On Wednesday evening, Chad was working an event and supposed to be home around 10:00 PM. After eating dinner, playing in the backyard, cleaning the kitchen, getting some laundry started, and picking up around the house, the kids and I headed upstairs to do bedtime around 8:30, which was later than usual. Just before we were about to read books, we got a call from Chad that his event ended a bit early, so he'd be home just before 9:00. Since we were already awake when he called, we waited for him to get home before we turned out the lights so the kids could say goodnight and snuggle with him. After getting everyone to sleep, Chad and I came downstairs, scooped some ice cream, and got ready to relax on the sofa for a bit, but before we could take our first bites of ice cream, both the kids were awake, agitated, and generally upset (or if you're Laurel then just full on crying for about 30 minutes). We popped on an episode of Call the Midwife, which seemed like an appropriate show at my advanced state of pregnancy, and watched it over the screams of Laurel, who was wedged in between us. Eventually, she calmed down and was back to her regular self. Around 11:00 or so, we all went upstairs to get into bed, but Everett was still whimpering. I wondered if he might have an ear infection, but there was nothing we could do about it that night, so in an effort to get some sleep, I sent Chad and Everett to sleep in the guest bedroom downstairs and Laurel and I fell fast asleep in bed upstairs.
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| 10:33 PM So much joy, totally blessed, and not missing alone time with my husband at ALL. 7 hours before birth (which we were yet unaware was coming!) |
I awoke just around 3:30, cuddled up to my sweet Laurel May, thinking maybe I had to pee, but when I got up, I noticed a very uncomfortable cramp in my abdomen. And when I wiped after peeing, there was a bit of brown discharge on the toilet paper. The cramp wasn't the kind of cramp where you think "Oh, is that gas?" or "Hmm. Could this maybe be it?" It was the kind where you go "OW!" And then "Oh, fuck." Even though, moments before I had been in a deep sleep, it very quickly dawned on me what what happening, and since the very first contraction was intense and down to business, I immediately ran downstairs, burst in the back bedroom, and exclaimed to Chad, "I'm in labor, we need to call the midwives!" He later told me that I almost gave him a heart attack, as he'd also been in a deep sleep. After that, I immediately changed into a different tank top (a cute one for birthing in as opposed to the ratty thing I had been wearing) and a skirt (easy to birth in and incidentally the same skirt I wore when giving birth to Laurel!)
Chad called one of our two midwives, Mandy, but she wasn't going to be able to make it to the birth, so she told us to call Tanya, who is also our midwife. Tanya told us that she would be on her way presently and would also be contacting another CHOICE midwife, Jill, who would also be on her way. Then we got a hold of Marilyn, Chad's mom, who was going to come over and help take care of the kids during labor. THEN, we called Elaine Tucker, who was going to be our sibling doula/postpartum doula/photographer (talk about wearing a lot of hats!!) THEN I texted one of the families whose children I provide childcare for to tell them "Hey guys. Not 100% sure baby is coming today, but it seems like that's a strong possibility...contractions are fairly regular right now. At any rate, I don't think I'm gonna be able to watch the kids today!! Sorry my babies never follow their due date schedule!!." (In hindsight, OF COURSE a baby was coming...in about an hour!!) With the impressive number of phone calls and texts out of the way, I got down to the business of laboring in earnest.
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| 3:58 AM. Grinning through a contraction! 24 minutes after waking up and 1 hour 29 minutes before giving birth! |
While we were making phone calls, I had Chad grab a chux pad for me to sit on in the living room on the sofa. It wasn't too long, probably around 3:50, before Everett began to stir in the back bedroom. Before bed he had been complaining of ear pain, but when I went to get him out of bed, he grinned at me and said "Mommy, my ears don't hurt anymore. I feel better!" Everett ventured out to the living room and sat down next to me, sleepy eyed but happy and in good spirits. UNTIL that is, my water broke! He was sitting right next to me when I exclaimed "Oh, some-thing is coming out of me. I think my water is breaking." He looked at me and Chad and exclaimed "Oh, I'm tired! I just need to go lay down in bed!" And he ran to the back bedroom and dove right into bed. We asked him if he wanted to come out and he said "Nope! I'm just feeling tired right now!" But it wasn't long before he couldn't resist coming back out and joining the fray. I absolutely loved it when he climbed into the hassock where I store my pillows and blankets that I use in the evenings when we're relaxing on the sofa. There he stayed nestled in his little cocoon of blankets and pillows while I continued to labor nearby on the sofa. I asked him if he was nervous or what he was feeling, and he confidently announced, "I'm nothing. I'm just fine!"
