Weston Matthew, Part 2

Part 2 — The Wait, Past Due —

So the “due date” came… and passed. It’s interesting that everyone assumes you want pregnancy to be over. I enjoy pregnancy and despite the extra effort it took to get out of bed, I was still enjoying this pregnancy even “past due.” While we didn’t make any trips across country or anything, we did take a few trips to the “big city” of Albany to go shopping and keep ourselves busy. The tub was set up, and all the supplies were neatly packed and labeled at our apartment for whenever the time came. The lack of stress and pressure was so nice… it was important to me to continue enjoying our family of four until this baby decided to turn us into a family of five.

At Chuck-E-Cheese’s around 40w2d. I rocked skee ball!

There were probably 5-6 days in a row where I woke up in the morning and was surprised that I hadn’t given birth while I was sleeping that night. It was the strangest feeling – like I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a baby and that I was still pregnant! It would take almost a full minute before I would snap out of it and really wake up and acknowledge that I still had a very pregnant belly! 🙂 Landon was eager to meet baby Table, too, and would talk to him. One day he even started asking Baby Table directly when he was going to come out and play with him!

I did do what I could to try to make my body ready for labor and birth. I knew the importance of having the baby in a good position, so I spent a lot of time doing the side-lying leg release and sitting on the birth ball. Having had a posterior labor and delivery with Landon, and then not with Carter, I was determined to do all I could to not have to deal with that during this labor!

🙂

It wasn’t until the end of Week 41 that anxiousness began to creep in. It was NOT because I was miserable being pregnant. But I began to fear that my hopes and plans for this birth were going to be taken away from me due to technicality of dates. Generally, 42 weeks is when you get induced. Being in those final days before this “deadline” was causing me stress and I couldn’t accept having at least a chance at the birth I had been planning for. An added stress was that I tested GBS positive during this pregnancy, after being negative with both Landon and Carter. Michael, myself, and our midwives had done lots and lots of research and reading and came to decisions for our homebirth that we were all comfortable with regarding the GBS, but I knew that if I ended up having to go to a hospital, this would be yet another thing that I would have to fight against and go up against policy.

I had well-meaning sympathy and suggestions, and I was trying to be careful not to misspeak about why it was important to me to be able to birth at home. It is not that I am against hospital birth at all – I have attended beautiful births in the hospital! But my wish for this birth was to have it home, intimate, and mother-led. Honestly, I wanted the option to deliver in the water more than anything else!! And it was against our hospital’s policy to deliver in the water. That might sound silly, but you’ll read more about how strongly I felt about this in the next part of Weston’s birth story!

My not-so-subtle facebook profile picture I put up to help avoid the questions!

During the last few days of pregnancy, I did what really needed to happen. I broke down and told Michael, my midwife, and my closest friends my fears and apprehensions. I didn’t want to lose control of this birth — anymore than we already don’t have control over any birth! A few great things happened: my husband calmed my crazy. No, really. It’s what he’s really, really, really good at doing. He has this amazing ability to take all the crazy that I have running through my head and put me at ease. I don’t know how he does it, but I’d be lost without it. My friend Lauren suggested I journal. I wrote in my journal all my crazy thoughts. I wrote to the baby, telling him I just wanted to be able to give him the best birth, and that I was scared about some things, but that it was safe out here and we were ready for him. I wrote about how much I love pregnancy and how I was afraid that I was keeping myself pregnant because I selfishly didn’t want it to be over yet. I wrote while taking my nightly bath; I wrote while bouncing on the birth ball; I wrote while using my breast pump! And gosh, journaling brought on stronger contractions than anything else I had done. It was amazing. And at my 41 week appointment, we discussed with our midwives our options. She reassured us that as long as mom and baby were healthy and happy, she has happy. And the 42 weeks was not a deadline – if we got there, all hope for my plans were not going to be thrown out. This was a huge relief – as was having the baby checked out and looking healthy! His head was nice and low, and he responded perfectly to a NST. I wrapped up a few lose ends I had for the babywearing group and took the boys to the park or for a treat whenever I could… More so than taking castor oil or driving on a bumpy road or whatever other “induction ideas” there are, these are the things that I needed to do to “make labor start.”

I wrapped my belly in this wrap, natibaby “Haven” which is dedicated to homebirth, waterbirth, and midwifery. Wrapping felt amazing, and was comforting to wrap and enjoy my belly for however many more days he would be inside.

