Wren's Birth Story

There are really 2 stories here. One is the actual labor and delivery and one is the journey to it. I’ll cover the first here in case it just gets too long to bear…

Disclaimer: This is a very personal story. I wrote it because the details were already getting fuzzy and I wanted to hang onto every morsel. And I wrote it for Wren. I didn't filter, so prepare yourself for the whole truth.

I’d had cramps for 2 nights (Thursday and Friday) and had a feeling things were moving along. Mind you, this was right after my last OB appointment where I was still 1 cm and “no progress”. Saturday night I had contractions all night but nothing terribly painful. Still, they were consistent and kept me up most of the night. I called Mom Sunday morning and asked her to come get Day, that I wasn’t sure if anything would really happen that day, but that Ken and I needed to spend some time together and rest because it was likely things would happen “soon”. I didn’t realize just how “soon”. I got off the phone with her and lost my mucus plug. (side note: mucus plug and bloody show are about the grossest descriptions of anything pregnancy related. I wish there was some other phrase for that.)

I had contractions all day Sunday. They were not painful, just uncomfortable. I called my midwife (second half of the story) and doula to let them know what was going on. Both said to keep them posted on any changes. Ken and I went to breakfast at Tinn Lizzie and I chowed on some greasy truck driver food. We napped, watched TV, took a walk, just had an easy day. All the while, contractions were about every 10-15 minutes. Around 4:30 PM, I needed a change of scenery so we went riding back roads. Although it was so nice to get out and ride in the country, the gravel got to be too much and we came home. And guess what… STALL. Nothing happened. No contractions for an hour, then two, three. I called Norma (midwife) and Toni (doula) to let them know that it looked like Wren had changed her mind.

I decided that if I was not going to have a baby that night, that I at least was going to have a glass of wine. Being Sunday, my only option was to bum some wine off somebody. Luckily I have a large group of wine drinking friends and knew I could score some good red wine… and likely in my neighborhood. So, we went over to the Gavin’s house, me in my ugliest maternity knit pants, feeling a little like I’d just had to drop out of a race that I’d been training for months for. We visited for a while, than came home to go to bed.

I woke up about 10 PM with a contraction that I knew was different. It didn’t necessarily take my breath away, but it certainly got my attention. I had a couple more, woke Ken up, got in the bath, and we talked about what to do. The contractions were requiring a lot more concentration…. I no longer wanted to talk through them. We called Toni and Norma, who both upon hearing of the change, started on their way here.

This is where things get hazy. Sequentially, it’s hard to say how this all happened. I couldn’t concentrate on timing anything or on what time it was. I was just getting through the contractions. Toni arrived about 30 minutes before Norma and was timing the contractions. She updated Norma when she got there. Norma checked on me, then left to go get her husband checked into a hotel who had come with her from Grenada. This was a little confusing to me because I felt like I needed attending. But as the night progressed, I learned to take cues from Norma as to what was happening and at what pace. She has a gift for being able to watch and know how slowly or quickly things are happening without even touching me.

She was back around 1 AM and checked me for dilation at my request. ONE centimeter. This news was tough. To me, it meant all the pain I was feeling was for nothing. This very struggle was one I had with myself the entire labor. It was a mental challenge not to allow myself to get discouraged when things weren’t happening the way I thought they “should” be. Part of my life-issue… needing to control the situation. Well, God certainly used this experience to drive home a point in that area of my life! Norma, Toni, and Ken were all great about keeping me focused and encouraged. Toni kept reminding me that EVERY contraction was bringing me closer to my baby. That EVERY sensation was progress. That labor WAS happening.

Norma said that we needed to all try to get some sleep. Ken and I got in the bed, Toni insisted on sitting on the floor next to me (I promise I offered her a chair.) and Norma went back to the hotel for a couple of hours. I’m pretty sure at this point I was starting to moan through the contractions. I also needed a hand to hold and squeeze, so Toni and Ken woke up with me every 5 minutes or so and let me hold onto them through the contractions. Around 3 AM, I was feeling a LOT of back pain and was having a harder time managing the contractions. I’d been in and out of the bath and few times, tried getting comfortable in the bed, tried walking, but I was just restless and tired at the same time. We called Norma and she came back to stay.

