Adventures of The Bean: OBG Myles's Birth

Another installment in the oldie but goodie series. Figure I will just go in order. I'll warn you in advance that this is really long. You can skip to the bottom for the pictures if you want :)

As you all probably know, Myles was on his own timeline and went past his guessed arrival date. I had been having pretty regular contractions on and off for about two weeks, but they never progressed to active labor. I am sure almost all of you are surprised or were surprised to hear I had been having contractions for two weeks. Contractions like this are called prodromal labor and eventually progress to real labor, but there is no telling how long it will take. We knew that you were all anxious and excited to meet our baby and we didn't want to announce we were in labor until it was the real, get admitted to the hospital labor. Just waiting those extra two weeks past our guess date was enough to make a lot of people blow up my phone with texts and calls. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if we made the contractions public! So few people let their pregnancies go that far these days. The prodromal labor was both exciting and frustrating for us. We kept waiting and waiting to see if it would turn into something. We did a lot of walking those weeks. Thank goodness the weather was nice!

Finally Saturday night, September 8, it was time. We got admitted to the hospital around 6pm and I was thrilled to find that my favorite midwife was on that night and that another of our favorites would be coming on in the morning. We settled in for a night of labor. Jeff did wonderful distracting me, mostly with discussion of baby names, until the contractions got too bad and I didn't want to chat anymore. I sat in the shower for a while, sat on an exercise ball for a while, and ultimately was able to hit the tub. We spent the most of the rest of the night in the tub. Myles had his head cocked to the side, which caused me to have back labor and pretty severe contractions. Jeff was awesome, keeping the room warm, the water warm, offering me stuff to drink, and most of all pushing on my back during contractions. Apparently I had moments of being pretty funny in labor. I do remember telling Jeff that at least when this was all over I wouldn't have heartburn anymore. I had horrible heartburn all through the second part of my pregnancy.

Finally I got all the way dilated and it was time to push. Thanks to Myles's head position, pushing was a long process. Babies should tuck their chin and present the crown of their head. It's the smallest part and it makes it easier for them to find their way down. No matter what position I got in, or what we did, he refused to change his head position. This made it way harder for him to make his way down. I pushed for hours in lots of different positions, always making progress. Between his size and head position, it was just slow going. At least contractions don't hurt when you push!

Finally at 9:22 in the morning on Sunday September 9th, Myles made his appearance. Once his head and shoulders were out, I was able to reach down and help catch the rest of him and bring him up to my chest. He cried for a second and then looked around and checked everything out. Our midwife didn't announce gender, so I got to check him out and find out he was a boy. I got to cut the cord too. Jeff said that was the scariest moment of the whole thing for him. Me in a post birth haze with a large pair of scissors. He was more afraid for our midwife than for Myles! I didn't know it until later, but right as Myles landed on my chest, Jeff started taking pictures of him. These are amazing to look back on and see his adjustment to the outside world. He hardly cried, and quickly settled onto me.

The first words out of the nurse's mouth were that my dates had to be wrong, because Myles didn't look like he was 2 weeks overdue. I was certain my dates were correct (within a few days), so it just shows that some babies just need longer than others to cook.

We finally got moved to another room and were able to take a well deserved nap. Then Jeff went to a local Italian restaurant and brought back a delicious dinner. It was one of the best meals ever. We have to eat there again to see if it was really that good or if it only tasted so good after all that hard work.

We both pretty quickly decided that none of our favorite names fit him, so it took us a while to come up with one. Jeff suggested Myles that evening, but we didn't make it official until the next morning.

We only had to stay overnight, which was actually longer than I wanted to stay. With one exception, we didn't have any visitors, which was rough for all of you that wanted to come, but heavenly for us. The time to just rest and get to know Myles was priceless. Skin to skin time between mom and baby is so essential in those first days, so with no one but Jeff there, Myles and I just snuggled under blankets. The first time he wore anything besides a diaper or was when we were ready to be discharged.

While having no medications during labor was tough, I am so glad I went that route. It was an absolutely amazing, empower experience. I can't imagine not experiencing his whole birth. I am very grateful to my wonderful, supportive husband who helped make it possible. Our midwives, Heather and Audrey, were so supportive and wonderful as well. You could tell that they both truly believe in the natural process and that if given time and space, mom and baby can work the whole birth thing out.