Around 36 weeks is when I realized my pregnancy may
have been treating me so well that I got so used to being pregnant that I
forgot it was a temporary condition! At
my baby shower, which Natalia’s godmother Courtney planned for me, I remember
telling her all the things that still needed to get done: baptism class, backup hospital tour, belly
blessing henna, birth assistant home visit, an acupuncture appointment, several
church events we wanted to squeeze in, the list went on… On one hand, I knew I
was cleared for homebirth as of the day of my baby shower – 37 weeks. On the other hand, I realized I waited too
long to schedule several things that could’ve been done earlier.
 |
| Day before birth, weighing in at 178+ |
The week before, at my then weekly midwife visits,
Antonio was already at -1 station and my cervix was soft. Fundal height was 35 weeks, same as the week
before. I got the go-ahead to start
drinking raspberry leaf tea to help tone my uterus. I was holding off since some women claim that
it triggered labor for them, and I needed to be past 37 weeks to deliver at
home. So Friday, I got a little
ambitious and had two cups of tea, and another cup the following day. Saturday evening, right in the middle of the
vigil mass, I started to have some discomfort at the top of my uterus. It felt like Antonio was stretching and
pushing his extended legs up into my ribcage, something he’s done on occasion
in the last couple of weeks as space started to run out. Except that it kept coming back.
An hour after mass ended, we were picking up the baby
shower cake and ordering Natalia’s birthday cake. (We had decided to celebrate her birthday
early to make sure she had our undivided attention before Antonio’s birth. That
was the plan, anyway.) At the bakery, I
started to think that I may be having Braxton Hicks contractions. I didn’t experience them with Natalia, but I
had read enough to think that may be what it is. Another hour later, at home and after a quick
online search, I felt confident that indeed I was having Braxton Hicks
contractions, which ended up continuing for the rest of the evening, around 6
hours total.
I was starting to worry that labor had begun, so I
texted my sister-in-law with a heads up to pack an overnight bag when she came
up for the baby shower the next day. She
and her daughter Jade were on call to watch Natalia during the birth. But luckily, some pain meds and laying down
for the night made the BH go away. In
the morning, I figured I was in the clear, and indeed went on to have a great
time at the baby shower.
 |
| Cutting tres leches cake at baby shower, 2.5 days before birth. |
Oscar and I figured he wouldn’t wait until 40 weeks,
but we had no idea his arrival was right around the corner. Over the weekend, Oscar cooked up a storm,
which I should’ve known to attribute to his nesting. That man has more parental instinct than many
women!
Monday after the baby shower, Oscar showed me his
phone tree roster in case I needed to reach him while he was in class and away
from his desk at work. We also managed
to cross one final item off our to-do list: attending the baptismal class at
church Monday evening.
Tuesday morning, while still chilling in bed as was my
custom, I was texting Jackie, a local friend, to see about her watching Natalia
in case my sister-in-law got delayed.
Natalka was up and we were talking about the plans for the week when all
of a sudden my water broke. I knew
almost right away, but I was in disbelief anyway. It couldn’t have been pee, even though I
certainly had my share of accidents this pregnancy, because there was no
warning, no pressure on my bladder, and no attempt to stop the stream
worked. I rushed to the bathroom to try
to catch as much of the liquid as possible into the toilet. Once there, and after realizing the liquid
kept gushing in spite of me having peed and stopped, I pushed aside thoughts of
denial and remembered to check the smell of the liquid to confirm if it may
indeed be amniotic fluid. There was no
smell on my pants and undies, indicating that it wasn’t urine. I jumped in the shower to rinse off and
watched more liquid come out, along with an ever tiny red clot. I had been reading about the mucus plug,
didn’t recall seeing it with my first delivery, and wondered if I might see it
this time.
Once I got somewhat cleaned up and prepared with a pad
and new bottoms, I tried to talk Natalka through what I needed to do (as much
for my own benefit as for hers) without making any rash assumptions. I needed to speak to a midwife for official
confirmation. I was still holding out a
tiny bit of hope that my to-do list could still get done, but by the time I had
cleaned up and dialed, I pretty much knew it was go-time.
