later, I felt the urge again, and hurried to the bathroom again. This happened several times. I told Charlie I was really thinking this was the urge to push the baby out, but he said that my contractions were still too far apart. I didn’t know what to do. I kept leaving the bathroom and then hurrying back in, in agony. While sitting on the toilet, I started screaming when the urge hit. It was so intense and painful. I was close to tears. Charlie was starting to realize that this wasn’t just me needing to use the bathroom. Once, when I strained, I realized I could feel something move, and I KNEW it was the baby. I yelled, “The baby’s coming!” Those were the magic words. Charlie and I had agreed we didn’t want to go the hospital until near the end of labor. His plan was to wait until I had the uncontrollable urge to push. I didn’t think we should wait quite that long, but that’s what it turned out to be… For the past few hours, I had been saying I thought we should go to the hospital, but he kept saying we should wait (as our Bradley instructor had taught him he should). He told me later that apparently when I said the baby’s coming, I suddenly started saying that I didn’t want to go to the hospital anymorethat I didn’t think we had time to make it. THAT’s when he knew it was time.
He called Gwen, Adrianna, and Stacy, and said that I was pushing and that we were leaving for the hospital. In between talking to them, he tried to keep me from the bathroom and tried to get me to stop pushing. It was incredibly difficult to fight the urge. He would help me out of the bathroom, and 2 minutes later, I’d dive for it again. When he was talking to one of our people, I saw tears in his eyes. I was extremely loud and agonized in the sounds I was making. He told me later (after the birth) that he had been really scared that I was going to die in childbirth, and that every time he thought about it, he got choked up. I think the sounds I was making scared him.
He carried all of our bags out to the car while I stumbled around trying to get dressed. I just threw on a long dress and my sandals, not even bothering with a bra. Charlie came back and helped me stagger out to the car. I found out later from Liz, our neighbor, that she had seen Charlie taking the bags out and asked if I’d had the baby yet. He had apparently said, looking shaken, “She’s having it right now.”
I crawled into the passenger seat and leaned it back. I stayed kind of on my side for the trip, whining in pain. I couldn’t even get enough presence of mind to keep my whines low-pitched, although Charlie tried to remind me. We zoomed downtown, and Charlie changed lanes constantly to move as fast as possible. Downtown lights are horribly timed, but to our surprise, we hit nearly every green light (and we had to go through probably 20 of them to get to the hospital). We resolved to thank the town planners for timing the lights for cars going 60-70 mph. Charlie pulled up in front of the hospital to drop me off. He asked if I would be okay on my own, and I said yes, but I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. So he turned off the car (he said later that he almost left it running but thought better of it) and helped me walk into the building. I looked a mess, hair frazzled, no bra, staggering, etc., but I tried to walk as normally as possible. I didn’t want them to mess with getting me a wheelchair or something.
We made it to the maternity ward, where there were 5 people standing around the nurse’s station. I looked like hell. I just leaned on the counter, dazed. Charlie said, “My wife has an uncontrollable urge to push.” No one moved; they all just stared at us. Then it sank in, and they started moving. They helped me into a delivery room and had me get into a hospital gown. Charlie left to park the car and get the bags. I had planned on wearing my own clothing, but at this point, I didn’t care. I had another pushing contraction and went into the bathroom in desperation. The nurses freaked out and got me to come back out, saying they didn’t want me to have the baby in the toilet. I collapsed sideways on the bed. Rachel showed up soon after, and I talked to her a bit, asking how she was doing, etc. I was in agony, but I didn’t want to scare her, so I tried to keep myself under control a bit. She had never seen a birth before, though she had worked as a nurse for a while.
Rachel took the pack of CDs we had brought and put one into the room’s CD player. She ended up putting in the one of the music (all classical) we had played before and during our wedding ceremony. It helped my mood considerably because my associations to the music are so positive.
The nurse asked me to put on the cloth sleeve for my stomach, so they could attach the fetal monitor discs. I didn't want EFM at all, and I didn’t have the strength to lift my hips. So the sleeve stayed on my thighs for about 5 minutes, until the nurses gave up and just taped the discs to my stomach which was much more comfortable than they would have been pressed against me under the sleeve. I kept saying, “Where’s Gwen?” The nurses kept telling me not to push cause they weren’t sure how far dilated I was. Charlie got back to the room in what seemed like one minute. Gwen and Adrianna showed up soon after. The nurse had checked me shortly before then, and to her surprise, she said it seemed like I was fully dilated, complete, as they put it. She wasn’t positive about this, though. When Gwen got there, she gowned up and checked me again. Sure enough, I was 10 cm dilated and the baby was at +2. She was already coming down the birth canal. I had been right when I thought I could feel her moving down. Gwen said my bag of waters was still intact, and that it was going to keep the baby from coming out effectively, so she decided to break it. I think I murmured something like, “Whatever.”
