Welcome, Xavi!
Hi, everyone! Thank you for your well wishes as I was going into labor. We're all safe and sound and getting used to being three!

This has been a fabulous and amazing couple of days. As I write this, my little one is staring up at me with a quizzical and alert expression after nursing up a storm. He was born 2 weeks early at 8:08 pm on Monday, April 7th at Group Health Hospital. He weighed 9lbs 5oz, with a 37cm head, and a full head of brown hair. He came out of the womb ready to eat, and within the hour was latched on the boob like a little adorable barracuda!

Here we are in the hospital:



More under the cuts...


On the boob, with a pointy head (the nurse said he was from France, like the Coneheads. It's not just the hat. It really is that pointy):




And here is the 9lb 5oz vaginally birthed little one - check out all that hair!



I had a wonderful and challenging labor that couldn't have been any better given the circumstances. It was completely natural, with the exception of a tiny incision that saved the day, and my pelvic floor. Here's the story - it's long:



Sunday night at around 11 or so, after a long weekend involving some serious nesting, cleaning, organizing, attending diaper classes, and family dinner, my bag of waters began to leak copiously. I got in the bathtub to relax myself, pre-contractions, and went to sleep around midnight or later. I soon woke up with rhythmic and slightly intense contractions happening every five minutes or so for about 30-40 seconds.

I woke mythalethe up to let him know, and he stayed up with me for a while until we decided it was best for him to rest, while I pre-labored around the house for the night. I watched part of Saturday Night Live that we had recorded - with creepy yet endearing Cristopher Walken - until the contractions became too distracting. I got in the bathtub and relaxed a bit, practicing whole body relaxation with every contraction. I am so glad I was able to have this time to practice, because I went quickly into active labor at about 5:00 a.m., and the contractions got a lot more intense. All the mindfulness relaxation exercises I had practiced in my Birthing from Within classes helped me tremendously. I went limp with every contraction, which helped me conserve a lot of strength.

I called my midwife, who said she would be arriving around 11 with the birth crew. By 12:30, I was already feeling the urge to push, but not able to recognize what it was just yet. I was sending my whole body limp every time I got an urge to bear down. I did this for a few hours, when my awesome midwife and her two students began to recognize my sounds as pushing sounds. She checked my cervix at 2:30, and I was at 9 1/2 cm dilated, fully effaced, and with a little lip on the cervix. She told me it was fine to start pushing.

I planned all along to use these hypnobirthing, "breathing down the baby" techniques of spontaneous, open glottis pushing - but after a couple hours trying and still not "hitting the target", my midwife was putting her fingers into my vagina to give me a sense of where to aim my pushes. It was really strange to not know where to push. I never expected to have to learn how to push out a baby. But with the intensity of the surges, valsalva pushing (vs. spontaneous open throat breathing-pushing) was the only kind that was helping Xavi down the birthway.

After 4 hours of pushing, much longer than anyone would have anticipated, Xavi's head was beginning to crown, but in a strange way. He was asynclitic - which means that his head was angled in a strange way instead of presenting with the crown of his head first. The pushes were doing nothing but jamming his face into my pubic bone. The midwife could feel that I had ample room in my pelvis, but his positioning was keeping him stuck. To top it off, it was pretty clear that this baby was a big one. I think maybe our wise baby knew that if he were to come out while we were still at home, my pelvic floor would have suffered - so maybe this was his way of keeping mama in good shape.

It was intense, more than I would describe it as painful. The contractions were amazingly powerful -- my uterus could have been bench pressing 200 easily. But hours of pushing with Xavi moving only slightly down the birthway was discouraging. My family was now gathered across the hall in my brother-in-law's apartment, and mythalethe was being the most amazing support person I ever could have imagined. We tried all sorts of positions: squatting, side-lying, standing, supported hanging, hands and knees, back... None of them were accomplishing much, and mythalethe was getting exhausted (without one complaint) holding me up during half of these positions. Each time I moved, the contractions were more and more intense. I was mostly quiet, focusing my energy downward after some instruction on what kind of sounds would help me and which ones would not. (Low frequency ooo and aaa helped open me up.)

At 5:30, my midwife gave me an IV with fluids to perk me up because I was getting dehydrated. I pushed for another half hour trying multiple different positions to no avail. We began to talk of options, and moving to the hospital seemed the best choice at this point. Xavi's position wasn't changing. My midwife correctly gauged that I still had enough energy to do this, but we would need to make it to the hospital soon if this were to remain an intervention-free birth.

