It took me a while to compile this, and I wanted Chad to have an input on it too. We FINALLY got it all together, from what we can both remember.
For those who have been waiting:
The Birth of Annestyne Nova
Gray
I guess you could say that I knew she was
coming. Not that she was coming the way she did; I mean that labor was here.
Two days before I went in to full blown labor I was started to have
contractions, but they were extremely irregular. Just the type to let you know
that labor would be approaching within a couple of days. I was feeling more
pressure, I could feel she was LOWER, and I was having those crazy horrid sharp
vaginal pains (that only kept getting worse every time).
So let me
explain why I didn’t freak that they were already so close together real quick.
With Hasting, we were sent home for false labor because although contractions
were consistent, they weren’t reaching a maximum of 45-60 seconds long. So,
with that, I knew that I wanted to labor at home with her for as long as I
could. So I didn’t panic, they weren’t even lasting 40 seconds. I quit timing
contractions at 10:31, with that last contraction being at 5:21 and lasting 45
seconds. By this time Chad and I had turned the TV off and lay down to go to
sleep. We were sleeping on the couch because I was already super uncomfortable,
and slept better on the couch.
I fell asleep, and I woke up at 12:15am, only
to begin timing my contractions again. They seemed to be getting stronger
certainly, but again, nothing I felt like I couldn’t handle, and my breath wasn’t
being taken away. By 12:53, my contractions were a steady 2-2.5 minutes apart,
lasting anywhere between 45-55 seconds long. I decided to briefly wake Chad and
tell him to text his boss and let him know he wouldn’t be at work the next day.
By this point I knew she would be here by the next day. I decided to get in the
bath tub, and try to do some laboring in there. I told Chad to just continue
sleeping, and I would wake him when I felt like I needed him or his support.
While laboring in the tub, the contractions became stronger, and I lost more of
my mucus plug (that looked like it had some bloody show in it). I labored in
the tub for an hour at least. 1:14a, I text my doula to touch base with her and
let her know that things were getting started. She asked me to keep her updated
with progression. Come 1:30 I was still in the tub, and decided to call Chad’s
mom to let her know that labor was progressing and I wanted her to go ahead and
head over to the house. Chad’s mom had already had her bags packed, and was
here within a couple of minutes. She was coming over to watch Hasting for us
during our hospital stay. She got here and woke Chad up, because I was still in
the tub, and our door was locked, so someone had to let her in. I decided that
it was time to get out of the tub, and do some moving around, and let gravity
take its toll on my body. When I stood up to get out, I lost what was the
remainder of my plug, and it had a rather decent amount of blood in it. I knew
at that moment, it was real, and our daughter had decided it was time for her
birthday.
When I got out of the tub, it took me what seemed
like forever to get my clothes on. Every time a contraction came I needed
something to lean up against and just sway back and forth, left to right. I
used our bathroom counter, our bed, our door frames, and our couch, whatever I
could reach. By the time I got clothes on I began having insane cold sweats and
feeling extremely nauseous. (This should have been a trigger for me that “hey,
Lindsay, you’re hitting transitional labor. You need to leave the house
immediately or you need to decide to stay and birth this baby here”.). Didn’t click
and I just kept walking around, throwing last minute things in our bag. I
stopped, and decided to get on the birthing ball for a while. Swaying side to
side, and front to back felt amazing. With every contraction I was beginning to
get more and more vocal as well. When I would stand up from the ball I could
feel gravity just pulling her down more and more. I text my doula and asked her to go ahead and
come over to our house at this point.
The last contractions I timed were at 2:53am,
which is a couple of minutes before Chad and I left the house. From
2:36am-2:53am, my contractions were averaging 1:30 minutes apart, and were
lasting 45 seconds long.
I felt like I could barely walk, but I knew it was
time to go to the hospital. I text my doula, and asked her to meet us at the hospital,
that we were leaving and I was ready to be at the hospital by this point.
Chad and I climbed in the Tahoe, and I was
hurting BAD. With every bump on the road I literally wanted to slap my husband.
