Finn's Birth

Prodromal labor.  Basically it’s when you are in labor for multiple days instead of one and done. Here’s the deal. It was our own fault. I take FULL responsibility.

Night One of Labor: Monday, March 5^th/ Tuesday March 6^th

Finn’s due date was set as March 4^th. Our midwife was going out of town on the 7^th. So, we thought, why not try to “encourage” things along. Generally, I’m totally “let the baby cook, he’ll come when he comes”, but I WAS willing to try a few natural things figuring that if my body wanted to take the slight nudge, then perhaps it was basically ready anyway. 1 day post-due date, we “encouraged labor to start”  It worked. I started contractions. Contractions were 6 minutes apart form 1am to 6am.  We didn’t call the midwife because that’s still very early labor. We were excited. I had the ball out and was doing my thing. I read through all my quote cards.

We had the diffuser going and Finn’s playlist on in the background. 

We were excited. I even said, “I’m kind of sad that this is the last time I’ll be doing this”

Ha!

At 6 am I was contracting while rocking in our glider and Erik noticed I was falling asleep. I got into bed and fell asleep. I would randomly wake up and tell him to start a contraction and then fall asleep and never tell him to stop the contraction. Yep, I slept my labor away. This is not shocking to anyone who knows me and my love of sleep.

The next day we had an appointment already scheduled with the midwife, so we went in and did something ELSE I never do. We went ahead and got checked (for cervical dilation, station, etc). *normally I don’t do this because it doesn’t really tell you much more than a number and often either psychs women out or starts an artificial timeline in their heads

I decided to get checked because the midwife was going out of town and I wanted to know if I was crazy, or if my body really was gearing up for labor. If I was just dilating, we’d give it a rest and not worry about it. If I seemed to be gearing up- then we might consider more “encouragement” that night. She checked me. I was a 5 (6 if she stretched it) and lots of adjectives that made Erik feel SUPER awkward (given that they are said while a woman is all up in there: he usually only sees me get checked if I am IN labor, so he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself), the most memorable of the adjectives being “very soft”. So, yes, my body was indeed gearing up. The other important piece was that he wasn’t as engaged as he should be. So MY body was ready, but FINN was still higher in belly than he should be for labor. Basically, with as far along as I was, you would expect his head to be locked in my pelvis. Not so. So she gave us some specific spinning babies moves to try, encouraged us to go celebrate Erik’s birthday and then try curb walking (literally walking with one leg up on a curb) to get him engaged.  So we went to Olive Garden (where they gave us a free dessert and decorated the plate with a baby when they heard we were probably having a baby that night (HA!), and Erik went home to nap while I curb walked myself (on the windiest day EVER) over to my parents’ house. I did some spinning babies stretches at their house to which my dad responded “You aren’t going to like DO THINGS here are you?” I’m not sure what he thought he was going to see, but I swear I was just doing some side lunges.

Night 2 of Labor: March 6^th/ 7^th

Keep in mind, the midwife is leaving in the morning. At 11am. She literally had her bag packed so she could leave straight from our house if I went into labor.  This is how convinced we all were that this baby would be coming.

We encourage labor along, and yet again, it works like a charm. We’d already sent Eli to stay with his grandma just assuming it would. Labor started much more quickly- contractions every 3 minutes apart from 10pm until 3am. They were strong enough that I was hitting the serious phase. I started to get some nausea. We called the midwife over. Called the photographer. Called the midwife’s nurse.  I was dilated to 7, bag of waters was bulging.  Problem was, little Finn was STILL. NOT. ENGAGED. While she checked me (hold on to your pants for this little detail) she said he was shaking his head back and forth at her. THAT’S how not-locked-in to my pelvis he was. Not great. Then, bonus detail that birthie’s will love (and will gross everyone else out), she also told me she’s pretty sure he felt some hair.

The other problem- Finn had moved out of LOA positon and into a posterior position. Basically, he was facing backwards. (Not breech, he was still head down) If he stayed that way I would be having back labor and he would be born “sunny side up” (face up). Now, lots of times they turn when your water breaks or before delivery, but until that possibly happened: it would hurt. It would hurt bad. It wouldn’t be impossible or even overly dangerous, but it’s not how ANY of us wanted him to come out In fact, I had always told Erik that the one situation in which he was to NOT talk me out of an epidural was if I was up against back labor. At the time, I was fairly confidant we could turn him around and that even if we couldn’t I would just do what needed to be done. Not a single ounce of me even considered a change in location. We tried some things. We tried quite a few things to get him to rotate into a better position.

