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Well, Isaac and Eva both had their birth stories shared, so I figured Ammon deserved to have his told as well. :)
One of the things that made this experience different from the last two was the multiple false labors. False labor is such a party pooper, seriously.
We went to Jared's parent's house on June 17th to celebrate Isaac's 3rd birthday, and by the end of the night I was starting to have some intense pressure. I wasn't having actual contractions yet, but the pressure was getting to be so intense that I began to think something might be starting. After all, I was 2 days past my due date, so it was a perfectly reasonable time for things to be starting. As we drove home that night, I noticed that I was having contractions. They were about 12 minutes apart. I wasn't getting my hopes up just yet, though. And for good reason, because as soon as we got home and settled down, they went away. It was a little bit of a bummer, but I remembered that I had been having mild contractions the whole day before I had Eva, so maybe it just meant that true labor would be coming very soon.
The next morning, I woke up around 6 a.m. with contractions again. I was having contractions that were about 15 minutes apart. Two hours later they were still 15 minutes apart, so I decided to ask Jared to come home from work. Even though the contractions weren't really close together yet, it seemed like they were consistent enough to assume/hope that I was in early labor. My mom took the kids, and we started cleaning up a bit in preparation for a home birth. I sent a text to my midwife letting her know that I was having contractions 15 minutes apart, and that I would let her know if the contractions started to get closer together. They did get closer together as I continued to prep our home for the birth - even as close as 3 minutes apart at times. They weren't as consistent as they should be at that point, though, so I decided to lay down to see if it was true labor before I notified my midwife. Sure enough, the contractions slowed down and were now 30 minutes apart, and sometimes even further apart than that. I texted my midwife letting her know that things had slowed down since I laid down, and asked if I should still come visit her for an appointment we already had set for later that day. She told me to take a nap instead and "rest up for a birth tonight". I told her that would be nice, and that I hoped she was right! My mom brought the kids back home for a nap, and we all relaxed for a few hours at home, waiting to see if anything was going to start up again.
Contractions continued, but they were far apart and irregular. Around 7 p.m. that evening, they started up again. They quickly grew closer together, averaging about 5-6 minutes apart. I called my mom and asked her to come take the kids again. About 90 minutes into this, I texted my midwife and let her know that I had been having contractions that were 5-6 minutes apart for about 90 minutes. She texted back ":) Let me know when you need me." I think Jared and I were kind of hoping for some guidance at this point, so we laughed when we got that response. I think my midwife trusts that I will know when I am in real, true labor and figured I would call her when that point came. I texted back, asking her if it would be a good or a bad idea to lay down again to see if the contractions would continue. She responded, "I think you should lay down and rest as much as possible." So I did. And... can you guess what happened? Yes indeed, they slowed down again. They started to range from 10-30 minutes apart. Yet another "false alarm". Of course, I'm sure these false labors were helping my body prepare for true labor and were probably causing me to dilate a bit, etc., but it was pretty frustrating nonetheless. My mom kept the kids for the night with the hope that labor was just around the corner. That evening, I ate a bunch of pineapple, took some extra Red Raspberry Leaf capsules, etc., hoping that something I did would encourage my body to get the show on the road already!
I continued to track my contractions that night whenever I noticed them, but around 2:30 a.m. I fell asleep and got a good 2 hours of undisturbed sleep. It was around 5 a.m. that I noticed the contractions were getting closer together - about 10-15 minutes apart. I had made the decision at this point, after a couple of false alarms, that I wouldn't get my hopes up unless I had contractions that were getting closer together and more intense all while laying in bed. No more standing up and walking around until I knew for sure that I was in labor! I stayed in bed as Jared got up to start working from home that day. We were lucky he was allowed to do some work from home that day so he didn't have to take time off of work if I continued to have false alarms. I stayed in bed and noticed the contractions get closer together.
(This is where I took a break from writing, and now I am continuing to write it like a month later... and of course, I have forgotten even more details now, so forgive me if the rest of this is lacking as much information and detail.)
