I know I'm not the greatest blogger.. in fact, I hardly blog at all. I mostly enjoy "blog stalker" instead. However, today my sweet baby boy is one and I felt like writing his truly amazing birth story would be a good way to honor that very special day. Although, I don't think I will ever forget it, I want to have it down on paper. So here it goes..
Just a warning... I won't be leaving out ANYTHING! I promise no "crotch shots", but the other pictures and details might bother some. :)
As most of you know, Joey and I weren't planning on having a baby yet. At the time, we had been talking about gettting married and making those plans. I didn't know at the time, but Joey had already been looking at rings. I had been on birth control for awhile when I started having some issues. The doctor had me switch to a progestin only pill, thinking that estrogen was the reason for my problems. She gave me three months worth of pills then wanted to see me again. Well the pills were gone and I had completely forgotten that there was only three months worth. It was a Sunday and I made an appt the very next day, but couldn't get it until Wednesday. Well, when I went in, she asked me the typical question. (Had we used our other options.) I was honest and thank goodness I was. She did a blood test and called to tell me my HCG level was 10 and that I might be pregnant. I thought... um no thats impossible because I was only off the pill 3 days! Well after 3 at home tests, sure enough, we were expecting. I was only 2 1/2 weeks! Although we were scared, we were very excited! We always knew we wanted to have children. We told ourselves this was a blessing and truly a gift from God.
After talking with our best friends, who had already had one baby born at the Baby Place Birth Center and were expecting their second (just a month ahead of us), we decided we'd look into it. Our plan was to meet the midwives and see the birth center then meet with a doctor too. Well, we went to our first appt at The Baby Place and both of us felt so comfortable and at peace there. As we walked out the door, we looked at eachother and knew we both wanted to have our baby there. We were so happy with our decision and knew we were making the right one. We didn't even bother looking into having a hospital birth.
At our second appt, we were finally able to measure the little guy and found out I was six weeks pregnant and due around July 25th. We were so excited!
On Valentine’s Day, I was exactly 17 weeks and decided to surprise Joey by going to Fetal Fotos and find out the sex of our baby. Of course, neither of us cared, we just wanted a healthy one. J Both of our mom’s and Joey’s sister, met us there. I already knew it was a boy and even said it as we walked into the room. Once we found out for sure, I think Joey grew a foot taller! He was so excited. We both were!
Our friends and midwives recommended a class called Confident Childbirth Class and we decided to sign up for it. Thank God we did! We had so much fun going to it every week and it was really fun to meet other couples that were due all around the same time. Many of them were also going to The Baby Place. We both learned so much about labor and delivery. Everything we learned really confirmed the reasons why we didn’t want to have a hospital birth. We were so glad we didn’t have to worry about the interventions that occur at a hospital and I was especially happy that I wouldn’t be treated as a “patient” with a medical problem. We knew this was a natural process and my body knew exactly what it was doing.
Joey and I could never agree on names. It seemed like everything I suggested he didn’t like. I think he was just waiting for me to say Joseph Junior. I wanted something different though. Something we came up with on our own. I really like the name Dallen and Joey liked it enough too. For a couple months, that was going to be his name. In the back of my head, I knew Joey wasn’t crazy about it and it actually started to wear on me too. We started talking about other names, but still couldn’t come up with anything. Finally I looking at a Supercross riders list thing (surprise, surprise) and started rattling off different rider’s names. We both liked the names Health and Grant. We couldn’t decide which one was better so we said we’d wait until he was born. We couldn’t decide on middle names either. We liked David because its my dad and oldest brother’s name and his dad’s middle name, but we also thought about having it be after his daddy.
Time went on and I got bigger and BIGGER! Our friends were blessed with another wonderful birth and I was lucky enough to get to be there. Sweet little Ellary Jane was born on June 26th. Seeing and holding her made me even more anxious to have my little guy.
My due date was right around the corner and we were playing the waiting game. Although I knew he’d come when he was ready, I just wanted him so badly! I had to keep telling myself that he wouldn’t be born until August and that kept me going. At 37 weeks, I got checked and was not even ½ a centimeter dilated, but was 25% efaced. The next week I was 1 centimeter , 50% efaced, and his head was pretty low. At my 39 week appointment (my last one), I was still only at a 1, but was 75% efaced, and his head was stationed at a 1. She also said she could feel my bulging bag of water. We were so excited, but kept reminding ourselves that I could be this way for awhile. Part of me felt like we were close though. I just didn’t imagine myself going past my due date and for about a week had been up late with contractions that would get to five minutes apart then stop. They weren’t super painful though and everyone told me I would know when it was the real thing.
