A nine month journey...

Warning: This is my journal. This post is my documentation of the birth of baby #3. If you do not want to hear all about the labor/delivery you can stop reading now. It won't hurt my feelings. :) This is also MY interpretation of how things went. Daniel, our midwife (Dawn) or my mom may have a completely different story, this is how things went from my perspective.

The pregnancy: This was my hardest pregnancy. Lots of new aches/pains and complaints. I really wanted to say I LOVE being pregnany but this time that just wasn't true. About 2 weeks ago my legs and feet were super swollen adding another complaint to the list. Luckily my mom arrived on June 21st to help me out and wait for the baby to arrive! We discovered that maybe I was not eating enough salt. As soon as I started eating more the swelling went away and I lost about 3 pounds of water weight! I was still really uncomfortable. On one of my visits to the chiropractor (one that does muscle testing) he and is son 'guessed' that I was having a girl and that she would be born in the 3rd or 4th of July. I was so ready to have this baby at 37 weeks that I was really looking forward the those 2 days and REALLY hoping they were right! Well, the 3rd came and nothing happened. We celebrated the 4th of July with no baby. By the time I woke up on the morning of the 5th I had given up hope of the baby coming early. I was sure he/she would wait until the EDD of July 11. At this point I was not sleeping at night because the baby was sitting on both my ribs and my hips/ligaments and I was so uncomfortable! But I know that babies will come when they are ready and I needed to just wait a little longer!

(39 weeks)

July 5- One of the old wives' tales is that oregano and basil are 2 spices that can help get a lady in to labor. After we attended part of the home inspection on the house that might be, we headed over to the Olive Garden! We ate there the night before I had Addie so it was worth a try!

11pm- We headed off to bed as usual. I sighed as I looked at the bed knowing that another long, sleepless, uncomfortable night was ahead of me
12am- Bathroom trip #1
4am- Bathroom trip #2. I should have known something was up because I am usually up every hour or so. I was surprised that I had gotten 4 hours of uninturrupted sleep!
6am- Bathroom trip #3. I woke Daniel up when I noticed he was still asleep and should have been getting ready for work.
6-7am- I was wide awake trying to get comfortable to go back to sleep. It wasn't happening with my hips and everything hurting so bad.
7:10am- I sat up when I had a contraction that I knew was not my typical Braxton Hicks contraction. I actually had to really breath through it. I started timing them while I waited for Daniel to finish getting ready for work and come in to say good bye to me. I told him he should wait a few minutes because this might be the real thing!
7:30am- Contractions were 4 minutes apart and pretty strong. We texted my mom who was upstairs, called the midwife to give her a heads up and texted the photographer. Turned out our midwife was on her way to another birth! Aaah! I could tell this labor was going to go a faster and I was a little worried that she wasn't going to make it!

The next little while I labored, Daniel filled the birth tub. The kids slept until about 9. That's about the time I started feeling 'pushy'. Daniel called the midwife again. She said she was cleaning up at the other birth and would be on her way soon. The photographer and driving like crazy to get over here because she was about 45 minutes away. (Turns out she ended up bringing her 3 boys with her and let them play in the car because she was worried if she stopped to drop them off she would miss the birth!)

About 10am- Everyone showed up at once. The room was suddenly very full of busy people. Setting everything up, snapping pictures, watching me. I was in my own little world. Very aware of everything that was going on around me but not really caring. The kids were running around being noisy. Addie screamed, the only noise that was not cool. The midwife offered to check me just to make sure everything was good and that the cervix wasn't stuck like it was with Johnny. I said no and kept on laboring and pushing.

Sometime after 10am- I wanted to be done. No position was comfortable. I felt like I was progressing and was in a lot of pain. I let my midwife check me and sure enough, the cervix was stuck on baby's head. Darn! I was soo hoping that was not going to happen again. So for the next 3 or 4 contractions she tried her best to push the cervix up while I tried to push the baby down. Not cool. Finally it was off but I was still not progressing. I changed positions. The cervix moved back over the baby's head. She had to spend another 3-4 contractions pushing on it. Really not cool. Lots more pushing went on without feeling like the baby was getting anywhere.