I finally let Jared know that my contractions had been getting closer together and stronger as I laid in bed. I told him I may need him to come in the room, even if just for his company so I didn't have to be alone. I decided to kneel by the bed and lean on it to see if I could get the contractions to come even closer together. As soon as I was kneeling by the bed, my contractions went from 10-12 minutes apart to 3 or 4 minutes apart, and sometimes even closer. This was at around 8 in the morning. I wish I could remember how soon after this we called my midwife. I would guess it was within 30 minutes. We let her know that we were pretty sure that I was finally in labor. I initially approached the call with the attitude of... 'let's just call Sherri and see if she can come over and maybe check on me and see what's going on....' because I was so hesitant to believe I was in labor for real this time. But deep down, I think we both knew this was the real deal. While we waited for Sherri to arrive, Jared applied pressure on my back and hips during contractions, and I remember thinking it was magical. That was the word that I kept thinking of to describe it -- my contraction would come, things would start to get painful and as soon as Jared would apply that pressure on my back... boom. There were times that my contraction seemed to disappear. I would have my head down, bracing myself for the contraction, and then he would apply pressure and suddenly I wasn't feeling anything anymore. I'd look up at him like, 'Uh, am I still having a contraction?' It was that magical. Other times, I could still feel it there, but most of the pain and aches would be minimized to the point where I could feel totally calm and relaxed through the rest of the contraction. Seriously, female readers who may have children in the future, have your husband apply pressure on your hips/back when you are in labor. It is magical. At least it was for me, with this particular labor. :)
It took Sherri about 30 minutes or so to arrive. She came in and started to get all of her things set up. I was still leaning against the bed on my knees. It was starting to get uncomfortable - I felt like I was having to hold my body upright when all I wanted to do was relax all of the muscles in my body and make that my focus. But I was so scared of laying down and having my contractions slow down again, so I stayed kneeling (and occasionally standing up, walking around, going to the bathroom, etc.) Sherri came into the bedroom and asked if she could go ahead and check me to see where I was. I laid down on the bed for just a minute or two, and she found that I was about 5 cm dilated. [I think when you've had children before, you can go from 5 cm to fully dilated pretty quickly, though, so I didn't read too much into it. You can also be dilated to a 4 or 5 for days, so I've learned to not pay too much attention to where I'm at with that.]
I went back to kneeling next to the bed and Sherri asked if I'd like to get into the bathtub. I told her that of course I would love to get in the bath tub, but that I was worried my labor would slow down if I did. She said it would only slow down if I wasn't in true labor, and that it would actually speed the process up if I really was in labor because it would help me relax even more and allow my body to do it's job without any kind of tension interfering. I said I would think about it... (as much as I wanted to believe her, I was still super paranoid that everything would slow down if I got in the bathtub and I would be disappointed all over again)... but only a few minutes later, I told Jared that, yep, I was going to get in the bath. I think this was probably around 9:30 or maybe a tiny bit later, because I stopped timing my contractions at around 9:30 am.
Getting in the bathtub was soooo nice. It always is. The one thing I don't like about being in the bathtub is that suddenly I can't have any pressure applied to my back like before. Technically, you can still try to apply pressure, but it's just not nearly as effective. I know Jared and Sherri (and the other midwife, Eva Price, that showed up a bit later) tried to apply pressure during my contractions in the bathtub, but it just didn't work nearly as well as it had been working before, if it even worked at all. But the warmth and relaxing effect of the bath and the floaty-ness of it kind of helps alleviate the pain and achiness a bit, so the pressure isn't needed quite as much anyway.
So I'm really kicking myself that I didn't write this all out earlier, because it really is a big huge blur now. I'll do my best to remember as much as I can...
Anyway, back to the birth! Labor definitely sped up, as Sherri said it would, once I got in the bathtub. There was a moment where Sherri was in our kitchen getting some things ready, and it was just Jared there with me, and I started to feel really nauseated. We knew this would probably happen once I hit transition, and so we had a bowl right there ready to go. I threw up when I had Eva, and I almost threw up when I hit transition with Isaac as well (but didn't). So, sure enough, I threw up. Jared let Sherri know, and she came in to see how I was doing and check my progress. She told me I was fully dilated (yay!) except for just a tiny bit of anterior lip. So we would wait a couple more contractions, and start pushing soon!
