Happy Birthday Leopold Walter!
Well, with a name like Leopold, I should have known that our
lovely little Loops would be a tad unorthodox. What a strange yet wonderful
journey his birth was.
It all began on Wednesday, September 26th with
noticeably stronger Braxton Hicks contractions that were coming for about 30
seconds at 15 minutes apart. As it seems is usually the case with BH, when I went to bed
for the night, they disappeared. On Thursday afternoon, the Braxton Hicks came
back, and settled into a pattern again. This time, however, when I sat down
after making and cleaning up dinner, they didn’t go away, and instead slowly
and surely lengthened in duration and increased in frequency. However, they did not, by any means, hurt. So
there I was, a “seasoned veteran” at birth, and feeling completely confused as
to whether my contractions were real or not. (I hesitate to endorse the notion of veteran status
since each birth has the potential to happen in a completely unexpected
way). Finally, Andy and I just decided
we had better get some sleep, just in case the contractions were to get stronger. It’s a
good thing we did, because even when I laid down for bed, the contractions didn’t
go away.
By 2:00am, after the contractions were strong enough to become uncomfortable
and even a little bit painful I decided to play it safe and make the call to my
mom, telling her she could hit the road. She had a seven-hour drive from Asheville ahead of her. Not
long after I called her, probably because having her on the way put me at ease
a little bit, I finally fell asleep for the night; my body just couldn’t stay
awake any longer. When I woke up in the morning, it took a while for the contractions
to start back up again. This time, when they did, they were weaker again, so I officially
felt kind of silly for calling my mom, I had been duped by Leopold! At least I
thought I had…shortly before my mom arrived, they came back in earnest, and
these I had to concentrate a bit, and breathe through. They felt just like the contractions I had the
morning of the day Sebastian was born, so I felt confident Leopold would
be a September 28 baby.
I was still convinced, however, because of the irregularity of
said contractions, that Leopold and I would have a slow and steady
labor ahead of us. So I left the boys with Andy (my mom was almost there) and
headed off to get a much needed pedicure. It was pretty funny being able to
text my sister to tell her I was being a hick, and laboring in Wal-Mart (my
chosen pedicure spot), ha! When I got back home, things just became more
confusing. The contractions were still strong, but they were all over the
place. If I was sitting, they could be as long as 40 minutes apart or 10
minutes apart. If I was being active, they could be anywhere from 15 minutes
apart to 3 minutes apart, and were they ever strong! I could still breathe
through them and keep my calm, so I was determined, even when bedtime rolled
around, to wait for a more obvious and immediate pattern to emerge that would
signal the necessity for the trip to the hospital. Sleep was nearly impossible
on Friday night. At most I would get about 15 minutes of sleep before a
contraction would prod me to my hands and knees to rock through the pain…I
don’t even know if I really slept at all.
When Saturday (D-DAY)
arrived, I was determined to do whatever it took to get the contractions closer
together. I walked, I did squats, I sat on the ball, but the painful and
chaotic contractions never embraced the pattern of immediacy, the 4-1-1 or 5-1-1 rule you hear so much about. Four or five minutes apart, for one minute long, lasting for one hour. My midwife Blair, had instructed me earlier that it wasn't really a hard and fast rule for most moms who have already had babies anyways. Still, it was something to shoot for. Instead,
the contractions were doing funny things, like lasting for one and half minutes long,
anywhere from 11 minutes to three minutes apart. This went on all day. By the
afternoon the contractions were quite painful, I recognized them as the level of
pain I had when I had gone to the hospital to have Sebastian. Still, I felt
too silly to call the midwifery when they were so obviously not forming a discernible pattern. So instead I labored along for another three hours with my quirky contractions. It wasn’t until I looked up an exercise called curb
walking that a friend of mine recommended, Emily Willett (who happens to be a doula who also had a baby delivered by Blair), that the
contractions finally started to occur frequently enough, however
inconsistently, for me to call Blair and tell her what was going on. When
she spoke to me, she said she could understand how confused I must be, and that
if it would help, I could come in and get checked. I told her I would head in,
as at this point, I was exhausted, and at my wits end.
My abnormal contractions hadn't finished entertaining for the evening. Sitting down made them space out to about 25 minutes apart. So during the
non-stress test they plug you into when you get to DePaul hospital, I didn’t have
one contraction in the entire 20 minutes I was sitting there. The worst part
was, whenever that happened, and then I stood up, I endured a longer than usual mega contraction… I think Blair was surprised to find me at 5cm dilation considering my NST. She thought it best that I choose to stay
at the hospital and just not sit down. So, Andy and I began a journey of laps
around the labor and delivery of DePaul hospital, back and forth, round and
round, all the while iPad in hand to record the irregular contractions I was
having. An hour later when Blair came back to see how we were doing, she looked
at the contractions we had recorded, and sparks flew. She noticed that as odd
and unorthodox as the contractions seemed to be, they were, in fact forming a
pattern we hadn't recognized, but it was one she was familiar with. My really long and intense contractions
were being followed by shorter less intense contractions. This was a sign that
the baby’s head was not engaged fully, to progress labor in the proper pattern.