Sometime close to 11:30am- We finally freed the cervix and the baby's head was moving down! Finally making progress the head was crowning. I have to say that this was ridiculously painful. I don't remember the other 2 hurting.so.bad. And it was so slow! I thought 1 or 2 contractions and the head would be out. Not the case. It took FOREVER! I was a lot more vocal this time. I'm pretty sure I said lots of "Ow!" "crap!" "Oh my goodness!" and "I just want it out!". It was probably only a few minutes until the little head was safely out. I was sitting on a birth stool inside the tub so the baby was chillin in the water. It seemed to me like after her head was out everything slowed down for a few minutes. Someone asked me if I wanted to reach down and feel her head. At first I said no but in these few minutes where I sat with only a few much lighter contractions and no strong urge to keep pushing I decided to touch my baby. It is such a strange yet empowering feeling to feel your baby when it is half way still inside you and half in this world. I may have even smiled a little.

When the baby's head is out (or maybe as it's coming out?) my midwife will check to make sure the cord is not around the neck. I didn't know it at the time but I think when she checked for the cord she found that the baby had her hand across her chest and up by her shoulder. Usually a baby will move it on their own to prepare to squeeze their little shoulders out. I guess she wanted to be difficult because she was not moving! I knew something was up when I started pushing again and my midwife was way more involved 'down there' than I thought she would be if everything was fine. I could actually tell that Dawn was working pretty hard. I even felt kind of bad for her because she was bending over leaning across the 5 ft. tub to reach me! There was a very serious sound to her tone when she told me push really hard. All I remember now is her saying "come on Jenna, push really hard", pushing really hard because I wanted the baby out, feeling a tremendous amount of pain and wanting to cry all at the same time! This is the point in labor when a woman gets really serious and knows she has to give it all she has. We know that in a matter of minutes it will all be over and we will be holding our baby in our arms. This is the point when no one else in the room matters. I didn't care that I was practically yelling and that my 2 small children were watching. I didn't care that photos were being taken and I would probably not want to see what my face looks like in pain. I knew I was almost done!

11:45am- With the midwife helping turn the baby, the shoulders were finally free and baby came sliding out into the water. Within seconds she was in my arms. A minute later our guess that it was a girl was confirmed.  Everyone was smiling, I was relieved.

The next couple of hours were a blur. Daniel cut the cord, the placenta was delivered in the water, I showered, baby nursed. One of the things I love the most about having a home birth is the feeling of calmness afterward. No one is in a rush to weigh and measure the baby or give her a bath. The midwife stays in the room to fill out her paperwork while baby nurses and I eat a snack. We wait until I've showered and am warm and relaxed and the shaking has stopped before doing an exam on me. People move silently through the house cleaning up and putting a load of towels and wash cloths in the washer.

The stats: Like I mentioed before, I had a pretty good idea that this was going to be my biggest baby. As soon as she came out we all knew she was big. We were anxious to find out just how much bigger she was than my other 2. I dont remember all of the measuresments but we had Dawn compare them to Johnny and this little girl was quite a bit bigger everywhere (head, chest, length). She measured 20 3/4 inches long. I had gussed 21 inches before she was born! Just to compare, Addie was 18 3/4 and Johnny D 20 1/4. The real shock camr when she weighed in at 9 pounds 1 ounce! Everyone looked at me to see my shocked reaction. Holy cow! I don't have 9 pound babies! Where did this one come from!? I'm pretty sure Daniel gave me a high five. He was pretty excited that we had a big baby! Everything else looked great. She is a healthy, squirmy, perfect little baby girl!

I will be honest, I was having a little anxiety about this birth. I had done it twice and could still remember the pain involved. I was not looking forward to doing it again. As I write this I am not sure I ever want to do it again. I know I am blessed to now have 3 beautiful kids and that I am healthy ebough to be able to give birth how and where I want. It really is a miracle that we are able to grown another human being and bring them in to this world. I just wish it wasn't so uncomfortable to do it naturally. :) I am grateful for the awesome support I had. I was a bit worred that after Johnny's birth, where it was just Daniel and I for 75% of the labor then the midwife and her assistant for the end that a room full of people would be over whelming for me. That wasn't the case. Every person we had there was important and I woulnd't have had it any other way!