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Weston Matthew’s Birth Story, Part 1

Weston Matthew’s Birth Story, Part 1

We found out that baby number three was in fact baby boy number three accidentally at the dating ultrasound. Turns out I was already around fifteen weeks at the first ultrasound when we got moved back to Vermont. Shortly after, I also found out that homebirth would be an option for me and I was thrilled because I had been a bit apprehensive about the homebirth situation living in North Dakota. I had even seriously considered what would be involved to deliver back in Lynchburg, Virginia at “home” with my midwife from Carter’s pregnancy. Had it logistically been simple, I probably would have done it… but with two other small children at home it wasn’t that simple. And I was relieved to finally find peace with a care provider and birth plan that was what I wanted.

Landon and Carter loving on baby “Table”

A note about Baby Table — When we told Landon that he was going to have another baby, he was excited. But he was also adamant that this new baby was going to be a “tiny Carter.” He didn’t want a different new baby, he just wanted another, tiny-version of Carter 🙂 However, after seeing the ultrasound picture, he must have realized that this baby was in fact going to be different from Carter and began calling him “Table.” If you asked him what we were going to name the baby, he immediately would reply with “Table.” Any conversation about the new baby would refer to him as Table. Apparently in the ultrasound picture, he looked like a table, though I still haven’t been able to figure out exactly where he got that from! But up until the day of delivery, it was Baby Table in mommy’s belly (and even now Landon is convinced that his middle name should be Table).

I spent most of this pregnancy trying to keep busy to pass time as Michael was living thousands of miles away in North Dakota. Fortunately Landon and Carter kept me on the go – and I got involved in lots of local “mom” stuff to fill my days. I felt better the busier I was, and this stayed true through the entire pregnancy. I was fortunate to feel really pretty great for most of all of my pregnancies, and the biggest struggle with this one was that it seemed the boys and I were constantly dealing with some sort of cold or stomach bug – without Daddy home to help.

They kept me busy!

Babywearing meet ups were a fun distraction!

The “plan” was for Michael to be back in Vermont by first week of March, 2-3 weeks before my “due date.” Maybe it was all of the extra demands on my body, but in mid-February, I felt the baby drop and engage in my pelvis. I knew that since this was baby #3, it didn’t mean anything for certain… other than a lot of discomfort! But I felt I needed to tell Michael. A few days of no change in the baby’s position and I got a surprise phone call from Michael one day that he was leaving to move back – early! Ah relief! Once he was back, he took on a lot of the responsibilities I had had while he was gone… like carrying two sleeping kids up and down stairs and hauling loads of groceries in from the car! And with that, baby decided to pop back up and stay put a bit longer. I was feeling great, though as the days passed I decided maybe Michael was helping out too much because I was feeling like I was never going to go into labor!

My due date had been calculated as either March 16 or March 18 – and conveniently my birthday is March 17. Michael thought it would be fitting if I ended up delivering on my birthday so I had to “share” my birthday like he always has, since he is a twin. The first birth I attended was actually when my dear friend gave birth on her birthday. So what the heck, that’d be cool… I’d be totally fine spending my birthday in labor! (Needless to say, my birthday came and went without any baby activity.) Although Michael did blow the birth tub up, just to be sure it was in working order, and it was a beautiful St Patrick’s Day green!

Setting up the birth tub!

Then, that night, ah!! I was feeling nauseous! Woohoo. Maybe this was labor… albeit not a fun way to do things, but hey, each birth is different. I vomited and felt terrible. I couldn’t tell if I was feeling contractions or stomach pains or a combination of both. It was terrible and I didn’t get any sleep that night. I was afraid to get up out of bed for fear that it would put me in labor and I just knew that I didn’t have the energy to go through labor in that condition. The next morning I got sick again and thought that maybe it was in fact just a terrible labor symptom and decided to call Jenn and Kalei to come check me out just to see what they thought. I was honestly relieved when they didn’t think it was a sign of imminent labor! I was sure that if it was labor, I wouldn’t have the energy to have the active labor that I wanted. We turned their visit into a prenatal and thought maybe we’d see some “real” activity soon but they suggested I spend the day resting up and feeling better. The boys were going to my in-laws for the day and it was a great opportunity to rest and prepare.

— Part 2 to follow —

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