The Home Birth of Landon Alexander

My mom commented later that day that my belly looked so different all of a sudden.About three hours after I wrote that last blog post, I got a contraction.  It was around 3:30 in the afternoon or so.  I ignored it.  And I ignored the next one, and the next one and the one after that.  About an hour after they started, I gave in and decided to time them.  But I would not be telling anyone.  No, sir.Except they got increasingly more painful and some of them were difficult to talk through, so I decided to tell Tim and my mom so I didn’t have to hide my pain.  But I told them both that this was absolutely not labor.  It would be stopping any time, I assured them.By 6:30, I was getting my hopes up.  I told Tim we should take a walk.  At that point, they were pretty painful but very far apart, between 8 and 10 minutes pretty consistently, and very short, only 30 seconds or so.Keep in mind that I’ve only ever had what my midwife refers to as “runaway train” labors.  This means from the time active labor starts, my contractions have never been more than a few minutes apart.  My labors have gone very quickly with almost no time to rest between contractions.  This whole break between contractions thing was foreign territory, so I didn’t think it could possibly be real labor.  My mom and I sat out on the deck after my walk and I kept telling her that this was not labor.  I was getting too much of a break, feeling too good between contractions.  After all, if it was labor, I had already been in labor for 5 hours at that point, and I’ve never had a labor last that long.  It just couldn’t be labor.But I was keeping my midwife in the loop just in case.  She suggested I try to go to sleep.  If it was real labor, I’d wake up with more contractions.  If it was more prodromal labor, I would fall asleep and probably not wake up until morning.

Tim and I got into bed around 8:00 or 8:30.  The contractions were 6-7 minutes apart at this point and getting pretty difficult to deal with.  I tried and tried and tried to sleep.  Sleep was not happening.  Finally, around 9:30 or 10:00, I reluctantly told Tim that this had to be it.  The contractions had been getting stronger, longer and closer together for hours at this point.  That was textbook labor, right?  Even if it wasn’t my textbook labor.

I ran a warm bath and got in.  I’ve never used water in labor before, but was shocked the second I got in by how much relief the warm water actually offered during contractions.  The bath really kicked my labor into gear and once I got out, they were unbearably strong and 4-5 minutes apart.

I dealt with the labor as best I could at that point, and shortly after, decided to call my midwife and wake Tim up.  I asked him to go ahead and fill up the pool.  This was it!  I had finally decided I could admit I was in real, definite labor and we would be having a baby soon.

My mom woke up about that time and helped Tim get some things ready and tried to help me get through each contraction.  I laid on the bed with my rice bag (throw it in the microwave = instant relief) and started vocalizing through the contractions.  Oh, I was definitely in real labor.

My midwife, Cheryl, her assistant, Cheryl, my mom, Cheryl (yeah…), Tim and my sweet friend, Lizz, who is a photographer and also happened to break her foot on this very night (saint, right?) all were there, in our bedroom, to witness the birth of mystery baby #3.  Time was starting to become irrelevant to me at this point, but I believe it was somewhere between 1:00 and 2:00 when everyone showed up.  My contractions would vary between very close together, at 1-2 minutes if I stood up, to farther apart, at probably 3-5 minutes if I was laying down.

Note the broken foot.  :)I moved between the bed and the pool.  When I felt like I couldn’t handle anymore contractions while in the pool, I’d lay on the bed for awhile instead and vice-versa.  Lizz really helped me learn how to breathe through contractions, something I’ve never been good at (I’m a hyperventilator).

Everyone was awesome.  They left me alone when I needed to be left alone, they were there for me when I needed them to be there for me, they held my hand, massaged me…whatever I needed when I let them know I needed it.Sometimes I just wanted to be totally, truly alone, so I’d go to the bathroom to get through a few contractions in silence by myself.I remember thinking how crazy long the labor was.  I had never known anything like this.  By 4:00, I remember thinking, “I’ve been in labor for TWELVE HOURS now!  Come on, baby!”I didn’t know how dilated I was, but my midwife encouraged me.  I remember hearing some of them talk about how I must be in transition.  I guess I was getting loud.  🙂

That gave me some sweet relief.  Just hearing someone else confirming what I was pretty sure I already knew.  Things were happening faster, I was starting to feel like I would honestly die.  I was so exhausted I couldn’t see straight.  That’s also not something that’s ever happened even though all three of our babies were born early in the morning without any sleep the night before.  I was utterly wiped.  I didn’t know how I would gather up the strength to get through the rest of the birth.

I think I yelled something like, “Why is this taking so long?!” at some point.  I was starting to get upset.

Tim got in the pool with me, which was awesome and relieving.

Shortly after, my midwife encouraged me to check myself.  I was totally in control of this birth and that was crazy but empowering.  So awesome in hindsight!  I could feel the bag of waters, which still hadn’t broken, and she told me if I pushed on it, I could feel baby’s head.  So I did.  And I could.  And it was awesome.  It was encouraging.  It helped me muster up the strength I needed to get baby out.

