Back in Action

I'm not even going to begin to discuss my absence...pretty much through my entire pregnancy, and now through my entire experience thus far as a mother.

No apologies, I'm just picking up where I left off...and trying to get caught up on the rich, rich posts of dear friends that I've neglected - when I can get a chance during The Boy's nap times :)

To pick it back up, I figured this post would be ideal. Some pictures of the early days, followed by my novel of a birth story. Congratulations if you take the time to even skim the entire thing. I wanted it detailed because I was able to remember it all in such vivid detail.

Just a note: I talk about and think about my birth story a LOT. Yesterday while jogging I was wondering why I feel kind of obsessed with it. And I realized it's because it's without a doubt the coolest thing I've ever done. I used to struggle when people would say things like, "What's the thing in your life you're most proud of?" Now, my answer would immediately be my son and how I brought him into the world. That said...read away if you're interested :)

At 1:30am on Sunday March 23, heading to the hospital. One last belly picture!

All the goods. Car seat, boppy, diaper bag and snack baggy for Dan.

 

 

Our little guy...well...our 8lb 5oz "little" guy :)

Jack & Dan on our first night together :)

I took my first shower post-labor (BEST SHOWER OF MY LIFE) and came out to find these two zonked out

Sorry - I can't rotate it :( This is the morning we went home. It snowed about an inch, and they were sitting by the window "looking at the snow" :)

Bundled up for the ride home on a COOOOLD March afternoon

Our first night home. Oh man...thinking of that first night, my stomach is in knots all over again at the anxiety I felt. But hey...we're all still alive :)

And now...the birth story:

The Day Before…

Saturday March 22 was a usual day around our house. I, in classic fashion, tried to do way too much for being on a “limited activity” order from my doctor. I knew the baby would be coming in the next week or two, and I there was just so much that needed to be done and I couldn’t stop myself!

I washed all of our bedding- duvet cover, blankets, etc., cleaned the bathrooms and dusted. I also ran to Target and bought new sheets to put on the bed. I came home, washed those and put them on our bed and thought to myself, “Well, there’s a chance that this’ll be the sheets on the bed when the baby comes!” Little did I know!

Saturday night we went to church, as usual and I even stood and kneeled almost every time I was supposed to. The previous week at church I sat down the whole time because I was just so incredibly uncomfortable. So I was proud of myself that night, for participating throughout the whole mass. After church, an older man who sits a few rows in front of me and Dan (who we don’t know), came up to us for the second or third time, asking how the pregnancy was going, and said he’d be praying for us J The last couple weeks he’d sought us out after church to just give us his well-wishes. So sweet.

After church, we went to Mongolian BBQ for supper to get Dan’s free birthday meal. I felt totally fine, just super huge sitting in those little tiny chairs! We watched some college basketball; Michigan was playing Texas. We left Mongo and went across the street to Schuler’s and sat down and read some magazines for free, like we always did when we were dating…back in the old days J Dan later said, on the way home, “Hey, if we don’t get a chance to go out on a little date again before the boy comes, it’ll be special that our last ‘us’ time was just like how it was when we first met!”

At Schuler’s, Kristen called me to get an update on Juliette, since she and Jeff were in Madang for retreat, and they didn’t have access to internet or their email. She asked how I was doing, and I told her that at my last appointment, I was 3cm dilated, 70% effaced and -2 station. I told her I felt completely fine and was just trucking along.

We stopped at Krispy Kreme to get two free Hot Now donuts and a decaf coffee for me because I was freezing cold. We both got our free glazes, and I got a blueberry cake donut and Dan got a cream filled for breakfast on Sunday morning.

We came home and went right to bed, because, you know, it was 9:00 and we’re lame/awesome and go to bed super early…

The Labor/Birth…

I woke up around 10:45pm on Saturday night to go to the bathroom with strong menstrual cramps. I’d been having cramps during the night on/off for a week or so, so it wasn’t anything unusual. Just stronger than normal. I went to the bathroom, then back to bed and woke up again at 12:45am on Sunday morning. Again, the cramps were bad. To the point where I remember thinking, “I wish I didn’t have to get up to pee because it hurts so bad…I just want to lay here.” I got up and went to the bathroom, then laid back down.

I tried to go back to sleep, but the cramps were bad enough that I couldn’t really sleep and just lightly dozed. When I knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep without aid, I looked at the clock and it was about 1:20am. I got up and went to the bathroom, just for something to do. I wiped and there was pinkish blood on the toilet paper. I immediately wiped a few more times, but didn’t see any more.

