AMELIA'S BIRTH

Warning: This post will acknowledge the existence of things like poop and toilets.  I'm just warning you.

I'm having a hard time writing Amelia's birth story.  I keep trying to think of a way to make it heartwarming or sweet, but it really wasn't.  The pregnancy was long (42 weeks!), but the labor was crazy fast.  So before I delve into the nitty-gritty ugly details, let's pause and look at a picture of this sweet baby girl at 1 day old.

I love having a girl.  Ahhhh.

So... here are the events of March 22, 2011 -


1:00 p.m.. - My midwife, Justine, strips my membranes.  She warns that I will feel some cramping as a result.  She was right.  The cramping is immediate and without a start or stop.  However, it isn't anything that I can't tolerate, so I just continue about business as usual.

5:30 p.m. - I notice that the cramping isn't going away. I call Justine and she tells me that it isn't real labor until the contractions are each a minute long.

7:00 p.m. - The cramping begins to feel more like contractions, but they aren't lasting very long.  I time them during dinner (using my fancy iPhone contraction timing app!) and when we finish eating, I notice that they are consistently 4-5 minutes apart, but not a minute long, so I blow it off as cramping from the membrane stripping.

8:00 p.m. - My mom and Erik look at my contraction log and say, "You're going to have this baby!"  I yell, "No, I'm not.  You guys are stupid. Stop bothering me."  I go into my room to be alone.  They are really irritating me.

8:03 p.m. - Erik texts Justine:

"I don't think its full blown labor yet, but Cristin has been having shallow short contractions for the last hour.  She thinks they have stopped but judging by her irritability, I think she could easily be in full labor a little bit later tonight."

8:15 p.m. - Erik checks on me.  I'm sitting on my big birth ball and watching 30 Rock.   I adamantly tell him that the contractions have stopped, so please stop bothering me.


8:45 p.m. -  Erik comes into our room and threatens to call Justine if I don't. Reluctantly, I call Justine to tell her that Erik is freaking out, but I am fine.  She tells me to lay down.  She says that if the cramping doesn't go away, to call her back.  I lay on my bed and after about 10 minutes, the "cramping" becomes really intense.  In the meantime, Erik starts setting up the Aquadoula (the tub), but I tell him not to fill it with water yet because I'm not sure if this is the real thing.

9:36 p.m. - Erik texts Justine:

"I'm setting up the tub, but not filling it yet, just in case, ya know, the power of positive thinking."

9:45 p.m. - I call Justine to tell her that I think I might be in labor.  She says she will come to check.

9:50 p.m. - I start screaming at my Mom and Erik to fill up the tub now.  They are trying everything they can to do it, but there isn't any hot water left.  Erik starts bringing candles in the room and I tell him he's stupid.

10:00 p.m. - I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, screaming that I want to get into the tub now and moaning about how Justine hasn't arrived yet.  (No, I was not handling the pain well.  Which isn't shocking since I failed to think about pain management for this labor.  I got cocky because I had done this twice before and it came back to bite me.  I was a screaming mess and a big jerk.)

10:20 p.m.. - Justine arrives.  She checks me and I am dilated to a 9.  I am happy for about 2 minutes after hearing that, and then I start screaming again.  My mom starts boiling water on the stove to add to the cold water in the tub.

10:35 p.m. - The tub is barely full or warm, but I don't care because I want to get into the water so badly.  I strip off my clothes and jump into the tub anyway.  The cold water is horrific.

10:45 p.m. - My water breaks and I poop.  In the tub. (This is a little secret about childbirth that women don't like to talk about.  We poop while we have babies.  It is extremely disgusting, but so is childbirth.  It is gross, bloody, and yes, almost always, there is poop.)  I feel like I have to go some more so everyone tells me to get out of the tub and go sit on the toilet, because who wants to float around in a tub of your own poop?  Not me!

10:50 p.m. - Erik helps me over to the toilet.  Immediately, I realize that this isn't poop.  I manage to grunt, "I think that's the head."  The baby flies out of me.  Somehow, she does not fall in the toilet.  (Thank you, Justine.)  I can't believe I am sitting on the toilet and holding a baby.  All I can say is, "Wow.  That was funny."

So, what do you know? I ended up having a birth on the toilet kind of like all those ladies on I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant after all!

This is Amelia moments after her birth.  Although, according to my early ultrasound, she was 2 weeks late, nothing appeared "past due."  She weighed 8 lbs 6 oz., and was 21" long.  My placenta didn't look like it was falling apart either.  I'm really grateful for a midwife and doctor who helped me to feel confident about carrying a baby 2 weeks past my due date, despite all the people telling me that it was crazy dangerous to continue being pregnant.

This birth was different in that it was the first time my mom was able to attend the birth of a grandchild.  When asked if it was a spiritual experience, she responded, "No, childbirth is kind of gross.  Glad I don't have to go through that again."  It probably didn't help that I was clutching on to her arm and screaming into her ear.  Sorry, Mom.  I really was a big jerk.

Although Amelia's birth wasn't heartwarming and sweet, it did reaffirm my love for home birth.  My heart swells when I think about how fortunate I was to not have to get in a car and drive to a hospital while in labor.  I received (and continue to receive) excellent care. (With the exception of the visits with my back-up doctor, all the midwifery visits were in my home!)  For a low risk mother, I can not think of a better option for child birth than having a baby at home.  It's definitely been a leap of faith, because child birth is scary no matter what, but I feel so blessed to have been able to do this twice now at home.

I may not be adventurous or athletic, but the sense of accomplishment that comes from being able to have had three children completely naturally is indescribable.  I don't write this story out so that people will say, "Wow, you're amazing," because I believe that all mothers are amazing regardless of how their children enter this world, but instead to explain the reasons for choosing to do the things the way I do.