The next challenge: Making it down 3 flights of stairs and into a car between contractions. Miraculously, I did it without being carried! When I walked out of the building, my friend Christine was there walking her dogs. I said a quick hello before falling to the ground with an intense contraction. I remember being concerned for Christine that she would be worried about me! Hahaha

The 5 minute car ride to the hospital was almost comical - Pregnant lady in the passenger seat sitting on a chux pad wailing at the top of her lungs every 40 seconds. The next thing I knew, I was in a bed in the hospital being examined by the Group Health Midwifery Team. I remember someone saying "this baby is coming!" Somehow, during the journey to the hospital, Xavi's movement shifted, and he was positioned perfectly to come out.

They got out a squat bar and secured it to the bed, then wrapped a sheet around it. I propped my feet up on the bar, grabbed ahold of the sheet in each hand and engaged in some of the most hardcore and dramatic pushing I've ever imagined. mythalethe was at my right along with my home midwife and my mother. The two midwifery students were on my left, and the hospital midwife and nurse were at my feet. Everyone was enthusiastically supportive, which helped me catch my 4th or 5th wind.

At this point, it was a supernatural and mystical experience. I was calling on my ancestors, on the gods, on the strength of everyone around me, and on what was deep inside me to be able to muster enough power to push out this child.

Here's the breakdown of labor:

2 a.m. - 5 a.m.: 3 hrs pre-labor
5 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.: 9.5 hrs active labor
2:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.: 5.5 hours pushing

Xavi was coming out. The next challenge: The "iron-clad" pelvic floor and a big baby. He was coming! But my perineum was about to really take a beating. The awesome midwife at the hospital, along with my wonderful homebirth midwife, counseled me that the best thing for me at this point would be a slight cut. The hospital midwife assured me that this is something she RARELY recommended, so I felt safe in her hands. She gave me the cut, and on the next contraction Xavi was out!!! As big as he was, they had to corkscrew him out of me to prevent his shoulder from being damaged, which got a few yelps out of me, but as soon as he was on my chest, all I could focus on was him. Any pain melted away in an instant. I had that oxytocin rush and fell in love with him and just about everyone in the room. He joined us at 8:08 p.m.

What an amazing creature - all covered in white vernix, slowly pinking up, looking at me, blinking and opening and closing his hands. His head had been in the canal for hours and was as pointy as a traffic cone. He was beautiful. He is beautiful.

We stayed in the hospital that night, because I was just exhausted and had a natural 2nd degree tear, plus the cut they made. It was a good idea, because I was beginning to be pretty light-headed. In the morning, they did my labs and found that I was really anemic from the blood loss the night before - as well as very dehydrated. My pulse was 155 and my blood pressure was 75/50. Not the best of states to be discharged. They did an EKG on me and more labs. I kept telling them it was just from exhaustion and dehydration after a superhuman effort! They had to rule everything out, consult the cardiologist, and get me back to a decent state. So we stayed another night while they gave me 4 liters of IV fluid. They let us discharge the next morning after my hematocrit was at a stable but anemic 26 and they determined they didn't need to do a blood transfusion - which had been mentioned the night before. The funny part was that no one knew where the blood had gone, so no one suspected anemia until they saw my labs in the morning. I suspect the very absorbent terry cloth wrap-around I was wearing took in a lot more than they noticed. mythalethe washed it yesterday and it was soaked with blood! It had been promptly shoved into a plastic bag after the birth and set aside. I think the midwife hadn't realized it had soaked up so much blood.

We were so lucky with the people who helped us - every nurse and midwife that attended to us was so respectful and kind, and appreciative of our positive attitude despite a transfer from a home birth. They praised me for being able to push as long as I did, calling me wonder woman, and Xavi for being such a good eater and tough baby. He showed no signs of distress throughout the whole labor (his heart rate didn't drop below 125 the whole time), despite hours of hard labor. A hospital birth wasn't so bad after all, and it probably saved my health (and future continence - !!!).

We are so happy that our home midwife showed such excellent judgment. There was no place like home to do the deep internal work necessary to get through this birth with enough strength. And there was no place like the hospital to lose as much blood as I did and get the monitoring I needed!

Now we're finally at home! mythalethe continues to be fabulously supportive as I rest and recuperate on orders not to leave bed except for the bathroom. I feel so loved by my family, who brought us over 3 delicious dinners yesterday and keep checking in with us. Xavi couldn't be a more amazing child. He loves to snuggle, and I haven't slept so well in months. We're a family!