Side Lying

Pelvic Rocking (all fours, arching my back, then lowering it)

 Whatever this is called...kind of like a rabozo from what I can tell. It went around my hips and she shimmied me...my booty was shaking like it's never shake before (or will again)

 THIS position...not a fan of this one. I was stacked up on pillows so I would be elevated enough that my feet were dangling off the floor. It wasn't great when I wasn't contracting, it was even less great when I was. 

Contractions slowed and I found myself talking and even joking as we tried all sorts of tricks to try to get Finn into a better position. I remember saying, "I know none of us WANT to be doing this right now, but a little birth nerd inside me is kind of happy to get to try out all these things" Being able to speak in full sentences and even joke a little sounds like a good thing, but in labor, especially for me, if I am talking and joking then we aren’t making progress. It should have been a red alert to me that this thing wasn’t happening. That’s about the time I was back in my chair, using the breast pump to try to get contractions going again. (I cropped that out for you internet world, despite the fact that I also had to crop out my awesome looking back lit curls AND pretty belly shot. I kept the uncropped version, because even though I HATE the pump and I remember feeling the OPPOSITE of pretty...this might have been one of my favorite pictures.)

Contractions started again, but they were super weak. At this point, the midwife gave me the choice. Here’s the thing about midwives- they believe totally in educated decision making. I would be in charge of what happened next, the midwife would be there to give me information to help me make that choice.  She would support my choice. So the choice was this:

1-Keep pushing along and trying to get labor back active. We could even break my water and REALLY commit to it.

2- Go to bed, see if it picked up on its own.

Keep in mind here, I knew that going to bed basically meant giving up on the idea that my midwife being there for Finn’s arrival. It was fine, we had another plan, I knew the people that would be at my labor still. In fact, Jessica was the midwife assistant that had been working with me through all this night. I had specifically requested that she be there- since literally my first trimester I knew I wanted her to help me meet this baby. SO- not the end of the world, but still hard to know your midwife that you meet with each week won’t be the one delivering.

Also keep in mind, I’m at a 7. My cervix is showing ALL the signs of being ready except the contractions and except Finn being in position: two VERY important pieces.

So the choice, push it along or stop. I knew for sure that I didn’t want to break my water. That’s when we would be getting into REAL interventions in my mind and even though the pumping and the, well, let’s just call it “natural cervidil”  was also nudging labor, it was the kind of nudging that I knew my body could say no to. Your body can’t say no to breaking your water artificially. You can’t come back from that. It would be stepping over that line for me- the line where I trust my body to do what it needs to do. I had already blurred the line a bit by our nudgings- but this would have been crossing it.  I told her, let’s stop. Let’s see what my body does.

 My sweet midwife offered to stay on my couch in case labor started back in a few hours. I told her she could go home. So there we were, three lovely ladies up through the whole night (the midwife, the midwife assistant, and the photographer) and they were all going home knowing they would have to come back. Talk about feeling guilty, man did I feel bad!

The Wait…

From that day on, we were hands OFF. No pushing or prodding. The midwife checked in on me in the morning as she left:

“We are headed out! May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you and give you peace. Can’t wait to meet baby Brown when I get back. Love you friend.”

I said, “Enjoy, Hopefully we will have a fun little birth story for you”

And she said,

“Or we write it when I get back”

I laughed. I laughed out loud at the idea. There was no POSSIBLE way I would not have a baby in the next few days, right?

WRONG. (again)

The TWELVE DAY In-Between…

Yes, 12 days. I went back to work. I mean, what else is there to do? No contractions. Nothing. Literally nothing to report. I felt great. I stopped getting, “How do you feel?” as my most asked question and started getting “but how late will they let you GO?!”

The midwife returned from vacation- still no baby. We went to our 41 week apt, still no baby. We scheduled a biophysical profile (an ultrasound we would get if he was still cooking at 42 weeks to check to make sure he still had enough fluid and he was a good size and everything was still healthy)

Soapbox moment: due dates are not technically meant to predict when a baby should arrive. It is meant to tell you when you have reached 40 weeks gestation. In pregnancies that are not induced, the actual average is actually 41 weeks and 1 day. SO, am I worried that I am “over” my due date? No. if 41 weeks and 1 day is the actually average date for delivery, then that also means that for every person that had a baby 3 days “early”, you also have someone who would have their baby 3 days “late”- as in later than 41 weeks and 1 day. SO, no, my due date wasn’t a major concern for me. It did make it fun though. 

