David Ryan's Birth Story by Mom

I was due on 12/13/09 and had my 40 week appointment on 12/15. One of the midwife interns checked me and I was not dilating at all, but 50% effaced, exactly as the week before. Midwife Joan suggested that I come back on Friday (12/18) to be checked again and told me that I needed to schedule an ultrasound and non-stress test for the baby for the following Monday. On Friday midwife Bobby checked me and I was 2cm! I was thrilled to have made that much progress in a couple of days with no contractions.

The next evening I noticed that I was having some minor discomfort, but I attributed it to pregnancy induced intestinal discomfort. I was 41 weeks on 12/20, it was also Robert’s birthday, I was kind of hoping that David wouldn’t arrive that day so that they could each have their own special day, and while I think Robert was thinking the same thing, he also didn’t want me to have to do the tests on Monday, since if I didn’t pass those we wouldn’t be able to give birth at the birth center. He suggested that I try pumping to see if that would do anything, I had tried this several times before, obviously with no results. So just before 9am I pumped for 10 min, during which time I had 3 Braxton hicks contractions (which I’d been having for months) but I thought maybe they felt a little different. Shortly after that my mom and I headed for the barn to feed Little Guy. While there I had a couple of contractions that made me want to pause, but for whatever reason I still didn’t believe it. When I got home I told Robert and he handed me his ipod, on which he had a contraction application, so I started timing them. They were still quite mild, but surprisingly coming about 7 minutes apart. Around 11:30 we decided to call the midwife as I was starting to get uncomfortable, and they had told us at one point that we might want to head up when the contractions were as far as 10 min apart. I paged the on-call midwife, Bobby, and she called me within a few min, she told me that it sounded like I was still pretty early but she was at the birth center, so to head up and she would check me.

Robert packed up the car while I wandered around the house wondering what we were going to forget. We left around noon, by which time the contractions were starting to get stronger and I was starting to feel a little bit frantic about having a horrible ride to Taos (1.5hr drive). Robert had to sync his ipod since it didn’t have the “right” contraction program, this took way to long for me. The contractions got a bit stronger as we drove, by the time that we got there I was wanting Robert to not talk while I was having them. We arrived about 1:30pm and Bobby checked me, she said I was 3-4cm and it was still a bit early for her to admit me. There was another lady there laboring and we could hear her in the next room. From what we had been told they only have 2 people laboring at the same time a couple of times a year. I was glad that the room that I wanted was open, as that is the more popular of the two rooms.

We had planned all along to rent a hotel room if we got to Taos too early, but we felt like since it was the middle of the day and things were progressing that we didn’t need to do that. We decided to go look at some shops downtown, we drove to a park and started walking down the sidewalk, after crossing a couple of streets I told Robert I didn’t think I could do that and that we should head back to the park, so back we went. We started walking around the park and the contractions were getting stronger. I started wondering what I was thinking deciding to go to the birth center where I couldn’t get pain meds, since this was just the beginning and it was going to get sooo much worse. As we walked an older Hispanic guy came up to us and asked if we would be having the baby soon (I was obviously in some pain), when we told him yes he asked if he could pray for us, though not my thing I told him yes. He did that and left then I promptly turned around and threw up everything that was left of my breakfast burrito that Robert had made that morning. I knew that throwing up was common late in labor, but I wasn’t expecting it so early. After finding the bathroom I told Robert I wanted to head back to somewhere close to the birth center, since I didn’t think riding in the car was going to be fun, and was just going to get worse, I was right. We parked just down the street and I walked around the parking lot of the public health center for a little while. I asked Robert to call the midwife and ask if we could come back. I was really getting scared of what was to come and if I would be able to handle it, luckily it never did get more painful. We got back to the birth center at about 3:30pm and I was almost 5, I was so happy that I was going to get to stay. They got out the birthing ball for me and I sat on that for a bit while Robert unloaded the car, we brought so much stuff. They checked my blood pressure and decided it was a little high, I was asked to lay on my left side on the bed for a bit and see if it would come down. I was worried about laying down since I wouldn’t be able to move through the contraction and I expected that would make them hurt more. I was told to try not to tense my muscles and relax, sounded hard, but it worked. Robert sat in the chair behind me with his hand on my side and I was able to just close my eyes and breath, it actually ended up being more comfortable than standing up. After laying there for a while my blood pressure went down and I was told that I could get up again, I didn’t really want to, but knew that I would progress faster upright.