Wednesday night, the 22nd, we went to bed as usual. At midnight I was woken up with pretty bad cramps. I tried to use the bathroom and lay back down. I was able to fall back asleep until 2, but then was woke up again by a lot of pressure on my pubic bone. I started having contractions and they were WAY more painful than the nights before. I decided I’d wait as long as I could and make sure it was the real thing before waking Joey up. He’d been woken up pretty much every night that week and I knew if it wasn’t the real thing he’d be having to get up early for work. I waited it out until after 3 then I finally went in and woke him up. When he got up he told me to call our doula. (The teacher of our birth class is also a doula and we decided to have her there to help support Joey and I both.) When I called her, I told her what was going on and she sat on the phone with me through a few contractions. She said they seemed to be a little inconsistent and still spaced out so to try to relax and eat a little something and then call her when something changes. She then said she wanted to talk to Joey and started asking him questions. I remember him saying, “Yep. Uh huh. Oh ya, she’s doing that too.” and it was driving me crazy that I didn’t know what she was asking him. They seemed to be on the phone for what seemed like forever. I had two contractions during that time and told Joey to tell her that. They both were surprised and looked at the time. They’d only been talking for five minutes! She decided she wasn’t going to have me wait any longer and got to our house pretty shortly. Following her was a training doula, that I had okayed to be at the birth and help Kyndal. She was so sweet and helpful. They got out my birth ball and put it at the end of the bed. I sat on it while holding onto the bed frame and rocked back and forth and tried to keep moving through the contractions. The contractions were getting stronger and longer, but in between each one, I’d pop right up and start talking. I heard Kyndal explain that the time of the contractions was great, but she was waiting to see behavior changes. I remember thinking… Ya right, I’m going to be talkative and happy through this whole thing. Well she was right, and I no longer felt like talking and the pressure was pretty bad too. They loaded up the car and we were on our way. Side note: when I packed my bags I made sure to pack a couple towels for the car ride, just in case. I don’t know why that was so important to me because I didn’t even expect my water to break until closer to delivery anyway. Well funny thing, we walked out to the car and right as I get in, I start feeling a trickle and told Joey that I either peed my pant or my water was breaking. It continued to leak while we drove to The Baby Place which was literally just a few minutes away. When we got there, Jerusha (midwife) met us at the door and walked us back to our huge, beautiful room. They checked me and I was a dilated to a 4 and was 100% efaced and she confirmed that my water was leaking. The bed looked so comfortable so I decided I try to lay down. That didn’t last long because it was so much more painful for me to stop moving. They set me up with a birth ball and bar to hold onto and I decided to rock back and forth again. I think I spent most my time doing that. I broke away from it for a bit to take a nice long bath and it felt so relaxing. I could still feel every contraction, but the pain was lessened a little. When I got out I did some more rocking on the ball. The contractions were one after another and I remember moaning like crazy (which I said I’d never do). It helped me manage the pain when I’d voice it out. If that even makes sense.
I got check again and was at an 8. I was proud of my progress and just kept rocking. At one point, Joey stood me up and we danced around for a bit. I think the gravity really helped because after that I started feeling the urge to push. Earlier, I had mentioned that I thought about having a water birth so they got the bath ready for me. They checked me again and said it be okay to give a couple pushes. They offered the birth stool and said I could get in the tub after I got him past the cervical lip I had covering his head. Once I got to that point I just kept wanting to push and didn’t feel like moving into the bath. I was pretty comfortable in the stool so I just stayed there. I pushed and pushed and Joey stood behind me holding me up the whole time. I could hear him starting to tear up and once they said they could feel baby’s head, he started full on crying. Of course, everyone else started crying too. He apologized and said sorry for being a cry baby and that made us all laugh. My dad was right outside the door and I heard him say, “Lu, your doing great, keep on pushing”. It was pretty cute. We had quite and emotional time. Well, everyone except me, who was full of smiles and in my own little world. Danny (midwife), guided my hand down there so I could feel my progress while I pushed. That helped me so much. Her and Jerusha were rubbing olive oil on me to help me stretch, but it started to really burn. I gave another hard push and there was his head. I reached my hands down and gave another push. Out came my sweet baby and I caught him myself! I pulled him up to me and remember looking at him in total shock. I couldn’t believe how perfect and sweet he was and that he was OURS! He was a little white looking because he had some mucous in his chest. They clamped his cord earlier than expected so they could get him to the table. Joey carried him over and kept saying, “Son, its your daddy. Give us a good big breath.” It was so sweet. Grant started squawking and everything was good. I moved over to the bed to deliver my placenta which seemed to take awhile. I had stopped having contractions and we were waiting on those to push again. I finally got it out and they noticed I had torn sideways! I can’t remember if I started getting stitched first or tried breastfeeding first. I remember calling Joey a baby hog because our mom’s and everyone were waiting on their turn to hold him. It was pretty cute though. He was naturally so protective too. He went in with Jerusha to wash baby off and I heard him tell someone, “stop taking pictures, the flash is bothering him.” After that, he brought him to me and we talked about what name he should have. We both agreed that he was totally a Grant! We like Joseph for the middle name too. J A little while later, after getting him to nurse a little bit. We weighed and measured him… he was 7 pounds 4 ounces and 21 ¼ inches long. He had been born at 10:59 and I was proud that labor was only 9 hours total. Pretty good for natural labor and first baby! Our families visited for a little while, and then we had some quiet time to ourselves. I was supposed to rest, but didn’t even feel tired at all. I was so excited and just wanted to hold him and look at him instead. He was a natural when it came to nursing and we spent a lot of the day doing that. We decided to get ready to head home and at about 7 we changed his little outfit and loaded up. We were so happy to get to take him home for the first time and show him around. I remember feeling so proud of myself and my hard work. What an accomplishment! We were just filled with emotions! We couldn’t have been any happier! We love our little guy so much!