Within minutes I was speaking with Jennifer, the
midwife who caught Natalia three years earlier, and she confirmed what I
figured – my water had broken. Which of
course meant that baby was coming, and my to-do list was officially dismantled. Now I had a new to-do list. Notify all the relevant people. Do some basic clean up to prepare for
labor-mode. Try to keep calm and limit
excitement. Keep Natalka in the loop. Await contractions.
 |
| Helping daddy fix the vacuum cleaner as we await contractions. |
My phone was already in need of a charge when my water
broke, right at 9 o’clock in the morning.
So once I spoke with Jennifer, I had to plug in for a bit to be able to
have complete conversations with my sister-in-law, the birth assistant, and
Oscar, whom I’d have to track down via the phone tree he had just shown me the
night before. So as I waited for my
phone to charge up a little, I tried to keep business as usual as much as
possible, making and eating breakfast with Natalia while sitting on a folded up
towel so as not to mess up the chair upholstery. I threw in a load of laundry, did the dishes,
vacuumed upstairs. I spoke to Yoli to
let her know that my water broke, but that there were no contractions yet. I didn’t want her rushing, but I did want her
to start making her way up here, as she had a two hour drive, and that’s if she
were to leave immediately, which she couldn’t do because she was at work and
needed to go get her daughter and, per Natalia’s request, their little dog
Licho. I didn’t want the added stress of
worrying about her on the road, so I stressed that there were no contractions
yet.
Then came the moment of truth. I felt bad that Oscar wasn’t the first to
know that it was go-time, but I had to keep to a certain order, and notifying
people that would take the longest to arrive had to come first. I got out his phone tree roster and called
the first person. No answer. Second person, no answer. Third person, call got picked up by the
second person, which confused me for a split second, but luckily I was on top
of it and went straight to an impromptu script: “Hello Steve, this is Karolina,
Oscar’s wife. He asked me to use the
phone tree roster if I needed to reach him.
It appears that I am in labor.
Could you please track him down and let him know?” As I was asking my question, I heard Steve
already saying “oh, oh, ok…” I was calm, since there were no contractions yet,
but of course Steve probably pictured the typical movie scene of a mad dash for
the hospital. From what Oscar tells me,
it did look a little that way on his end.
He was at the front of an auditorium when Steve and Kerry, another
coworker, bolted down the aisle to tell him the news. Oscar jumped up and took off, then rushed
back for his sweater, then rushed back out the auditorium, encountering yet
another coworker who apparently had gotten the news and was also coming to make
sure he knew.
 |
| Natalka loving the attention from Tia Yoli and Jade. |
Back on my end, I had originally planned on taking
Natalia to Jackie’s that day for a play date, but since she had been under the
weather and they already saw each other the night before while Oscar and I were
at the baptism class, I had texted her to move it to the following day. In the process, I had texted my mom to try to
move up our regular Wednesday Skype call to Tuesday. Well, once I knew I was in labor, I cancelled
all Skyping with my mom, but later decided to try to Skype with her anyway
since I was still not having contractions three hours after my water broke. I contemplated telling my mom what was going
on. I had a long phone conversation with
her during labor with Natalia, without spilling the beans, and I wondered if it
might be better to tell her this time, but then I thought I didn’t want
unnecessary excitement, nor did I want her to worry, since homebirth wasn’t
something she really rooted for. We
Skyped for a bit, nothing got told, and we agreed to Skype again the following
week, as usual. I almost said something
about Antonio wanting to run for president, since it was Election Day, but I
played it safe and said nothing.
