Vienna: 5-weeks-old

These are a few of my favorites from Vienna's 5-week-old photo session with Júste Photography.

Birth Story

By my 35 week appointment I was already 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced, and the baby was past the point of engagement. We (Andy, myself and my midwife) were pretty certain the baby was going to come before my due date, but the big "when" was the question. The possibility of having a premature baby was scary and I took it easy to try to make it to full-term. When that 37 week mark hit we all breathed a big sigh of relief. But then the guessing game started - each day we woke up wondering if that was going to be the day. At my 38 week appointment I was already dilated 4.5 cm and was 75% effaced and the bag of water was bulging....I was ripe and ready! And uncomfortable. I had braxton-hicks, but they were never consistent and consecutive. I was driving myself crazy, looking at the clock at every contraction, thinking I should take a nap in case I went into labor...just waiting.

One morning I decided I needed something to keep my mind off of playing the guessing game so I pulled out my easel and decided to start a painting project. I sat on my exercise ball (that was about the only thing I sat on at that point as it took away some of the pressure and didn't hurt as much as sitting on the couch or a chair) and began painting a picture for the baby's room. I had contractions all day - on and off - but nothing was consistent, it was just like any other day. I tried to take a nap and couldn't, so I kept painting and I finished the painting after supper. At 10pm I crawled into bed, and as soon as I laid down I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. At first I just thought it was the baby moving, but I soon realized that they were contractions. The baby was moving, during and in-between contractions, she wouldn't stop wiggling and it made things pretty uncomfortable. I timed the contractions and discovered they were coming every 10 minutes. After an hour I figured I should probably wake up Andy - our hospital is an hour away and we'd already decided that when I started contracting we should drive to my brother's house (he lives a couple minutes away from the hospital) and stay there, just so we were close. We were going to wait until my contractions were closer together, but since it was night and it was dusting snow outside we figured to go right away and play it safe. We hoped to get some rest at their house before going into the hospital. We left our house around 11:15pm, Andy had slept for 2 hours, I, however, hadn't slept since the night before. I tried to rest in the car but my contractions were steadily getting closer together and I was busy timing them. At this point I still wasn't convinced I was in labor. The contractions were tolerable and easy to breath through, only slightly more intense than what I'd experienced for the last couple weeks. I was almost certain we were wasting our time traveling there, I honestly expected the contractions to up and quit....I mean really, who is lucky enough to go into labor early on their first baby?

During the drive to the hospital my contractions were (on average) 6 minutes apart. We contemplated going straight to my brother's house and trying to rest until they got even closer together, but we ended up going to the hospital instead. When we walked in a nurse greeted us and asked if I was in labor, it was about 12:30am when she put us in a room. The nurse checked me to see what my progress was, if any, but she couldn't find my cervix. Another nurse tried and she too couldn't get to my cervix. Apparently it was posterior (back behind the baby's head.) I sat up, Andy and I talked to the nurse for a few minutes and I adjusted myself on the bed to get comfortable when suddenly I felt this pop inside of me. I moved again and felt like I was peeing my pants. I said, "I either just peed my pants or my water just broke!" After determining that my water really did break was when reality finally settled in and it became real to me that I was actually in labor and our baby would be born that day. I was nervous and excited and really really tired.

Immediately after my water broke my contractions changed. They were much stronger and very quickly became closer together. The nurses called the midwife and I was so anxious for her to come. Since it was still early in labor and the middle of the night I knew she wouldn't be there until a little later. And since my cervix was posterior she told the nurses to have me labor leaning forward to try to bring the cervix back around the baby's head. The nurses showed me a few different positions I could try and suggested changing positions every 20 minutes. First I tried leaning against the back of the bed with my rear sticking out, I did stay like that for 20 minutes but the stronger my contractions got the more uncomfortable it was on my back. I moved to the birthing ball and leaned against the bed. After I got on the ball my contractions really started picking up, they were coming every 2-4 minutes and were increasingly getting longer. Andy was behind me rubbing my back. I completely lost track of time at this point, I didn't bother to look at the clock to try to time contractions, I had no idea how much time passed by. My contractions were getting so close and intense that all I could do get through them was to concentrate on each one as they came. Quickly I began feeling like there was no break. One contraction would be short, the next one would be super long and I'd feel like it wouldn't completely die off, then I'd have yet another. I just dealt with them as they came, trying to stay relaxed. That just kept running through my head - to try to relax and let my body do what it needed to do. I found that moaning helped me. It helped me breath through the contractions and opening my mouth made my body relax. Same with my hands, if I made a conscious effort to unclench my hands, my body would relax more. The nurse walked in a few times and made a comment about how relaxed I looked...though I really didn't feel like I was doing that good of a job at it. It was easy to loose focus and I began to do so. It was easy to let the pain take over, which made me tense up with each contraction, which only brought on more pain. It was so intense that I didn't even know what to do with myself. That was when the midwife showed up. Ruth walked into the room and the whole atmosphere became more calm and I felt very comforted by her presence. She walked in during a contraction and leaned down next to me sitting on the ball and rubbed my back. There was something about a motherly touch during labor that just relaxed me. I couldn't have gone through labor without Andy, I was oddly aware of exactly where he was during the whole night and his presence and touch gave me strength to get through it. But something about her touch brought peace to me, it was like she knew exactly what I needed. She spoke soothingly to me and with her words painted a picture for me of what was going on inside my body. She told me to imagine my cervix opening around the baby's head with each contraction. Being reminded of what was going on inside of me was what I needed to get me through the rest of labor. For me to visualize it was helpful. Going into labor I knew that the more I could understand about what would be going on in my body, the more it would help me. If I could divert my attention away from just feeling the pain and instead to understand it, I believed that would get me through.