Between 3 AM and daylight, it was just one contraction after another. Sips of water or ginger ale or juice between each one. I’d feel the contraction coming on, grab somebody, Toni would push my back with her magic doula hands, and I would climb to the top of the hill, all the while wondering where the damn top of it was. And eventually, it would crest and I’d feel it recede. I had to really just lock myself into my own head during the contractions because they required so much effort. A few times during the peak of the pain, Ken would let out a big cough and I would startle “awake”, glare at him, lose my focus, and get pissed. He was such a great sport about my complaints. He never stopped trying to help, he never retreated or got his feelings hurt. He stayed with me through every contraction (well, except when he was cooking breakfast or getting a break from time to time.)

Wren had turned into a posterior position at some point. My guess is the week before when I had that horrible stomach bug, because after that I felt her movements in different places than I had been feeling them. Posterior means her back was more to my back than to my front. Bottom line is this is not the ideal way to labor and causes a lot of back pain. Toni The Magic Doula laid her blessed hands on my back for EVERY SINGLE CONTRACTION. This woman has a physically intense job. She never complained, never took any deep exasperated breaths like I’m sure I would have been doing if I was her. She never gave any indication that what she was doing was difficult, or even work. She was simply offering her service with love. Wow… what a lesson. I’m going to be processing on that one for a long time to come. Norma had me working in a few different positions to coax Wren into an anterior position. And they worked but only temporarily. Wren insisted on getting back into a posterior position every time.

At daylight, we all went into the kitchen and had breakfast. But because Ken can’t cook “just” breakfast, we also had baked chicken breasts, rice, and salad to go with our eggs and biscuits. I couldn’t eat much but I knew I needed the energy.

At this point I had no idea how much longer we had. There were a hand full of moments through the process that I really had to just let it out and lose myself. I would cry and plead for somebody to just tell me how much longer, give me an attainable short term goal, give me ANY indication that this was going to happen soon. But in true natural birth fashion, Toni and Norma insisted on letting me work all that out without pacifying me with half lies. They didn’t know how much longer. Only God was in control of that. My only short term goal was to get through the next contraction, and their response to how likely I would be holding my baby soon… likely, but what does soon mean???

I remember asking Toni, how likely is it that this will happen today? Very likely. How likely before noon? Possibly. How likely in the next few hours? Hard to tell. You get my point. They allowed me to work through those frustrations on my own, and they did it with love. I’m so glad they did. It was one of the greatest lessons in all of this. And a repeat of a life lesson that God has been trying to teach me for years… STOP trying to coordinate things and allow them to unfold. It is HIS plan and HIS timing that we ultimately want anyway. Not ours.

Back to the event… I started feeling “funny”. I was shaky and thought maybe this was transition. Looking back, I think it was more that I was losing my energy and had just exhausted myself. I asked Norma to check me and I was 4-6 cm. Norma is a smart lady. I’m sure she could have narrowed it down to a specific number, but she didn’t. She left me the option of freaking out because I was “only” four or rejoicing because I was “already” six. I didn’t do either though. At this point, I was surrendering to the process and just riding it out. I know now that surrendering like that allowed me to progress much quicker for the last part of the labor.

The contractions were intense. I was squatting on Norma, hanging on Ken, clawing on Toni, hands and knees, standing up, lying on my side, just surviving each one as best I could. Moaning through them became crucial. And the tone of the moan made a difference in how I was coping. Norma and Toni helped me keep my tones low. When I would start to feel out of control and the tones would elevate, I could feel the pain worsen and my energy would just pour out without a direction.

My body started pushing before I realized I was even doing it. I had no choice. The moans became grunts and growls. Everything turned primal. Norma told me to wait… that I could damage my cervix if I pushed before I was fully dilated. And remember, she had just checked me at 4-6 cm. But the problem was, I couldn’t NOT push. Even the thought of damaging my cervix was no match for the instinct to push. Norma checked me again and said with a smile, “You’re ready. That was fast.”

I pushed for about 2 hours, but I only remember bits and pieces. I remember biting the headboard (told you it got primal) and I remember Toni and Norma telling me to keep my energy LOW…. to tuck my chin and make a letter C around the baby. I had been pushing on the bed on my hands and knees, sometimes just kneeling, but when it came time to get her out I had to stand up. So there I was, standing at the side of my bed, gripping Toni and Ken, grunting like a wild animal. I was pushing and she was coming down but I remember fighting with myself. In my head I could not imagine how anatomically this was going to work. Even after all the reading, researching, birth stories, videos, etc, I still had a mental block about it actually happening.

