Announcing Kes

Aug 4

11 am - I'm 5 days overdue, so I go in for labor-inducing acupuncture
11 pm - nothing doing, so I put pressure on the needle sites hoping to stimulate them more. Then I listen to my "Come Out, Baby" hypnosis CD that had just arrived, and go to bed.

Aug 5

9 am - NST (non-stress test) which baby passes with flying colors. I ask the nurse if she can do a cervix check. She does - I'm 2 cm, soft, but thick and posterior. She strips my membranes but says she doesn't think she really did anything.

9:45 - on the drive home, I get my first contraction.

10:30 - I go walk at the mall. Lots of contractions, by the time I'm done I can barely walk through them.

11 am - At home I sit and time them, figuring if sitting doesn't make them go away and they are regular, this is the real thing.

11:30 - they are, 5 minutes apart and 1 minute. I call Scott to come home, and go hypnobirth with the Come Out Baby cd.

12:00 - the nurse calls to tell me my next NST is on Monday. I tell her it probably won't be needed. She says to call back when they're closer and stronger.

1:00 - I get in the shower. Immediately the contractions are 3 minutes apart and over a minute. The shower feels really good, I stay in for half an hour.

1:30 - we call and say we're ready to come in. They let us know there's already another family laboring, so we'll be put in the second birth room.

2:00 - upon arrival, Kathy checks me, says I'm a 4 but still thick, and she's concerned about the baby's position so when Beah (the lead midwife) arrives she'll have her check me too. I go out on the porch swing and swing in circles through contractions.

2:30 - Beah arrives. By now the contractions are very intense, I'm thinking how different this is from my experience with Elly's birth. I'm focusing on positions and hypnosis techniques to open my cervix and bring baby down and into position, rather than pain relief, because I want this baby NOW after being 6 days late.

2:45 - Beah checks me, and says I'm only a 4 if she stretches and during contractions, and otherwise I shrink back to a 2. She says because of the baby's positioning the head isn't on the cervix right, which can keep the cervix from dilating (which I already know from Eliana's birthing). She says they might send me home, it could be another day before I'm ready to have the baby, but she wants to give it a while and see whether my cervix is changing and how fast.

3:15 - that was a slow half hour. Very painful contractions, and thinking "I can't imagine doing this for another day, it's so much more intense than Eliana's birthing." Around now, I have 4 really hard, long contractions right on top of each other. I’m sitting on the birthing ball, leaning forward onto Scott who’s sitting on the bed massaging the endorphin points on my neck and head, and Bethany (a midwife apprentice) is applying pressure to my back helping relieve the back labor from baby’s position.

3:30 – when I’m sure those are over, I say, “I think I have to pee.” I stand up, and my water breaks. I lay down on the bed to drip over the chux pad and immediately those intense, long, no-rest contractions start back up. I yell for Scott and he holds my hand and starts massaging me again, and Bethany climbs up on the bed to get to my back. By now I am vocalizing through the contractions, not just breathing through them. But I’m glad my water broke so that it will help things move along. Plus Scott adds, “I guess we’re not going home.” Once again I feel like today will be my baby’s birthday. When the contractions let up for a minute I haul to the bathroom, spend a few contractions in there moaning on Scott, but this is more comfortable... laboring on the toilet is great.

4:00 - I decide I want to go in the tub, though, so we take advantage of another break and get back to the room. Kathy comes in to check my cervix, and on the next break she checks me and says, “You’re a 7. And I’m not stretching you to a 7, you’re a 7.” Yay! I get in the tub, it feels so good. On the first contraction, Scott pours water over my back and I realize my back labor is gone. I tell him to go get his swimsuit on. One more contraction passes, I’m enjoying the tub, Bethany is in the room just watching, I don’t need anything. On the third tub contraction, my body starts pushing, against my will, harder than I ever told it to push when birthing Elly. I’m overwhelmed by the intensity and helpless to stop it, just grunting like a wildwoman and thinking “I can’t push I’m only a 7.” Bethany asks, “you pushing?” and I give some sort of affirmative, she runs out into the hall and says, “Megan’s pushing,” and everyone runs in. But no one tells me to stop. They tell Scott to get in the tub and tell me to lean back on him. Beah asks where our cameras are, they put the video camera on the bed facing us and Beah starts snapping pictures. Bethany is watching as Michelle (another apprentice midwife) coaches me when to push and when to stop, to prevent tearing. I feel the ring of fire but it’s mild and easy to push through. She says, “I see light hair!” and I reach down and feel baby’s head – it was further out than I thought it would be. At one point she says, “slow push” and I say “I can’t slow” and she tells me to do little coughs. This works great for about a minute and then I just have to really push again.

4:19 – out slides the baby! Baby goes up onto my chest out of the water, I’m crying, Scott and I are both in total disbelief that our baby is finally and already here. I try to see if it’s a girl or a boy, but the cord is so short I can’t, b/c it’s tightly covering the genitals. I figure it would probably be pushing a penis to the side though, so I say, “I think it’s a girl.” We wait a few minutes and just enjoy, and then we cut the cord and find that we definitely have a girl.

No idea on times after that, other than the fact that the other family’s baby was born at 5:00, the closest two babies in birth home history. They did a great job juggling us.

I got only one stitch that she said she wouldn’t have even done if my tiny tear hadn’t gone right through a blood vessel. I did bleed more than they liked, but nowhere near as bad as I had after Eliana was born, and the uterus mashing to get it to stop didn’t hurt nearly as much either.

It was an amazing experience. Eliana’s birth taught me something about the power of the mind, and Kesenia’s birth taught me about the power of the body. I loved the Birth Home experience. So much support, great environment. While I was on the swing when we first got there I was so glad not being in a hospital. In retrospect I think if I’d planned a hospital birth, I probably would’ve labored at home planning to go into the hospital later, and would have never made it and had an unplanned homebirth. As is, it was an unplanned waterbirth – I wanted to labor in the tub but had planned to get into bed to push... ha.

I’m really enjoying the easier recovery and being home. Eliana is doing OK... she is clearly mad at me but is also excited about Kesenia and enjoying her new role.

Kesenia Lily
August 5, 2005
4:19 pm
9 lbs 1 oz
20.5 inches