Valen's Birth Story, with Pictures!

Two warnings: first, this is a long, long post. Second, there are pictures. You won't see anything too graphic, but there's certainly some blood.


In spite of my resolve to truly trust God during my last trimester of this pregnancy, I found the last week of my pregnancy very challenging! My biggest concern-- besides having a healthy baby-- was that someone would need to travel from South Carolina or Georgia to care for Constance during the baby's birth, and I wondered whether my labor would be long enough for someone to make it. As it turned out.... yes, three times over, the labor would have been long enough. However, there was no way of knowing that at the time, and my midwives suggested that I might go into labor as soon as I knew for sure that someone had arrived who would be able to care for Constance.

Saturday, April 3

The body--and God's timing--are truly amazing! My wonderful sister Tara arrived at 10 pm on Friday evening with the intention of staying until Monday. We talked and laughed for an hour or so, and then went to bed. At 12:30 am, I woke up having contractions and bloody show. I was so excited and thankful-- I could hardly believe that it was finally happening. The contractions were painful enough that I could not sleep comfortably, so I took a few showers. I finally woke Nathan at 4 am and told him I was having contractions. I checked my cervix and guessed that I was 2-3 centimeters dilated. Since I did not dilate at all during the early stage of Constance's labor, I assumed that cervical progress meant that labor would progress quickly from that point on, and when I talked to the midwives at 5 am, they told me that I could come to the birth center if I wanted to.
In retrospect, I was entirely too happy and comfortable on my way to the birth center. Nathan and I talked and laughed and felt like we were “on a date,” since Constance had stayed home with Aunt Tara. Sure enough, when we arrived, my cervix was only 2 cm dilated and 60-70% effaced. More importantly, the contractions were much more mild than they had been during the night, so there seemed to be little chance that I would progress quickly at all. This was disappointing, but the midwives were very kind and encouraging. We went back home to walk and eat and rest; throughout the morning, the contractions slowed and almost disappeared. I was able to walk a lot, eat normally, and even take a nice, long nap. I was disappointed that my labor seemed to have stalled, and I talked to Lori, one of our midwives, at 6 pm. She told me that mothers with children often find that labor stalls when their children are up and about and then picks up again after the children are sleeping.
Again-- the body is amazing! Lori was exactly right-- almost as soon as Constance was in bed for the night, the contractions picked up again and became somewhat regular-- they lasted 45 second and were 5 minutes apart. Nathan and I took a long walk together while Tara stayed with Constance. Nathan was fantastic-- I asked him to talk to distract me from the contractions, and I also asked him to surreptitiously time them (I didn't want to focus too much on timing myself, but I did think it would be to good to know if they were regular). He talked non-stop the entire walk (which is a stretch for Nathan!) except when we stopped so I could hold on to him during a contraction.
When we finished our walk, I was a little concerned about what I was sure would be the second of two fairly long and not very restful nights, so I took a hot shower, drank a glass of wine, and tried to fall asleep. I slept from 8:30 to midnight, and when I woke up at midnight, the contractions were much stronger.

