Jonas Nathaniel, 11-27-05

I just found this in my old email archives and I figured it saved me from starting from scratch on his birth story.

Jonas Nathaniel was born November 27th, 2005 (his due date), at 12:44 am in  the morning. He weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces, almost 1.5 pounds less than his older brothers who were 9# 8oz, and 9# 9oz, respectively.

Saturday I was having contractions, but they were activity related -- if I stopped the activity, the contractions stopped. At 7 pm,  they began a pattern of about 5 minutes apart. We got to the hospital about  8 pm. When I was checked it was found I was 4-5 centimeters, 100% effaced; I was hoping I would be further along than that.

My mom was already on her way as she had a three-hour-drive.  My doula arrived soon after we got to the hospital. I got into the Jacuzzi tub  and stayed in for an hour. When I got out I was an 8 -- again, I was hoping I would be farther along! I walked around and then labored in a rocking chair. I was breathing through my contractions and things were going pretty well; my nurse said I was one of the calmest laboring moms she had ever seen, which was a  nice compliment.

My mom arrived at about 11 pm. I did not even notice her walk in the room as I was rocking in the chair and had my eyes closed in very deep concentration/distraction. I was surrounded by my doula, my midwife, my husband, and my mom.  The room was dark and quiet.  I vocalized during each contraction in a low ooooooo tone.  I wanted to wait for the urge to push as I had not really experienced that with my other two births.  As I sat in the rocker though, I looked up and caught my midwife's gaze: "Carolyn, I will let you pull him out with a vacuum, you know," dead calm. Everyone laughed, but I didn't think it was funny.  "I'm serious," I said. My doula and my midwife knew this was not really what I wanted in a sane moment -- my oldest was vacuumed out, and I have had long, deep regret about that.  A few minutes later I also looked at Brad and said, "I never want to do this again."

Things started getting pretty intense after my mom arrived. I labored on the toilet for a few minutes, too. At first I was nervous to go to the bathroom as I was in transition and I had a fear that spending too much time in in that small toilet room would make me feel like vomiting (one of my deepest fears!).  I soon realized, like so many women do, it was a calm, cool place where I could relax my muscles and my body. When my midwife checked me and I was a 9 --  wishing I could be farther along yet again! My
midwife said I was a really stretchy 9, and if I wanted I could push. I decided to give it a try. It hurt so  bad! I quickly changed my mind and chose to have a little more time. 

I waited through a few more contractions, getting very desperate as nothing could help me at this point. I started to push again, lying on my back to see if we could get the baby to slide under my pelvic bone. It wasn't really working, and I was having immense pressure at the pubic arch. I decided I wanted to try a different position. My midwife suggested  squatting at the end of the bed, on the floor. I got up and squatted and immediately stood up -- it was too much pressure on my lower abdomen, where all  my pain was coming from.

My midwife had known for some time during labor  that this baby was posterior (face-up) like his brother, Isaac. Since the  squatting hadn't worked, I was left there, standing, as the contraction moved through me, and I started pushing. I remember thinking, "He is probably going to fall on the floor -- I think he is going to be okay," as my body involuntarily worked at getting him born.  My midwife found a foot-hold that popped out of the hospital bed (they have all kinds of doo-dads for helping women have babies -- like the Swiss Army Knife of hospital beds). She had me lift my left  foot off the floor about a foot and a half so I was standing in a lunge  position. I continued to push and I immediately felt the baby turn and drop. "He's  coooooommmmmiiiiinnnnngggg!" I moaned. To check my statement, my midwife crouched under me to see if that was true. She saw his head was right there. "Hurry and  crawl into bed!" she told me, "Before you have another contraction!"  Even with a  baby lodged in my nether regions, and feeling
sensations of an incredibly powerful nature, I hit the foot of the bed on all fours and crawled right through the squat support  bar.

The next contraction I pushed, and after about 5 very hearty pushes,  he was born. I guess I didn't push for too long, maybe a half an hour with all  the weird attempts where I had to stop because of the pain. Once he rotated with the lunge he was born within 5 minutes.

He is a very sweet baby. We are having some nursing issues as he does not want to open his mouth very wide, but we are working through them.

Apparently I hit transition when it's time to push, because that's when I got frantic and panicky!  That was how it was with my last baby, too. I am in a pretty good state until it's time to push.

I am glad it's over! 

It only took me 6 days to decide, yes, I would in fact, do this again -- I didn't know then it would be 7.5 years later.

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