 |
| Natalka staying busy with cousin Jade, next door to where the action was! |
Before Oscar got home, I also spoke with the birth
assistant that we had assumed would be attending the birth, because she lived
closest. She had already been notified
to be on alert. Interestingly enough,
that morning, she had emailed me to reschedule her home visit, which was
scheduled for that day, because she was working on the election campaign and
had forgotten about attending a watch-the-results party that evening. I joked about ruining her party, but she
ended up not being the one to come anyway, so all worked out. The same birth assistant who attended
Natalia’s birth would be the one attending Antonio’s birth. Mary Beth had texted to let us know she was
coming, and Jennifer had asked if she could bring one of the newer midwives at
the practice as well, who apparently was still a student at the beginning of my
pregnancy. I mentioned briefly to Oscar
that we were looking at having three more people at this birth than the last –
four if counting Natalia! On the surface, it sounded excessive, but it turned
out to be just what was needed for a great birth experience.
 |
| Natalka hanging out with birth team, who were letting me labor uninterrupted. |
Oscar hit the ground running when he got home. He made
the bed, took out the birth supplies, cooked something, did several other
things I don’t even know what, and after the Skype call with my mom, we were
sort of looking at each other with a bit of relief. While our big to-do list wasn’t going to
happen, the nitty gritty stuff was all done.
We were ready. And still waiting
on contractions.
I called Jennifer as we had agreed upon, so that she
could give me some ideas about how to kick-start labor. I had forgotten that I should be trying to
nurse Natalia in order to help bring on contractions, which Jennifer reminded
me of. But even so, this didn’t end up
helping. Yoli was already in the area when
Jennifer suggested I take castor oil to induce contractions, and since Oscar
was on the phone with her while I was speaking to Jennifer, I took the
opportunity to ask for Yoli to pick some up so that Oscar wouldn’t have to
leave. It still took an hour before Yoli
arrived with the castor oil. I called
Jennifer to let her know the castor oil was here, and she instructed me to take
the first dose.
 |
| cuddling during contractions |
Since Yoli and Jade were here, and Natalka quickly
turned her attention to them, Oscar and I were free to help me focus on getting
into birth mode. We sat in the playroom,
HypnoBabies relaxation music in the background, and Oscar read to me the
Visualizing Your Birth script. It was
mostly to give me the rhythm and tone of his voice to focus on as a way of
winding down, putting aside the concerns of everyday life, and getting mentally
focused on what was most important right now.
Midway through this pregnancy, I had realized that I wasn’t really prone
to being hypnotized. After all, I
resisted being mentally stripped down in Basic Training in order to be
indoctrinated with an Army identity. So
we had stopped doing hypnosis scripts and I had no expectation of using
hypnosis to try to mentally take me away from the contractions or pushing
sensations.
What I knew was that I needed to relax and stay
relaxed and keep being reminded to relax, as much as possible, from now
on. And hearing Oscar’s soothing voice
and positive description of what was upon us was just the ticket. During the thirty-minute session, I was able
to count Antonio’s 10 kicks, which reassured me, since I hadn’t really felt him
move much since my water broke. In
addition, I started to feel the tiniest hint of very mild abdominal cramps. Grumbling, really. Which makes sense, since the castor oil was
to bring on diarrhea before labor contractions were to be expected.
 |
| Natalka helping Mary Beth listen for Antonio's heartbeat. |
I had started keeping track of what I was doing in a
little notebook, starting with time of my water breaking, whom I called when,
when I ate and drank. I started keeping
Jennifer in the loop by text with less than glamourous updates of bowel
movements and possible/potential contractions.
4:30 ish is when I started to notice some regularity of cramps, which
varied between 4-8 minutes in frequency, but they were still so mild I wasn’t
sure I wanted to call them contractions.
By 6:30, I wasn’t uncertain anymore, and that is when Jennifer noted in
my chart the official start of contractions.