Sunday, April 4
I alternated between standing in the shower (until that became unbearably warm) and kneeling on the floor resting my head on a pillow on my exercise ball. That was a relatively comfortable position... I did almost roll off the ball three or four times when I fell asleep during contractions. I had read a birth story a few days before in which a woman described how her doula prayed for her during each contraction and thanked God that He was using the contractions to bring the baby into the world. I thought this was a great idea, and it was one of the most helpful things I did during labor.
By the early hours of the morning, the contractions were strong enough that it was hard to be completely quiet throughout them (Tara, Constance, and Nathan were all sleep in the room where I was occasionally falling off the exercise ball), so I tried making quiet “oooooh” sounds during the contractions. That was very helpful-- and Tara says I never woke her.
My goal was to make it till 5 am without calling the midwives. I was a little concerned that my contractions did not seem close enough together (they were ten minutes apart, but some of them were 2 minutes long), but I was feeling a great deal of pressure which was very uncomfortable.This was the portion of labor for which Nathan was most helpful-- I was still flailing around on the exercise ball at this point. He sat in front of me so that I could hold his hands during contractions, and then he rubbed my head to help me relax between them-- and he never laughed when I almost rolled off the ball, again.
Lori had told me that she and her partner, Tierney, believed that I would progress very quickly once I progressed to 5 or 6 cm. I was fairly certain at this point that my cervix had dilated to 5 cm at least. When I finally called Tierney at 6:25, I told her that the contractions were far apart but regular; I also told her that I was feeling a lot of pressure. I think I even told her at this point that my amniotic sac was intact, but that I suspected that once it ruptured I would progress very quickly. Halfway through the conversation, I had to hand the phone off to Nathan while I “ooooh”ed through another contraction. She told us to come in, and we left at 6:45.
Our drive to the birth center on Sunday morning was very different than our drive on Saturday. I knelt in the back seat of the car with my head resting on a pillow in the seat between contractions and then “ohhhh”ed through the contractions while staring out of the back window. It was surreal.
When we reached the birth center, the midwives were out at the street to meet us. I had a contraction just as we pulled up to the curb, so I had to kneel down in the floorboard again and get through the contraction before I could escape from the car. The midwives laughed and gave me a thumbs-up when they saw the difference between Sunday's contractions and Saturday's-- I was starting to be able to finally believe that yes, I would be having a baby before leaving the birth center again. If someone had told me that I would be pushing within an hour, I don't think I would have believed them.
We went inside and talked briefly with the midwives; they checked Valen's heartbeat with the doppler. They also checked my cervix-- it was 6 cm, and very stretchy. I think this was around 7:45. He was doing well, so I drank a bottle of Vitamin Water and we chatted with the midwives for a while about our Easter plans (had we not been having a baby) and (if I remember correctly-- it's a bit of a blur) different discipline philosophies. At one point, I was having a contraction in the bathroom and heard Tierney bring up her reservations about a baby-care philosophy which I also particularly dislike and about which I have ranted at length to Nathan on numerous occasions. I remember thinking very clearly that I was SO thankful that our baby was being born with women like Tierney and Lori... and also that I wished I could take a break from contractions so that I could also participate in the conversation.
After this I walked into the kitchen to find another bottle of water; while I was standing at the counter, I had another contraction. The urge to push was so strong that I could barely stand it, so I decided to push gently during the contraction to see what happened. While I was pushing, I felt a gentle “pop”and a gush of fluid. Constance's amniotic sac had been ruptured artificially, so I had never experienced “water breaking” before; however, I knew immediately what had happened (and I was, as silly as this may seem, SO relieved that I had put on a pad moments before and was not, therefore, leaking amniotic fluid on the midwives' nice clean kitchen floor). I was still having a contraction, but I managed to say, “Um... I think my water broke,” and everyone came in to the kitchen. The fluid was clear (which was great to see- I had expected at least some meconium staining, since Constance had also been born “post-dates” and there had been meconium in her amniotic fluid), and when Tierney checked the baby's heartbeat immediately afterwards he still sounded good. This was around 8:40. I was feeling less internal pressure but a greater urge to push.



After the membranes ruptured, the atmosphere in the room changed. Tierney and Lori opened our box of birth supplies and started warming the baby's blankets. This, I thought, was a very encouraging sign, but I still had no idea how imminent his birth was. Tierney asked if I had thought about where I wanted to have the baby, and I said that I would like to try the birth stool. I had been standing or kneeling through almost every contraction, and I could not even imagine lying down on the bed to push him out.
Tierney brought in the birth stool and spread chux pads beneath it. I had been pushing a little while standing and holding on to the end of the bed, and even though I was still able to control the urge to push, I was getting to the point that I could imagine what it would be like to not be able to control it. I sat down on the stool “just to see how it felt.”

While I was sitting on the birth stool, the urge to push became truly overwhelming. It was not so much an “urge” to push as a realization that my body was, in fact, pushing. I pushed through one contraction, still believing that I was “trying the birth stool” and that I would be up and walking around through another hour or two of labor before actually having the baby. When that contraction ended, however, I looked around and realized that everyone was sitting still and watching me. I laughed and said, “Everyone is looking at me like I'm about to have a baby” (I STILL could not believe I was about to have a baby!), and “I guess I should probably take my underwear off now.” Lori laughed and said, “Well, we do have some moms who think they can deliver their babies with their underwear on.”
I removed the underwear (a good decision, as it turns out) and sat down on the birth stool again; Nathan was sitting on a couch beside me.



I pushed through another contraction, and the pushing felt very productive. Either at the end of that contraction or the beginning of the next one, I could feel that my perineum was starting to stretch, and I tried to tell myself, “Breath through the contraction, give yourself some time,” but it was truly impossible. During the next contraction-- because I still could not believe I was actually, finally pushing out a baby-- I reached down to see if I could feel the baby's head. I could not distinctly feel his head, but I could feel that the entire perineal area was bulging around it. Tierney came over to see if she could see the baby's head-- and someone said, “I see a head,”-- and the only thing I could do to “control” the contraction was brace myself with my feet and hold on to the birth stool. The moment of pushing out his head was incredibly intense and emotional— he started crying even before his body slid out almost immediately afterwards. Tierney caught him and handed him straight up to me.