Here’s the other thing about my “due date”- with Eli and the baby I carried, we KNEW the conception date. I mean, with the baby I carried we literally knew down to the minute of the hour the embryo was implanted. Those due dates were apt to be more accurate. This due date- now this due date was less trustworthy. From our first apt with the midwife we said, “It could be a few different dates”. The problem is that my cycle never returned to a “normal” after my gestational carrier pregnancy. Close to normal, but not clockwork normal. I charted when it SHOULD have been and we protected 3 days before and 3 days after, so those days were out. SO we looked that the two dates on either side of that window when it was possible (I chart this all on an ap- sounds creepy, but it is VERY helpful when you find yourself pregnant 2 months before you were technically trying). We went with the earlier date based on the fact that I got a positive pregnancy test so early. I kept measuring close to what I should be- sometimes right on, sometimes a smidge small. The 20 week ultrasound didn’t raise any questions about the size not matching his gestational age. I mean, really, it didn’t seem to matter much: until it did. In the first trimester a 10 day spread doesn’t seem like that big of a deal- he’s either due on the 4^th or the 14^th…whatever. When you are 12 days “late”, 10 days makes a BIG difference – mostly to everyone else around you.

A second favorite question when you go 13 days past your due date is “Are you worried he’ll be too big?”

No. Honestly, no. “Big baby” is a hot button term in the natural birth world. It seems to be a reason given to start interventions even though sonograms that far along are regularly off- even 2lbs. SO you get this mom who is now scared she is going to have a 9 lb baby and she induces out of fear and then she ends up with a lil’ guy who could have had a few more valuable days or weeks in the womb. It’s just one of those ways that we doubt our bodies. We step in. In birth are there babies that are “too big”, yes. Is it as often as it is used as a reason for induction? No. God made my body to birth the baby that grows in it. NOW- if Erik were a 7ft 350 lb man, I would maybe be concerned. If I had gained a ton of weight I would consider being concerned. If I had gestational diabetes, I would let myself be concerned. But here’s the thing: Pelvis' flex. Vaginas open. Babies come out. (I literally have a birth motivation card that says this).

It’s kind of like most things in life: sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but in general, in a TYPICAL situation, I believe my body isn’t going to make a baby that is too big to get out.  Also, just for me, I grew up being told I would have “big babies”. My mom AND sister both had their first baby at over 9.5lbs and their second baby around 10lbs. I’m prepared for that. That’s just a reality I’ve always known. But again, “Vaginas open. Babies come out” is something I really do believe.

The best part about delivering 13 days after your “due date” is the fun you can have showing up places. Just the fact that you have arrived makes people laugh. You show up to your chiropractor appointment to a jaw dropped secretary. You show up to church and get ALL the encouragement. You show up to work and your boss and co-workers are surprised to see you LITERALLY every day. It’s fun, I won’t lie.  One of my favorite moments was at the end of my last chiropractor apt when I said, “All right, so when should a schedule our next appointment for?” and he just said. “Don’t. Just don’t. I’m not going to let you schedule because you are HAVING this baby and that’s all there is to it. I know I’ve said it for 2 weeks now- but this time we aren’t even putting you down. Call and make your next appointment after you have the baby.”

The worst part is thinking that when you DO start labor, it’s going to be hard, strong, and fast. The second night of labor seemed to have picked up where the first night left off, and I was NOT a fan of starting labor and immediately jumping into active labor. I described it to my midwife like this:

“I’m a get into the cold water 1 inch at a time even if it takes an hour kind of girl, not a cannonball and get it over with kind of girl” I like the build up of early labor. I like the time to mentally and physically warm up to the idea of pushing a baby out. I like a plan and having a sense of knowing what is going to be coming next.

The slightly annoying thing about being 13 days “late” is always being ready. I was bringing my work computer home with me every night. Even during lunch. I would pack it up “just in case”. When planning for a home birth, you also want to always have the house ready “just in case”, so that means every night before we went to bed, I was cleaning our kitchen counters, making sure we had snacks and drinks prepped for the birth workers and photographer, and picking up things that I TOTALLY would have normally left. My house was cleaner, but I doubt we’ll be returning to that world now that he’s here. Correction: the rest of my house was cleaner, my bedroom was a bit of a hot mess. We left all the birth stuff out because we thought Finn would be coming within hours…MAYBE a day or two. Again, ha.

