~11:30-
We started trying different positions. I was starting to get tired, so Lisa had Taylor sit on the bed with his back against the wall and I leaned back against him. Lisa sat right next to me, whispering birth affirmations and reminders into my ear.
My energy levels came back up and we switched positions to try to get the baby to descend. Taylor sat on the edge of the bed and I held onto his legs with my arms and squatted down between his legs. In between contractions I would stand up, holding onto Lisa and rock back and forth. My legs started to fall asleep after awhile, so I had to keep standing up.
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| eating and drinking in labor...that's something you can't do in a hospital |
We did the squatting/stand up and rock thing for about 20 minutes. Then my legs started to get too tired. I think around this point is when my labor started to stall. Things were progressing extremely fast but everyone noticed that they slowed down after Misook (the backup midwife) arrived. This is probably because subconsciously I didn't trust her. I had never met her before. Lisa would ask me every now and then "Ashley, do you feel safe?" I said yes, but I think deep inside I didn't. It also didn't help that she was saying things in Korean about how I was too tight down there and she wanted to do an episiotomy. I think those factors caused my body to tense up and the baby was having trouble descending.
~12:20-1:45 PM
I moved back to the bed. I kneeled on my hands and knees and also got on my knees and held on to Taylor's neck and rocked back and forth. Taylor and Lisa switched at one point. I went back and forth from being on the bed in different positions to the side of the bed squatting/standing. I started to get really tired again, so Lisa fed me a granola bar and my mom went and got me some orange juice. I really felt my energy come back after that. I love that I was not hooked up to any IV's or wires and stuck in 1 bed or 1 position. I was free to move around in whatever way I wanted. I got my nourishment from eating and drinking; not an IV. That's not allowed in hospitals.
1:45 PM
I moved back to the ball. I was on my knees with my hands draped over the ball. The baby's head had been crowning for at least 30 minutes at this point (little did I know we still had about an hour to go). It seemed like he was stuck and it didn't help that I could hear the midwife speaking probably one of the only English words she knew- "Tight, tight, tight." Lisa would come and whisper in my ear the opposite of what the midwife was saying. She would say things like "Your body is loose. Imagine your body opening up like a flower. Tell your baby it's okay to come now. Your baby's size is perfect for your body."
2:46 PM
Rosa arrived! Yay, my midwife was here! The one that I trusted! The one that wouldn't have told me she wanted to do an episiotomy. The one I had established a relationship with. And guess what happened literally 2 minutes after she arrived....
2:48 PM
Judah entered the world! I think my body was waiting for Rosa to arrive! Realistically what probably happened is that my muscles were tight and body was tense with the other midwife. When Rosa arrived, I felt safe and everything completely relaxed. And out he came! I was still on my knees leaning over the ball when he was born. Right before his head came out though, I actually screamed. Lisa quickly corrected my high pitched noises. The midwife was trying to stretch me and that combined with the baby's head and all the pressure actually did hurt. This is one of the only times that I will actually say that I felt pain. So to answer the question "Did it hurt?" I would say the majority of the labor no. I would use other words to describe it. There was a lot of pressure at times. There were a lot of different sensations, but pain wasn't always what it was. Lots of pressure. Staying relaxed really helped to move things along and lessen the discomfort. Uncomfortable is another word I would use. Definitely uncomfortable a lot, but nothing unbearable. Honestly.
The song that was playing at the moment he was born was "How He Loves" by John Mark McMillan.
After the birth are some of my favorite moments. They passed him through my legs and I just kneeled there holding him against my body. He gave a few strong, healthy cries and then he became completely calm. I laid down on my back with him on top of me. It was such a surreal moment. I didn't cry. I was pretty exhausted and just laid there feeling so relieved. We did not clamp the cord but allowed all the blood to continue to pass through to his body. Once the cord stopped pulsing after about 5 minutes, they clamped it and Taylor cut it. Rosa said to Taylor "Please take off shirt." They moved him to Taylor's chest and he started to cry. He doesn't like to be transferred between people. Taylor started singing and he calmed down and stopped crying. One of my favorite pictures is when Judah looked straight up at Taylor's face. He recognized his daddy's voice and it calmed him. It was so precious.
There was no blood on him when he was born. He was coated in vernix- the white, sticky, cheesy stuff. Nobody wiped the vernix off. Vernix is actually a protective coating that acts as a moisturizing. If you don't rub it off, it will all soak into the skin. It absorbed into his skin and was all gone after about an hour. He did not have a bath. There's no need to bathe them at birth- they are already clean! He did not get his foot pricked or any blood drawn. He did not have any shots. He did not have the goopy medicine put in his eyes. No medical procedures were down. His APGAR scores were checked along with a few other non-invasive tests.
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| 8 pounds, 11 ounces |
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| almost 21 inches long |
Judah is 11 days old today and he has never been in a hospital. Birth is a normal, natural event that doesn't have to be a medical procedure.
After everything calmed down following the birth, Judah, Taylor, and I transferred to our very own bed and got to just lay there and bond as a family. Those were precious moments after birth. No bright hospital lights. No doctors or nurses running in and out of the room. In fact, Lisa and both of the midwives left to go get lunch. They gave us about an hour of family bonding time then they came back (with food for me) and did a final checkup before leaving for the day. They also cleaned up everything and started the laundry. It was like nothing ever happened by the time they left!
In the next post, I'll try to write some reflections on the birth.
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| (from L to R) Rosa, Lisa, Misook, dad, mom, baby |
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