Giving Birth is a Piece of CAKE!!!
HAHA! I have reurned after a 3 week hiatus from the world of TEH INTARWEB!!!! And I feel GRRRREAT!!! I have a brand new love of my life as well...
Hope everyone can see the photo... it's hosted on yahoo photos. More can be seen here... http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tiggafav/album?.dir=/5ab3
If my html is broken it is because I'm filing my brain with baby stuff so normal computer nerd stuff is being randomly pushed out of my brain... HAHA!
Anyway, on with the story... and it's GRAPHIC so if you're scared go to church cause the remix hurts. =)
Dec 24th I went for a last minte trip to pic up some gifts for some of my nephews and I walked from my apt, all the way down to lakeshore Ave to shop which is a long walk for a woman who is 9 months pregnant. And I did it after the sun had gone down. But it was a refreshing walk and I had some minor contractions along the way which was not out of the ordinary cause i'd been having practic contractions since 2 weeks before that. The new thing was, 2 days before this walk, I'd lost my mucus plug. For thos who don't know what a mucus plug is, it's a bunch of mucus that plugs up your cervix (if you don't know what a cervix is, don't worry about it). So I knew I would be having the baby that week which excited me a lot.
Anyway the walk was great, and I got home and made dinner for Aaron and myself and cleaned the house from top to bottom. Aaron ended up getting home really late and I ate without him which caused me to go into a huge emotional spiral. When he got home he ate some and I ended up even more upset with him because instead of coming straight home he ended up runing around with James. I was like... C'mon dude, i'm 9 months pregnant... be home already.
So we had a long talk about him being there for me and I told him that i needed him cause I could be having the baby anytime, like I could go into labor tonight and shit. I told him that. Well what do you know... I ended up right. That night, at 3am I went into labor. I knew it was real this time, but I didn't wake aaron up to tell him cause I needed him to get his rest since I didn't know how long my labor would go on. Some people labor for over 24 hours. I hoped that owouldn't happen to me though :).
So I slept through the first 7 hours of my labor pretty much aside from bathroom breaks. So easy. Nothing like tv. So much drama. Then at 9am, Aaron got out of bed and started doing stuff and I stayed in bed but I told him I'd been having contractions. Then half an hour later he asked me if I was in labor, and I told him yea. He asked me if I was sure, and I was like yeppers dude, so the adventure began that way.
I called my mom and told her what was up, she told me she didn't think i'd be having the baby til Tuesday. Haha :-p. I told her I thought it would be the same day but I told her not to rush over cause The baby probably wouldn't be ready to come until after 9pm. Thats what I instinctually felt. Instinct rocks.
So by 10:30 I was in active labor and having to breath through my contractions. Aaron was sorta running around making teas, cleaning things, and doing various homebirth preparations. I grabbed a few birthing guides and did some light reading in between contractions. Then I went into the living room with my birthing ball and sat on that for a few hours and bounced on it during contractions. Then I layed on the floor and called aaron so I could hold his hand through contractions. At this point I really wanted him to be there with me during contractions. He broought me some toast and tea to keep my energy up... I only ate one piece but I drank all the tea. I drank tons throoughout the day, I probably went through so many bottles of water. You can only imagine how much peeing I ended up doing. After a few hours of watching football, I went back into the bedroom to recline against some pillows and try to rest and my brother called to see how I was doing and told me he would stop by. An hour later my mom showed up, then my brother showed up. They kept asking me how I was doing and asking what the contractions felt like and stuff which was annoying me. I really didn't want to answer any damn questions by that time.