*People always ask...crockpot? It's nothing gross. A little warm water, a little ginger root, and washcloths. It keeps the washcloths warm. 

The other mental challenge was not labeling Finn as “stubborn” or “mind of his own” or any of the terms that WANTED to pop into my head. Looking back, I’m happy to report that he has been SOOOOOOO much easier than Eli. He sleeps. He sleeps a LOT. He sleeps so much that I have had to start setting alarms to wake him up to eat. He doesn’t cry that much. Not even when he got his vitamin K shot at birth. Not when he is hungry. Not when he is wet/dirty (and I mean REALLY wet or dirty) Not when his brother forgets he is a human being and uses his head as support to help stand up.  He really only cries when he is being changed or is in the wind. Oh, or in the carseat. The first few trips, not a peep. He’s since changed his tune about that.

Finn’s Birthday:

It was St. Patrick’s day. Erik and I both decided that would be an awesome birthday to have, plus it was the weekend, plus we were enough “over due” that Erik was MORE than ready for him. Every night he would look at me and say, “When are you going to pop this baby out already?!”

We also decided (thanks to a random text conversation with my sister about how awesome his first birthday party would be if he were a St. Patty’s baby), that if he DID happen to have a St. Patrick’s day birthday, we would change his middle name. Even though we have the cute “Finn Hudson” sign already, this would surely just be another “Finn laughs in the face of all your plans!” moment and he would be Finn Patrick.

Last family of 3 picture.

2pm:

After 12 days of not motivating labor at all, we nudged it again. I was surprised at how much I procrastinated sending myself into labor. KNOWING that you are purposefully starting the most painful thing you do in your life is not easy. I’m sure it is similar to jumping out of a plane. You signed up for. You are excited about it even. You know it will be fine- but MAN is it hard to bite the bullet and commit. Sure, I was excited to meet Finn, but I knew what was headed my way. This wasn’t my first labor. I kept finding myself pushing it back. 

“Hold on, let me get showered.”

 “Wait, I need to clean up a bit.”

“Oh, look, the washing machine is in now, we better make sure it works.” *Our washing machine had started leaking and was being delivered that day at 2, and I did NOT want to be laboring just down the hall from 2 men installing my new washer. NOR did I want to have a homebirth BEFORE a washer and dryer were installed. Things were going to need to be washed. Lots of things.

4pm: First contractions

Again, our “motivation” worked (within the hour this time) but neither of us got too excited about birth. I had a couple of contractions. I told Erik that we should go to dinner early, since it was likely I’d be in labor later. Since we’d been told how quickly this baby could come, Erik decided he didn’t want to cook and have a sink of dirty dishes to deal with and that going out to eat was a bad idea in case we needed to leave immediately. We decided to go to Dillons, where we could just leave immediately (since you pay first.) That means my “last meal” was Salmon, green beans, and mashed potatoes.  As we had done for the last 12 days, we talked about how gross salmon was going to be when I inevitably threw it up in transition later that night. I had a few more contractions and Erik was convinced this was it and we needed to get things set in motion. I was thinking it was going to happen (I had gone to bed the night before and said “and Tomorrow, TOMORROW we have a baby”) but I wasn’t feeling rushed. I suggested that to be safe maybe we should drop Eli off at Erik’s moms to play, that way if it WAS labor, he wouldn’t have to be rushed out later, and if it wasn’t labor, we could pick him up for bedtime. We already had his overnight bag in the car (again, because we were pretty sure this last nudge was all Finn was going to need)

After we dropped him off we decided to go on a walk to keep contractions going. We walked to the local elementary school, then we walked to a little fishing pond by our house. We were tracking contractions on Erik’s ap, but they were super sporadic. My back hurt, I just wanted to go home. Erik did too, apparently he wasn’t prepared for “the longest walkI’ve ever been on in my life” (it was like, 2 blocks). I also started getting worried that we were going to get smelly. I hate the smell of people coming in from outside, and I knew I didn’t want Erik to be coaching me through labor and have me get a whiff of that smell. It’s kind of like when I have a migraine, my tolerance for light/ sounds/ smells goes WAAAAAAY down. This is fairly common, there’s a term for it that I’ve forgotten. I’m sure it’s some sort of acronym with the word “Sensory” in it. Some women feel that way about touch during labor too- they literally can only handle certain kinds of touch and ALL other touch is offensive. Point being: don’t come at me smelling like coffee or outside or bad breath when I am in labor or I WILL stink eye you. We went home and he showered. I continued my sporadic contractions and walked around the house in circles. I text the midwife to let her know that I was having some, but that they weren’t steady at all.