I was getting pretty dehydrated, the midwives had me down a big bottle of water, but that still wasn’t enough. They decided that I needed an IV, this had been one of the things that I had really hoped to avoid by not being in the hospital, but I trusted them so said okay. They put the IV in my hand and hooked me up to some saline. It was funny to watch the IV drip faster or slower depending on how I flexed my wrist, and it didn’t bother me nearly as much as I had thought it would. Because the IV was just saline I still needed to eat, not much was sounding good. Robert gave me some yogurt and applesauce, I also had a string cheese, which oddly tasted like the saltiest thing I’d ever had. We had brought a lot of food, I was also able to eat a few cheez-its, but nothing really sounded good and I had thrown up again after getting to the birth center. Eventually one of the interns was even feeding me ice cream so that I could keep up my energy, how many people can say that they have been force fed ice cream? At some point it was suggested that I do some squats to help bring the baby down lower, Robert had to support me as I sat down on a short stool, which was not fun for either of us, and I think we only did it twice. Mostly I just walked around the room or swayed through contractions. If I had a really strong contraction the next one was almost always relatively mild, Robert started calling them aftershocks. Bobby checked me at 6:45pm and I was 8 cm, she seemed quite surprised that I had progressed that far. She said that she could break my water if I wanted, but I preferred to wait and she thought that was just fine. I was excited that I was in transition and the pain was still bearable. I asked to try the bathtub, since if I waited much longer I wouldn’t have the chance. The tub was filled and they suggested that I kneel on a towel to keep gravity working and open up my hips. The water helped the pain in my abdomen, but made me feel the contractions in my back more, that might have been because my back wasn’t in the water as much, I’m not sure. I was surprised that the water didn’t help more since I had heard such great things. I decided not to stay in too long, my last contraction in the tub I felt my body pushing just a little. I got out and managed to changed in to a dry shirt without disconnecting the IV. Not to long after my water broke, I didn’t feel anything specific, but I knew it had happened and I moved to stand over an absorbent pad on the floor, the water was just dripping a bit, so it must have just been a small tear that was leaking. After several more contractions I had one where I could feel my entire body pushing without an conscious effort on my part. I told Bobby and she said that I could start pushing, but I wanted to make sure I was complete, she checked me and sure enough, 10cm! At this point my contractions really spread out, our bodies are amazing, that was a natural way to give me a little break.

At about 8:15 midwives setup to help me push and decided that I should start in the squatting position which is the position I had pictured delivering in. Robert sat behind me and I put my arms over his legs. I was really surprised that the contractions pretty much stopped hurting at this point; I just had an overwhelming urge to push. I pushed like that for a while then on the bed laying down and on all fours then went back to squatting. Shortly after I started to push my water really broke, I must have only had a small leak earlier because it seemed to explode like a water balloon. I was able to reach down feel his head coming down, which felt much more squishy than I would have expected. They then got a mirror and let us watch him coming, Robert seemed to enjoy watching which really surprised me. I wasn’t really able to watch him coming down, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open while pushing. Bobby asked Robert if he was going to want to catch the baby and he said maybe if I didn’t need him, which surprised me, since I’m pretty sure up until this point that wasn’t something he wanted to do.

While pushing my IV popped out of my hand and started spraying everywhere, good thing that I was almost done and they didn’t have to reinsert it. While I was pushing Bobby kept telling me to push through a “tight spot,” her showing me (or maybe stretching) that area was really the most painful part of pushing. When the backup midwife and the other two interns came in we knew we were getting close. We were told that the second midwife’s daughter was really good at taking pictures, so she came in as well. She was 13yrs old and I think that this was the 14th birth she had attended, she has plans to become a midwife as well. Pushing was really hard work, it is hard to explain, but it really took all of my strength. Bobby told me to push gently which I knew meant he was close. I felt some burning and Robert says that I said “oww,” I felt like I must have said it loudly, but I’m told otherwise. That was David’s head coming out, but I didn’t realize it until Bobby asked if I was ready to deliver the rest of the baby. On the next push she told me to reach down and catch the baby, I did with one hand, and Bobby helped bring him to my chest. He was born at 9:24pm after about 1.5 hours of pushing. Though it took him a few moments to cry I could tell that he was breathing and doing fine. We had decided to bank David’s cord blood so the umbilical cord was clamped almost right away and I had to move to the bed so that they could collect the cells. They did that then allowed Robert to cut the cord, another thing he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do, I was holding David the entire time. I was bleeding a lot and I ended up getting two shots of pitocin and one of another medication to stop the bleeding. It took almost an hour for David to be interested in feeding, but he did nurse for a while once he figured it out. Once he was done Robert and I had our dinner then they did the newborn exam. They weighed and measured David, he was 8lbs 6.5oz and 21.5” long, bigger than everyone guessed. He had his footprints taken and checked out totally normal for 41 weeks gestation. David had his vitamin K shot and eye antibiotic and I had to get 4 stitches. There were several comments on how I didn’t make a sound during labor and I seem to have earned the title of “stealthy birther.”

We were very happy that they were going to allow us to stay the night as we were both exhausted and driving back didn’t sound like fun, plus this way we could have our day 1 exam before heading home in the morning. Both Bobby and Dara stayed the night at the birth center as well. We didn’t want to co-sleep so fashioned a bassinet out of the changing table that they had (it had rails so we felt it was safe) and went to sleep. I didn’t sleep well, I kept waking up to check on David, I tried nursing a couple of times and he didn’t want to wake up, after several hours I had Robert go ask Bobby about David eating and she told us it was normal for him to sleep a long time his first night, and sure enough in the morning he happily nursed. We had our exams in the morning and about 8:30 were ready to head home and start our new lives as a family of three.