My doula reminded me to call the midwife on call, (and I’m glad she did,
because that’s one thing that had completely slipped my mind by this point). I
called the midwife at 3:14 (so sometime between the last contraction I timed at
2:53, and calling her at 3:14 we had left the house). I remember being right by
the local police station when I called. I also remember screaming, and super
pissed off after I got off the phone with the midwife on call. I had never
seen this midwife, but I heard she was basically a MEDwife vs. a midwife (which
means she likes her medications, far from what I believe in).
We were having Annestyne at Women’s Hospital,
which if you don’t know, is roughly 25 minutes from where we live. We hit the
highway (40), and my contractions by this point were extreme. I’m talking I
couldn’t put my butt down on the seat, and I was basically moving my body in
ways that I didn’t think I could, in what tiny space I had in our front seat.
We hit the exit for Bryan Blvd. (which is about a 10 min drive from our house),
and I felt it coming. I felt the pressure, I felt the pain, and I felt the
IMMEDIATE need to push. Pushing with a natural birth is completely different
than the epidural birth I had experienced with Hasting. It was real, I could
feel it. I could literally feel my body telling me, “Lindsay, you have got to
push”. I didn’t try holding back, I just listened. I didn’t tell Chad I had
started pushing (although I think I have a couple of regrets with that). I didn’t
want him to panic; I wanted him to focus on driving and getting us to the
hospital. We were about 15 minutes away from the hospital by then. I remember
my first push; I put my hand down in between my legs. I couldn’t feel her head
outside yet, but I could feel it right behind. I brought my hands back up, and
pushed again. This time, when I reached down there, I could feel my bag of
waters just sitting there. I took the time to feel it, and really focus on what
exactly it was. I remember thinking she was going to be born in caul (bag of
water still intact). This whole time I was in my own element. I was
concentrating on loud, but low tone moaning, and breathing. Chad constantly
reminded me to breathe, and was telling me “You can do this baby.” I braced my
knees up against our dash (and I have bruises to show) and with another
HUUUUUUUUGE push Chad realized I was giving birth to our daughter. I think he
had realized this too, because at this point I had started ripping my pants
off. I wasn’t pulling my hands back up, and he kept asking me “what are you
doing?” And with the loudest low key moan, with the hardest push, and with the
biggest breath, her head was out, and he could clearly see it. The sensation that
I felt during this time is in-describable. I was so focused on pushing our
daughter out, that the pain was almost pushed to the side. It was there, that
ring of fire was ever so clearly there, but it was nowhere near what I
expected. It was painful, but I didn’t care. He started to pull over and I just yelled “no,
just go to the hospital”. I held her head in my hands, and with one more push
(the easiest push thus far), our baby girl was brought in to this world. We had
reached the part of Bryan Blvd where it splits. You either go Bryan Blvd (down town),
or 68 towards the airport.
Chad was a little panicky, I was more so in
shock. I didn’t speak for a few minutes. I just kept looking at our daughter,
realizing that I had just given birth in our car. Even though he was panicking,
he immediately told me to make sure that I got her skin to skin. He helped me
take off what I could of my shirt. We couldn’t find a blanket to wrap her, but
instead found one of Hasting’s jackets that would have to make do until we
reached the hospital. Chad said “What do we do?” and I first directed him to
call the doula and let her know that we had Annestyne in the car, and we were
still in route to the hospital. It was right at 3:30am when we called her. We
had struggled to find my phone to get her number to call her, but finally found
it underneath me. She was at the hospital already, and told us she would be
waiting for us. After he called my
doula, he called 911. They told us someone would be waiting for us at
admissions at the hospital. Right before we reached the stop light at Bryan
Blvd to turn on Green Valley a police officer got behind us. Chad had passed
them speeding. He was going somewhere around 85-90 to get us to the hospital!!
Chad ran the red light and said F it. After following us a bit, they turned
their blues off. They had realized we were the couple that had just called in
that we had delivered our baby in the car. They continued to follow us to the
hospital, and made sure that once we got there everyone was ok.
