I say the kids knew it first because they all seemed to have a behavior change last week. Zander started being clingy and the others started being unruly. I didn't know why until Saturday morning when I woke up. I laid there and nursed Zander like every other morning. Contractions started while he nursed which had been common all week. Most days contractions died out before I even got the kids to school. However this day they didn't seem to stop. We got up, I made breakfast and then we all got ready to leave the house. While we had been planning a homebirth for a while now I didn't think she would be born during week 38 since everyone else was born during week 39, so I had put off the final parts for our homebirth like the hose, sink connector, and mattress cover. We leave and go to Lacey (about 30 minutes away) start out at home depot to get our hose and sink connector. Walking through the Home Depot store I continue to have contractions. I hadn't really timed them, but they are never more than 5 minutes apart. Then we run over to the dollar store and the bread store since we're all the way in Lacey. I run in both places.
I decide that I don't want to come sit at home and labor. I had already done most of the last minute cleaning that I needed to do. I had cleaned the bathrooms, done a few loads of laundry, cleaned up the kitchen before we left. We ended up at target. We walked around looking for a little bit, but walking wasn't comfortable. I knew the contractions were pretty real by this point and weren't going to stop. I also started losing my mucous plug during one of my many bathroom trips in the Target. Wandering around became less fun so I said it was time to go. We went across the street and got Tony and the kids some food before heading home. Contractions hung at around 4 minutes apart all the way home. We got home and I continued on the remaining of my chores that I wanted done before the baby was born. Changed the sheets, made the bed, put together the fan that we got (since we didn't have one and I hadn't met up with anyone that I was going to borrow from) and continued on with my laundry. The more I did the closer contractions were, but I was still able to move through them. Finally mid afternoon I went to hang out in the bath tub to kill some time until April 1st. I stayed in there for about 2 hours while turning prunish. I then got out and being exhausted decided I would try to lay down. I laid there for a bit, but contraction weren't going to stop and continued to be 4 minutes apart while resting and on top of each other when I wasn't resting.
I ended up spending the next few hours watching TV. I contacted the midwife around dinner time to tell her that we were going to have a baby at midnight and if she would like she could show up for the gig. ;) I had texted her earlier in the day to let her know that I was contracting and had been for a few hours and that we could be having a baby that night.
Midwife arrived shortly after we put the kids to bed and started getting things set up. Zander had a hard time going to bed so Tony sat and rocked him a bit while the midwife, the assistant and the doula hung out up stairs preparing the room for birth. Zander finally went down quite reluctantly as if he knew what was going to happen to him. I continued to change positions to deal with the contractions that were pretty close together. The midwife got the tub set up and filled so that when I was ready I could get in. I watched the clock waiting for as close to midnight before I got in. They finally suggested that I get in, and that they would step out of the room for a little bit. Tony laid on the bed and I got in the tub. We hung out watching friends for a while before the others joined us back in the room. Unlike all my other labors having people apply pressure to my hips in different way during contractions helped take my focus off the contractions so every few minutes someone would have to apply different pressure to me.
Tony was my usual preference because I wanted to include him more than I had before during my other labors, but I was determined to tolerate this one better. I think it surprised him that I was dealing as well as I was which I think the best part was that I was able to do whatever I wanted that made me feel more comfortable.
Finally I was beginning transition. I was fearful to give into the desire to push because I knew that there was no going back and that baby would be coming out and that hurts. ;) I finally let my body do it on it's own because the midwife said I didn't have to push and I could rock the baby out as I needed and that whether I pushed or not she would come down and out on her own. I have never felt baby descend before during transition because I don't think I've ever focused so much on getting through them than just the ouch factor. Not saying that it wasn't horribly painful and I kept repeating that I was never doing this again (which I have said with delivery of Zavier and Zander ;).
Baby was finally down to the point where the only thing to get it over with was deliver her. I asked that Tony trade places with someone so that he didn't have to watch me push as it was not something he wanted to see. He wasn't leaving the room just not standing over me any more applying pressure during contractions. I pushed a few times and tried to not push at the same time and out came her head. Then it seemed like forever before the next contraction to deliver her shoulders and the rest of her. I delivered her on my knees facing the side of the tub so the midwife caught her and I lifted my leg over her to pull her out of the water. She had her cord around the back of her neck and around her arms, but not the front of her neck. This made it seem like the cord was quite short and so I had to lift myself up to get the cord unwrapped from her. I did then ask if anyone had seen that she was really a girl. And we turned her over so that we could check and she was still a girl.
The other thing that was nice during this delivery is that my cervix was never checked until I asked. I was totally allowed to go with what my body was doing on its own. I did have the midwife check me as I was preparing to push just to be sure I wasn't going to cause any damage to myself by allowing my body to push on its own. But it didn't really matter at that point as baby was out in about 5 minutes.
I did also ask after the head was out for someone to pull out the rest of the baby. It really did seem like forever before the next contraction came so that I could get her out. However no one did and I had to just wait. ;)
We sat in the tub for several minutes while we waited for the cord to stop pulsing. However I was ready to move on so the midwife cut the cord from the placenta and said when I contracted I could push and I did and it popped right out. They put it in a bowl and removed it from the tub. I then said I was ready to get out so I passed the baby off to Tony and got some Tylenol before I would leave the tub as after pains are almost just as painful as contractions. I got up and rinsed off in the shower while Tony hung out with baby. Then I got into our bed and laid there until Abbie was ready to nurse which wasn't long. Tony brought her over and we started nursing. She nursed for a bit while the midwife filled out some paperwork and the assistant and doula started on draining the pool and clean up.
The midwife came back upstairs to check baby and take measurements. Abbie peed on the scale when the midwife went to weigh her. She weighed 7lbs 11oz. The midwife had asked me what I thought she weighed and I guessed 8lbs so not far off. The midwife thought she would weigh a bit more, but she weighed her twice. She measured her head and a few other body parts and then her length. She was 19 3/4 inches. Daddy diapered her and then mommy dressed her and then I just laid in the bed holding her. I finally got up again to go to the bathroom so that the midwife could prepare to leave. Baby was good and mommy was good and daddy was good.
The midwife offered to hang if we wanted because Abbie's breathing was on the high end of normal, but I felt comfortable enough with Abbie that I said she could go. The midwife was staying in Yelm that night so I knew she wouldn't be far away if we changed our minds. We didn't and Abbie had a great first night getting plenty of sleep. Mommy only slept for about 2 hours because it is just hard to sleep after having a baby. Tony grabbed about 4 hours before the boys got up for the day.
We did wake Zachary up after everything was cleaned up so that he could meet Abbie since before he went to bed he said he wanted to. We didn't offer it to anyone else since Zayden shares a room with Zander and I wasn't waking up Zander. ;)
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