Besides, I have a feeling that childbirth was the easy part.  Raising 3 little kids... that's going to be scary!

THE STRESSED OUT NON-STRESS TEST DAY

I'm trying to act like I'm totally cool with being 41 weeks and a day pregnant, but the honest truth is that I kind of feel like crawling under my covers and not getting out of bed until this baby comes.  I'm tired of people saying, "What, you haven't had the baby yet!?" when they see me and then proceeding to give me all sorts of advice on how to induce labor.  I know everyone means well, but I feel like my body is failing me because I haven't gone into labor yet on my own.  I know that, for right now, it's actually a blessing, but if I make it to 42 weeks next Wednesday, I think I'm going to drive myself to the hospital and force them to cut this baby out of me.

So... Wednesday was my non-stress test at my doctor's office in Palmcaster (that's what we call Lancaster and Palmdale).   It was kind of fun.  They gave me a Capri-Sun to "get the baby moving" and magazines to read while I was hooked up to a machine to monitor the baby's heart and any contractions.  Supposedly this was going to take 20 minutes, but it ended up lasting 2 hours since the baby wouldn't stop moving.  I figured that after a while they would just call it good, since the baby was obviously doing well, but they were pretty adamant that they get a good reading.  I also had over 20 contractions while laying there.  Nothing consistent and they were pretty painless, but the nurses got a good laugh out of how I didn't even react although the machine indicated that they were pretty strong.

This part at the doctor's office turned out to be the non-stressful part of my day.  On the way home. I decided to stop at Trader Joe's for lunch and groceries.  Bad move.  I got out of the store and the car wouldn't start.  At first I thought that maybe I forgot how to drive and then I thought that someone did to my car the same thing that the nuns did to the Nazis' car at the end of my all time favorite movie, The Sound of Music - 

I called Erik, who told me that it was a good thing I was so pregnant or he probably wouldn't have left work to come help me.  (60-40, honey.)  He immediately told me that it would be impossible for anyone to do what the nuns did in The Sound of Music to our car, since diesels don't have the parts that the nuns removed.  So, with that theory busted, Erik got to work trying to figure out what made the car suddenly stop working.  He tried jumping it, removing the battery completely, and then surfed the internet forums on the iPhone for at least an hour.

At one point he realized that the jumper cables were broken, so we walked across the street to Target (we didn't want to lose his parking space) to get new ones.  I even waddled/ran across the street because we jay-walked.  (Don't you judge us.)  In a weird way, it kind of felt like we were on a date since the kids were at home.  We took pictures of each other walking down the streets of Palmcaster, just like we did when we were in Mexico.  Really romantic.

At the end, we decided to just shell out the big bucks and have the car towed home.  This was hard for us, because we hate spending money, but we really didn't have much of a choice.

The best part of the whole story is that when we finally made it home at 7:00 p.m., Erik tried to start the car again and it WORKED!!!  I'm not joking.  Then, he turned it off, started it again and it didn't work.  So obviously it has an intermittent problem.  Erik thinks it is the starter. Why it couldn't go on when we were trying to get it to work for over 4 hours makes no sense. On the bright side, the day was lousy, but we were able to spend some good quality time together, eat lots of food from Trader Joe's and I didn't have a baby while I was stranded by myself in the parking lot.  Win-win-win.

OUR NEW ADDITION

Well, we did it.  We took the big leap.  Made the big purchase.  Finally entered the '80's.  After not owning a microwave for nearly 10 years of marriage, we bought one a few weeks ago.    I know.  Ca-ray-zay.

Now, when I say "not owning one," this needs to explained.  The last home we rented actually came with a microwave, so we did have one for about two years.  Although, when I reminded Erik of this, he didn't remember having one at all.  That is because it was such a waste of an appliance for us.  We've lived very nicely without one for a very long time.  It has just been recently that I thought maybe Erik might like one to re-heat leftovers when he works late, and maybe I could use it to melt butter in too.

The buying of it was pretty anti-climactic.  My friend was getting a new one, I said how much do you want for your old one, she said, $20, and it was mine.  When I told her we had never owned one before, she immediately said, "What, how do you eat corn dogs!?"  She was serious too.  So, I think today I will address many of the questions and comments we've received during the course of our no microwave marriage.

1.  How do you eat corn dogs?

I don't.  There was that one time that Erik bought them for the kids, but he put them in the oven.  Besides corn dogs are gross.

2.  How do you eat popcorn?

Air popper.  It tastes better too than that lame-o microwavable stuff.

3.  How do you boil water?

It's called a tea kettle.  Works really fast.

4.  This Tupperware is awesome!  It allows you to cook eggs in the microwave in just minutes!

Ever tried a pan on a stove?  It also allows you to cook eggs in minutes too!

5.  How do you eat leftovers?

It does take awhile.  I don't really like leftovers, so it's not that big of an issue for me.  I heat them up in the oven or in a pot on the stove.

6.  How do your kids eat?

With forks and spoons. Charlie still tends to use his hands quite a bit.  Seriously, though, I don't get what owning a microwave has to do with feeding your children.

7.  How do you survive?!?!!!!!!

Very nicely, thank you.  We've had the microwave for a few weeks and hardly used it.  Every time we do use it, we feel like cavemen.  It's so foreign to us.  We're not really sure what buttons to push, so we just keep hitting stuff until it goes on.  Then we move as far away from it as possible as to avoid looking directly into it's devil light and being blinded forever.

8.  Why are you anti-microwave?

I'm not anti-microwave.  I just think food tastes better when it's not cooked in a microwave.  That's it.  Maybe it's all in my head, but I don't care.

Oh and just in case you thought to have missed something.  NO, I have not had the baby yet.  YES, I'm over a week past my due date now.