GT’s Birth Story
Sunday, October
5th, 2014
It’s been 6 weeks and 3 days since GT Burton made his way into the world.
I’ve been meaning to sit down and write this out for a while now (about
six weeks, to be exact), but taking care of my little man and his
three-year-old big sister, K, has occupied the majority of my
time. I finally have a little bit of
down-time, and so rather than making the butter that I’ve been needing to make
(it can wait another hour – or day – I suppose, haha), I’ve decided to write
down my birth story while the details are still relatively fresh in my mind.
I started noticing some light-but-regular
contractions around 9am on Sunday morning.
They lasted about 30-40 seconds, and were around 15 minutes apart, but
considering I’d been in prodromal labor since I was 37 weeks, I didn’t think
much of it. I knew that birth must be
close, especially now that I was 41 weeks and 2 days along, but I refused to
get my hopes up yet again, only to have them dashed.
So instead, I went about my
morning. J had worked the night
before, so I got myself and K ready for church while he slept. I made sure to eat as much as I could (kind
of difficult, considering I was still severely suffering from Hyperemesis
Gravidarum), and was thrilled that I only threw up once before packing the kids
in the car and heading to church around 10:30 am.
Church kept my mind off the
contractions for the most part, and I purposefully did not keep track of how
far apart they were (again, I was refusing to get my hopes up). However, by the end of service I started
needing to regulate my breathing during each contraction. They still weren’t super strong, and thanks
to my hypnobirthing techniques I wouldn’t even classify them as painful, but
nevertheless I was relieved when service was over and I was able to go
home.
When we got home – around noon – I put
a movie on for K in the living room, and then went into the bedroom to
change into something more comfortable and less constricting. I ended up accidentally waking J. We talked about church for a minute, and I
told him I was having regular contractions that were getting stronger. He asked if he should call out of work for
the night, and I told him no, it was probably just more prodromal labor, and
that he should go back to sleep. He agreed,
and after kissing him “goodnight” he went back to sleep and I headed out to
make lunch for K.
I made K a sandwich and we
watched a movie together while I tried not to be sick again (I failed once or
twice, but with HG that was nothing new).
By the time J woke up (around 2pm) I was starting to walk around to
ease the pressure during contractions and really getting serious about my
breathing. I remember talking to him
from the bathroom as he made his lunch/breakfast, telling him that if the
contractions got any more intense he should probably call out of work “just in
case”. Right after that I waddled into
the living room, sat down on the couch, then immediately stood back up with a
loud, “Woah!” as I felt a very strange sensation between my legs.
J immediately rushed into the
living room, the worry-wart that he was (he’d been rushing to my side at every
odd sound I made for the past several months, poor thing). “What is it, what’s wrong?” he asked in a bit
of a panic.
I kind of laughed and said, “Well,
either I just peed my pants, or my water just broke. And I think I’ve got enough bladder control
to make it to the bathroom, so…”
I think he was a little dumbfounded,
because he just kind of stared at me before asking me if he should call the
midwife. I told him not to worry about
it, that I was about to text her, then I hurried off to put on my “pregnancy
panties” (Depends). I remember calling
across the house and asking him to make sure the birthing pool was fully inflated
and start filling it, to which he replied, “Already on it!”
While in the bathroom I contacted my midwife, Amy, and
let her know my waters had ruptured and baby was on the way. I honestly can’t remember if I called or
texted, but I know I let her know that the water looked clear but kind of dark,
but that I didn’t know if that was because of my blue panties or not. After promising to keep her informed, I
changed into my nightgown and waddled back into the living room.
I decided now would probably be the best time to let
people know that I was definitely in labor, so I called a few family members, talked
for a few minutes, then updated my Facebook status and put my phone down. I didn’t want to be distracted as things started
picking up.
Around 3:30 I changed the Depends I was wearing and
checked what the amniotic fluid on the used one looked like. I noticed it looked kind of yellowish-green,
so I sent Amy a picture just to be on the safe side. A few minutes later she called me to let me
know she was going to come over because it looked like meconium, but she couldn’t
tell for sure from the picture.
She arrived just before 4pm and checked the
fluid. Sure enough, I had another
meconium-baby (K had had some meconium as well). She reassured me that everything was going to
be fine, that meconium is nothing to
freak out about, and that all the horror stories doctors throw at you are
little more than scare tactics. Yes,
some things can happen, but the
chances are very remote and generally only occur when baby is in distress. ::Phew!:: I breathed a big sigh of relief,
and she went ahead to check my vitals and check baby’s heartbeat. Once I heard that everything was fine and
going as it should I relaxed quite a bit more.
Contractions started picking up in speed and
intensity, but nothing overly “serious”.
I was doing really well, and I figured I still had hours and hours and
hours to go so I sent Amy home around 6pm, and J and I decided to take
K for a walk to really get things going.
It took nearly an hour after Amy to get out the door since I was trying
to get dressed for the cold weather in between contractions, but we finally
made it out right around 7pm.
We walked around the block. Once.
And it took forty minutes. I
swear, as soon as I stepped into the cold air, transition hit me like a ton of
bricks. The contractions that, til that
point, had been “pretty manageable” were suddenly clutching my uterus in a
vicelike grip. Every 30-45 seconds I had
to stop and literally hang onto J as I moaned through another serious, 90-second-long
contraction. By the time I could see our
house again I could barely hold myself up through them, and was very VERY
grateful that he was queued in and supporting my weight when I couldn’t.
