Kalen's Story

We'd been talking for a little while about having another baby.  By talking I mean I kept saying, "Let's have another one." and Lee kept saying, "Why?  We're finally at the point where he goes to the bathroom by himself and he dresses himself ... I don't want to change diapers again."  He finally agreed and we decided we'd start trying in August and see what happened.

This was probably not the best time to get pregnant from a work standpoint.  The stress of starting a new school year can be intense and this was my first year to teach science rather than special education so there was a lot of new stuff.  I don't handle new stuff well even when I'm at my best. Plus, everybody knows it's harder to get pregnant when you're stressed, right?  Well, not for us apparently.  Just like with Conner, the first month we tried to get pregnant we got pregnant.  As Lee's dad likes to say, "Lee's boys can swim on command."  I shudder to think how many kids we'd have by now if we hadn't used birth control all these years.

I found out I was pregnant by peeing on the stick on Labor Day.  I didn't quite catch the slight irony there until later.  It would have been even funnier if I had gone into labor that day but what are you gonna do?  I knew that I wanted to go with a midwife again for this birth and I was kicking around the idea of having this baby at home.  After giving birth at the birth center last time, I realized that it was just having the baby in someone else's home.  Better than a hospital for me but still not quite what I wanted.

Of course, I did my research.  The statistics are good for low-risk pregnancies and midwife assisted home-births.  I wasn't crazy enough to try one of those planned solo births.  I timed how long it took to get to the nearest emergency room if the need arose (less than 10 minutes) and decided to start interviewing midwives.

I didn't really feel comfortable with the midwife I had used with Conner because of the whole not listening to my wishes during Conner's birth thing.  Plus she was a pretty fur piece away from our house and the traffic on 75 is brutal.  The final straw for me was when I went in for my 6-week postpartum followup appointment and she thought my name was Jo-Anne.  Not really the kind of personal experience you expect from a midwife.

I prayed about it and decided to try a birth center in Garland that was much closer to my house.  I checked out their website first, of course, and found that they offered the option of  home birth.  They stated that they brought all of the equipment  to your house that you'd have access to at the birthcenter.  I emailed them and made the appointment to go meet them and get a feel for the place and the people.  I instantly felt comfortable and at home.  I had found my new midwives.  Robin and Joyce were a gift from God.

I couldn't have been happier with the level of care and personal attention that I got from our new birth center.  We went ahead with plans for a home birth (incidentally two of my friends from church were pregnant at the same time and all three of us were able to have home births.)  Strangely enough, Robin and Joyce didn't seem to have a hard time remembering that my name was not Jo-Anne.

As my due date got closer, I was getting more and more miserable.  The baby was carrying all out front.  When I was 9 months pregnant you couldn't tell I was even preggo from the back. Needless to say, my lower back was yelling at me a lot.  Other than some low iron that I was able to bring up with more supplements and some extra spinach salads, everything was medically going well.  We found out we were having a little girl and decided to name her Kalen Elizabeth. Then the midwife started getting concerned about my blood pressure by early April and it was slowly getting higher with each appointment.  By the time we were two weeks away from my due date, she put my on modified bed-rest.

I had to stop working and be in bed for an hour in the morning and two hours every afternoon.  I followed the rules for about a week and my blood pressure was back down to safe levels.  Joyce said something like "I think you just needed to stay home."  I wanted to make some smart-alek crack about how she'd have high blood pressure, too, if she had to deal with my fourth period class but I think I refrained.  I don't remember for sure.  My filters were not working so well by then.

My parents flew into town about a week before I was due. I was a little paranoid about going out to eat with them after what happened when I went into labor with Conner but this time it didn't seem to matter.  I walked  as much as my poor aching feet could stand.  I massaged my ankles.  I ate spicy food.  Still no dice.  Four days before my due date my midwife stripped my membranes a little bit just to get things going if the baby was ready.  It seemed like had more energy that day but I was afraid to hope.  I walked as much as I could even when it was pouring down rain.  By walked I actually mean waddled but you get the drift.