She told me to get into a squatting type of position to encourage the bag of waters to break.  I did that until my legs started falling asleep but my water still hadn’t broken.

By 5:15 or so, I started getting the intense contractions that my body automatically groaned through.  It was surreal to know I wasn’t really making those noises, that my body was.  I didn’t really have the urge to push this time that I did with Adalyn’s birth, but I knew it was time and the groaning I was involuntarily making confirmed that.  So I started pushing.  After a few pushes, my midwife asked if I wanted her to check me.Yes!  For some reason, I guess I just needed a break and someone else to totally confirm that I was, indeed, ready to push.  I moved to the bed and she told me I was fully dilated, so back to the water I went.  I pushed several more times and eventually could feel part of baby’s head and the bag of waters come out.  I encouraged Tim to feel it, too, and just then, my water broke.  It was crazy to literally be holding it while it broke.  We’re both in awe of that experience, as weird as that may sound.

A few more pushes later, baby’s head came out.  It was so much more difficult to push this little guy out than it was Adalyn.  The pain was worse, it took a lot longer (Adalyn came out in one contraction) and he was just in a different position.  Once his head came out, I honestly thought there was no way I could get the rest of him out.  I just knew it would either kill me or we would have to go to the hospital to finish the process with a c-section because there was just no way he would fit.  Hilarious in hindsight.  🙂

Luckily my midwife stepped in to remind me that I could do it and I was doing it and helped Tim really pull (I think he was scared to pull hard) while I pushed, and out he finally came!  Right into Tim’s hands at 5:53 a.m., almost 14.5 hours after my contractions started.

He had a hard time breathing at first, just like Adalyn, but my midwife helped us rough him up a bit to get him to breathe consistently (he was breathing and red, unlike Adalyn who was turning blue, he just wouldn’t consistently breathe).  You could hear he had a little junk in his chest, so she sucked it out and shortly after, he was totally fine.  Well, he was perfect.

I don’t remember exactly when it was that we decided to look to see if he was a boy or girl, but surprisingly it wasn’t the first thing we did.  I remember we were kind of holding him at first, just snuggling him up and trying to reassure him everything was okay, and then we were like, “Oh, boy or girl?!”  It was one of the coolest experiences in the world to see for ourselves what our baby was, rather than by ultrasound like we did the last two times.

We got him weighed and were shocked to learn he’s exactly what his brother and sister both were: 8lbs, 1oz.  I mean, what are the chances, right?

Everyone agrees that he feels and looks bigger, and my midwife said he was the type of baby you really have to tug on to get out, so I guess we’ll see tomorrow when he’s weighed again if that weight was correct. He’s our tall baby, though!  Ben was 18″, Adalyn was 19″ and Landon is 21.5″.

As if the birth wasn’t perfect enough, Ben and Adalyn went to sleep before my bad contractions started, didn’t wake up once through the night and woke for the morning 10 or 15 minutes after Landon was born.  We couldn’t have planned it any better than that.

Getting to be at home, in our own bedroom, alternating between a pool and our own bed, snuggled up with my husband with people we love surrounding us as we brought our baby into this world was so indescribably perfect and amazing that I will never find the right words to do it justice.  It was comforting and empowering in a way that I never knew birth could be.  I was in charge.  I did what my body told me to do. I didn’t mess with the birth process or force the birth process to happen earlier than my body wanted it to.  I (reluctantly, I’ll admit) waited for Landon to tell me when he was ready to come.  I was the one to tell everyone else when he was about ready to come out.  I was the one who first felt him descending.  I was the one who pushed him out in the way I wanted to push him out and my husband was the one who caught our baby.  He was born straight into his home.  In a peaceful, dark, quiet environment, right as the sun was rising.  He met his siblings a few short minutes after he was born.

I had my membranes stripped right before my water broke with Ben.  I also had my membranes stripped multiple times in the end of my pregnancy with Adalyn and eventually asked to have my water broken when I was 6cm dilated and not in active labor.  This time, I knew I wanted to be left alone. I wanted my body to do what it’s supposed to do with absolutely zero intervention.  This is part of the reason I opted for homebirth.  My midwife is not into intervention at all, so she made me stick to this desire even when it got tough at the very end.  She never checked my dilation, not until those final few moments to assure me that the baby was ready to come.  She is a believer that messing with a cervix, even for something as simple as a dilation check, can interfere with the body’s natural birthing process.  She left me alone entirely, let me listen to my own body, taught me to trust in my body completely.  For the first time ever, I now know my body is 100% capable of birthing on its own.

The recovery has been incredible.  I don’t feel like I had a baby yesterday.  I feel like I could go outside and do cartwheels, but that would sort of be against my midwife’s wishes so I guess I’ll restrain myself.  I had one tiny tear and no stitches.  Woot!

Landon is absolutely perfect in every way.  He is the best nurser we’ve had (by leaps and bounds) and so far seems to be pretty chill.  But, you know, they always are in the beginning.  🙂

He slept through the night his first night beside me in our own home in our own bedroom.

All is well with the world.