I’d keep track for about a half hour, sitting on the throne, since the
castor oil was doing its job. I found it
a bit comical that Jennifer instructed me to let her know when the pooping had
stopped, and Oscar and I joked that she wanted that to be over with by the time
she arrived. Perhaps that was the point,
but I’m sure there was also a legit reason for it. At my postpartum home visit, she noted that I
had labored well on my own with my first pregnancy, so she didn’t want to step
in too soon.
 |
| Note Natalka's hand on my belly as she's giving me my relaxation cues. |
I was breathing through the contractions with low
vocalizations, and while they were uncomfortable and required my full
concentration, as soon as each was over, I was lucid and perfectly fine. Jennifer, Chloe (the second midwife), and
Mary Beth arrived around 8pm. They
finished setting up shop, since Oscar had started to prep the birth supplies
earlier, and checked baby’s heartbeat. About an hour or hour and a half later,
they recommended that we go for a walk to try to regulate the contractions some
more, as they had gotten a bit closer together, ranging from 2-4 minutes apart,
but only lasting under a minute. Natalia
was having such a good time with Tia Yoli and Jade, playing a dinosaur puzzle
on her Tia’s phone that she didn’t want to go for a walk with us. Oscar and I ended up going for a 20 minute
walk, just the two of us. Talking in the
moonlight, pausing to embrace during contractions: who knew there could be a
romantic aspect to labor?
 |
| Talking and smiling between contractions. |
When we got back, I felt tired and decided to lay down
for a bit. Oscar and I cuddled on the
bed, but not for long. Maybe two or
three painful contractions later, and I was ready to rush to the toilet once
again. This time, things got real, and I
noticed my legs started to shake with each contraction. I lost my inhibition and didn’t mind having
the bathroom door open and my birth team checking in on me while sitting with
my pants around my ankles. In between, I
was tired but lucid, and aware that things were picking up and we were getting
closer to the main event. It was around
11pm. When I asked for his feedback,
Oscar alerted me to the fact that I was transitioning. Remember, I said he is quite intuitive!
 |
| We make a great team. |
Once I felt that the toilet trip was done, since
apparently I was passing mainly the castor oil now, I moved to the bed. The contractions were very painful now, and
while I wasn’t sure how close we were to delivery, I didn’t want to know and be
disappointed. I kept hearing Jennifer
encourage me to “bring the baby down”, which I wasn’t sure what that
meant. At one point I heard a brief
exchange between the midwives that I thought meant I was only 2cm dilated (I
heard something like “she’s two”), but I didn’t really worry too much about it.
(I wasn’t getting any vaginal exams, so there was no way to guess how dilated I
may have been at the time.) I probably endured these contractions on the bed
for about an hour. I was not only
vocalizing loudly at this point, but my whole body was involved in trying to
capture the sensation and ground it away from me. The birth video confirms the raw and wild
jungle-like sounds and movements that I figured I was making. But I didn’t feel in the least bit concerned
about it. I felt confident that my body
was doing what it needed to be doing to bring Antonio into the world.
 |
| Natalka staying close by so as not to miss her brother being born. |
Initially, I tried to be in a squatting position
during the contractions, as that felt most grounding to me, but the
contractions were so exhausting that I was laying down in between each
one. So that meant I was exerting a lot
of energy every minute or two getting up and into the squat position. I was not happy to hear Jennifer point this
out and suggest I stay laying down during the contractions. After all, one of the main reasons I wanted
to deliver outside of a hospital was to avoid being in an “unnatural” (ie.
against gravity) position. But the truth
was that the contractions weren’t any less painful in the squat, and I wasn’t
sure how much longer I’d need to endure since I hadn’t heard anyone say
anything about baby’s head crowning yet.
Bearing down with the contractions while laying down,
both on my side and back with one leg supported, felt a bit like being in a
black hole. The intensity of the
contractions seemed to swirl around me, like a tornado starting and returning
to somewhere in my yoni core. It wasn’t
quite like being weightless, but rather like gravity was all around me, not
just below me. And then I felt the urge
to push. No one told me it was time to
push. No one had to. I knew it was time.
I started to push.