At four o'clock the next morning a contraction woke me up and, of course, I immediately had to pee.  At this point in the pregnancy it took an act of congress and a battalion of the Army Corps of Engineers just to turn over in bed so the idea of actually getting up was a huge undertaking.  I levered myself off the mattress and onto my only slightly swollen feet only to feel that same tearing/breaking feel and the trickle of warm water I had felt with Conner's birth.  I waddled my way to the bathroom as quickly as my enormous stomach and complaining bladder would allow. Once the bladder was silenced, I grabbed my cell phone and called my midwife from the bathroom.

"I don't know what you did to me in your office yesterday but it worked.  My water just broke."

"Your kidding."  she replied.  "I'm here in the birth center with a first-time mom who just went into labor, too."

I told her not to worry about it for a while.  I was doing okay and my contractions weren't bad yet.  She said to call back when they got strong and closer together.  I walked around the bathroom a bit and then hobbled out to the garage to turn up the hot water heater for the birthing tub.  (I was planning to try a water birth.)  Nobody else was awake yet because I just didn't see the point in waking them up when there wasn't really anything they could do anyway.  I wandered back to do some more walking back and forth in our bathroom with easy to clean floors.

About 5 o'clock the contractions got bad enough that I had to stop walking and breathe through them.  I called the midwife back and told her they were starting to get stronger and I was going to need her soon.  I woke up Lee and he got up and got dressed.  It was all so very calm.  Nothing like the racing around and backing the family car over garbage cans to race to the hospital that you see on commercials.

At about 5:45 Joyce arrived with all of the "stuff."  She checked my progress and I was about 5 cm.  My contractions got bad enough that I had to really concentrate.    Fifteen minutes later they got bad enough that I couldn't concentrate.  I remember some part of my brain thinking how fast this was going.  I barely had time to catch my breath between contractions before another one would start.  When I was in labor with Conner I was able to go to my place where pain was the calm ocean and I was floating on top.  When I was in labor with Kalen the pain was a tsunami that pounded me into a coral reef and stole my breath and I didn't know which way was up.  Then my poor unsuspecting husband walked up to me and touched my back right in the middle of the pain-tsunami.  I kept my voice as level as I could and ground out, "Don't touch me please."  He took the hint and walked away.

While I was being pounded into the bottom of the pain ocean, my mom and Lee were trying to get the birthing tub blown up and lined and filled up with warm water while Joyce got out all of her midwife stuff.  Mom and Lee kept arguing about the best way to get the tub blown up and I was about to let loose with a whole string of cuss words about how I didn't care how it was done as long as it was done NOW.  Luckily for them the tsunami still had all my breath so I couldn't really yell at anybody right then.

They finally got it blown up and I climbed right in while they were still filling it with water.  I was still wearing the tee shirt I had worn to bed and I didn't even care.  I remembered the instant relief I felt in the warm water when I was in labor with Conner and I had been really looking forward to it.  Kalen had taken after her brother and was sunny-side-up as well and I wasn't looking forward to that pushing experience again.  One top of all that, the back labor was not much fun.  I did feel better pretty quickly and the tub got filled up quicker with me in it.  That's displacement at work, folks.

I got about 10 minutes of relief before the contractions started coming faster until they were right on top of each other.  With one contraction I felt Kalen turn a little bit and with the next she turn all the way so she was faceing the correct way (anterior?  posterior?  I can never remember which one it's supposed to be.)  I don't know how I knew that but I just did.

With the next contraction I felt instantly like I MUST push.  There was no pushing "urge" or thinking I might need to push.  My body just did it.  It was completely involuntary - like a sneeze.  Joyce tried to tell me to slow down so I didn't tear and all I could do was scream, "I CAN'T."  I tried really hard to pant and blow and all that junk and my body just refused.  I'm not sure how long I pushed but it seemed like only 5 or 10 minutes before I had her in my arms.  My 9-pound 8-ounce baby girl came in a grand total of two and a half hours.

Having her at home was the best thing ever.  It didn't feel like a medical event.  It was a family event and she was welcomed into her family and her home at the same time.  I realize this wouldn't be the best thing for everybody and some people probably should not do it this way if there are problems with the pregnancy and what-not but I'm so happy that we were blessed with this experience.  (The fact that it only took 2 and half hours doesn't suck, either.)