November 16th, 2009 by Overallgirl

During our pregnancy we took the Bradley Natural Childbirth Class and this evening we re-convened with the teacher and 2 other couples who took the class with us.  We got to meet Madeleine and Naomi, both about 8 weeks old now, and they got to meet our Nolan, almost 4 weeks old.  Our Bradley teacher reveled in her picture with the 3 babies and us 3 mothers swapped birth stories…only one of us ended up getting to birth naturally from start to finish, but the important thing of course is that we all have healthy, happy (albeit sometimes crying!) babies.  Little Madeleine was really turning on the charm for Nolan with lots of smiles his way.  Nolan needs to grow up a few more weeks before he’ll know how to respond in kind….

November 15th, 2009 by Overallgirl

So who does Nolan look like?  That is the million dollar question.  Well maybe not, but it’s definitely one of the main topics of conversation when people look at him.  Some say he looks like Ben, Ben thinks he looks like Zac, Elyse thought he looked like Caleb when she first saw him, Caleb thinks he looks like my Papou (Grandpa), some friends who came over said “he looks just like Kathy!”  Ben says he has my chin, nose and forehead.  I’ve felt like he has Ben’s forehead and eyebrows…but then when I look at the eyebrows longer and think back to the days before I plucked that perhaps he has my eyebrows.  But honestly- I keep searching his face trying to see one or some of us in him, and all I really see so far is Nolan.  He just looks like himself to me.  He doesn’t really seem to look specifically like anyone yet.  I’m sure that will change as he gets bigger- and it’s very fun to observe what everyone “sees” in his face.  One thing I know for sure….he definitely has Ben’s toes.  That is a true and certain fact.  Ben has very long toes- they’re not you’re regular toes….and Nolan is now fortunate enough to have these special long toes as well.

November 15th, 2009 by Overallgirl

Pushing my son out was truly a powerful experience…but also a little non-traditional I hear.  When I was finally ready to push, my birth team (2 homebirth midwives and doula), hubby, and the nurse were all in the room.  I was finding it way too distracting and couldn’t focus with so many people watching me when I didn’t even know quite what I was doing yet.  It felt like being on a football field with the whole stadium watching you when this is your first time playing football-you just want to get a leeetle more adept at something before you invite everyone over to watch you…and I wasn’t just playing football here!  I needed to get into my groove first.

I asked to have the lights off and to have everyone except Ben leave the room.  My birth team quickly made their exit but of course the Nurse on staff was hesitant because technically she was supposed to stay with me, by hospital rules.  Being as nice as she was though, she agreed to leave for a little bit and just check on me every 10 minutes or so.  Not too long later she checked in on me and found my husband sequestered away in the bathroom reading on a stool.  Yes.  I couldn’t even focus with Ben there at first so I had asked him to go into the bathroom and close the door for awhile so I could be totally alone in the dark to work out this pushing thing.

Later the midwives told me the Nurse saw this and came out to them and said something to the effect, “her husband is in the bathroom….should I be concerned?”  They assured her, that no, everything was fine and just to go with it.  She said okay but that this was a first for her- someone asking everyone to leave the room.  I guess I’m pretty fortunate that I got my wish in this case- not everyone would have been so obliging.  A little later the nurse checked on me and gently tried to help show me how to push more effectively.  To be honest, I was a little irritated that she was staying in the room so long watching me push and giving me pointers before leaving again, but of course in the end it’s good she did, because it would have taken a lot longer to push him out if she hadn’t helped me get into a better technique.  All total, I still pushed for 2 hours and 45 minutes before our baby boy popped out.

Did I ever let Ben out of the bathroom?  You bet I did!  I didn’t want him to miss seeing how powerful I really am!  So finally as I was getting closer to the head crowning, I called him back and my birth team and the nurse came back in.  At first when they were all there different ones would speak words of encouragement when I was pushing like, “that’s great, your doing so good….”  I found this distracting as well so on the next break I said, “please don’t talk when I’m pushing.”  All was silent for the next contraction, but then at the break while I rested it felt eerily quiet and made me self-conscious, so then I added, ” you can talk when I’m resting if you want.”  Then the doctor came in and I think she might have started to speak but everyone quickly warned her that I needed it quiet.  Again, I ended up having a great doctor who humbly acquiesed to my requests.  She even allowed the lights to be off through the very end, which is also unusual I believe.

All in all, while the majority of my labor was excruciating and so very difficult (another story for another time), the pushing phase really felt great and powerful and was actually fun for me.