Leo

So a lot has happened since May - since I last blogged. Wow - I hate that I haven't kept up with everything. Nonetheless, I have to blog and document about our new family of 5!

Meet Leo.

Yep! He is our newest addition to our family. He was a surprise baby, as we didn't find out his sex. Everyone was convinced he was going to be our "Lillian". I had a feeling he may be the boy I wanted, but I was starting to be convinced in the end along with everyone else he was a girl. Either way, he is an amazingly beautiful and healthy little human we've been blessed to raise him as our son. 

His birth (one month ago) still has me in awe of God's marvelous creation. What I mean is, God created the female body to do miraculous things. I loved my birth experiences with Elijah and Athena in the hospital, but choosing to have Leo at home was so amazing. It's funny because a lot of home birth mommas would tell me "It will be the best thing you experience", "You'll love it", etc... All I could really think is that, ok - I've given birth intervention-free twice before, how can it be any different. 

I wish I could put into words how different it is. I've always been comfortable with home birth in general, but now I am an advocate for it.

So here is my birth story with Leo - I already have the stinging in my eyes from tears of gratitude, love and admiration just beginning to reminisce how he was born to me 31 days ago.

On Halloween morning I woke up to find that I had a little bit of brown, bloody show. It wasn't quite a show in reality, just a little bit to get me exicted that labor was coming my way soon. For the whole week before Halloween, I was just feeling "off", almost flu-like. I could tell my body was changing, but I was 100% convinced it was preparation for labor. Really, in my mind I thought with this being my third labor and Elijah's labor being more than 36 hours, and Athena's being around 16 hours, I'd have this baby in no time :)

So I was pretty excited to actually see changes of impending labor on Halloween instead of trying to decipher flu versus latent labor symptoms like I was doing earlier in the week. I told Brad to be on standby that day, but he was good to go to work. I also called my mom to tell her so she'd have a heads up if labor did go quickly. The older kiddos were at school (Thursdays have been my days for the past few months). So I decided to do last minute shopping, and relax with a manicure and pedicure :)

I was feeling very minor contractions all day. They were getting me excited in anticiaption that I would get to experience labor again. (Labor has never been something I dreaded or feared for the most part, I wish most women could embrace it in this way, but that's another blog post). After I finished up my "me" time I went to pick up my kiddos. I was excited and a little tearful that our time of being "the three of us" was coming to an end soon. I am so blessed that Brad works so hard to allow me to stay home and be a full-time mom to our kids.

My mom decided to take the afternoon off, and Friday off to spend the weekend with us as we waited for labor to start! She decided to meet up with me and the kiddos at Target to get last minute things (I always end up at Target before going into active labor). I'm glad she was with us, because I would have completely forgotten simple things like, wipes, bath soaps, wash cloths, (I did have diapers), sleepers, etc - I guess I figured I'd feel like going out the next day to pick that sort of stuff up? pregnancy brain for sure...

In addition to all those things, she gifted the baby so many sweet blankets, sleepers, onesies and new stuff that we never got around to buying. It's nice to have the hand-me-downs from our older kids, but I always wanted to get new things for the new baby.

After Target we decided to just hand out candy for the evening, since it was Halloween. Since it was such a cold and rainy night, we decided to go to dinner instead. So with the kids dressed up in costume we went to the new Tucano's Brazillian restaurant here in St. Charles. It was nice because it reminded me, my mom and Brad of the restaurants at the Mexico resort we went together to last January.

Anyhow, my contractions were still off and on, but slowly becoming more intense. Certainly not painful yet, but definitely there. They were probably anywhere from 15-35 minutes apart. Not active labor kind.

That night we just watched a little tv and decided to call it a night. Around 11:30 that evening things started to pick up a little bit more and I had definitely lost my mucus plug at that time. I tried to take a bath to relax and it helped a bit. What was so different this time was the amount of nausea I kept having. I never experienced it with my first two, so I was surprised to have this symptom. By midnight I was in bed typing notes into my iphone to remember each detail. Brad decided to blow up the birth tub just incase. Funny enough, my mom thought he was pumping up my birthing peanut and came upstairs thinking he was going to pop it by running the air pump so long. :)

Around 4:00 I had a few more contractions that woke me up, and they were steadily 10 minutes apart. I was able to relax through most of them, but I was starting to wonder if baby would come today! (It was November 1st, and I thought it was going to be the perfect birthday:11/1)

Brad decided to stay home from work that Friday. So me, my mom, Brad and the kiddos decided we were going to be active and walk this baby out. So no surprise we decided to go Goodwill shopping :) We stopped for lunch at HuHot to eat something spicy (super yummy - I have been on an Asian food kick for months now). 

By later the afternoon I started feeling overwhelmed and pressured that I had not made more progress. I was worried my mom and Brad took time off of work to have a baby and all we were doing was shopping and goofing off (although it was such a fun day with them and the kids). So I started nipple stimulation around 4 in the afternoon and each time it would give me a pretty intense contraction, but it still wasn't enough to kickstart labor into gear. 

