Spencer's Birth Story

After those last days of trying my hardest to push away the heightening anticipation of Spencer's arrival, he finally arrived two weeks ago today! Now those days seem so far away. It's amazing how quickly the tables turn. Your life seems to be building up to one particular moment for so long and then all of a sudden you're on the other side of that moment and it's like life has never been any different.

Here is the last "belly picture" I took before his arrival and I only thought about it because my parents had requested one. The difference between the first and the fourth kid I guess. This was just a couple of days prior to his birthday.

Well, for all of you birth story enthusiasts and for my posterity, here is the story if you so wish to read it. Fair warning: it's probably going to be long.

I woke up on Monday morning with that "my due date was yesterday and now I'm just depressed that he's not here yet" feeling. I was also nervous because the days were counting down to when Jayce was going to fly to GA to go house hunting and I wanted Spencer here at least a couple of days before he left. A simple thing to hope for, right?

I knew that I had to get out of my funk or else the whole week might possibly drag by depressingly, so I resolved to go for a walk. A three mile walk. Just me and some General Conference talks. *Dreamy* I needed the reflective alone time.

I listened to "A Child's Guiding Gift" by Mary R. Durham first because it was one I had starred to go back to during that session of Conference. (I star the ones that I hear intriguing snippets from but don't get to fully pay attention to because there's no "off" switch for being a mom during conference :-).) It was great. It got me outside of the "my purpose in life right now is to birth this baby" thoughts and got me thinking harder about my other sweet boys. Then I listened to Elder Holland's from October Conference, "Behold Thy Mother" because I just knew I needed a warm fuzzy emotional mother talk. It did the trick.

I came back from the walk having decided to leave it in the Lord's hands and stop worrying about it. Deep down I knew that I had finally made the mental switch He was waiting for. I had also had the thought on my walk that I should enlist Jayce's help in getting Spencer to face the right way. He had been head down for a while, but I could tell from where I was feeling him push against my belly that he was facing front instead of facing my spine. (Babies are supposed to come out head down facing your back.) When I had that thought on my walk I knew that was what was holding Spencer up. Blessings for finally getting my head in the right place!

The day went by casually and enjoyably. We spent some time in the backyard with the boys and I got on my hands and knees on the lounge chair and had Jayce manipulate my belly to try to encourage Spence to turn. I can only imagine how weird we would have looked to on-lookers, feel free to laugh at me just imagining the scene. But hey, when you're over 40 weeks pregnant you just go with it!

I took this picture at some point while we were out there. It's perfect for how I felt all day. Calm and peaceful.

We got into bed that night and started watching some episodes of our latest show, Person of Interest. Like any other day I had had contractions off and on all day and like most nights lately I was having some fairly consistent and powerful contractions while we were watching. Around 10:30 we decided to watch a third episode to see what the contractions would do and I started timing them on my phone because they were getting more crampy feeling. I think we decided to go to bed around midnight.

We turned off the light and thought we'd fall asleep and see what happened. Jayce fell asleep quickly, but I never did because things continued to progress. I lay down and listened to some calming stuff for the next thirty minutes until I needed to take the contractions standing up and moving around. I walked around in the basement and then when things got to the point that I needed to stop and focus really hard during each contraction I woke Jayce up (around 1:00 a.m.) and told him we would need to go to the hospital in the next thirty minutes or so.

Jayce got stuff together and then we were off. I texted my parents first because I promised I'd let them know when we were going to the hospital no matter the time. By this time I couldn't talk or do anything useful during the contractions. 

We got into a triage room in the hospital at 2:00 where we found out I was already dilated to a 6. This was encouraging, because at this point my resolve was starting to crumble and I knew my only hope was to go fast. And go fast I did! 10 minutes later I was at a 7. Jayce took over as far as answering questions and signing paperwork for the nurses. I had asked the nurse to fill the tub thinking it would be nice to get in, but I never ended up using it. It took too long to fill up and I got to the point where laying on the bed seemed better than standing up and not long after laying down I hit transition.

I started to get the urge to push which seemed weird to me since my water hadn't even broken yet. When the nurse would checked me she'd say, "Oh yeah, you've got a bulgy bag," (sounds charming, right?) in reference to my water. She said that as soon as my water broke she thought the baby would follow shortly which was music to my ears. So, with the contractions coming often and strong and feeling the need to push, I just went ahead and pushed!