I went to the living room and go the laptop and my cell phone and brought them into the bathroom with me. I googled blood on t.p. at 38 weeks and read that it could be just the cervix softening. I thought, “Well, my cervix has been softening for weeks, so this is probably just pretty normal…I could easily be laboring for the next week or so.” So I wasn’t alarmed at all.

I posted what had happened and the situation on the “And Then We Were Mommies” group I’m a part of on facebook to get some feedback from other moms and pregnant ladies. It was kind of a mixed response of “it could be nothing” and “maybe call your doctor.” So…I still wasn’t sure what to do.

I texted Amanda, knowing she’d be up with Juliette or pumping. She was asking how bad my cramps were, how bad contractions were, etc. I kept telling her I wasn’t sure if I was having contractions because I didn’t know what they felt like. She kept telling me I should time them, and I kept thinking, “How can I time something if I don’t know what I’m feeling???”

I had downloaded a contraction timer app on my phone a few days prior, so I opened that up and started just kind of blindly timing what felt like “more intense cramps” than the cramps that were constant. The first couple were about 30-45 seconds and around 8 minutes apart or so. I told Amanda that, and she was kind of saying, “Um…those are contractions!” I wasn’t believing her, because I still was unsure of what I was feeling, and it felt kind of surreal that anything could actually be happening so early.

Because of having gone to the E.R. twice for my blood pressure and being sent home, I did NOT want to go to the hospital again and be sent home – especially after dragging Dan out of bed at 2am on a Sunday morning. So I was really confused about whether to stay at home and let it ride, or whether we should play it safe and go in. I didn’t want to be “that person” and panic and immediately go to the hospital, especially because a big thing in The Bradley Method class teaches to stay at home as long as you can, so you can be comfortable, labor in a more familiar environment, etc.

I kept timing my “contractions” and they were more and more consistently about one minute in length and about five minutes apart. I decided to just call my doctor and get feedback. The person I talked to basically said, “We’d feel more comfortable if you went into the E.R. and go assessed in person.” *Sigh*…another needless trip to the hospital, so off we go.

I had woken Dan up before calling the doctor, so he was up and around, getting dressed and gathering odds and ends that I’d listed on our hospital packing list. I was so annoyed and thought the whole thing was a joke. I remember apologizing a lot to Dan and saying, “I’m sorry that we’re going to be sent home…this is so dumb…I shouldn’t have called the doctor.” I remember getting our hospital bags all together and thinking, “We’re not even going to need this. We’ll leave them in the car and just have to bring them back in when we come home in a few hours.”

On the way to the hospital, I kept timing my contractions, and they were pretty consistent still – one minute, five minutes apart. I kept just thinking, “This can’t be right! People usually labor for a long time before their contractions last this long and are this close together! I MUST be misinterpreting what a contraction is!” But they were definitely defined by this time – an intense pressure, very low in my stomach. I had menstrual cramps constantly that were always there – but the contraction feeling was on top of the cramps. I called Amanda on the drive in and she kept getting more and more convinced that I was in labor. I kept laughing at her enthusiasm, convinced that this was a false alarm.

We got to the hospital and I had a contraction while walking into the E.R. and had to slow down and thought, “Oh my…” We got all checked in and someone from OB came down to pick me up. I can’t remember the nurse’s name, but she was really nice. I was able to walk up to OB with her and Dan and she was asking all kinds of questions. I was just casually chit-chatting and thinking it was no big deal.

As we got to triage on the second floor, I left my urine sample, had my blood pressure taken, etc. My blood pressure was super high. Again. The nurse had me take my pants off and lay a sheet over my lap because she was going to check my progress. It was pretty uncomfortable for her to do that while I was having the cramps, even though she did it between contractions. She told Dan not to be alarmed at the blood, and mentioned that there was quite a bit of it. She made a comment like, “Wow” or something, and I remember asking how far I was. She said, “Hold on, I just want to make super sure before I say it out loud.” She checked again, did some pretty invasive/intense feeling around and told me I was at 7cm and 70% effaced.

At this point it was about 3:00am and it became clear that we most likely weren’t going home. Especially considering my high blood pressure. The nurse wouldn’t come out and say we were being admitted, because she needed to hear it from the doctor first, but she kept saying she’d be “really REALLY shocked” if they sent us home. Dan said something like, “So we’re going to have the baby while we’re here today.” She said something like, “You could very well have this baby by supper time.” Me and Dan just looked at each other with HUGE eyes, in complete disbelief.