An hour later I took a bath to relax cause the contractions were pretty intense and I couldn't lay down through them anymore. I had to stand or walk around, and walking was making me tired so I knew gettinn in the water would help. Boy did it feel great. I took a little nap in the tub there :). And got out after maybe an hour. I kept focusing on breathing and Aaron kept telling me to breath deeply but what I really wanted him to do was talk to me. I snapped at him and told him I needed him to talk about positive things, and my mom came in and gave me her walkman to listen to her music and that helped relax me again. My contractions were only 3 minutes apart and I felt like things were taking too long so I thought I wasn't relaxing enough. After a while I decided it was time to get back into the tub so I could get some more R&R. This time when I got out the tub I went into transition. For those who don't know what transition is, it's pretty much the most diffficult part of labor where the cervix is trying to open up it's last inch and the contractions come every minute or so, and have multiple peaks of intensity. WHOA it was pretty crazy. It was getting harder to be relaxed. It felt like I had some really sucky menstrual cramps. Aaron kept helping me breath but I needed some advanced relaxation techniques. My mom heard me breathing hard so she came in and breathed with me to get me to do it right, and she talked to me, which was exactly what I needed. After about 20 minutes, my transition ended and my contractions pretty much stopped. I started walking around and I felt like the baby was ready to descend. So I walked around and wiggled my hips and did squats. I also had aaron to push on my hips at some times to help relieve the pressure I sometimes felt there. My hips were basicslly pushing themselves around while the baby moves lower and lower.
I felt like the baby wanted to come out but couldn't, so I decided to go pee to make sure my bladder was as empty as I could get it. By this time I had to be very... .... ... creative to get myself to pee. LOL. But after I peed, I still felt like something was holding up the baby. So I decided I needed to poop. I tried to poop but couldn't. So I walked around some more. Then I tried to poop again, still no luck. More walking, shaking hips, dancing... Cracking jokes with aaron, things were really laid back. The funny thing I realize in hindsight is that I was walking around the house completely naked with my mom and Aaron there. My birth instructor told me that would happen, but I didn't believe it. LOL. Anyway, more squats, and I walked into the living room and was talking to mom and aaron and suddenly I felt like I REALLY had to take a shit. I was sora baring down on my way to the bathroom and I was like oh crap, I hope I make it to the toilet. Well I got there... and nothing. Not even the urge to poop!! WTF??! I thought, this is bullSHIT!!! My mom came in and told me to be careful cause sometimes a woman thinks she has to poop when it's really the baby. So I pushed and pushed on the toilet and after about 5 minutes, I felt like I was making some progress :). I decided to teach down to check and make sure it wasn't the baby instead... and I felt a pulge down there and my face lit up with delight, I was like YAY!!!!! So I got up and announced that the baby was coming. I went and sat on the floor in the bedroom and I was soooo excited! My mom didn't believe me, she thought I was crazy. LOL. I opened my legs so she could check and she said she saw the bag of waters, so I was like neato! So I sad bag on the floor and by this time, I wasn't actually pushing... Instead my body was just kinda "going". The female body is AMAZING and AWESOME!
My water broke 5 minutes later and then you could see the baby's head! Well I cutouldn't, I wasn't flexible enough. But I reached down with my hand and felt her little head full of hair. Wow. I just smiled and I said to Aaron, it's almost here! I was on my hands and knees, and a few more pushes and the baby's head would come out some, then go back in. My mom watched the head come, and go back in and she said "What the hell?! I ain't never seen anything like that in my life, that looks CRAZY!" Which made me realize that although my mother has had 8 children, and given birth to 3 alone, she'd never actually seen someone else give birth. So she'd never been on the other side. Must have been freaky for her to see what the rear end looks like when the baby is coming out. Later on Aaron told me that if he hadn't been used to gutting fish and seeing fish blood he probably would not have made it. heh heh.
So a few more rounds of baby head coming ut and going back in and i decided the next time it came out, it wasn't gonna go back in. I could tell from the way i was stretching. So i hopped up on the bed and got into a squat and the baby head came all the way out! Aaron grabbed me under my arms to help support me and one more push and the body came right out into my moms arms, into the sterileized towel. Then I sat down and she gave me the baby which I held in amazement and joy. The baby spit out all the mucus, and then let out a yell after taking in it's first breath. I wiped her off and put her against my skin to keep her warm and let her nurse a little. Then i asked aaron if he wanted to check the sex. He said yea so i opened the legs and he told me it was a girl!!! I was soooo happy :). then we had to deliver the placenta which came out 2 hours later. Cut the cord and I was free.
The birth was incredibly easy. I am so blesed. The next day a midwife came to check my uterus to make sure it was shrinking back down correctly. She also check the baby's nursing latch. Turns out, the most painfull thing for me was breastfeeding.
her name is Trinity.
thats all folks!