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| Our weekend To-Do list that we made hours before going to bed Wednesday night. Obviously none of those things got done! |
At 4:05 AM, I heard Laurel begin to fuss upstairs from bed, and Chad went up to bring her downstairs. She was pretty groggy so Chad put her in the sling. After that, Chad, Everett, and Laurel marched upstairs to get a light for the birthing room. At the advice of our doula, who we had met with earlier the previous day, we had planned to put up white string lights in the birth room, for photography lighting in case I gave birth at night time, but I also loved the idea for the ambiance. Unfortunately, we never had time to do that! Also, during this time, I had Chad change the Baby Watch sign on our chalk board so that it read 37.5! (For 37 weeks 5 days pregnant when I would give birth to the baby.) I wanted to get the dishwasher of clean dishes unloaded, so we could start the next day with a clean slate for the doula and anyone else who might be using our kitchen. I had wanted to get a picture of me pregnant for the last time in front of the 37.5 sign, but things were moving so fast that I was never able to accomplish that and a few other things I had wanted to wrap up before the birth. I also downloaded a contraction app and started timing my contractions, which were lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute with a 1.5 to 3 minute break in between. ALL OF THAT, everything I have written above happened pretty much between 3:35 and 4:10 AM.
Tanya was the first to arrive right around 4:15 AM, which is also the time that my contractions got intense enough that I needed to vocalize. I moaned through them, loudly and with purpose, and somewhere in the back of my head I remembered to keep my breathing and vocalization measured and anchored, using everything I've learned in yoga over the years to keep calm, focused, and in the moment. It hurt, and I was not happy about being rudely awakened in the middle of the night to endure painful cramps that would only mount in strength and intensity, but I quickly accepted where I was. When Tanya arrived, with her birth bag in hand, she went straight for her doppler, to check the baby's heartbeat, which sounded great. Then soon after, Jill, a midwife who I recognized but had never met before showed up. Tanya and Jill began setting up in the birth room and I was also periodically going to the bathroom, to void my bowels, as one so sexily does several times during the labor process. Sitting there on the toilet with the door open and activity happening all around me, I said to Chad at one point as he whizzed by "Well, I guess this is really happening because there is NO OTHER TIME IN MY LIFE when I would be pooping with the bathroom door wide open and not giving any fucks about who was around!!
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| 4:30 AM. Tanya checked the heartbeat and all was well. 57 minutes before birth! |
During all of this, Chad was running around getting things done and taking care of the kids, with Laurel in a sling on his chest as she requested (he's a nice guy, I would have put her on my back so fast 😂), but I, back in the living room, was quickly starting to realize that I really needed Chad's support and asked him to pass Laurel off to Marilyn, who had also recently arrived. Funnily enough, the guy we had been worrying about how he would handle labor was Everett, but he was taking everything in stride and hanging in there like a champ! (In his hassock cocoon!) Laurel on the other hand seemed overwhelmed, exhausted, and in need of her Daddy, so the hand off from Daddy to Nonna was sad and tear-filled, but I was buried so deep in my own experience, that I could do nothing more than mentally acknowledge what was going on and then let it go. Not to mention, I knew that she was in good hands and would soon be okay (which was 100% the case!) At 4:36 AM, still sitting in the living room on my chux pad, I got a text from Elaine, the doula, saying "All packed up and about ready to take off, stopping for a coffee first. That puts me there in about 15-20 min. Just checking that it still feels progressive and ok to join?" To which I replied "Contractions are 1-2 minutes apart..." And she said "Ok. I'm gonna skip the coffee! 🤣 Headed over." Somehow, amidst the intense contractions, I had the wherewithal to let her know that we had coffee here, ha!
Around 5:00 AM, with everyone assembled, I was still laboring in the living room when I had a contraction during which instead of letting out a groan, a kind of grunt escaped from me, and I thought "Oh shit, here we go!" Tanya said, "Well, that sounded pushy." And a decision was made to head back to the birth room." Chux pads were scattered liberally over the bed and under where I was standing and the midwives checked the baby's heart rate again, which sounded good. With each contraction, I was leaking fluids and getting into the head space that I was about to push a human out of my vagina (which is no small mindset to achieve!) I stood at the edge of the bed, leaning against poor Chad during each contraction. Originally he was standing, but there was no way he could bear the weight of me leaning hard into him for each contraction, so he eventually got down on his knees for better leverage. I eventually started leaning on the bed with my knees, and the midwives were giving suggestions for positions that might be comfortable for me, but I was in that place where no position was going to feel comfortable, and was wracked with the overwhelming indecision of terrible discomfort no matter my placement. Tanya checked the baby's progress and let us know that the head was only 2 knuckles deep...a minute or two later, one knuckle deep. Tanya asked Chad if he wanted to see the head, and sure enough there it was! Tanya commented on the amount of hair and how the baby followed suit with its siblings. During this whole process of pushing, I can hear Marilyn reading about dinosaurs to the kids on the sofa in the living room. Laurel was apparently nestled up close to her brother, looking to him for comfort, as she does anytime she feels herself out of her element or insecure, which is one of those things that, as a parent, makes your heart swell with joy.