As I was laying in the triage bay, my contractions started definitely getting more intense, but bearable for sure. When the nurse would come in, I would sometimes be in the middle of a contraction, breathing very deeply through it with my eyes closed. She would wait to talk to me and tell me information until the contraction had passed.

My legs and body started shaking and shivering uncontrollably. Like I was so, so, so cold and couldn’t control my shivering. I told the nurse and she said, “Just let yourself shake. That’s all the hormones – don’t try and stop it or it will just be worse.” I was frustrated though, because I felt like the shivering was making me tense up and making it very hard to practice relaxation through my contractions. I mostly focused and concentrated on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. It kept me focused.

Eventually a few more nurses and a doctor came in and talked to me and Dan. I can’t remember exactly how it all played out, but I told the nurse about my desire for a natural, drug free birth and she made me feel really good and empowered and capable.

I ended up having to have one dose of medication through an I.V. for my blood pressure. I felt so bad giving the nurse permission to do it. Like I had worked so hard to prepare myself for drug-free birth, and here I was, not even out of triage, telling them they could put drugs into my body. It wasn’t even that painful yet and I was already caving. I felt like such a sucker and such a weak advocate for my baby.

I cried and the nurse was so nice. She told me that it wasn’t going to be constant medication, just for right now, and that it really would help in the long run. Because if my blood pressure didn’t come back down now, with the help of medicine, it could be a big complication later on.

The nurse also said she didn’t see as much activity from the baby as she’d like, so she wanted to put me on fluids through an I.V. I asked her if I could just drink lots of water on my own instead of that. She said I could, but that what she could give me via I.V. immediately would take two hours (or more) to drink and get to the baby.

At that point, after the blood pressure medicine, I thought that I only wanted the baby to be healthy. It was 4:00am, I was having contractions, my systolic number on my blood pressure was over 100, and I just wanted the baby to be healthy, and to KNOW the baby was healthy. If that meant getting an I.V. to see his movements, fine. I’d do it.

The nurse, again, was so incredibly supportive and calmed me down, telling me not to let this affect my overall goal. (She came to see us after Jack was born and told Dan that she was afraid that my blood pressure would skyrocket because of my stress of letting them administer the drugs – and that it would just snowball into my birth plan being changed and me being upset; so she especially was so happy that it all worked out. She was so kind.)

At around 4:30am, we were assigned a room and moved from triage to a Labor/Delivery room – Room 217. They wheeled my triage bed and put a cold wash cloth over my eyes during transport. Because of my blood pressure, they wanted me in a “low stimulus” environment, so they left the room lights off and everyone was very quiet. I got into the bed and started to ride out the storm.

Contractions got much more intense and it was still dark outside. Dan and I were alone in the big room for the majority of labor. The nurse assigned to us, Tracia, came in about once every hour or so to check on us.

Tracia was a God-send. I could have kissed her on the mouth when it was all over. I can’t sing her praises enough. She was incredibly kind and encouraging and very supportive of my goal for a natural birth. I had been praying for weeks that God would bless us with the delivery we wanted, and I believe Tracia was part of that. She was funny when she needed to be, quiet when she needed to be and she forcefully reminded me of my goals when she needed to. She was so kind to Dan and joked a lot with him, which I was so thankful for.

I started out on my left side, mostly because of my blood pressure. It seemed that contractions were difficult on my side, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have much time between contractions to change positions or experiment with any new ones. Honestly, I didn’t want to move. I’d rather have endured a more painful contraction than have to move because it took so much effort. Tracia came in and asked if I could switch sides, to try and get the baby to move. I remember thinking, every time she asked me to move, “Does she understand how much effort this is taking? Does she know what it feels like to move?” But every time she asked, I’d do it. And every time I changed positions, it hurt. It took a while for my body and the baby to re-adjust to the new position. I think I dreaded changing positions because of that – because of the extra pain and discomfort I knew a new position meant.

For a stint, I was just laying on my back – not flat, but sitting up a little bit. That seemed to help me manage the contractions much better. Breathing through them because much easier. I liked it!

The sun started to rise, and I wondered when the doctor was going to come in and see me and check to see how far I’d progressed. I remembered that my birth plan said I wanted to keep exams to a minimum. I would never have said anything to the contrary, because deep down, I knew that’s what I wanted. But in my mind, only to myself, I kept thinking, “Screw that. I need to be assured that the work I’m doing isn’t for nothing. I want to be checked. Right now.” I remember feeling like, “Do they even care what’s happening? Why isn’t anyone checking on us? Where is everyone?” It was just MUCH more peaceful and they left us to our own devices much more than I thought they would.