Hope everyone can see the photo... it's hosted on yahoo photos. More can be seen here... http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tiggafav/album?.dir=/5ab3
If my html is broken it is because I'm filing my brain with baby stuff so normal computer nerd stuff is being randomly pushed out of my brain... HAHA!
Anyway, on with the story... and it's GRAPHIC so if you're scared go to church cause the remix hurts. =)
Dec 24th I went for a last minte trip to pic up some gifts for some of my nephews and I walked from my apt, all the way down to lakeshore Ave to shop which is a long walk for a woman who is 9 months pregnant. And I did it after the sun had gone down. But it was a refreshing walk and I had some minor contractions along the way which was not out of the ordinary cause i'd been having practic contractions since 2 weeks before that. The new thing was, 2 days before this walk, I'd lost my mucus plug. For thos who don't know what a mucus plug is, it's a bunch of mucus that plugs up your cervix (if you don't know what a cervix is, don't worry about it). So I knew I would be having the baby that week which excited me a lot.
Anyway the walk was great, and I got home and made dinner for Aaron and myself and cleaned the house from top to bottom. Aaron ended up getting home really late and I ate without him which caused me to go into a huge emotional spiral. When he got home he ate some and I ended up even more upset with him because instead of coming straight home he ended up runing around with James. I was like... C'mon dude, i'm 9 months pregnant... be home already.
So we had a long talk about him being there for me and I told him that i needed him cause I could be having the baby anytime, like I could go into labor tonight and shit. I told him that. Well what do you know... I ended up right. That night, at 3am I went into labor. I knew it was real this time, but I didn't wake aaron up to tell him cause I needed him to get his rest since I didn't know how long my labor would go on. Some people labor for over 24 hours. I hoped that owouldn't happen to me though :).
So I slept through the first 7 hours of my labor pretty much aside from bathroom breaks. So easy. Nothing like tv. So much drama. Then at 9am, Aaron got out of bed and started doing stuff and I stayed in bed but I told him I'd been having contractions. Then half an hour later he asked me if I was in labor, and I told him yea. He asked me if I was sure, and I was like yeppers dude, so the adventure began that way.
I called my mom and told her what was up, she told me she didn't think i'd be having the baby til Tuesday. Haha :-p. I told her I thought it would be the same day but I told her not to rush over cause The baby probably wouldn't be ready to come until after 9pm. Thats what I instinctually felt. Instinct rocks.
So by 10:30 I was in active labor and having to breath through my contractions. Aaron was sorta running around making teas, cleaning things, and doing various homebirth preparations. I grabbed a few birthing guides and did some light reading in between contractions. Then I went into the living room with my birthing ball and sat on that for a few hours and bounced on it during contractions. Then I layed on the floor and called aaron so I could hold his hand through contractions. At this point I really wanted him to be there with me during contractions. He broought me some toast and tea to keep my energy up... I only ate one piece but I drank all the tea. I drank tons throoughout the day, I probably went through so many bottles of water. You can only imagine how much peeing I ended up doing. After a few hours of watching football, I went back into the bedroom to recline against some pillows and try to rest and my brother called to see how I was doing and told me he would stop by. An hour later my mom showed up, then my brother showed up. They kept asking me how I was doing and asking what the contractions felt like and stuff which was annoying me. I really didn't want to answer any damn questions by that time.