I remember some time around transition, I was so surprised when suddenly the contractions slowed down, and when I did have a contraction, they weren't very intense. In fact, sometimes a contraction would start up and then just sort of dwindle off, like my body changed its mind in the middle of it. It was so strange because you'd expect the contractions at transition to be the most intense of the whole experience, but they were so not intense. I wasn't about to complain, though! I saw it as my body giving me a little bit of a break before the REAL show started. As in: the pushing phase. Ohhhh the pushing. Some women like pushing the baby out. I'm not so sure I like it. I was very hesitant to start pushing after remembering how it felt when I had Eva. Sherri kept encouraging me to start pushing when I felt like it, but I was holding back. I really didn't want to feel that again. But Sherri coached me through it so well. I remember that I was having a hard time controlling my vocalizations, yet again (same as last time). This time I kept saying "I can't, I can't..." as I rammed my head into the bathtub wall... haha. Okay, maybe not rammed... but apparently I was pushing my forehead into the wall of the bathtub, because I discovered that I had a small bruise on my forehead after the whole ordeal. They even tried to put a washcloth in between the tub and my head at one point. I thought they were trying to cool my head off or something, but no, they just didn't want me to injure myself... hahaha! At least I can laugh about it now... kind of... :) I knew that I could do it, so I wasn't saying "I can't" in that way. I think it was more like saying, "I can't handle this pain, ahhhh, what the heckkkkk, this hurts so muchhhhh, just get this over with alreadyyyyyy.... I can't believe how much this hurtsss, what was I thinkinggggg, holy cowwwwwwwwww!!!... etc." But all I could get out was "I can't.... I can't..." I think everyone understood, though. At least that's what I like to tell myself!
So after a few pushes, (it's all feeling very intense and impossible to feel in control at this point), Sherri tells me that the baby is starting to come out. She encouraged me to reach down and feel the baby's head, still in the bag of waters at this point, and I did for about a millisecond. I could definitely feel that the baby was still in the bag of waters - it felt much slimier than a baby's head would probably feel. :) A push or two later, Sherri said that the bag of waters was bulging out of me, basically (it still hadn't popped), and encouraged me to feel it again. I think some people can probably keep their cool enough to do that, but for me, at that point, I didn't want to think about or do anything other than push the baby out, so I declined as politely as one can while pushing a baby out of their body. :)
The bag tore open soon after, and I pushed through a few more contractions, delivering the head (wait, the baby still isn't out? I still have to push more???? AHHHH!), and then the rest of the baby! The whole pushing phase (for me) is just one big intense feeling of please-get-this-over-with-now-oh-my-gosh-I-feel-like-I'm-about-to-split-in-half-and-the-world-is-spinning-all-around-me-and-I-can't-even-process-any-thoughts-except-for-holy-cow-holy-cow-holy-cow. And that still doesn't quite describe it... Not to scare anyone away from having a natural birth, of course, because I personally feel like it's totally worth it in the end. But just be prepared. And also know that, when you are at this point in labor, it is going to be over SO SOON and you will have your baby in your arms before you know it. Just hold on a tiny bit longer! And as soon as that baby is born, all of the pain vanishes and you feel amazing. The endorphins kick in and you have all the energy in the world, and your body feels fine and dandy. Seriously. Well, until the after-pains start up, of course. Those are pretty horrible. But that's where pain medicine comes into play, for me at least.
So back to the birth of my little baby Ammon... (sorry, I get on tangents very easily when it comes to talking about birth!)
He was beautiful! Sherri said he came out swimming. (He sort of wiggled his way out on the last push.) I know this is TMI for some of you, but there were 2 things that I was really hoping for with this birth. 1) That I wouldn't poop. It happens, we all know it. But I didn't want it to happen to me this time. And 2) That I wouldn't tear. And both of those wishes were granted. I was so happy. And recovery was a million times easier this time. No stitches needed. It was grand.
He needed just a tiny bit of suctioning, but he pinked up really quickly and was the beautiful, healthy little baby we had been praying for. I worried a lot about this baby, for some reason. It seemed like he was constantly changing position, even during the last month or so. He was breech when I was 37 weeks along. I did everything I could think to do. I even took pulsatilla (a homeopathic that my midwife recommended) like the hippie that I am. I did forward-leaning inversions. I prayed and prayed. I never sat in a reclining position.... etc. etc. I did whatever I could to get the baby to flip and to stay in a good position. And somehow, something I did worked, thank goodness. A random side note: He had a "true knot" (basically, a tight knot) in his umbilical cord! He moved around so much during the pregnancy that he made a knot in the cord! Is that not crazy? We are so glad it didn't cause any problems and he came out healthy and well.
I feel very lucky to have had two safe and smooth home births. I know that it isn't for everyone. We have approached our home births with a lot of prayer. I wouldn't recommend taking the decision to do a home birth lightly. But for some people, it is a better option. I actually feel safer having my babies at home than I do at the hospital. We are still open to having our babies in the hospital, though, if that's what feels right. So, if you are a religious/spiritual person and you are considering home birth, definitely pray about it and do what feels right to you. If you are going for it, find an experienced midwife that has a lot of happy clients. My midwife has 20+ years of experience. She knows all the warning signs to look out for. I trust her completely, and she really does know what she's doing.
So there ya go! The birth story of Ammon Jonas. He is a sweetie and we love him beyond words!
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