At this point, I was deep in the pushing phase and Tanya was kneeling on the floor behind me, telling me "You're clenching your butt!" And Jill was saying, "Open and release." Because really the only thing that was keeping the baby from being born at this point was me being inside my head and holding myself back. Two things were at play here, because I knew the next time I "did work", a human head, followed by a human body, was going to be exiting my vagina, which is a daunting and uncomfortable prospect. So I had to reconcile that in my head, be okay with it, and just commit to it. The OTHER thing that was holding me back, was...when there is a human head in your birth canal, there is an immense amount of pressure, which in certain ways feels not dissimilar to the need to poop, and my midwife was kneeling DIRECTLY BEHIND me. I was not thrilled with the prospect of accidentally pooping on my midwife. Birth is so sexy, right!?!? So finally, the urge to "get this fucking thing out of me" and be done with the hard work of labor tipped the scale, making the fear and modesty the lesser of the concerns. On all fours on the bed, I pushed hard and the head came out. I could feel the midwives working with the baby. Jill hooked her finger in to make room for the cord so that there was no chance of it tightening around the baby's neck when it came out, and Tanya was massaging my perineum and I think turning the baby. Telling me all I needed to do was give one more push to get the shoulders out, the midwives were urging and coaxing me to give one final effort, but I felt so spent. I didn't feel I had the energy to give a big push, one momentous enough to heave a human out of my birth canal. But again, I realized that there was a human literally hanging half way out of me and halfway lodged inside of me, and all I had to do to make the whole thing end, was give one more good push, so I dug deep and I pushed hard, and felt the baby slide out, which has got to be one of the most singularly huge feelings of relief a human being can ever experience in life. The midwives had to instruct me to lay back and sit down, as I was still on all fours, and finally they placed the baby on my chest! At 5:27 in the morning of Thursday, May 09, 2019, Asa Ezra Kinsworthy was born. However, several minutes went by before we realized that no one knew, or has bothered to question, whether it was a girl or a boy 😂 I can't remember who, but someone finally thought to ask, and I think Jill checked and announced that it was a boy!
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| 5:57 AM. Our very first family portrait! 30 minutes post birth. |
Post birth, Chad and I discussed the surreal nature of labor and delivery, how there is labor and there are the moments after delivery where a baby's presence in our midst begins, but how unrelated the two feel in the moment. For me, labor is NOT baby, but rather, as the word insinuates, is work, and only work. Because of the intensity of that work, there is no time or experience outside that moment, and during the height of delivery, there is no emotion, there is only "doing, being, working." Everything is detached, but super clear. It's one of those pivotal moments where EVERYTHING changes, but all we can do is ride the wave and take the intense and almost overwhelming moments in stride.
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| 6:13 AM Nursing the new babe! 45 minutes post birth. |
Riding this high of detached clarity, as soon as the baby was born, I yelled "Okay guys, come in here!" And after a few timid moments, Everett and Laurel quietly and softly came into see the baby. When envisioning my ideal birth beforehand, I wanted to be surrounded by my family for the birth of my last child. I wanted them to be a part of such an intrinsically basic but profound moment of life that so few have the honor to be a part of anymore. I wanted Everett (and maybe hopefully Laurel??) to look at their brother, Asa, over the years and remember the morning he came into the world, as they surrounded him and us with their love and presence. The birth room was full of midwives, and a doula, and the kids. There was so much bustle and activity in that small room, but suddenly the midwives and doula retreated into the kitchen to give us our privacy for that first hour, and then it was just the 5 of us (or at times the 3 of us, as the kids would come and go, on the hunt for food!) After all that craziness and effort, the calm and quiet was almost a little daunting. I felt a little lost, as though I had a hold of something that needed a manual I didn't have access to.
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| 6:15 AM Best family portrait ever!! |
After about an hour, the midwives came back into the room to do care for both me and the baby. They weighed (8 lbs 6 oz) and measured (21 inches long) Asa, and also took his foot print. Of course, Asa was born at 37 weeks 5 days, but they said he presented as a 39 week baby! Meaning, I'm glad he came out when he did, because who knows how big he would have been if given the chance to cook an additional 2 weeks! They also checked my fundus to make sure my uterus was beginning to contract and shrink back down as it should.
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| Baby Asa's Birth Stats!! |
Right after I had birthed the placenta, 12 minutes post birth, the midwives had tucked it into a chux pad and left it attached to the baby. At this time, they asked me if I was ready to cut the cord, and I was like "Sure...?" It had been a good hour, so I was okay with whatever at that point. Jill clamped the cord on two sides and we asked Everett if he wanted to help cut it, and he still said that he did, so Chad and Everett took the scissors together and helped cut Asa's umbilical cord! At my 20 week ultrasound, the tech had noted that my umbilical cord was a "peripheral" (abnormal) insertion to the placenta, as opposed to a central (normal) insertion. After doing some research, we found there are slight but noted increased risks associated with a peripheral cord insertion, so I had spent weeks 20-21 agonizing over data, deciding what I wanted to do, and whether the risk outweighed the possible benefits of a home birth. After looking at the data, and understanding that any increased risks were very small, I let the worry go and forged ahead with our plan, but I did remember that I needed to at least take a look at this damn placenta that had caused me a good week and a half of anxiety! The midwives showed it to us and the kids and explained all about placentas and umbilical cords. It was a cool thing to behold, and also a really great anatomy crash course anatomy for the kids! How many people have had the opportunity to see their sibling's placenta (let alone any placenta)!?
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| 7:00 AM Weighing the baby!! |
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| 7:41 AM Sweet little hands reaching out to their new little sibling |
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