Ruth had me lay on the bed so could check me, my contractions were very close at this point and I had two while on the bed. Those two I had laying down were the worse ones I'd experienced up to that point, and I was so anxious to get off the bed as soon as possible. There's something about lying on your back that makes the contractions that much more painful. But I was glad to hear my progress, this was the first time I knew where I was at since coming to the hospital. I was 100% effaced and dilated 7cm, already in transition. I knew enough from my readings that transition was generally the most painful part of labor, so I knew that things were going to get more intense, but I was close!

I was allowed to get into the tub at this point, I was so anxious to get in. The warm water felt so good, it was very soothing on my tired body and at first it really helped ease a little of the pain. But really quickly the contractions picked up and were right on top of each other. The contractions at the end of the first stage of labor were intense, each one was worse than the previous - I knew I was getting close to being fully dilated and just kept going back to the words Ruth spoke to me and I kept trying to visualize what was happening. I wasn't aware of time, at all. I was very aware that Andy was in front of me holding my hand, and I was aware of what I was doing, but not of anything else. I kept holding onto the knowledge that I was close and that that it wasn't going to last forever, these contractions were numbered. I moved around in the tub a bit trying a few different positions, rocking my hips from side to side felt good. I remember feeling slightly delusional as the pain peaked. At this point I wasn't only moaning with each contraction but I was saying "Ooookaaay. OOOoookaaay," over and over. I couldn't stop saying it. It was like I was trying to get myself to accept the pain, or to tell myself, "Okay, I can do it." I was kneeling and had my head on the side of the tub. I shook my head from side to side, over and over, because I liked the way my brain felt - like it was sloshing around in my head, kind of like I had a little too much to drink. When I realized that I was doing this and why I was doing it, I also realized that I was at the end of the first stage, because I knew that being delirious, or slightly delirious at least, meant I was dilating the last couple centimeters. I think I only experienced a few more contractions like that before I felt the urge to push. I wasn't entirely certain I was ready to push or if it was just the pressure. I told the nurse and she went to get the midwife so she could check me. By the time they came back I had that uncontrollable urge to push. Ruth checked me and said I was 9cm, there was just a little lip of the cervix that wasn't around the baby's head. She said that during the next contraction she'd try to help the cervix dilate the rest of the way by holding it open, and it worked.

Then I started pushing. My contractions slowed down at this point, I had a break in between each one and I could stretch my legs a little bit and catch my breath. Things got really exciting at this point, it wouldn't be long until we'd hold our baby. Pushing was such a different type of experience than the first stage of labor. It took me awhile to get the hang of it. At first I was scared of the pressure and the irresistible urge, I don't think I was pushing as much as I could. I didn't use the contractions to the full potential and I kept wasting my breath by letting it out too fast. Ruth helped correct my breathing and coached me through each contraction and I eventually got it. After understanding how to breath and how to push it actually felt better to push than not to. It felt good because I was doing something, I had a job to do, it was up to me to get the baby out. I would say that pushing wasn't as painful as the end of dilating, but I pushed for an hour and twenty minutes, so it got to be pretty intense. I quickly began getting really exhausted. I was running on zero sleep. They kept having me drink orange juice in-between contractions. I didn't feel like drinking anything, but I knew it was important to give me energy so I drank anyway. Andy held me me from behind, outside the tub, and I know it was awkward for him to hold me but it helped so much just to feel his touch. He and the nurses kept putting cold clothes on my chest and that felt so good. Ruth was great at getting me through the pushing. Once I'd start pushing with a new contraction she'd say, "Okay, let's get back to where we were. Okay, you're there, now let's go further. Good, good, good!" It was so encouraging to hear that I was making progress. They held a mirror for us to see and I always thought I'd never want to look and half the time I was concentrating so hard that I didn't care to look, but there were several times that being able to see gave me a huge boost, it was really neat to see the progress and it gave me more energy to keep going.