I don’t know if it was with contractions or not, it was somewhat
rhythmic though. And it hurt. I thought it couldn’t get worse, but it
did. I maybe pushed a couple of times
before realizing I needed to be more grounded again, and I flipped onto all
fours. At this point I felt the infamous
“ring of fire”, but I didn’t equate it with crowning. I just knew it was normal and meant progress. And I tried to use some sort of visualization
to change the image of a bright-red ring of fire to some sort of softer,
cotton-candy circle, but I couldn’t focus on that image very long. Probably soon after that, I felt myself reach
down between my legs and quickly realized that I felt Antonio already partly out! It was more than just crowning, I didn’t have
to reach very far to feel what I’m assuming was his face! (With Natalia, Jennifer suggested I reach
down to confirm crowning, while I was still laboring on the toilet, and I felt
her wet hair still just inside me.)
 |
| My little alien, covered in vernix, or as Natalka initially call it, "queso" (cheese)! |
What happened next is the most impressive part of the
whole ordeal. I knew I had to push him
out, but I also knew that if I didn’t try to control his exit, I would tear
again. Even though it felt counter intuitive,
I changed my breathing. My initial go-to
was the classic “Lamaze breathing” – short shallow breaths. I’m not sure what was wrong with that, as I
heard Jennifer suggest some other form of shorter breaths, but I think I just
stuck with what I felt would slow down Antonio’s exit. Of course this meant keeping his head in the
ring of fire longer than I’d normally want, since my natural inclination was to
get him out as soon as possible. But I
was able to control my breathing right in the most difficult moments. It didn’t take very long before I felt the
glorious release of his head leaving the ring of fire and the rest of his body
slipping right out.
Immediately I think I said “Oh my God, he’s out!” I didn’t wait for instructions; I slowly
started to flip to lay back and get ready to receive my baby. (With Natalia, I was completely oblivious to
what needed to happen next. I didn’t
even understand the instructions that were being given to me.) As soon as I was laying back, my little
Antonio was being handed to me, from Chloe to Oscar to me. I quickly lifted my tank top to allow for
maximum skin-to-skin contact. His cord
was short, so I couldn’t lift him beyond my navel, and he kept kicking me in
the crotch. He looked like he got dipped
in vernix on purpose! His face was
swollen and it looked a bit purplish and shiny.
In retrospect, I think he looked like a little alien! I immediately wanted to change my guess at
his birth weight. (We had taken guesses
from everyone present at the birth, minus Natalka, and I was at the top of the
range with 7#3oz.) I now wanted to drop
it by a full pound. I was told that as
the mom, I was the only one allowed to do so.
Turns out I wasn’t very far off, but it was Jennifer who guessed his
correct birth weight of 6#4oz.
 |
| We're all meeting Antonio together. |
Natalka was immediately at my side, meeting her baby
brother. She had apparently been able to
watch him be born, and was quick to touch him and say hello. She didn’t leave my side for the longest time. Oscar, of course, never left my side. (I feel
so bad for women who don’t have a supportive spouse in such an intimate and
life-changing moment.) We began bonding as a family right away. There were instructions now coming in between
our family conversation regarding the placenta, but it was all in the
background. I pushed several times – my
chart shows it took 12 minutes of pushing to get Antonio out, and another 19
minutes before the placenta was delivered, but I did not spend that entire time
pushing. Delivering the placenta felt
funky, especially after having just passed a human being through my nether
region. It felt slimy and slippery; I
think I would say that it even tickled on its way out. And again, Natalka watched the placenta be
delivered as well. She had been very
well prepared to attend her brother’s birth, if I do say so myself. She took it all in with great interest, not a
single indication of anxiety or discomfort.
She knew what everything was – why mommy was being loud, why it was so
dirty under mommy, how Antonio would come out head first (at least that’s how
we had coached him together), and how the placenta would need to come out last.
 |
| Waiting for umbilical cord to stop pulsating. |
 |
| Natalka and Daddy cutting the cord. |
I had wanted to deliver the placenta while it was
still attached to Antonio, but because the cord was short and I wanted to be
able to bring Antonio up to me already, I agreed to have the cord cut since it
had turned white and stopped pulsating.