An hour later I took a bath to relax cause the contractions were pretty intense and I couldn't lay down through them anymore. I had to stand or walk around, and walking was making me tired so I knew gettinn in the water would help. Boy did it feel great. I took a little nap in the tub there :). And got out after maybe an hour. I kept focusing on breathing and Aaron kept telling me to breath deeply but what I really wanted him to do was talk to me. I snapped at him and told him I needed him to talk about positive things, and my mom came in and gave me her walkman to listen to her music and that helped relax me again. My contractions were only 3 minutes apart and I felt like things were taking too long so I thought I wasn't relaxing enough. After a while I decided it was time to get back into the tub so I could get some more R&R. This time when I got out the tub I went into transition. For those who don't know what transition is, it's pretty much the most diffficult part of labor where the cervix is trying to open up it's last inch and the contractions come every minute or so, and have multiple peaks of intensity. WHOA it was pretty crazy. It was getting harder to be relaxed. It felt like I had some really sucky menstrual cramps. Aaron kept helping me breath but I needed some advanced relaxation techniques. My mom heard me breathing hard so she came in and breathed with me to get me to do it right, and she talked to me, which was exactly what I needed. After about 20 minutes, my transition ended and my contractions pretty much stopped. I started walking around and I felt like the baby was ready to descend. So I walked around and wiggled my hips and did squats. I also had aaron to push on my hips at some times to help relieve the pressure I sometimes felt there. My hips were basicslly pushing themselves around while the baby moves lower and lower.
I felt like the baby wanted to come out but couldn't, so I decided to go pee to make sure my bladder was as empty as I could get it. By this time I had to be very... .... ... creative to get myself to pee. LOL. But after I peed, I still felt like something was holding up the baby. So I decided I needed to poop. I tried to poop but couldn't. So I walked around some more. Then I tried to poop again, still no luck. More walking, shaking hips, dancing... Cracking jokes with aaron, things were really laid back. The funny thing I realize in hindsight is that I was walking around the house completely naked with my mom and Aaron there. My birth instructor told me that would happen, but I didn't believe it. LOL. Anyway, more squats, and I walked into the living room and was talking to mom and aaron and suddenly I felt like I REALLY had to take a shit. I was sora baring down on my way to the bathroom and I was like oh crap, I hope I make it to the toilet. Well I got there... and nothing. Not even the urge to poop!! WTF??! I thought, this is bullSHIT!!! My mom came in and told me to be careful cause sometimes a woman thinks she has to poop when it's really the baby. So I pushed and pushed on the toilet and after about 5 minutes, I felt like I was making some progress :). I decided to teach down to check and make sure it wasn't the baby instead... and I felt a pulge down there and my face lit up with delight, I was like YAY!!!!! So I got up and announced that the baby was coming. I went and sat on the floor in the bedroom and I was soooo excited! My mom didn't believe me, she thought I was crazy. LOL. I opened my legs so she could check and she said she saw the bag of waters, so I was like neato! So I sad bag on the floor and by this time, I wasn't actually pushing... Instead my body was just kinda "going". The female body is AMAZING and AWESOME!
My water broke 5 minutes later and then you could see the baby's head! Well I cutouldn't, I wasn't flexible enough. But I reached down with my hand and felt her little head full of hair. Wow. I just smiled and I said to Aaron, it's almost here! I was on my hands and knees, and a few more pushes and the baby's head would come out some, then go back in. My mom watched the head come, and go back in and she said "What the hell?! I ain't never seen anything like that in my life, that looks CRAZY!" Which made me realize that although my mother has had 8 children, and given birth to 3 alone, she'd never actually seen someone else give birth. So she'd never been on the other side. Must have been freaky for her to see what the rear end looks like when the baby is coming out. Later on Aaron told me that if he hadn't been used to gutting fish and seeing fish blood he probably would not have made it. heh heh.
So a few more rounds of baby head coming ut and going back in and i decided the next time it came out, it wasn't gonna go back in. I could tell from the way i was stretching. So i hopped up on the bed and got into a squat and the baby head came all the way out! Aaron grabbed me under my arms to help support me and one more push and the body came right out into my moms arms, into the sterileized towel. Then I sat down and she gave me the baby which I held in amazement and joy. The baby spit out all the mucus, and then let out a yell after taking in it's first breath. I wiped her off and put her against my skin to keep her warm and let her nurse a little. Then i asked aaron if he wanted to check the sex. He said yea so i opened the legs and he told me it was a girl!!! I was soooo happy :). then we had to deliver the placenta which came out 2 hours later. Cut the cord and I was free.
The birth was incredibly easy. I am so blesed. The next day a midwife came to check my uterus to make sure it was shrinking back down correctly. She also check the baby's nursing latch. Turns out, the most painfull thing for me was breastfeeding.
her name is Trinity.
thats all folks!