Toni and Norma started cheering me on, saying “Come on, Ivey! Push your baby out! Her head is going to crown with this next push!” I wanted to believe them. I really did. But I was still unsure. And then it started hurting so bad I got pissed. I gave it my all. This is where Ken says I yelled out the Indian Squaw scream, “Lililililililli!!!” You’ll have to get him to reenact that one for you. It’s priceless. And at that moment, her head came out. Sweet Jesus! Physical relief and in my head the FIRST physical proof that this shit was actually going down! Norma told Ken to reach down and feel his baby’s head. When he did, Wren did a 180 and flipped anterior. When she did, she pointed her shoulder and just spun herself out. I didn’t have to push again. Ken caught his baby.

And Norma helped him support her, get me turned around, and handed me my Baby Wren. We had done it. She and I together. And she was perfect. And I was so present. And God was there smiling. Telling me “I told you that you could do it.” And I did. I really did. The light was angelic. I rubbed her back and watched her magnificent body oxygenate itself. Her color spread from the touch of my hand to her fingers and toes. She was squawking like a little bird (appropriate). We had the blinds open and I looked outside for the first time. It started raining. And I started nursing. All the build up just slowly faded. Calm and peace set in. Norma was busy tending to me and Wren, Toni was snapping pictures (thank you for remember to do that!), while Ken and I just looked back and forth from each other to our new baby in complete AWE with what we had just witnessed. It was birth as God intended. It was holy. It was sacred. And we had been there. Just overwhelming gratitude.

EPILOGUE:

As things started to return to normal, we ate (damn that baked chicken was good), cleaned up a little, smiled at each other, got settled in to rest a while. Norma kept a check on how I was feeling and I was still floating on adrenaline and all of those heavenly chemicals your body produces in childbirth. I felt like a million bucks. Wren nursed for over 2 hours. She knew immediately what to do.

Around 3 PM, Norma checked me again and said she wanted to look closer at a tear. It turned out that the tear was more than she was comfortable repairing. She suggested we call Magnussen’s office to see if they could stitch me there, but they were in Columbus that afternoon. It started to look like our only option was going to be the ER for stitches. I was SO tired and all I wanted was a bath and a nap, but Norma convinced me they needed to be repaired that day. She was so concerned about me having to go to the hospital after all that we had been able to do at home, but honestly it never took away from anything we had experienced up to that point. I knew it’s what we had to do, and nobody was in real danger.

After we had decided that Ken would take me and Wren to the ER, we started to get ready to go and I started bleeding again. More than Norma was ok with. She told Ken to go ahead and call the ambulance then she quickly took my face in her hands and peered into my eyes and told me not to worry, that I was fine, but she did not want me passing out in the car on the way to the hospital and that it looked like I might. I tried not to get alarmed, but the energy changed. Toni was getting me dressed and packing Wren a bag. Ken was on the phone with the paramedic and shortly after that we heard the sirens. I’ll say this, it is strange to be picked up in an ambulance when you feel like a million bucks. I was still so high from the birth that I was doing the princess wave on the stretcher coming down our front steps for all the neighbors. I regret that my friends and neighbors had to piece together what must have been happening and I hate that they were so alarmed. I would have been, too. But all was well. The hospital staff stitched me up and my bleeding stopped by the time we got there.

Fast forward 4 days later. My biggest physical complaint is the nagging cough Ken gave me (plus stitches, put that together why dontcha). Wren and I have been waited on hand and foot by Ken and my mom. Big sister Day is totally in love (although she’s having a hard time understanding why we can’t take Wren to the playground or push her in the toy grocery cart). Our friends and family have been in and out visiting us in the very room she was born in. All is just as it should be.

The Nest

Baby Wren’s room is ready for her! Although it’s not likely to be used any time soon. I’m sure she’ll be in our room for a long while, just like her big sister was (um, is). But, it’s such a cute room!

Craft #1 was the door panels. Paper and watery glue (can’t think of what that’s called – baby brain). If you have not discovered pinterest.com, go do so now.

Craft #2 was the lamp and shade. My friend Brandi gave me this great lamp and I knew I wanted to use it in here, so I painted it white and recovered the shade. Again, pinterest.

Craft #3 was the mobile. This is not where it will hang permanently, but I’ve been instructed not to climb the ladder. So, just to give you an idea, I hung it from the fan. Thanks, pinterest.

Craft #4 was a gift from my friend, Terri. She painted these panels to match the bedding. Are they perfect or what? All for Baby Wren. Sweetness! And the 2 prints next to the closet door I found on Etsy.com... Another MUST if you want to feel creative.

Now, all nursery projects and tasks are complete. I threw away the list. Let’s do this!