Once the baby began to crown I reached down and felt her head for the first time, it was amazing. I feared the burning sensation that I read about that women experience when the baby crowns. It was intense, but once I felt the initial sensation I tried very hard to relax the muscles and then the burning wasn't as bad. (Or maybe it was just the fact that I was so ready to be done pushing.) And then, her head finally came out! I can't even describe how good it felt when it did, It was amazing to know that within minutes I'd be holding our baby. I pushed through two more contractions to get her shoulders through and then the rest of her slipped right out. There she was, our baby girl was born at 7:22am! The sensation of giving birth to our baby was so powerful. Ruth brought her up out of the water and handed her to me. I was overcome with emotion, I grabbed her and held her to my chest as Andy and I cried at the sight of our beautiful baby girl. She was perfect. After four years of waiting to get pregnant, nine months of pregnancy, and nine hours of labor, she was finally here! Ruth and the nurses all commented on how pink she was (most water babies take a little bit longer to pink up) but she was pink instantly. We all noticed how long her fingers were and how big her feet were. We oohed-and-aawed over her and held her there in the tub for awhile. We must've been in there for a good 15-20 minutes before I had another contraction to birth the placenta. I pushed three times to get it out. Ruth show it to us and Andy and I, being weird like are, asked if we could touch it. We were both entirely intrigued to see the thing that gave our baby life. It was actually very neat. I think the whole process of how a baby grows inside of you is just amazing. So is birth, the fact that your body was designed to give birth and literally knows what to do, and then does it! And the result is a beautiful precious little bundle of life.

Going into pregnancy I knew what kind of labor I wanted. I also knew that labor was unpredictable and I knew I needed to roll with it as it came. But I believe that birth is a natural thing, not a medical condition, and I wanted to embrace that aspect. Our bodies know exactly how to grow a baby and give life to that boy or girl, bones, fingernails, and eyes - we just let it do what it needs to do to create a baby. It knows just as well how to deliver that baby, if we let it and work with it to do so. I knew it'd be tough, I knew it would hurt, but I wanted the experience of natural birth. Some people called me crazy and didn't understand why I was doing it that way, and others encouraged me and believed like I did. I was a big believer before, and now after experiencing it myself, I am even a bigger believer. I made my decision based on my own desires and facts that I learned and the information I researched and I am completely satisfied and happy with the process of bringing our daughter into this world and I am so thankful to experience the birth of our daughter. Giving birth is such a monumental thing in a couples life and I wanted the experience to be something Andy and I did together. Sure, I did all of the "labor," but if Andy hadn't been there with me I don't know if I could've gotten through it. Just knowing that he believed in me, and to feel his touch when I needed it, gave me so much strength. I never once called him a bad name, cursed, or said anything negative - I'm proud of that, I actually thought I'd say things I'd regret later, but it never even crossed my mind during the whole process. I went into labor believing in myself and my body, and I kept holding onto the truth that I could do it - so many other woman do it, I could too! I also knew that it was inevitable, so there was no point in dreading it, why not embrace it instead? I really did look at it positively and every time I got scared and nervous I tried to focus on the those truths I knew and the things I read. Asking for drugs never crossed my mind, not once. I knew that if I went into labor saying "I'll try," and "We'll see," that it was likely I'd ask for pain meds. So I made up my mind beforehand that I was doing it naturally. Drugs weren't an option and I honestly never once thought about them during labor. I told myself I could do it, and I did. I am so happy about the experience we had of the birth of our daughter. It was amazing, an uplifting experience and something we will never forget.

Now, in all honesty, after it was all said and done and I was lying in bed after giving birth to Vienna, I was convinced that there was no possible way I could ever do that again. But by the next day that feeling wore off, and I started to think that I could do it again. I have no idea what it is like to give birth any other way, I've obviously only ever done it once, but my sister-in-law has had three kids, the first two she had an epidural, and the last one she had in the same hospital as me, same midwife, and did a natural water-birth, she said she'd definitely do it that way again. I would definitely say that I would do it again too.

I gave birth to Vienna exactly one week early. She was born at 7:22am after nine hours of labor, weighing in at 6 pounds and 10 ounces. She was 20 inches long and had a head full of hair, beautifully defined lips and very long fingers. Here's our angel: