The Unassisted Birth of Liam Joseph

Things went quite smoothly and fast.

Early Friday morning I tried the caster oil. The bottle said to take it on an empty stomach so I took it first thing in the morning, which was probably a mistake but it definitely started to cleaned me out within about 3 hours after I took the dang stuff. It made me really sick to my stomach as well so I just concentrated on a liquid diet after that. I didn't throw up but was nauseous and I just napped on the couch throughout the day.

I kept DH up to date throughout the day but by days end we thought that nothing would come of the caster oil other than me being cleaned out. Blech! I was still about 7 cm and 90% effaced. But lo and behold we were a little wrong on the nothing happening part.

My water broke at about 1:25am while dh and I were watching "What Not to Wear", LOL. Amniotic fluid is something one wants to wear (*wink*) unless one wants to birth!

Hard contractions didn't come on for about another hour or more. I posted on a board or two about my water breaking when the computer allowed me to, as this dang worm keeps us on our toes.

After my water had broken my husband started running around gathering all of the birth supplies and took great care of me by doing just about everything I asked of him.

The best part about having your water break in the middle of the night when doing a planned home birth is that the kids are asleep and out of the way, LOL.

After I was done with getting kicked offline several times I decided to do a few small things as the contractions were starting to get stronger. I had a lot of back labor which made me fear a posterior baby and a long L&D. I kept on top of urination and kept kind of waiting for the BM urge but figured that the caster oil probably took care of that problem earlier in the morning, LOL.

After several hard contractions I had dh check the position and the station of the baby's head and to make sure I was complete, which I was, and to also do a quick doppler scan of the baby's heart beat. The baby's head dropped significantly as well. I had him start filling the tub up while I labored on the toilet which was at the time the most comfortable position. ( I think I needed a birthing stool )

Once the tub was filled I got in and just let the water do it's job of being my pain med. While in the tub and laboring I was also making the decision on where to actually birth. The last time I birthed UC I was in our bath tub but I found that later I kind of regretted birthing in the tub for the fact that it was too small and the physical maneuvering I had to do to allow my husband to 1 catch properly and 2 so my tailbone didn't HURT was more pain than I was willing to go through again. I remember coming out of that birth feeling like I was in a car accident.

Every muscle had hurt in my body. I needed a chiropractor to seriously readjust me from my contortionist act from that birth, I was just that out of alignment.

Anyway, I decided to birth out in the living room even though I knew that the water would feel better as far as pain management during the birth. I had Joe keep all of the birthing supplies out in the living room and had him set up the plastic sheets and as many clean towels as possible.

When I felt like the labor had progressed to it's maximum and that birth would be soon, I decided to move from the bathroom to the living room, even though I really wanted to labor more in the tub.

**The odd thing about most of this labor is that I wished I had at least one more person there with us. Last time I had my best friend Sue Ellen by my side and oddly enough because she was there with me last time she kept the conversation going and through talking it helped lessen a lot of the pain and made labor go by quicker. It gave my mind something else to think about which was nice. Joe and I, alone this time had a lot of silence between contractions. Men aren't great conversationalist to begin with and I am sure he was more focused on making sure everything was set up for the birth and that my pain was being managed well, and I am sure he wasn't trying to think of other things to talk to me about, like life and general news, LOL. So I kind of missed having a friend (besides my husband) by my side this time around. Almost for an instant made me want to wake one of the kids just for the distraction. Yikes, imagine that, roflol!**

So anyway, I felt like the birth would be soon and decided to move myself to the living room. With the assistance of Joe, I waddled my way out there and just knelt in front of the couch and labored a bit with the urge to push coming sporadically with each contraction.

Silly enough I held onto a reserved fear of having a BM while pushing which kept me from full heartedly pushing. I also kept remembering the pain associated with pushing and knowing that this birth was going to be a bit more painful being a land birth.

Still keeping a clam and clear mind I moaned and pushed as best I could to get through the contractions Joe was on top of each surge and rubbed my back in all the right places and kept up with the confidence talk telling me I could do this and that it would soon be over and such. I kept listening to my body and spirit as I made decisions that I wouldn't have normally made.

I decided to turn around and labor somewhat on my back, propped up on the base of the couch. We placed this "deflated" bean bag chair behind my back which was perfect for putting me in an about 90 angle.

With each contraction pain swept over me and instinctively my husband helped to counter each pain with some sort or rub and reminders. Again trying to keep my cool (yeah right, by this time I was losing control which I knew at the same time was a good thing) I grasped at anything I could to transfer the pain. I ended up with a hair brush in my left hand and a bunch of towels in the right as I squeezed them with each contraction, hoping to transfer as much pain to them and not to my "bottom".

I kept reminding myself in the back of my head that it was close and that I needed to "open up" and "let go" of my fears. I reminded myself over and over that I was going to have a BM no matter what and I had to remind myself that I was pretty much cleaned out from earlier and that it was only my DH so I shouldn't be embarrassed and such. Somehow this all worked out and I started to push more with each contraction and at the same time I started to "lose control". My legs were shaking constantly and Joe was right there massaging them and comforting me.

Now I wasn't really out of control but the body and mind do and say things you don't really mean and the more controlled part of me was more suppressed and not active (does this make sense?). I started vocalizing louder and soon started spouting things off like, "It hurts too much, I can't do this anymore" and as soon as I started to say these things the little switch in my head said hey I'm almost done! Woo-Hoo! and I started to push harder with each contraction not caring if I had any BM and such.

Soon I felt his little head starting to come out from under the pubic bone and starting to emerge. That ring of fire was but a brief moment and hardly noticed. Joe was right there letting me know everything that was happening. When I could I would squeak out some reminder instructions between pushing and contracting. I reminded him to guide the head out and ease my skin over the head. This sounds more straight-forward than what it really was, roflol, btw. Joe reached down and helped but he too was trying to remind me to slow down with the pushing and to try to breath through some contractions while he check for a cord, but I wasn't as good of a listener. In my mind I did this but my body and "second" mind did other things. I panted maybe twice before pushing again not giving Joe enough time to check for the cord but there wasn't one there anyway luckily. I soon felt the shoulder pop out and he slid right out into daddy's hands, and I quickly said "Oh that feels much better!"

Joe held the baby and was wiping it down and getting a towel to put on me so he could put the baby onto me. The cord was fairly short and oddly enough we still hadn't looked to see what the baby was yet. Joe got the baby onto my chest quickly and we started to rub "it" down and coax "it" to cry some once it let out a squeak or two I asked if it was a girl and to both of our surprise there was a little penis in between this baby's legs. Shocked and
stunned and thrilled all at the same time I was ecstatic of having a baby boy in my arms.

I kept saying "I knew it!" My dreams kept telling me it was a boy but I wouldn't listen. After several minutes of looking the baby over I asked what time it was and we both looked over at the clock and read 4:14am and we knew that he had been out for several minutes, as we decided on the time he was really born 2 minutes had passed and we decided to half it and made the birth time of 4:08am. We knew I hadn't birthed prior to 4am because we had both looked over at the clock before he was born and it was past 4 at those times.

At about 4:20ish we woke the girls up to meet their new brother. We didn't plan on waking Mason up but he woke up anyway's, LOL. He came out and was just in love with the baby. Pointing at him and saying "baby" over and over. Each sibling gave the baby hugs and kisses and while we hadn't "cleaned up much" they kept asking questions about the "mess" and making little amusing comments like "Mommy your belly is empty now" and "No more baby in your tummy."

With the cord being short and all I just sat there and mused along with the kids over this new addition to our family. We kept correcting the girls when they used the wrong pronoun and we had difficulty in deciding on a name (still don't have one) we kept saying brother and baby and boy. Rachel called him "little fellow" which is quite funny coming out of a 3 yo mouth, LOL.

We all baby mooned over him and Joe started to clean up some of the mess. We waited for the cord to stop pulsing and then we waited for it to go as white as possible before we clamped and cut the cord which was around 5:30am-ish.

Finally free I handed the baby boy off to daddy so I could birth the placenta. I kept having hard painful contractions. I took the placenta bowl into the bathroom with me and squatted over it and pushed with each painful contraction, which seemed just as painful as the birth ones. With there not being much progress with the couple of contractions, I decided to give the cord some traction, so I pulled and pushed at the same time and soon out came the placenta and the amount of relief I felt was so . . .well. . ."ahhhhh" I felt a lot better. Later I checked myself out and I have one little skid mark and tore only slightly. It wasn't painful to use the bathroom so we are letting it heal naturally.

I notified Joe that the placenta was out and that I was hopping into the shower. He had all 4 kids out in the living room ooing and ahhing. I got all cleaned up and headed back out into the living room to be with my brood. Joe had gotten the baby a little more cleaned up. The baby was still wrapped in the blankets and towels.

I settled into the couch and had the girls fetch me an outfit for the baby and a hat. I reached over and grabbed a cloth diaper (Nanipoo's Red Farm print, so adorable and soft! www.nanipoo.com ) and we dressed the baby for the first time together. The baby and I had our first nursing session and Joe went in and checked the placenta out to make sure it was all intact and it was. I later placed it into a Ziploc bag so we can plant it later in my sisters garden.

All "night" (it was really morning by now) long we kept trying to come up with names but nothing seems to fit him yet. We sent the kids back to bed about 6am and Joe and I sat in the cleaned up living room with our new "surprise" addition. Joe held the baby and fell asleep, and I logged back online and notified a couple board of our baby's arrival. I was pumped with adrenaline and couldn't sleep.

I am absolutely thrilled with having a second boy, Liam Joseph Morales!

Liam means = Determined Protector
Joseph means = The Lord's addition (to the family)
(we found the meanings on a website when we were looking for names)

 

 

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