Contractions started slowing. “That’s it, I’m never having this baby. He’s just going to live in here forever.” I joked with Erik. We decided to give it a little more time and enjoy our kid-free time by watching an episode of Sherlock (our most recent Netflix binge). I’d basically given up. I just sat on the couch, watching our show.

My contractions had NO reason to pick up. But they did. They got closer together. They got slightly stronger. And then it happened.

For the first time in all my pregnancies…

7:45 Water breaks

Sitting on the couch, I felt it coming. I hopped up and managed to save the couch. I told Erik that I wasn’t sure, since it just wasn’t as much fluid as I knew it could be. We texted the midwife and she walked me through how to use the amniotic fluid test swab from our birth kit. She said to wait until it happened again and then to swab. WELL, the next time it happened there was NO mistaking it for anything except my water breaking. Again I felt it coming soon enough that I didn’t get the couch wet, but it was a small miracle. I laughed as I got the swab and it IMMEDIATELY turned DARK blue. I sent the pic to the midwife who quickly congratulated me on being in labor. She told us to keep her updated as to how it was going.

Alright, baby is coming. We went upstairs, I got into my St. Patrick’s day labor wear (a green dress) and we tried to get in the zone. Our room was our birth space. I had the dim lighting set. I had our echo playing Finn’s birth playlist, which oddly enough was full of Irish/ Celtic hymns- fitting for a St. Patty’ s day birth. I had Erik rub my sore back with “birth oil” my first doula had suggested to me and rubbed clary sage on my ankles and along the sides of my feet (to encourage contractions to intensify)

Since we had already called out the midwives and the birth photographer once before, we had decided that we really didn’t want to call them until we were about ready to deliver. Erik continued to time my contractions, I moved into the more serious contractions. My eyes closed, the joking and chatting and smiling stopped, and we were officially IN it. We continued to update the midwife. She was at another birth, and depending on timing MIGHT be able to make it, but she wanted us to have Jessica, the midwife I had requested to be the second one at our birth (they always have a midwife and then an assistant. Jessica also happens to be a midwife herself, and there’s just something about her personality that from the first time I met her I thought- HER: I want HER at my birth.) Plus, she lives less than 7 minutes from me. Plus she encapsulates my placenta. So really, it was just meant for her to be there in one way or the other. When our midwife was out of town, the plan had been for Jessica to take over and deliver if we went into labor. She knew me, she knew my birth history, and she knew what I wanted for this labor. She was MORE than prepared to take over, and I was MORE than comfortable with it. I was leaning over our footboard contracting when Erik asked if I was ready to have Jessica out now. Yep, make the call.

11:45 ish: Active Labor

Jessica arrived, my contractions continued. I’m a swayer. Some birthies call it “dancing”, I prefer sway. When a contraction comes, I HAVE to sway. I might be leaning into Erik as we stand (it looks like slow dancing middle school style but the space in between us is filled with my big ol’ belly), I might be leaning over the footboard or onto a pillow, head in my hands, I might be on a birthing ball, but the top half of me will be fairly still while my hips are moving side to side (or in a circle).  Then, at this point, I deeply hum through contractions. It just happens. It is what it is, and it helps.

Jessica was trying to gauge where I was at in my labor, if I really was in active labor. She asked me if I thought I was and I remember looking up, opening my eyes (I don’t do this much at this point in labor), looking straight into her eyes and saying “YES!”. She offered to check me, I didn’t want to. You wouldn’t either. Getting checked is not pleasant, and at this point, I was NOT wanting to lay down. She checked Finn’s heart tones and position and both looked good! It was such a relief to hear.  I continued to contract. I sat on the ball and had a REALLY powerful contraction “I didn’t like that one”

“Did you feel more pressure?”

I nodded

“good- stay on the ball”

“Well, crap” I thought. I didn’t want to feel more pressure. More pressure didn’t feel GOOD. I liked my LESS pressure contractions. But…that’s not really how you get a baby out. So, I stayed on the ball. It worked. 