After being on my back for a long time, the doctor came in and checked me and I heard her tell the nurse I was 8cm and 80% effaced. I was immediately discouraged and thought, “All those hours of labor for one lame centimeter and 10% of my cervix. COME ON!” I thought, “Man. If the next two centimeters take as long as this one did…I don’t know if I can do this.” The doctor said something to me, and ended with, “Just keep going and I’ll be back in a little while to check you again.” I remember thinking, “Just keep going? How long? I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

The contractions, at this point, were painful. Very painful. Intense. I kept wanting to ask Dan if he could see them on any kind of monitor, but I didn’t want to say that many words. My commands and answers were all one word whispers. “No.” “Yes.” “Water.” “Not now.” Sometimes just very short, almost non-existent head nods. I prayed through a lot of the contractions. Mumbling, “Jesus help me please. Jesus please take this pain. Jesus please give me strength.” I said “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” more times than I can count.

After my exam, Tracia told me that it might help speed things along to change positions. I had the fetal monitors on, so I asked her if we could take them off so I could try to move a little bit. She said after I laid on my right side for a little, we could take the monitors off. They wanted to see the baby move a good bit before removing the monitors – and seeing the baby move meant getting off my “easy” position of being partly reclined and back on my side. So I did it. And it hurt to move. And it hurt to be on my right side.

I only had to moan through a contraction loudly once. It was because it started while I was moving and I had lost control of it from the very beginning. I didn’t have the opportunity to breathe through it because it came by surprise. It was so incredibly painful and there was nothing I could do to stop the pain. It just kept coming. It took so much effort to begin breathing through it halfway through.

Another contraction – I had to go #1 and Dan helped me into the bathroom. I tried to get to the bathroom so fast so I could be back in bed by the time the next contraction came. I didn’t make it. Not by a longshot. The next contraction came while I was on the toilet and I just braced myself and whispered “Shit” because I knew what was coming and I was dreading it. There’s nothing worse than contracting on a toilet.

After the baby’s movement picked up, Tracia came to take the monitors off. I told Dan I wanted to try the pelvic rock position. At home, in late pregnancy, I’d been using my birthing ball during pelvic rocks – I would kneel, then put the ball under my chest/face and just lay on it so the weight wasn’t all on my wrists.

Dan laid down a bed pad on the floor for my knees. I knelt down, and Dan put a towel over the birthing ball and I just leaned into it with my hands hanging on the floor. Dan put a cold wash cloth over my eyes, so even when they were opened, all I could see was bright white light. Dan sat on the floor with me the whole time I was in the pelvic rock position…which couldn’t have been comfortable for him. Bless him. I was wearing just the open-backed gown in this position, so my naked rear end was sticking out as I knelt. It made me think of in Bradley Classes, talking about losing any sense of modesty or caring who saw you naked, etc. Anybody could have walked in that door and seen my naked bum up in the air and I wouldn’t have cared. It felt so incredibly good to let my belly just hang down with gravity. Contractions were still very painful in this position – such a tightening and loosening. I stayed down on the floor for just over an hour. When I felt like I wanted to get back into bed, Dan helped me up. By that time, it was around 11:00am.

I could see my stomach changing shape. For weeks, I knew exactly where the baby’s rump and feet were. His rump was just above and to the left of my belly button, and his feet were in my right rib cage. But during labor, I could see the shape completely shift. There were new lumps, new flat spots, and I could visibly see the changes my uterus was going through. For some reason it sickened me, the intensity of it. I didn’t touch my stomach, and I tried to avoid looking at it all through labor. Just the thought of what was happening, on top of feeling what was happening must have been too much for me.

Soon after the pelvic rock position, Tracia came in and said they may have to break my water for me, as it was still in tact. That was something on my birth plan – I didn’t want that done unless necessary. I was worried that if they broke my water, my contractions would get even more painful because the waters wouldn’t be cushioning the baby’s head.

The doctor came in to check me and I was oh-so nervous that I wouldn’t have progressed very far. She said she couldn’t feel any cervix, but didn’t know if it was because the bag of water was interfering with it. So basically, she couldn’t tell me exactly how far dilated I was until my water had broken. I told them to go ahead and do it if they thought it would speed things up. They did.