Once we got home from all the shopping and running around, my mom wanted to get the older kids a dresser for their room so I could better organize their chaos. It was probably around 6 or 7 that evening that we decided to continue shopping. The contractions were getting more intense, but still they were maybe 7-15 minutes apart. They were completely irregular (just like I had with Elijah - but he was my first! How could this be happening with my third?!) 
As we were in Weekends Only checking out I had a contraction that I had to really focus on. We were at the check out counter and I had to lay my head down and sway my hips to get through it. There was a couple there that night that thought I was completely crazy for being at a furniture store instead of planning to go to a hospital. (Looking back I guess it was kind of crazy, and funny)

On our way home around 8:30 the contractions in the car really started to be painful. I just assumed that it was just my position and they would feel better once we got home. By 9:00 we decided to watch a movie so I could relax through the contractions. I had my rice sock heated up and kept it on my lower abdomen during each contraction, which was pretty regularly 10 minutes apart by now. 

Around 10:00 I helped Brad get the kids to stay in bed for the night, and that's when I knew that things were getting more serious. I was laying next to Athena saying our prayers and the contractions were very intense.

I decided to take a bath to relax, but by 11:00 I wanted out of the tub. There wasn't really any relief. Brad called Allison, our midwife, and I told her that the contractions were around 5 minutes apart, but I was managing through them ok. After I got out of the tub, I had my music playing and I was relaxing on our bed. I was doing so great - I couldn't stop thining about how I'd make my students proud if they could have seen me relax through those contractions. My mom was wonderful timing the contractions with my app, as her and Brad took turns doing the double hip squeeze. By 11:30 however I lost control a little bit. I had a contraction that took me off guard because I felt the baby do some wierd move inside. Little did I know at that moment that my water had broken. That was a first time experiencing that. But sure enough as I got up to go to the bathroom, my water had ruptured for sure (I thought I had peed myself) :)

From there on things were painful. Not gonna lie, it hurt. Brad started filling the tub and called Allison to come on over, and he called Sarah to come over too (she so graciously offered her time to come and take photos of our birth). I think by midnight, Barb (the assistant midwife) had arrived along with Sarah. Barb and my mom were prepping all the things I should have had ready! (pregnancy brain again!?)

When Allison arrived she checked baby with the doppler while I was laboring over my bed. I think around 12:30 I decided to get into the tub. There I was in the middle of our house laboring for our third baby. It was so awesome be home, in a familiar surrounding not worrying about random nurses barging in to check this or that. No heplocks, no mandatory vaginal exams, most importantly NO pressure!

With Elijah and Athena I had a lip of cervix that I needed to push past. So to ease my mind I had Allison check to make sure that I wouldn't push and swell any cervix that could potentially be there. Sure enough there was none and I was complete around 12:45 or so (?) I can't really recall the timing at this point in labor

I remember gradually feeling that urge to push, but it wasn't overwheliming like I felt with Athena. Something just felt uneasy about pushing Leo. I was on my knees and my torso was draped over the edge of the tub and I slowly pushing against the contractions. Alison sugested I try a lunge position (or Captain Morgan style). I still felt a little hesitant for some reason.

Sure enough my pushes were making progress, but it definitely was taking a lot longer (the story of this whole labor story) than I thought! I could tell that he was moving down because while I was pushing in the tub on my knees I could reach inside to touch and feel his head descending. That was so cool - also a suggestion from Allison (something I’m sure a doctor would never suggest a mom to try).

At some point my pushes started feeling much more powerful and I could feel him start to descend and exit. I recall the “ring of fire” with my older kiddos. And no joke, it feels like an indian rug burn on your sensitive bits. The good part is, is that it’s typically short lived as you push past it and you get immediate relief with the whole head going past the stretched perinium. However, with Leo I had to wait during the ring of fire for another contraction to push. It was terrible. It was so hard to have the self control to not push through it, but it was best I didn’t. Allison asked me to stand up from the tub and sure enough she needed to help unravel the cord from around his neck - twice! It was such a fast moment, but God bless Allison, because she jumped into the pool to help rotate Leo out of his cord. My mom immediately unlooped the first loop of cord from his neck while Allison was chest deep in the pool with me preparing to unloop the rest of him.

Hinds sight, I feel that my hesitancy to push was because of the cord around his neck. God had his hand on Leo and me the whole time. I never felt uneasy at those moments.

Brad was supporting my body the whole time - it was hard to stand steadily in the pool because the bottom was inflated and made an unstable surface. Once Leo was completely born I sat back and could see how incredibly purple he was. I still didn’t feel worried. Allison was right next to us and monitoring every move he was making. Apparently he made all the right moves because he started to gasp for air and began breathing. He even let out a little cry  moments after he was born. I could see the look and tears of worry on Brad’s face. Maybe then I had a moment of fear, but in all honesty, I felt confident in God’s presence that early, early morning. 

Leo was born November 2nd at 1:11 am. I feel like this is just a rough draft of his birth story. I can’t capture all of my emoitions that go along with the words you see on the screen. I will probably continue to reflect on this amazing, miraculous experience and edit this story as it comes to me.

All I can say is that it was completely different having an unmedicated, non-intervention birth at home verus a unmeidcated, non-intervention birth at a hospital. He was born where he was created and grew in my womb. Our home was already full of love ready to receive him into our family. It was such a blessing to be able to fall asleep in my own bed, use my own bathroom and stare into the beauty of God’s blessing without annoying interruptions or unimportant requests from nursing staff.

So I know it’s a long story, but I want to remember each detail as much as I can. I am forever grateful for this experience and those who supported me.

Enjoy the pictures that Sarah took (thank you SO much for waking up and taking these in the middle of the night). Please check out her other photography work at her company’s website: Fresh Blend Media.

I put some of the photos together to one of the sweetest songs. Perfect for my Little Leo.
Just a disclaimer...there maybe some photos that may seem graphic to some people (however, I see them as miraculous).