The nurses had told me not to push, but after Gwen checked me, she said I could push whenever I wanted to. I said, “Really?? I can push??” It was such a relief. Gwen asked if I wanted her to do perineal massage, and I said absolutely. She got KY Jelly from the nurses and started rubbing it repeatedly around the sides of the opening while the baby came out.
Gwen suggested that I remain on my side. She said I was less likely to tear. I decided to take her word for it. Besides, I was too weak to even think about squatting, even though I had planned on delivering that way. Gwen had me lift my upper leg. I ultimately put it on her shoulder for a while, until Charlie commented that it must be getting tiring for her, at which point Rachel held it for me. I pushed when I could find the strength. Quite soon, Gwen said that I could feel the baby’s head if I wanted to. At the time, I found I didn’t care. I just wanted to get the kid out. A few minutes later, she offered again, so this time I reached down and felt a wet, soft something between my legs. It was actually quite cool. I pushed when I could. It was very difficult to find the strength to push effectively. The kid kept sliding back in. I alternated gripped Adrianna’s or Charlie’s hands and gripped the bed rails as I pushed. It took an incredibly amount of energy. Charlie kept reminding me to breathe as I pushed. It meant the pushes weren’t quite as effective, but I think it helped me conserve my energy and probably minimized the number of broken blood vessels in my eyes (there were quite a few as it was).
Adrianna, Charlie, and Rachel kept circling the bed, petting me and helping where they could. Rachel fed me juice and water through a straw. They were wonderful. Gwen told me that I just needed one more strong push to get the biggest part of the baby’s head out. I kept trying, but no matter how hard I pushed, it wasn’t enough. The baby was literally crowning for about 15 minutes. I was swearing up a storm, saying, “Fuck!” and other similar epithets quite often and then apologizing. When I apologized, the nurses said, “Don’t worry about it, believe us, we hear it all the time.” It was insanely painful, but strangely, after the 14 hours I had just been through, and the intensity when she first crowned, I was actually kind of getting used to the sensations. When I pushed, Gwen kept telling me to push through the pain. I tried, but each time she failed to move, I lost more confidence. I found myself saying, “I can’t do this. I can’t get her out.” Everyone reassured me that I was doing well and that I could get her out. Finally, I think Gwen suggested that I pull my leg back, so I did. She told me to wait for another contraction and then push really hard. I did, forcing myself to keep pushing even when the pain intensified. And it worked. The head came the rest of the way out. A few more pushes, and the baby was out. Gwen lifted her up to me so I could pet her. Charlie said later that when Alpha came out completely, she had an hourglass shaped head because of how long she had been crowning he said it looked like she had two heads. A couple of minutes later, Gwen decided to cut the cord, since the baby was having a little trouble breathing and they wanted to check her out. She clamped it, and Charlie cut it. It was white. Quite quickly, I felt the placenta starting to come out, and it slid easily out. Quite a weird feeling. It was all gushy and warm. Gwen started pushing on my uterus. She had warned me this was necessary to make sure we got the blood clots out. It hurt. I kept feeling gushes of blood come out. Charlie told me later that there was so much blood he didn’t really feel any emotion about it. He said it seemed more like a Grade B horror movie than real blood. Gwen said that I was bleeding too much, and she had them give me a shot of Pitocin to help stop it. Apparently I was bleeding from where the placenta had been attached. They put a gigantic pad on me and pulled this meshy hospital underwear on me to hold it on. A few minutes later, they had me try to stand up. Two nurses helped me, and I got to my feet. I immediately started to feel really dizzy and woozy. Then I woke up, lying across the bed. I said that I must have fallen asleep, and Adrianna said, “No, you passed out. Your eyes were open the entire time.” My blood pressure was 80/40. They gave me an IV bottle to restore some fluids because I had lost so much blood. Then they got me to a wheelchair and took me to our recovery room, which was private! Charlie had gone with the baby to the nursery, and after another hour or so, during which time Adrianna stayed with me and got me fluids and such, he came back with Alpha. I was feeling so good by this time that I actually was saying, “That wasn’t so bad. I could definitely do it again.” Endorphins are amazing things. I really didn’t remember the pain, even only a couple of hours later.
We stayed in the hospital that night and left the next day at almost exactly the same time Alpha had been born the day before (2:30 p.m.) They had given me another IV bottle and had me drink lots of water and juice. The hospital food was actually pretty good. Charlie slept in a fold-out chair next to my bed. Alpha slept on my stomach, which was quite an amazing feeling. Our main nurse, Heather, was really nice and competent.
As we left the next day, Charlie brought the car around while Heather waited with me in the wheelchair, holding Alpha. As the car got loaded up, I realized that the song that was playing on the radio was one of our wedding songs and was also therefore a song that had been playing during the final moments of Alpha’s birth. Pretty cool. The next song was also from our wedding. It was a classical radio station, but still…
I felt quite good about the whole experience. I hadn’t even needed any stitches from the delivery. Gwen had done such a good job of helping me stretch effectively. A couple of days later, I was in pain, though, and at my visit to Gwen’s that Thursday, she discovered that one of my labia had actually torn in half. Weird. But overall, not a bad wound, considering Alpha weighed 8 lbs 1 oz. She was 20.75 inches long. 2 weeks later at the pediatrician visit, she weighed 7 lbs 15 oz and was 22 inches long. At her 2 month visit, she was 24 ¼ inches long and 11 lbs, 14 ozs.
Pretty amazing, this whole baby thing…
Tuesday morning I woke up at 5:30 am - had three strong tights, 5 min apart (like they'd been on Friday night, except that something felt different) so I woke my husband and told him I that he probably should think about staying home from work. Then I promptly fell back asleep for 30 min., woke for 3 more, and repeated this twice more. It was now 7:30 am and Robin was due out the door 15 min ago - we still weren't sure if he should stay home. I checked myself and felt that there was no change from last week, so we decided to give it an hour and then Robin would decide about work, so I fussed around for another 1/2 hour with no contractions and then got in the shower at 8. Instantly the contractions got stronger and consistently 3-4 min apart and I started to feel rectal pressure.
Over the next hour the contractions stayed at 3-4 min apart, but they never really relaxed in between. I stayed in the tub and my husband ran in and out between trying to get the big kids off to school and breakfast/am routine for the little ones. I continued to feel rectal pressure, but ignored it, because I expected to have another long latent phase. I found that I couldn't stop myself from moaning with contractions, even while hubby was trying to use all the 'Birthing from Within' techniques. Grandma C (lives downstairs) heard hubby walking around and figured out what was going on so she came up and took the twins - they were fine during my contractions, but were more interested in visiting Grandma's.
At 9 am I realized that I was pushing with each contraction (I'd pushed with a couple
before I really realized what I was doing) and I vomited, so I checked myself - between contractions my cervix was 4, reallllly stretchy (like to 6 or 7) and the head was a definite 0-+1 station, so I told hubby we needed to go to the hospital (leaving out the pertinent detail about the pushing and what the stretchy cervix meant - I thought we weren't going to make it to the hospital and I didn't want him to have an accident on the way...). Of course that meant that he took his time gathering things, and I went back inside my head and tried not to push.
Finally at 9:20 we got in the car - that was awful because knee-chest was the less painful position (haha), but it's really hard to do in the bucket seat of a Tercel! We zoomed up to the school to collect the two older children and then hubby drove like a maniac to the hospital (usually 30 min). The contractions were now really, really, strong (read painful) and about every two minutes with no real relaxation in between, and it was nearly impossible not to push. I rather lost control at this point and just screamed and swore with each contraction. I could hear the screaming and could also hear myself thinking "Wow, whoever is screaming has really lost it!" I definitely was somewhere else for the drive, and not truly in my own head...
We arrived at the bridge and I opened my eyes - I saw the traffic jam from the road construction/paving lane closures and knew for sure we wouldn't make it (about 7 min to the hosp usually) so I gave up trying to breath and just pushed. I put my feet on the dash board and stretched straight out between the two bucket seats with my head in the back between the kids and just screamed and pushed and screamed some more. Hubby had given up talking at this point and was making funny faces in the mirror to 'lighten the mood' for the kids. They said we got several really interesting looks on the bridge!
We came up the approach to the hospital and at the lights just in front of the hospital my water broke (yes all over the car seat and no I didn't bring the pad I had obtained to protect the seat in case that specific thing happened - only cost $15 to steam clean it though...) and I felt the head really move down. Interestingly enough, I didn't tell hubby, and he drove through the lights toward the parking garage. At that point I told him "No! Front door! And tell them that I need a stretcher because the baby is right here!".
Hubby pulled a u-turn and slammed to a stop at the front door at 9:50. Of course the lobby is packed with people waiting in line at Tim Horton's and the front of the hospital is full of people enjoying the sun on their coffee break. I'm screaming and hubby dashes in to alert the security guard to what he just realized was an imminent birth.
I can hear the overhead speaker "Obstetrical team to the front lobby, STAT" and just close my eyes and carry on because I realize that as much as I want to sneak in and deliver quietly without anyone knowing I'm there, I'm in the middle of making a tremendous scene and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I'm dragged/lifted out of the car and tossed on a stretcher and I hear lots of familiar voices and several unfamiliar ones talking and of course telling me to pant, (yeah, right!!) and hubby getting the kids and lots of barely-controlled panic. We run into the elevator and hubby tells me that one of the nurses, who is also a good friend, is there. (This nurse was one of the nurses who helped me with the twin’s birth). We get into the labour room and my pants are dragged off me, someone is checking the baby's heart rate (it's fine) and someone else (the in-house resident) is really roughly checking me without warning. (I managed to regain control enough not to kick her, but it was a near thing….. She informed me that I was fully and she could see the head (no duh - so why'd she stick her fingers in??). Then my doc arrived, thank goodness! and literally pushed all the extras out of the room. We were left with our friend/nurse who was right with me, another nurse who was setting up and my doctor. I asked for help getting up, because I was still lying flat (on my side) on the stretcher and I could tell that the pushing wasn't working that way. As I was helped up, hubby realized that the kids were gone, so he asked the nurse to check if they were out because they wanted to be, or because someone took them out thinking they were doing us a favour. The nurse who was helping volunteered to check and then came back and said she 'thought' they were out because they wanted to be. Hubby thought she wasn't gone long enough to really have checked and because she didn't sound sure. Just then the kids came back in (our daughter later told us that no-one asked them if they wanted to be there, someone just took them out and left them in the waiting room - offered them a Popsicle though - and they decided on their own to come back.)
Once I stood up, the head started crowning again and I sank down onto my hands and knees then got into a kind of squat, hanging on the end of the bed. I pushed and screamed and pushed and screamed for a couple of contractions. The helping nurse got some hot packs (man, did they help!!!) and my nurse and doc set up for the birth on sterile sheets on the floor.
After a couple more contractions, the head finally delivered to the eyebrows and then got a little stuck. The next contraction I really worked and was able to deliver the rest of the head, but I could feel him turtle. Third contraction I pushed and pushed and he didn't move. I was already on my hands and knees, and could feel the doc trying to corkscrew him or get the posterior arm or something really necessary and really uncomfortable. I tried to run away from that and something in the movement let him come free and he delivered at 10:11am.
I instantly flipped over (I think my left leg went over the doc’s head) and I scooped up my little/big honey. I started to try to assess him as if he was someone else’s baby and I was the nurse for that birth (he was very purple and stunned) and I said "What's his heart rate - I can't count!" That's when the doc reminded me that I wasn’t on duty, and didn't have to do that because there was a nurse assigned to us - LOL. His heart rate was fine and he started crying I was cuddling him and he cried for a bit and then started rooting so I put him to the breast - it took two attempts and he opened his mouth and latched on beautifully. Then I begged to go in the tub, because I felt so awful - shaky and sore – the doc and nurse helped me up, I delivered the placenta and I climbed in the tub. Unfortunately the water was only luke-warm (No hot water in a hospital - can you imagine??) so I stayed in for a couple of minutes and then climbed back out, just vibrating
with the shakes and the baby still firmly latched on my breast. The nurse piled me with hot blankets and went and made me a cup of hot tea (hard to believe how much that helped. I've never given a cup of tea to a newly delivered mom, but I guarantee it will be one of my standards of care from now on!!)
I just sat there and nursed my baby and sipped my tea for almost an hour. Then the baby popped off and the doc took him to have a look (in the warmer at the back of the room) and then the kids got to hold and cuddle him. I climbed in the shower, which was now passably warm, and got cleaned up and dressed. Then we just puttered around getting the paper work done, waiting for the cord blood result to come back to see if I needed winRho, weighing the munchkin (8 lb!!! - the others were 6lb 3oz, 6lb 1oz, 5lb 10 oz and 4 lb 10 oz) etc. We had left the carseat home accidentally so my Mom popped the twins into the van and drove it in. They stayed ~40 minutes and then mom took all 4 kids to Wendy's for lunch, since the older two hadn't eaten yet. The doc had left for a bit but came back 'just to check' and to have a quick look to see if I tore at all (since I'd just gotten into the tub without checking) - no tears! Not even at the old epis site!). Then after a bit more puttering and some visiting, Hubby, baby & I left to go home at 3:50 pm.
And that's the story of our baby’s birth.
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