Well...so much for blog consistency - September to March - let's just sum it up by saying I was pregnant and taking care of three small children. Anyway, I do want to share our newest addition's birth story while it is still fresh on the brain.
Willow Rejoice! Silvey joined us on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 9:06 p.m. She weighed in at a healthy 9 pounds 5 ounces and was 20 and 3/4 inches long. She'll be two weeks old tomorrow and has quickly found her place in our family.
As many of you know, we chose to homebirth with our 3rd baby (Benjamin) and had a great experience. We also chose homebirth for baby #4. We found out we were pregnant in July. I researched midwives again, and this time chose a mother-in-law / daughter-in-law team from Amarillo. We met for the first time in late August. We did all our our prenatal appointments in Amarillo, because our midwife was also pregnant (due in November). After a little bleeding early on, the pregnancy was pretty textbook.
The main difference came later in the pregnancy, when instead of delivering 2-3 weeks early like I've done with my other children - this one decided to she liked room service a little more and stayed in until 3 hours before her due date (thus the 9 lb 5 oz baby). About a week before Willow actually made her appearance she got us all excited with several hours worth of consistent contractions. The midwives made the trip from Amarillo to Perryton - and about the time they arrived the contractions mysteriously stopped - but we did find that I was dilated to between a 4 and 5. So we were on high alert for the next week.
The following Tuesday (March 10) I had a few (widely spaced) contractions in the afternoon. I called the midwives to let them know - and they were on standby. That evening around 6:30 p.m. Nolan (my husband) and I were on our way to Bible study. We had to drop our kids off at childcare and pick up some friends before heading to our host home (about 10 minutes in the country). I started having contractions that were immediately 4-5 minutes apart and about 30-45 seconds long. I timed them the entire time I was in the car. When we arrived at Bible study (at 7 p.m.), I called the midwives from the car and told them I thought this was the real deal - BUT I wanted to walk around for a few minutes to be sure the change in position didn't affect the contractions. After about 10 minutes I was sure and phoned them and said come on! They knew they needed to hurry. We stayed at Bible study for a few minutes - I didn't want to go home and just sit for several hours - but I quickly realized the contractions were getting stronger fast! So we left around 7:30 to pick up our kids and head home to get ready.
Nolan and I agreed not to tell the kids I was in labor so, hopefully, they would go to sleep sooner and let me do my work. The minute we walked in the door Nolan turned into "Army general man" - telling the kids to get their pj's on and get their heads on their pillows ASAP. Fortunately, none of the boys had napped that day, and sleep came quickly. Then Nolan went to work getting the birth supplies ready. For those of you who are curious about the mess...shower curtains and chux pads (like they use in the hospital) on the bed and floor take care of most of it. It's really not as messy as you may think.
Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch in the living room working through some pretty hard contractions. About 8:20 I told Nolan I needed to push - he said, "don't," and called the midwives. We found that they were still about an hour or more away, so I went to work on not pushing...not at all easy to do, by the way. Somewhere in there the midwives asked Nolan if we wanted to go to the hospital, or if he was comfortable delivering the baby if they didn't make it. Nolan said he didn't think we'd make it to the hospital...he said if I stood up that baby was coming out - so we stayed put - although I did move to the bedroom.
At this point everything gets a little blurry. I know I continued to try not to push and work through contractions. Nolan continued to talk to the midwives (who miraculously never lost cell phone service between Pampa and Perryton) - and try to make me as comfortable as possible. Suddenly baby got tired of waiting and out she came. I didn't push. Nolan said it took about 3 seconds from when he first saw the head until it was completely delivered. So, with cell phone on his shoulder, he checked to make sure the umbilical cord wasn't wrapped around her neck and told me to go ahead and push. And, that's how Willow joined our family - caught by her dad.
He immediately put her on my chest and got a towel to wrap her up. We thumped her feet to get her to cry and inflate her lunges, then we waited for the cord to stop pulsing and tied it off with dental floss and cut it - and then proceeded to deliver the placenta. Afterwards, I nursed her.
About 20-30 minutes after Willow arrived, our midwives came in - just in time to take care of all the clean-up and important stuff like weighing, measuring, bathing.... The next couple of hours were spent on these details. We wrapped things up around midnight - after our post-partum mother/daughter class - and went to bed.
What an adventure. Not exactly like we planned - but perfect none the less.
