Julia's Birth Story

Baby Julia--1 day old

Here's the full story, at least as much as I can remember of it! Some of the details regarding time, etc. are fuzzy because everything happened so fast.

I had hoped that my water would break so that I would KNOW when it was the real thing, but that didn't happen this time around. But on Saturday morning, I started wondering if something was starting, because of a few physical signs that I noticed. Throughout the day, I was having quite a lot of swelling in my ankles again, causing me to decide to rest and elevate my feet that afternoon. Jim pulled out the "hide a bed" from the couch, and I laid there and watched "Roman Holiday" while Jim and Sam did things outside. When the movie was almost over, I paused it to go to the bathroom. At that time, I noticed that I was having some "bloody show" which is one of the signs that labor may be starting soon. I kept checking it for a little while, and the bleeding was increasing over the next half hour or so, so I decided to call Sherry and let her know that something was happening. We agreed that I would call her again when and if things picked up. I also called my mom, to put her on the alert that we might need them to come and get Sam before the evening was over. At this point, I wasn't yet having any contractions, just a very little bit of a crampy feeling. I can't remember what time all this was happening, but I think it was around 4:30 or 5 pm, or maybe a little later.

Within what seemed like only a few minutes, but may have been a half hour or so, contractions had started. At first, they weren't very bad, and I could walk and talk through them with no problem. I zoomed around, straightening up the house, and getting out some of the birth supplies. Jim helped make up the bed with the labor sheets, and fed Sam some supper. I called my mom again and told her that it would be good if they could come get Sam as soon as possible, since labor had definitely started. We got all of Sam's stuff ready to go, and my dad arrived to get him around 6:20 or 6:30 (just guessing here). Before this, I had also called Sherry again (around 6 pm, I think) and told her that I was having contractions that were about 3 minutes apart, and lasting about 30 seconds. I was still talking through them, but it was getting harder to do so. She asked if I would like her and Amy (the assisting midwife) to get ready and come up. I thought I may be jumping the gun a bit, but told her that I would like them to, because I just thought I would be more comfortable knowing they were here. It was nice to know that Sherry was on the way!

As soon as Sam had left, Jim got some more stuff ready while I tried to get myself comfortable when each contraction hit. I tried curling up on the bed with a rice bag, sitting on the toilet, and standing up leaning over and holding onto the bed or the hope chest, and breathing through them. Jim then took a quick shower. As he was finishing up, I was having a really strong contraction, which I was groaning through, and he asked me, "So, do you think you're heading into transition?" At which point I "lost it" a little and said that I really didn't know, and for him to please not ask me questions because I did NOT want to talk right then! Then I felt so bad and apologized for getting upset . . . but he wasn't hurt--he just figured that I had answered his question with a big "yes" by the way I responded. :) He asked if I would like him to run a bath for me. At first I said no, and then I changed my mind, thinking that the warm water would probably feel good and might dull the pain. At this point, the contractions were definitely closer together than 3 minutes--probably more like 1 1/2-2 minutes.

Once I got into the bath (I'm guessing this was around 6:45), I did feel better. The hot water felt wonderful. I had several more contractions, and though the pain wasn't really dulled, I just felt a bit more relaxed being in the water. I yelled to Jim that I needed him, so he came in and I grabbed his hand through the contractions. Now that they were coming so close together, I started to get nervous that Sherry might not make it in time, but I thought I was crazy to even be thinking that. But I told Jim that I thought he should get out the paper she gave us called "When Baby Arrives before the Midwife," and look it over. He did so, while I sat in the bath and groaned some more. At one point I remember saying, "I hope Sherry gets here soon!" and just about that time, Jim jumped up and went out of the bathroom, and then I heard him talking to someone, so I assumed that she had just arrived. Jim and Sherry came back into the bathroom, and she asked how I was doing. I'm not sure how I responded, but I think I said I was OK (I was between contractions at that point). She went back into the bedroom to set up her supplies, and I grabbed Jim's hand again as another contraction hit, this time with a lot more pressure. There was this sort of "explosion" (that's really how it felt, like a big balloon popping!) and we realized that my water had broken, and the bath was now filled with all kinds of icky stuff. But there was no getting out now, because after my water broke, I had a sudden overwhelming urge to push! I said to Jim, "I think I have to push!" and I heard Sherry call from the bedroom, "What did she just say?" To which Jim yelled, "She thinks she has to push!" Sherry said, "That's what I thought I heard!" and came right back in the bathroom. She said she usually wouldn't do an internal exam so soon, but she'd better just check and see what was going on. As she checked me, she said that the head was right there! I was almost starting to panic because of how fast everything was happening. Sherry stayed very calm and helped me focus on her, and slow down my breathing as I pushed. The baby's head was crowning after probably 1 or 2 pushes (again, I can't remember for sure); it was unbelievable to me that I would be holding my baby in a few more seconds. Sherry asked Jim if he wanted to catch the baby, but I interrupted that he couldn't because I needed to squeeze his hand! Fortunately he didn't mind; I think he would rather have her do the catching, anyway, since she's experienced at it. :) I think I had about 2 more pushes, which brought out the baby's head, then I had to hold back for a minute while Sherry unwrapped the cord from around the baby's neck. It wasn't tight, but just looped around. Then I pushed the rest of the baby out into the water (the easy part), and then Sherry put her up on my chest and suctioned her nose and mouth. After a few seconds, we looked to see what we had, and were amazed to realize it was a baby girl!!! She was covered with white vernix, but was so beautiful to us. She only cried a tiny bit, but was mostly very calm--probably because of being born into the water. Sherry checked her heartbeat, and covered her up with towels, and then I just cuddled her there in the tub for a while, with Jim kneeling beside us. In the meantime, Sherry called the other midwife, to let her know she didn't need to come after all. Then she took a cord blood sample to test and find out the baby's blood type, and then when the cord stopped beating, she clamped it and Jim cut it. By this time, we had decided for sure to name her Julia Anne. We had two possible girl names picked out, but we decided she looked like a Julia. :)

Jim took her from me and cuddled her while I got up and took a shower. That was another really nice part about giving birth in the tub--it was so easy for me to clean up afterwards! Then I got into bed and Sherry checked me for tears (I had only minimal tearing in the birth canal, and no perineal tears at all!), and then she did the Apgar tests on Julia, and declared her to be a perfect 10. Her color was nice and pink (under the vernix) and her reflexes and all that they check for were great. She also checked my blood pressure, which was around 140/85. It's so funny to me how God worked that out--there was no time for the b/p to even be an issue, since Sherry had no time to check it before the baby was born! She didn't even have time to check the fetal heartbeat with her Doppler, either. All the checking had to be done after the fact! Thankfully both mommy and baby came through the birth just fine, and were perfectly healthy. :)

So that is the birth story. Julia was born literally only 5 minutes or less after Sherry arrived! Jim ALMOST had his first experience delivering a baby. I am so very thankful that we did a homebirth, as we would never have made it to the hospital in time (we could have made it to our local hospital, but if I had been doing a hospital birth, it would have been at another hospital which is an hour away). And I definitely loved the whole homebirth experience. Of course it was still painful and all, but it was so nice to be in my own home, and crawl into my own bed afterwards. Everything felt much, much more relaxing.

Sherry with Julia and me, at our checkup yesterday

Well, I may think of more things to add to this later, but right now I need to go change Julia's diaper and nurse her. She is a sleepyhead, but she does nurse well when she finally wakes up enough to do so. She will have a checkup tomorrow with her pediatrician, so we will see how that goes. We are definitely enjoying our sweet little baby girl. God is good, and we are blessed!