Natalia helped Oscar cut the cord – something she had indicated an
interest in doing; I don’t remember suggesting it to her. She must have made this connection in her
play, since she had been assisting her giant stuffed giraffe in her births,
which of course included cutting the cord.
 |
| Immediate family bonding while working on delivering placenta. |
We attempted the newborn breast crawl. Perhaps I should’ve done a bit more research
on this, like how long it might reasonably take. But while we did see Antonio wriggle himself
up my torso bit by bit, I got anxious about making him wait to breastfeed, so I
finally decided to bring him to the breast myself. I kind of wish I had been able to watch him
latch on all by himself, but in the end, I just wanted to give him what I knew
he wanted and not make him have to work for it so hard!
Nursing also went well. The 10 ounces difference in weight between
Antonio and his sister, and the fact that he has a high palate while Natalia
had a low palate, must have made sufficient difference to make nursing go
swimmingly. My milk came in on day
three, and at his pediatric appointment the following Monday, he was just an
ounce shy of being back to his birth weight. (At his initial pediatrician visit
on day two, he had lost 2.5 ounces.)
 |
| Daddy signing "boy" :) |
 |
| Antonio getting weighed. |
I am absolutely overjoyed at how this birth turned
out. Part of it was experience, having
figured out what worked and what didn’t work last time, I was able to make
necessary adjustments. This included not
staking my comfort measures on hypnosis and a birth tub, but rather on teamwork
with Oscar, who consistently reminded me to relax specific parts of my face and
body that would tense up during contractions, as well as giving me touch
therapy along with my relaxation cues.
Hearing his voice and feeling his hand on my shoulder or face or neck or
knee gave me something to focus on other than the pain of the contractions, and
his calm demeanor and specific relaxation suggestions gave me something
specific to work towards other than succumbing to the pain.
I was also able to get into the zone much earlier
(before the first contraction started!) and had the support I needed
throughout. If I didn’t know something, Oscar was right there to reassure me. I
never felt disconnected or uncertain about anything.
Part of the success of this birth must also have been
physiological, though. Natalia was born
with her cord wrapped around her neck and torso, flew out within one push which
led to tearing, had a velamentous cord insertion, which may have contributed to
my postpartum bleeding, and had a very difficult time establishing a good
nursing relationship. After Natalia’s birth,
I lost a lot of blood and needed a shot of Pitocin. The blood loss apparently caused me to go
into shock. And of course I needed
stiches.
With Antonio, I didn’t have any of these
problems. Granted, labor had a slow
start due to his nuchal hand presentation (he was propping up his face with his
right hand on his way out), but amazingly that did not interfere with
delivery. (I should note that the
midwives used some inversion techniques to pull Antonio out of my birth canal
and have him reset in a better position in order to get a move on the
contractions.)
 |
| My wonderful birth team; Jennifer, Mary Beth, Chloe. |
I can’t imagine getting the kind of holistic level of
care I received with a gynecologist or at a hospital. My birth was normal, healthy, and went
according to “plan”. The plan belonged
to Antonio, my body, and God Almighty, not hospital policies or a fear-based
medicalized model of care. Once again, I
feel connected to the countless women who have gone before me, all around the
world, who have brought their babies into the world in this raw, grounded,
tuned-in manner. My body was made to
give birth, and did give birth successfully - twice. Antonio’s birth solidified for me what Natalia’s
birth first established; God made me a woman, and He made me a woman for a
reason. No, the reason is not to pop out
babies. But for me, for my family,
giving birth to my children was indeed part of the plan, and what a perfect
plan it has been. For the rest of my
life I can look at my two children and say, I did that – I brought them into
this world. I was a part of God’s
forming them in my womb. I am a part of
something eternal, something supernatural, something divine. I am so blessed to have been made a woman,
and so blessed to have had this wonderful, healing birth experience to help me
realize it.
 |
| Waiting for contractions to start. |
 |
| One week later. |
Welcome Earthside, my little Antonio! Love, Mamusia
NOTE: To read Natalia's birth story, go here.