At around 11:30am, the doctor came in to break my water. I remember asking them, “Is it going to feel gross?” They said yes, it’ll feel like you’re peeing your pants. A LOT. It wasn’t painful when she did it at all. I felt it all gush out, all over the bed pad. The doctor commented on how much there was. I wanted to mention that my 36 week ultrasound showed high levels of amniotic fluid, but was in no state to explain it all. I just let her exclaim. After she broke my water, she checked me, and sure enough, I was fully dilated. I was elated and ready for the next phase.

After breaking my water, Tracia needed to change the pad I was laying on and get me a clean on. That required me to lift up my bottom and torso so she could pull it out and slide a new one under me. I was just starting a contraction, and the pressure was so tight. She told me to lift up, and it hurt so bad. I just kept saying, “I can’t! I can’t!” I remember her calmly saying, “Yes you can, just lift up really quick. Yes you can.” I remember moaning really loud when I lifted up because it required the use of my abdominal muscles and it felt almost impossible.

I asked when I’d be able to push. Tracia said to let her know when I felt ready, and the doctor told me it wouldn’t take me long at all to get there.

They both left the room, Tracia and the doctor, and me and Dan were left alone again. With every contractions, I felt a bit more of my water come out. It was uncomfortable and I didn’t like it at all. I started feeling the need to push, like I needed to go #2. I told Dan and he called for Tracia. She came in and I asked her if I could push. She said that if I could just wait 10-15 minutes to conserve my energy for pushing, that it would help me so much. I was so annoyed – I wanted to push NOW, I was fully dilated, but they were telling me to “conserve my energy.” Did they have ANY idea how much energy it took to NOT push when I needed to????

I went through about five contractions with the need to push, but nobody else being in the room but me and Dan. I did exclaim a few times during that period – as opposed to be very, very quiet the rest of the time. A contraction would come, I would brace myself, I would breath through part of it, then the need to push would come. I tried to keep breathing deeply, but then would just find myself pushing regardless of trying not to. I would yell, “I cant! Dan, I can’t! It hurts, I have to push!” And every time I would push, I could hear it on the monitor. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand it.

Thankfully, around 11:50am, the doctor and Tracia came in. I was so relieved to see them, because I knew I’d be able to start pushing. They brought the stirrups out and Tracia explained how to hold my legs back. They told me to wait until a contraction, then let it build, then push.

I’m not going to lie – I think the first time I didn’t wait because I just needed to push. Dan was on my right side, holding my leg, Tracia was on my left side holding my leg and the doctor was front and center. As I started to push, Tracia and the doctor would loudly say, “Big push, here we go!” And I took the biggest breath I possibly could, put my chin to my chest, curled my stomach up like a ball and bore down. I had to do it for three counts of ten. I was pushing so, so hard. I could see red and bright colors behind my eyes and when I was pushing, everything else was blocked out except Tracia’s counting. It seemed to take forever for her to get to ten.

The golden question: “Did you poop on the table?” I’m pretty sure…yes. During a push, I felt something come out and Tracia said something about, “Good, you’re making more room. That’s good.” I thought I’d be embarrassed, but I literally could not have cared less. I wanted to ask someone if I did for sure, but didn’t have the energy. Shortly after, Dan ran to the sink to wet a washcloth for my forehead, and I wanted to ask him if he saw it. Afterward I asked him, and he said he didn’t look, because he thought maybe I had and didn’t want to see it!

During pushing was the only time I got really hot and wanted a fan or ice. I only sipped water through all of labor, but during pushing, Dan fed me ice chunks between each set of pushes. It tasted so good, but it took so much energy to chew it every time.

Both Tracia and the doctor told me my pushes were so good and so strong. The doctor kept saying, when I’d push well, “THAT’S the push! Right there! That one! Good!” I kept pushing, kept taking breaks between contractions. Dan was feeding me ice chips between pushes. I kept asking, “Am I pushing him? Is it working?” They assured me I was, because I couldn’t feel him yet.

On one set of pushes, Tracia started having me another 5-count push to the end of my three 10-count pushes. It was exhausting. I could hardly do it.