I had thought a lot about what I wanted to say to the baby after he was born-- I knew he would not remember it, but I will, and I wanted it to be meaningful. For all the time I spent thinking about it, however, I never could think of anything that seemed both natural and fitting. A few days before his birth, however, Tierney talked with us a little about using the first few moments after a baby is born to speak quietly and calmly to him and to reassure him that the ordeal of his birth (which is probably no great picnic for him, either, and he doesn't even know to expect it!) is over and that they are loved and safe. I thought this was such a beautiful idea. So, after he was born, I said (or, I think I said-- it was something like this!), “Valen, it's all right-- Happy Easter.”
I was bleeding a little at this point, and the placenta still needed to be pushed out. Tierney asked if I could push, but the relevant muscles did not feel responsive to me. I tried coughing instead, and it eventually plopped out. The midwives scooted me and Valen and the birth stool over to the bed. They helped me climb in and then wrapped a new, warm blanket around Valen; I told Nathan to come over and get into bed with us.




Valen had calmed down very quickly after his birth but was still frantically sucking his fingers and rooting around. I expected to have to work a bit with him to help him latch on to nurse, but he latched on immediately and nursed for two hours. Nathan took a picture of the baby nursing for the first time, and it is time-stamped 9:13-- 33 minutes after the picture he took of Tierney using her doppler to check the baby's heartbeat after the membranes ruptured.



The rest of our morning at the birth center was amazing. Lori and Esther, their assistant, had to leave for another birth, but Tierney stayed and made breakfast for Nathan and me (the best egg and cheese English muffins that either of us have ever tasted). Tierney completed Valen's newborn exam with him lying on the bed in front of me; he was perfect, and she gave him apgar scores of 10 and 10.



After his exam, she helped me to dress him and we passed him off to Nathan, who sat on the couch and talked to him while Tierney helped me into the bathroom.



After Constance was born, she stayed with me for two hours. After the two hours had passed, she was wheeled away from me in a clear plastic box, and a nurse I had never seen before helped me stagger into the bathroom and then measured the amount of fluid I was able to expel into the toilet. She gave me a plastic bag of pads and a pair of disposable panties and “gave me some privacy” while I pulled them on. I was wheeled into a different room by another nurse I had never seen before while my family, down the hall, watched another nurse I had never met before hose Constance off in a sink in the nursery while she screamed and screamed.

I thought about this while Nathan was sitting in the sunny room where Valen had been born, holding him and talking to him quietly, and Tierney was assisting me in the bathroom. Tierney was so kind and attentive to me-- I truly felt that she was caring for me, even though what she was doing (helping me remove my bloody socks, watching to be sure I didn't faint while standing up from the toilet) was not very glamorous.

A part of what makes birth a profound event is that it combines such extremes of human experience-- I went from moaning and occasionally rolling off of a giant green ball to holding my son for the first time to weakly lowering myself onto a toilet and removing bloody socks. I think this is a good reminder of what it means to be human, and all of us can use an occasional reminder of our own frailty. One difference between Constance's birth and Valen's birth is that, while the midwife and nurses were very involved and supportive during the management of Constance's actual birth, they were mostly absent during my labor, and I didn't see them again after Constance was born. They were present for the glorious parts of the experience, but I was on my own with Nathan for the more humble portions. This was not the case at all when Valen was being born. The midwives were very careful to allow me to “birth my own baby”-- they did not tell me when to push, how to push, or where to push; they allowed me to realize for myself that it was time for him to be born, and they were simply present to assist me if I needed them. During the time when I truly needed support, however-- the frail moments-- they were considerate, attentive, and wonderfully encouraging. I had imagined that being a good midwife was all about catching babies, but I realized, while Tierney was wringing out bloody washcloths beside me in the bathroom, that the baby-catching is a pretty small part of their vocation.

After we were all cleaned and fed and dressed, we tucked Valen into his car seat, took some pictures by the Marshall Midwifery sign in the front yard, and drove home. Valen slept the whole way, and I was able to call our friends and family and update them on his weight and length and general condition. It was a much more pleasant drive than the ride to the birth center that morning! We walked back in the door at around 1 pm-- six hours had passed since had left in the morning.

Constance met her brother,

Tara held her nephew,


and Nathan made lunch for all of us.

It was a very, very good day, and I am so thankful for an experience which was better than I knew to ask for or imagine.