Now this is Jayce's favorite part of the story so I'll try to do it justice for his sake. The nurse had checked me when I said that I felt like I needed to push and then she kept a close eye on me for the next couple of minutes knowing that things could happen pretty quickly at this point. She came around for a look and BOOM my water broke and nailed her right in the gut. All over her shirt. It shot out with projectile force guys. Gross. Poor nice nurse. This is also where you need to insert Jayce's slow motion reenactment of how the nurse looked on impact and where he usually says that he thought she was going to be knocked off her feet. So mortifying!

So everyone else was having a good laugh at this point and I was feeling like I might just die right there in the hospital bed. The only thing I could think about at this point was that there was no turning back and the only way through this was to actually go through it. Survival lay on the other side of delivery and I just had to labor through getting there.

As the nurse predicted, things moved quickly after my water broke. The doctor came in somewhere around there and as he was putting gloves on the nurse told him that the baby was crowning in an effort to move him along faster and he just looked at her and said, "Well, keep it in," as he casually put his gloves on. Jayce told me that part later, I'm so glad I didn't hear him in the moment. :-) He was actually really nice and motivating during the pushing. My midwife got there half way through pushing, so he backed out and let her do her thing. 

I wish I had her sooner because she started coaching me with breathing, but at this point it was too much to take in and I was just trying to push and get through it. I tried to do what she was telling me, but it was too hard to focus on something other than what my body was feeling. Maybe I wouldn't have torn if I had been breathing through it better earlier. Who knows? 

Anyways, an hour and 23 minutes after arriving at the hospital Spencer came out and I've never felt such a rush of relief. Victory. I had done it, I was immediately holding him in my arms and he had dark hair like I had been imagining for months and it was wonderful. He looked just as I'd dreamed, although a little heavier. :-)

So, after telling inquiring relatives the story I noticed I was getting the same reaction: "Whoa! You're Wonder Woman! I can't believe you did it naturally!!" shortly followed by, "So, why did you do it??"

Addressing the Wonder Woman comments, I can assure you I felt like anything but Wonder Woman laying on that bed. The pain had the reigns and I did not my friends. I was not in control the way I had hoped to be. It was fast and furious and the wildest experience of my life. If you're imagining me sneezing Spencer out with rainbows and butterflies all around my bed, think again! It was crazy, but it has been really interesting for me to look back at the experience and learn about myself. I wouldn't trade it. But for reals, I'm no where near Xena Warrior Princess status guys. Just wanted to get that in the clear!

Now for the, "Why did you want to do a 'natural birth'??" I had been interested in it since I was pregnant with Cameron, but it was never really a great time for me to explore it much until this pregnancy. I had learned from my sister's experiences and as I started looking more and more into it I decided that this was the time. 

It was never about the medal. My friend had a doctor who upon hearing her desire to do an unmedicated birth said, "You know you don't get a medal, right?" First off, rude. Secondly, no kidding! I kept my desires pretty private because I didn't want people to get that impression.

I learn a lot by experience. Experiences are a huge part of our time on the earth. We have these amazing bodies that can feel and do so much, and I just had a desire to experience childbirth without an epidural. I knew it would teach me about myself. Plus, my epidural experience with Cameron wasn't the carefree experience some mom's I know experienced with their epidurals, so I was just open to alternatives.

The deciding factor was this blog post I read last fall: 

http://bostonshumways.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-i-love-childbirth.html

The two parts of the post that I resonated with most were these:

"I love it that childbirth connects me with all birthing mothers throughout all of space and time. I know that sounds pretty new agey and maybe a little strange, but it is a real connection. I remember before Hazel was born wanting so much to experience what my grandmothers and great grandmothers experienced...to connect with that great power of motherhood."

And then this poem she referenced in the post:

Birth is not only about making babies. 

Birth is about making mothers ~ 

strong, competent, capable mothers who 

trust themselves and know their inner strength. 

- Barbara Katz Rothmans

I read those things in that post and I was sold. I wanted to experience it for myself. 

The bottom line is that any way a baby comes into the world is a miraculous and amazing thing. I'm really glad that I was able to have this experience this time around. Who knows what will be next?!