That’s when the contractions changed. Transition. This is usually when I vomit. I didn’t this time.  This is also usually where my contractions also start changing in tone. Literal tone. My low hums become low groans. If I were of my right mind I would be embarrassed, but in the middle of it, that noise helps me, so out it comes.

After midnight my low groans and moans were…well, a bit louder. It was clear the baby was going to be here soon.  Unbeknownst to me, the midwives were on the phone deciding if she would have time to come. Then she heard me contracting in the background and that settled everything pretty instantly.  Another midwife was headed our way- as my original midwife was with the other mom who was also ready to push. I had a midwife there that I knew and trusted, so I was fine with it. Also, I was literally minutes away from pushing out a baby, so these were all some of the furthest things from my mind. I had Erik. I had Jessica. I was good.  Honestly, I didn’t even think about it. It sounds crazy since we had gone to such lengths to try to get him to come before my midwife went out of town just 12 days earlier, but I just literally had NO space in my brain to give thought to it. Jessica told me about the second midwife that would be joining us soon.

1am: Into the Water

“Should we start the tub? Do you want to have him in there?”

I was afraid I would get in my tub and my contractions would slow down and labor would stop again. I told Jessica as much and she kind of chuckled and assured me we were past that point. This was going to happen, now I just needed to decide if I wanted to have him in the water or not.

I looked to Erik, knowing his response before I asked: “whatever you want”

I said I wanted to set up the tub so that I at least had the option. We would try it out, and see what I thought. Erik got the tub filled with warm water and I got in.

It felt SO good.  I LOVE warm water when I’m laboring, but I had stayed out for fear of slowing labor. It was wonderful to be back in.

I had a contraction like no other. THE contraction. I felt him move down all at once. I get visuals of him when these things happen, little flashes of what is happening in my body. I don’t know if all moms do this, or just moms who taught labor and delivery. It’s a great motivator, I think it is how my brain helps filter pain into progress. In this moment I imagined him dropping down, and my tail bone tilting back out of the way.  He. Was. Ready. It was clear that I was NOT getting out of the water at this point- Finn was coming, and I would get to have a water birth!

His heart tones were still good.

I asked: “Can I push?” Jessica chuckled. “Of course you can! You don’t need to ask ME”

The moments just before pushing are the hardest moments in labor. Pushing is hard, yes. Pushing hurts, YES. BUT: pushing allows you to have control, to exert yourself, to channel your pain into productivity. You also know you are almost done when you are pushing. You are moments away. The moments BEFORE pushing do NOT give you any of these motivators. You don’t know how much longer you will feel this way, and I couldn’t imagine being in this much pain for much longer.

And so the next contraction I pushed. I pushed hard. I wanted it to be OVER.

The first push got his head out. My eyes were still closed, but Erik looked after she said “His head is out”. He saw the back of Finn’s head under the water, waiting for the rest of his body to be able to join him. (to those new to water birth, he’s fine here. Remember, he’s been living in water for 9 months, so he is still in water. He’s still getting oxygen from my umbilical cord…just like he has been for the last 9 months. The reflex that triggers infants to take their first breath isn’t set into motion while he is under water)

Jessica told me to slow down. She told me to pant (I wanted to laugh because Erik and I had just watched a video a few days earlier where they instructed the mom to pant and I told him that if he EVER said that to me in labor he would be in for it. She gets a pass though)

*Why pant? Lots of reasons, but basically I needed to work with my body and its contractions, and that meant not “popping the baby out like a champagne cork”. It’s better for my body and it’s better for the baby.

The next contraction was his shoulders and body. It felt VERY similar to all my other births (which I have no better way of describing except that it feels exactly like you would imagine it would) EXCEPT that this one was “wigglier”. It felt like he wriggled out of me. I had a visual of him squirming his little legs and kicking them around.

And there he was. Jessica told me to grab my baby, and my eyes finally opened.

Also, just look at Jessica in the corner smiling. I love it.

 There he was. 

 She had already unwrapped the cord from around his neck, but she had me unwrap the rest of him. Yes, his cord had been wrapped around his neck (this happens more than you think, I believe around 1/3 of births) AND around his back AND around his leg. It was a LONG cord.

You know what’s harder than unwrapping an umbilical cord from a newborn? Doing it when he’s slippery and wet. He got unwrapped and we snuggled. 