I held Annestyne wrapped up on my chest the
whole drive to the hospital. I couldn’t believe that I had just delivered our
child on my own. It was completely
un-assisted, completely natural (although we had a planned natural water birth
anyways). When we reached the hospital there was a group of people waiting for
us at the door. They had blankets and a wheel chair. I got out of the car and
in to the chair, and we were wheeled in to a room in admissions. Everyone was
full of questions as to how the labor went. Our doula parked our car for us so
that Chad could continue to stay with me.
We got in to the room, and the midwife and a nurse
went in with us. They offered me a drink, and hooked a blood pressure cuff
around my arm, just to monitor my BP. Once we were settled, I was able to nurse
Annestyne for the first time. This is something that I have been looking
forward to since Hasting and I weren’t able to share that bond for very long.
After a good while in the room (an hour at the least), the cord had finished
pulsating completely, and Chad was able to cut the cord! After he cut the cord,
I needed to deliver my placenta. A little bit of traction was used (where part
of the cord is pulled on to help the placenta deliver), and my tummy was pushed
down on, and the placenta delivered. I have to say, it was pretty awesome to
feel the placenta deliver naturally. It was super warm, and it felt huge. It
wasn’t like delivering all over again though. It was just a weird feeling, like
it just kind of formed to my body and slipped out. I don’t really know how else
to explain it.
Once the placenta delivered, I had to be
checked for any tears that may have happened during delivery. I ended up having
a first degree tear. I was numbed with a needle (which by the way, I REALLY
couldn’t feel), then stitched up with 3 stitches. We had to stay in the room a
little bit longer, for a neonatologist (or something along the lines of that—I think
that’s what he was called) to come in and check Annestyne. I was Group B Strep
positive with her, and because of the car delivery I wasn’t able to receive any
antibiotics. So they wanted to check her and make sure that everything was ok,
no jaundice, etc. It was nice that everyone came to us. Not once did she leave
our side. I had to be monitored for bleeding, as I had passed a couple of
clots. Someone came in to check me, just to make sure everything was ok, and
then we were wheeled up to our room.
When we got to the room, we basically just got
all settled in. I got the hospital gown on. While I did, Chad was able to get
some one on one skin-to-skin bonding time with A. They took her measurements, 7
pounds 6 ounces, and 20.5 inches long. She was an ounce less than Hasting, and
half an inch shorter.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me if I was
disappointed with the fact that although we had a planned natural birth, we
didn’t get to have our water birth in our tub. Originally, before I even began
labor that was actually one of my biggest fears. I was scared I would labor too
long at home, get to the hospital, and not have time to labor or birth in our
tub. After Annestyne’s birth, that fear I once had disappeared. I feel like God knew that my wishes were to
not birth with the midwife that was on call (as bad as that sounds). Things
happen for a reason. The experience that I was able to have with Annestyne’s
birth was empowering, it was phenomenal, and it was un-expected. This story
that we have to tell people is incredibly awesome.
Going from the medicated birth with Hasting, to
this wild natural birth with Annestyne was incredibly awesome. I would do it
all over again, and I would give birth a million more times all natural.
I birthed without fear. I delivered my baby
without medication. There were no doctors present, just me and my husband. I
felt like in that moment of delivering her, I was holding hands with God, and
my mother was watching over me. This birth made me realize that as a woman I am
more capable of things than I believe I am. I am strong. I am fierce. I am a
woman, and I was created to do exactly what I did.
To end Annestyne’s Birth story, I would like to
expand on why we chose the name that we chose for her. If you don’t know me then
you should know that my mother passed away when I was four years old. Her
middle name was Anne, as is mine. I knew when I had a daughter that I wanted to
carry that name through her. With that, we came up with Annestyne (pronounced
like the actress Jen Aniston). Her middle name was set to be Rose, then we
changed it because so many people were using Rose, and we like to be unique. So
we changed it to Brook. Brook is a form of water, and with her set to be our
water baby we found it fitting. After her birth, we realized that middle name
was no longer fitting. We came up with Nova. A Nova is a car, a fast car at
that. It is also a Chevy. How fitting. Annestyne was delivered in a Chevy, and
she came SUPER fast.
And with that, we have our Annestyne Nova Gray.
January 16, 2014
3:29am
7 pounds 6 ounces
20.5 inches long