We made it back home and I stripped down to
practically nothing in no time flat (I was not
about to labor in my warm house while swaddled in a coat). I remember going to the bathroom to be sick,
then moaning through another strong contraction while still on my knees. I told him he should probably call the
midwife, and then informed him I was getting into the tub now. I know he called the midwife, his mom, and his grandma, but I
was a little preoccupied in the nice warm water to notice much (they’re not
kidding when they call water “nature’s epidural”, haha).
I remember Amy arriving, then J's mom and grandma, but other than that it’s mostly a
blur. I think Amy may have listened to
baby’s heartbeat once, but again, I was a little preoccupied…
I do remember my mother-in-law asking how
far along I was, and Amy simply shrugging and saying, “I’m pretty sure we’re
going to have a baby soon.” I’m glad
that’s all she had to say, because if anyone had tried to check me at that
point they would probably have lost a hand; even with my hypnobirthing techniques,
I was in full-blown transition and definitely considered the contractions “painful”
at that point, haha.
I’m not sure at what time I started to push (I know
it was right around 8pm), but I do know I had been pushing for a few minutes
before I finally thought to say, “Oh by the way, I’m pushing.” I remember Amy laughing and telling me she’d
kind of caught on to that.
At that point I told J he needed to get into the
tub, and asked (at least I hoped I asked. I may have just been barking orders at that
point, haha) that he get the camera ready for his mom to record (I found out
later that it hadn’t been recording at all [I was absolutely devastated when I
found out we had no video or pictures of his actual birth, but I have no one to
blame but myself since I never thought to show anyone how the camera worked
before-hand]. That’s why this birth
story is so important for me to write!).
Once he was in the tub I started pushing in
earnest. I hadn’t been waiting for him,
that’s just how it worked out. I rested
in between contractions and moaned through them as I urged my baby to make his
or her way into the world. K was
standing outside the tub, and she was so sweet the whole time. She held my hand and stroked my hair, and I
remember her saying once or twice, “It’s okay, mommy.” We had watched several birth videos, so I was
fully confident in her ability to handle the situation. And she did a phenomenal job!
I was kneeling and leaning over the side of the tub
during all of this, and when I reached down to try to gauge the situation I was
elated when I could feel hair! I knew it
was close, but I reminded myself that I needed to listen to my body and follow
its queues. This, I assure you, can be
quite difficult when you want to push but your body says, “Wait a minute”. But listen I did, and more than once I held
back from pushing while my body adjusted and stretched to make room for baby.
Still leaning forward on my knees, I suddenly had an
urge to push that I just couldn’t ignore, and voila! His head was born! I was elated, but suddenly felt completely
devoid of energy. “Get him out of me!” I
cried.
“You’ve got to push, just push,” Amy said in
response.
And so, with one final push, he was
born into my husband’s waiting hands! He was born on October 5th, 2014, after 11 hours of labor (6 hours after water breaking), and with our daughter, K, J’s mom and Grandmother, and midwife, Amy to witness!
“It’s a boy!” I cried when I finally turned around
and he was placed in my waiting arms. I’d
always known he would be – just as I knew K would be a girl – but that didn’t
stop me from gleefully saying to J, “I told you so!” He, of course, just laughed.
I had to stay on my knees to keep his head above
water since his cord was so short, but that didn’t lessen my joy any while
gazing into his sweet, very chubby face.
I’ll admit my first lucid thought was, ‘He has a really fat face!’
But at least that’s better than what I’d thought upon seeing K for
the first time (‘She looks like E.T.’)! Nevertheless, I thought he was gorgeous and I
loved him instantly, fat face and all. :-)
K got into the tub with us after he was born,
and we all spent some time as a family just gazing at our new addition. We each took turns kissing on him and rubbing
the vernix into his skin (he was covered
in it! Surprising at 41+2 weeks), but unfortunately his cord was so short that
I wasn’t able to let anyone hold him just yet. Finally I started feeling those
all-too-familiar contractions, and it was just a few more minutes before the
placenta was born. The funniest part, to
me, was when the blood from the placenta spilled into the pool and J
suddenly stood up and jerked K away.
I laughed and said something along the lines of, “It’s not going to hurt
anyone!”
After GT and I got out of the tub I handed him
off to his daddy, then rinsed off in our bathtub before heading into the
bedroom to rest. Once he was back in my
arms, K and J joined us on the bed and we all just rested together as
a family. It was absolutely wonderful.
It was another hour or two before J cut the
cord, then we moved into the living room for his newborn evaluation. He weighed a whopping 7 lbs, 14 oz and
measured in at 19 ½ in long. It wasn’t
until after that that I noticed his ring and middle fingers on his right hand
were fused together, and the same two fingers on the left were webbed. As crazy as it seems, that and his white forelock
(I thought it was blonde at the time) only made me adore him more.
Since then we’ve discovered he has Waardenburg
Syndrome, a syndrome that affects the hearing (he’s passed the screen in his
left ear, but has some hearing problems in his left) but not the brain or
lifespan, and for which his fingers and unique hair are indicators. But even with this syndrome, he is healthy
and happy, and whenever anyone mentions his fingers I simply say it’s
appropriate that they’re webbed, considering he was born in water, haha.
We already love him so much in the short time he’s
been earthside, and I am certain that he will grow into a loving and
intelligent young man. I pray that I
will be knowledgeable and patient enough to aid in the process. :-)
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