 I don’t remember the order I said it in, but I do remember saying these things:

“You are so tiny!” and he was! I was prepared for a 13 day “overdue” baby. I was expecting a BIG OL’ BABY. This baby wasn’t big, he was a skinny little thing. 

and over and over, “I know! I know honey. That was a lot of work!” 

and some version of “Honey, look, he’s real. He’s really here!” 

We did skin to skin while they brought us heated towels to wrap him in.  We rubbed his feet to make him cry a little. He cried when we prodded, but really, it was a quiet time. He was SO calm. He latched immediately. It was calm. It was quiet. It was dim. It was ALL the good things. 

1:30: Marriage Teamwork Obstacle Course Challenge

We laid there for a while, until Jessica and the other midwife (who arrived just before Finn was crowning) had to start talking options for stage 3 of labor. I had to deliver my placenta. This is the part of labor we had spent a lot of time talking about before I delivered. During my last birth, my placenta didn’t detach on its own (which is more common in surrogacy situations) That’s not a good place to be. It can lead to lots of not great things. I’m also just, in general during labor, a bleeder. Every birth I have had more than usual bleeding post baby. As a part of my birth plan, we had Pitocin on hand and the midwives gave me a shot as soon as Finn was out of me. That was done, but now we had to talk actual DELIVERY of the placenta. They told me I could stay in the tub or I could get out. Erik and I had talked before delivery about how one of the only concerns we had about water birth was if I needed to have interventions for bleeding afterward and how that part would be easier “on land”, so I opted to get out of the water.

Here’s where it gets good folks. Please remember, Finn is still connected to my uterus via his umbilical cord. We didn’t cut it, because we had told Eli that HE could cut the cord.  It is literally hanging out of me, then attached to Finn. Well, I need to get out of a tub, and doing that while holding a vernixy wet baby was not in my wheelhouse. I passed the baby to Erik. Now, here we are. Erik with Finn, and Finn with an umbilical cord still hanging out of me. We needed to get out of the tub and over to the bed in our bedroom all while being tethered by this cord. Erik held Finn, walking backwards in baby steps. I followed at the same pace, jokingly reminding Erik not to go too fast, because I was literally tethered to Finn.  To add just one more level of “so awkward it’s hilarious”, we had midwives shimmying around us putting down absorbant pads on the floor so we wouldn’t leak any…well anything gross…on our carpet. So it looked like this:

Midwife lays down a pad, Erik takes tiny steps back onto it holding Finn. I, being attached to Finn, take a few tiny steps forward to match Erik’s steps. It was like following his lead in slow dancing. More accurate to our lives though, it was like moving a large piece of furniture. We’d been practicing this skill for YEARS! I may have even said “PIVOT, PIVOT” when we turned the corner around the tub. There was nothing to do but laugh at how crazy we must have all looked.

The actual delivery of the placenta was not glamorous. I was squatting over a bowl and pushed it out. There’s just no other way to describe it. It was fast and easy- exactly what we wanted. 

Now that the placenta was out, Erik and Finn were no longer tethered to me and I was able to get in the bed to continue skin to skin.

Meeting Eli

We had Erik’s mom bring Eli over to the house. Yes, at like 3 in the morning.

My mom came too- so they could all meet Finn. After I got cleaned up a bit (and got my uterus “massaged”), we were ready for Eli, who came upstairs first. Erik brought him in and I got to kiss him and tell him “I didn’t give up!”

(He is chronically constipated and we always have to encourage him by telling him how proud we are that he didn’t give up. So he kept telling me that when I go to push out the baby, I shouldn’t give up)

I asked him if he still wanted to cut the cord (at this point half thinking that he could have changed his mind), but he was ready.

The midwife gave him a pair of medical scissors and his face said it all.

The cord was still attached to the placenta which was out of sight next to me: covered. I knew he was prepared for the cord, but I wasn’t sure how he would do with seeing the whole placenta so I had her cover it.

While she helped him cut the cord (it’s a tricky thing- thick and a little slippery), he had a VERY serious and concentrated face.  I know it’s kind of an odd thing to do, but Erik doesn’t really care about cutting the cord, and I thought there might be some symbolic subconscious understanding that Eli was now an ACTIVE PART of Finn’s delivery.

