Holland's Birth Story {Part One}

Miss Holland's birth story is pretty long. I spent a few hours over the past couple of days getting it all written out to go into her baby book. I wrote it in letter form to Holland and that's how I am going to post it on here as well. It just makes things a bit easier on me. Anyway, since it is written to Holland there are some things you might need to know to make sense of who people are and such. "Dad", "your dad", "Daddy", etc. refer to Race, "Mimo" is the name my mother has chosen instead of Grandma, "Grandpa" refers to my dad, and "Aunt Helena" is my sister Helena. I hope it's not too confusing!

I want to post this on my blog and share my experience with others but I would appreciate it if people were kind in their comments. I know that people are often very opinionated about things surrounding birth and I love to hear people's opinions as long as they are not rude. So thank you in advance for being kind!

I mentioned above that this is a pretty long story so I am going to split it up into a couple of different parts. Here is part one! 

August 25th, 2012

Dear Holland,

It’s been ten days since you {FINALLY} made your arrival into our family. Your Dad and I are absolutely enamored by you. I want to write your birth story out before I forget all the details so that is what I am going to {try} to do today. It is a long story so it will take some time to get it all written out. Growing up I always loved to read the story of my birth and to recount the tale to anyone who would listen. I hope that you also enjoy knowing what it was like for your mother to bring you into the world. And I hope that someday my experiences will be able to help you through things that you experience as a mother.

Well, here goes! I want to preface this story by telling you what my birth plan was. I wanted to have an all natural childbirth experience. I planned by reading Hypnobirthing, I went to Heavenly Father in prayer to ask for this experience, I wrote down my wants and desires for your birth in the journal I’ve been writing in for you, and I told my Certified Nurse Midwives {CNMs} and Doctor what my desires were. I felt prepared mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually to bring you into this world with as little medical intervention as possible. I felt prepared on your due date, August 1st and then each day after but you were not ready to come just yet. 

Two days after your due date, Friday, August 3rd, your dad and I went in for a non-stress test to make sure that you were still healthy and thriving in your little water world. I felt that you were fine but you were not very wiggly during the non-stress test {because it was in the morning--your nap time} so our CNM recommended that we go into the hospital for another non-stress test and a biophysical profile ultrasound. Mimo told me that they would probably try to make me stay in the hospital and be induced but I did not think they would do something so ridiculous since I was sure you were fine. Your dad had things going on for the day so Mimo and I went to the hospital. We were there for a long time but everything was looking fine. You wiggled lots for us and the ultrasound looked great! I was all ready to go home when they hooked me up to the monitors again. When we asked the nurses why they told us they were just waiting on my doctor’s approval to send me home. A couple of minutes later the nurse came back and asked me if I was opposed to being induced. I could not believe my ears! They were really going to try to keep me there! I told them that I was opposed to being induced and we asked if we could leave against medical advice. We were then told that if we did leave against medical advice our insurance would not pay for the visit to the hospital that day {we later found out this is a myth}. I was upset and crying and we did not know what to do. We called your dad and he immediately came to the hospital to be with me. We also requested that the nurses contact my CNM and/or doctor so that we could speak to them and try to figure out why we were being kept at the hospital. I talked to my midwife and just felt like she was trying to scare me into having you that day. As ready as I was to meet you, being induced was not a part of the plan I had in mind. I had wanted my body to start things when the time was right. And, I trusted that my body would start things when it was the right time. Finally we got Dr. Kells to come into the hospital and look at the records of the non-stress test. He talked to us some and then gave us the OK to go home. We were just told to make sure you were wiggling a good amount each day and that had never been a problem so I wasn’t concerned. We were incredibly grateful to be able to go home. 

The next week and a half was very hard. Every day I was so ready to meet you and yet my body, and you, were just not saying it was time. So I waited. Your dad took me on dates, Mimo had gifts for me to open every day, and I made lots of bows and hair things for you to pass the time. I walked with Mimo and Aunt Gelsey to school every day in hopes that things would get started. I started a list on my phone of all the suggestions people gave me on how to get labor started {That list is a whole story for another time}, I tried these suggestions, nothing seemed to work. 

Date with Daddy at The Melting Pot

The gifts from Mimo.

Just some of the many suggestions to induce labor.

Sunday, August 12th Sister Pittam, from the ward, came over and taught Mimo how to do reflexology on my feet to get things started. It was basically one AMAZING foot massage for a LONG time that put me to sleep. It was WONDERFUL! I don’t know if that is what got things started but Monday, August 13th around 5:15 am my water broke! I was having a funny dream where Aunt Jackie and Uncle EB lived in the master bedroom at our house {where your dad and I are living now} and Mimo, Aunt Helena and I were working on something in their room when we saw a scorpion. Mimo told me to call 911 because apparently we had previously had a bad experience with scorpions so she wanted the fire department to come and get rid of it. I was on the phone with the dispatcher who was telling me that I had to look and see if the scorpion had two prongs on its back. I was trying to carefully approach the scorpion to look for the prongs when it jumped at me and bit me once on the hand and twice just above the knee. I went crying to my mom to tell her I had been bit when I all of a sudden started peeing and couldn’t stop. So I sat on a little tin antique children’s training potty that Aunt Jackie had decorated the room with and just let myself pee while I waited for my mom. I was pregnant in the dream but for some reason I was not convinced that the constant, uncontrollable peeing was my water breaking. Just after this all happened I woke up to a soaking wet bed. I excitedly woke your dad up to tell him that things were finally starting--ALL ON THEIR OWN! I headed to the bathroom to clean up and then went downstairs to tell my parents. We were all so excited but I had yet to feel any contractions. Mimo, Dad and I decided to go on a walk to try and get the contractions to kick in. We walked to Walgreens and back and viewed a beautiful sunrise. Your dad and I were giddy the whole walk. After getting home I decided to walk around in the pool for awhile, also in hopes that things would get started. I was feeling some very light contractions but not enough to feel like things were really starting. Mostly I could just touch my stomach and feel it hardening. We decided to wait somewhere between 24 and 48 hours to go in after talking to my aunt who is a midwife and researching about the risk of infection after your water breaks. This was the time period I felt comfortable with. We walked around the mall that day and continued to try to kickstart things. I went to bed a bit disappointed but still trusted that my body would kick in and get things going when it was supposed to.

The beautiful sunrise on the day my water broke.

To be continued...Part Two