They told me they could see his head coming down at one point, and I got this renewed energy – not emotional, just determination to finish what I’d started. I was determined to have my next pushes be huge. They were. And I think it surprised them. I pushed his head out halfway and they made me stop mid-push because the doctor wasn’t even in the room yet. I don’t know what happened at that point, because all I could feel was his head, halfway out, and I felt everything about it. I tried to stay very composed, without yelling. But as the room began bustling with three nurses and two doctors pulling trays of tools over to my bed, I remember loudly and repeatedly saying, “IT BURNS. IT BURNS. IT BURNS SO BAD.” Tracia kept telling me it was almost time, to just hold on. I remember seeing the resident and Dr. Hansul putting their gowns and gloves on and feeling like they were moving SO slowly.

Everyone huddled around the end of my bed and told me to go ahead and push again. I pushed hard and expected just his head to come out, then to have to wait to push again for the rest of his body. I gave one big push, with my eyes closed and everything else blocked out. I felt him being born, a massive relief, a gush of everything, the pain gone instantaneously. Before I could do anything but feel all of that, I could hear so many voices saying, “Look! Look!” I opened my eyes, and saw them lift him out from between my legs, all blue and covered with blood. He was crying and I just looked at him, and looked at Dan and kept saying, “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!”

I wanted to reach out and hold him to my chest immediately, but they were waiting for the cord to stop pulsing before cutting it, and his cord was short, so he could only reach up to my abdomen. They laid him there and he was crying and squealing and the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen. Dan cut the cord and they lightly wiped him off and laid him on my chest. Me and Dan just looked at each other in complete disbelief that he was ours. I just couldn’t believe I had done it – we had our natural childbirth and I actually did it. I felt everything, had no artificial relief and bore every ounce of pain that God intended for me to experience during childbirth. It was scary and overwhelming and exhausting and incredibly painful and draining; but without a doubt, the best, most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life.

After the birth, it took the doctors and nurses about 35 minutes to clean me up and stitch me up and do everything that needed to be done. I had a 2^nd degree tear from Jack’s entrance into the world, and apparently, it was high enough up that they had a real time trying to get stitches in. I was watching the face of the resident doctor and I even pointed it out to Dan – she looked amazed/disgusted at it all. Her facial expression was just hilarious to me. Dr. Hansul re-checked her work and was really nice about preparing me for specific sensations: “a little pinch here for the numbing” or “lots of pressure, I’m just going to feel to make sure everything is cleaned out.” I felt some discomfort during the stitching, but compared to birth, it was just a nuisance.

I remember asking if I needed to push to get my placenta out. The resident kept kind of tugging on the umbilical cord and saying that the placenta just “wasn’t ready” to come out. Eventually she did some adjusting and it started moving. Dr. Hansul told me to push a little, and I felt it easily slide out. I asked them if I could see it, and they explained to me what everything was – the membranes, the placenta, the cord, etc. It was very interesting!

Dan was an awesome coach; especially for having being woken up at 2am and being unexpectedly shoved into the position of coach when he least expected it. I could tell he was so incredibly tired, he’d been on his feet almost the whole time. But he stuck with me and was there for every contraction. He walked me to the bathroom with my I.V. fluids, fed me ice chips, wetted wash cloths, rubbed my feet almost non-stop for twelve hours, and was kind, encouraging and gentle. I can’t count how many times I said to Dan, “I can’t do this. It hurts so bad.” And his response was always, “Yes you can. You can do this. You ARE doing this.” He was incredible.

The staff at Metro was great. The nurses, doctors and staff were all so incredibly kind. A lactation consultant came around to our room every day to check on us and answer any questions. Nurses were there a the drop of a hat to answer all of our weirdly specific, new parent questions and to keep us from worrying about anything needlessly. The hospital was clean and quiet and we had all the privacy we wanted, but access to help whenever we needed it. Since the birth was much earlier than expected, I hadn’t even had time to go over my birth plan with Dr. Grey, or have a copy put in my file. Dan gave a copy to Tracia when we first got to the hospital, and she kept it. Everyone involved was SO great about trying hard to stick to our birth plan. Different things would come up and they’d give me an answer, and I’d think, “Oh yeah! That’s on my birth plan!”

      -    Quiet room

      -    Changing positions to progress labor instead of drugs

      -    Asking me before rupturing my bag of waters

      -    No eye ointment at birth

      -    Only Vitamin K shot at birth

      -    Waiting to cut the umbilical cord until it stopped pulsing

And again, Tracia was really good at reminding me of my goals and helping me stick to the plan. They couldn’t have been more kind of supportive.

All in all, I couldn’t be happier with our birth experience. I feel so incredibly blessed that God chose to give me what I asked for. I not only had a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, but the birth I wanted on top of it all.