He HELPED. Eli is such a big part of our lives that it felt odd to not have some sort of way that he could be a part of this…and I think cutting the cord and helping to do the baby’s first stats was perfect for a preschool boy who LOVES to be a helper.

Counting toes

Meeting Grandmas

 Eli went back downstairs. I got up to go to the bathroom (and DIDN’T pass out!!), did a few more uterine “massages”, and took a cytotec to lesson my bleeding (it wasn’t super heavy, it just kept going.) I put a dress on.  Meanwhile, Eli was downstairs opening his big brother gifts. We gave him one of my old cameras as the big gift. He was really excited but, as it usually happens with preschoolers, he didn't use it quite the way I had anticipated. We have LOTS of VERY close up pictures of random places in our house and maybe 2 pictures of Finn.

Once I was ready, they got to come up. Eli introduced Finn to them.
I will say, one of the things that didn’t hit me until I looked through the photos later was how moms will always be moms. Each mom looking first at her own child,

gauging if they were ok after this big life altering moment- THEN, once their mama brains knew it was all ok, THAT’S when they moved on to their newest grand baby.

It’s a fast thing, something I didn’t even notice at the time, but it makes me smile to think about it. One day I’ll do the same thing when I meet my grandbabies. I’ll subconsciously look for Eli or Finn, check that they are fine, check that my daughter in law is ok, and THEN bask in the glory of that tiny grand baby.

Eli took on his big brother role very quickly. 

Erik’s mom got to hold Finn and had him for MAYBE 45 seconds when Eli put on his teacher voice and said, “Alright Mia, now it’s time to share with Nana. Nana, it’s your turn.” We couldn’t help but to laugh at his little tiny voice of authority. 

Wrapping Up:

It was time to see how much this little man weighed and complete newborn checks. Jessica did an amazing job of getting Eli involved in every step. The grandmas were there, watching as we all found out together.

 He was 8lbs 6 oz. (I had guessed much smaller- he just looked SO tiny) and 21 inches.

 She showed Eli Finn's trick- his Moro reflex

 Then they checked heartbeats

 including his

 Finn got his footprints and Eli and Erik got matching footprint “tattoos” on their arms.

Everything checked out great. Now Eli got to do a more typical big brother rite of passage: holding the baby for the first time. He was obviously excited.

After all the checks the grandmas (and Eli) left and the midwives finished entering all their data and cleaning up. She walked us through post-partum care for me and what to watch for on Finn. I remember Jessica saying something like, “You are about to get a 5-6 hour window of sleep, take advantage of it”  And. We. Did.

I rolled over, Erik hopped in bed, and we all slept.  We slept for 6 to 7 hours with Finn next to our bed, my hand hanging over our bed and into his. We woke up the next morning to the light coming in our window and looked at each other amazed. “Did that just happen?” Erik asked me. What’s funny, is that he wasn’t talking about a home birth. He wasn’t talking about a water birth. He was talking about Finn. Finn wasn’t crying…he was sleeping! This was NOT what our first hours with Eli looked like. THIS was great. We loved it. It was such a wonderful start to our lives with Finn. He barely cried. He didn’t even cry when he got his vitamin K shot. He still barely cries.

He’s really been quite the treat. That next day I spent nursing, sleeping, and cuddling. I literally fell in love with him those first 24 hours. I couldn’t believe how fast and hard it hit me.  Maybe it was because I wasn’t distracted by having to go home and get re-settled or maybe it was because I was able to get so much uninterrupted sleep. Whatever it was that gave me all that time to soak him in- it was perfect. Erik came in the room later that day and I looked up at him and told him, “I’m obsessed with him”

“That was fast”

It sure was. He’s made it so easy to love him. We spent 4 days in the “birth bubble”. I didn’t leave my room. Finn took small fieldtrips downstairs to meet family that had come to visit. I stayed in bed having food, water, and 2 adorable boys delivered to me whenever I called for them. It was a great way to recover. The entire experience really went so well. What a wonderful start to motherhood. Erik seems to agree: after my shower a few days later, I walked out to this: 

I'm so thankful to Hannah Clark for coming out in the middle of the night not once, but TWICE to capture this for us. She also took some amazing maternity, lifestyle, and newborn shots that you can see on my Facebook.

I'm also thankful for our midwives at Wichita Birth Assistance: from our prenatal appointments to the trial run delivery, to the actual delivery: we were in loving and capable hands the whole time.
Thank you all for being a part of Finn's birth story.