Instead, his head was canted a little to the side, because he had not tucked
his chin. If you’re interested in this
phenomenon, spinningbabies.com has some info on it…very interesting I think. Anyways,
she said that it was fixable if I was willing to endure some more pain during
contractions, and try some positioning techniques that should get him to tuck
his chin over a few rounds of contractions. First, however, we had to wait for
someone to clean up the room in the midwifery where we were hoping to have the
baby.
Therefore, we walked the halls some more, and I felt even more hopeful
that Leopold would arrive soon. She had
warned us that once the problem was fixed, I'm guessing because the amount of hormones and
everything else that had been trying to push this labor along against the
difficulties of his position, could mean a very intense, painful, and quick
labor. After two days of labor pains, of course I was up to the challenge; I just wanted
to see my little man. When our room was ready for us, I was relieved to walk into a dark, calming
environment, so different from that offered by the Naval hospital that had accommodated
my last two births. The bed was a queen
size, real bed, there was a Jacuzzi whirlpool, in case I wanted to labor in the
water, and the lights were down low. When Blair checked me again, she was
surprised to find me at 7 cm, since I had been laughing and joking with her intermittently
for the past couple of hours. Thanking God for my high pain tolerance!
To
encourage things further, she broke my water. At first she was
surprised to find clear fluid (since the labor had been so long) but there was
a little bit of meconium that came out when more of the water came. This meant
that I might not get much time to hold Leopold before the pediatrician would
have to suction him. Moreover, there would be no delayed cord clamping. All's well that ends well I suppose...and it did. Moving
on, Andy plugged in the iPad, and played some relaxing music I had prepared
ahead of time, and did an excellent job comforting me through the next stage of
labor, giving me back massages, and putting Argan oil on my hands for
aromatherapy. Blair wasn’t kidding about the pain my new labor positions
would put me through. For each contraction I had to hang onto Andy with my arms
around his neck, and place one leg at a 90 degree angle up onto a chair that
was off to my side. This was NOT a
comfortable position to labor in! As she had told me, one side would be
far worse than the other because of the angling of the baby’s head I think. I’m not
sure how long this went on, my guess would be for an hour or two. I could tell
I had moved into transition at some point and that the positioning had done its
job, because the contractions started to come very close together and were at
the point that I was making noise through all of them. The pressure was just
nonstop at this point as well. Finally, I reached a point where I felt the urge
to push was imminent, so I had the nurse retrieve Blair (or rather Andy
did).
She checked me again, and okay, that reallllly wasn’t comfortable
during a contraction! She said there was just a tiny lip that I could push
through on the next contraction if I wanted to. I couldn’t have stopped myself
either way. When I pushed, the lip went away, and I officially entered the
pushing stage of labor. The nurse left the room to gather the pediatrician and
baby’s nurse to prep the little station where he would be taken care of. Nothing
ever prepares a woman for the pushing stage of labor. At least not one like me,
whose babies don’t just slip out. (I’ve heard there are women this happens for).
The amount of force it seems to take to get that little body out is just not
something previous births can ever fully prepare you for. For me, it was all
new, like my memories of my other births were repressed by happy hormones and I had forgotten what I was about to enter into. The
ring of fire! After what seemed like an eternity, however, Leopold finally
emerged. Blair, my midwife, did some crazy dance-like move to unwrap his cord
and throw him up on top of me, in the hopes he might cry and not have to be
taken away to the Ped’s station. The first thing he did when he entered the
world? Pee on his mama! Everyone was pretty amused by his marking his territory. And I was quick to point out that the little stinker was 21 minutes late. Tsk tsk, Leopold!
While he was briefly
on my chest he didn’t really cry, but was coughing slightly, so Blair had to
make the rapid decision to clamp the cord and send him over for suctioning. He
started to cry before they began the suction, but they helped him out
a little by doing it anyways. Less gunk for him to cough up later. That newborn cry was so glorious! I couldn’t believe how strange and unexpected
the entire birth experience was for me this time around. You always have an
idea in your mind how your birth will go. Sebastian was pretty textbook, apart from me not knowing what I was doing and tearing a lot, he even
arrived on his due date, and Izaak, was so stubborn he had to be induced. I
should have known I couldn’t possibly know what to expect with Leopold. Even
Blair seemed to think it was a strange, albeit exciting, birth story, and
she’s delivered thousands of babies…six that same night! Ha! Well, there it is.
My long, drawn-out, detail-packed story of Leopold Walter’s birth. He was born
September 30th, 2012 at 12:21 am, delivered by Blair Conger at DePaul medical center. After our hour of bonding time, he weighed in at 8lbs, 8oz., and measured
19.5 inches long. The runt of the family, ha-ha! Happy Birthday Leopold!!!! You are a blessing and gift from God, and we are all so blessed to welcome you into our family!
