Happy Birthday Marah and Her Birth Story

3 years ago you made your entrance into the world. It was a wonderful day and though it did not go as we had planned I loved your birth. You are very strong willed and have opinions on everything. I love seeing you explore new things everyday and swear I can see your brain thinking about things.

Happy Birthday Marah!

Here is Marah's birth story cut and pasted from a message board I posted on shortly after she was born. Its long!

I had been having contations on and off for about a week. They would start about 7pm and go for a few hours. On Wednesday, 4/5/06, I was having alot of them and though this may be it. Well contax continued for most of the night but I was able to sleep in between them. Finally about 6am I could not sleep through them and got out of bed. I went back to bed about an hour later and slept for a little while. The contrax were strong but not regular in length or time between them at all. So I decided to go do a bunch of errands (had to get my drivers license renewed before the 11th) in town. I asked my brother to go with me in case I went into labor he could drive me home. So I continued to have contrax through out the day. Some of them were coming closer and at one point I really though I should not be driving around. LOL. So errands done I dropped my brother off at his house and started for home. At about 1:00 I called my DH to ask him a question and he answered the phone with "no you cannot be in labor now." He was joking and I told him no I was not. He was in class until five. When he got home I thought that maybe this was it but did not want to get to excited in case they stopped like previous times. So we took the kids on a walk and I had a ton of contrax while we were out. Then we went to dinner and the grocery store. I think I scared some guys (we live in a college town) in the dairy aisle. I had to stop and breathe through some of the contrax. When we got home we put the kids to bed, by now it was about 7:30pm. We did some cleaning and then decided to watch a movie. About 30 minutes into the movie I said I cannot watch any more because I cannot remember what is going on. I decided to call my best friend who had a three hour drive and tell her that it might be tonight. We decided to set up the birth tub and make the bed up, which I had been holding off doing because I was still thinking that these would stop. Well this took 45 minutes and I called my friend back and told her she should come. A while later ( I think about midnight??) my DH called our doula who said she was on her way. I asked her if I should call my MW (she is also this MW's apprentice) and she said that was up to me and do what felt right. So I had Joe call her because I was being very vocal through the contrax. MW heard me in the back ground and decided she should leave for our house which was 30 mins away. Well MW arrived first and then our doula. My friend Jennifer arrived shortly after this. I asked MW to check me and I was about 5cm. I was a bit dissapointed because I had been 3-4 about a week ago. Because baby was still posterior I had been laboring on hands and knees as this was most comfortable. But our doula suggested doing stairs with my feet really far apart. I could get down and then back up the stairs before a contraction came and I would plop down on my hands and knees. I had to have someone doing the double hip squeeze on me!!!! I have no idea how long I did this. At some point in here my DD woke up and we decided to call our "kid doula". DS slept through all of this though, except for yelling about tractors in his sleep, LOL. But finally I decided I wanted a shower. The shower was not that great so I got out and did more stairs. At one point my MW ( who had been resting) came up because I was making some "good noises" (her words) and said that why don't I try the tub. The tub was good but I still needed someone to do the hip squeeze. My DD wanted to get in the tub with me and DH said no to her but I told him to let her because I was thinking I would rather have her there now than later. Well after a few contrax in the tub I felt a gush of fluid and looked down. I thought my waters had broken but all I saw was red. I knew it was alot of blood because as it spread in the water it get darker instead of lighter. I called to my MW and she asked me to get out of the tub. I was still bleeding and she wanted to check me thinking maybe I was fully dilated. Well I was a 7 and she could strech me to an 8. Blood was still coming out, but baby's heartrate was perfect even through contractions. I was pretty scared a this point and MW asked me to go downstairs. So they wrapped me up and downstairs we went. MW went off to call some of the other MW's in the area (by now it was 2:30-3:00am) She came and asked if she could check me again once we were downstairs and I was a 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From a 7 to a 3. She came and talked to us about transfering. She also asked if there was anyone we knew in Spokane that would let us labor at their house. She said that she still felt comfortable doing a HB at this point but would want to be closer to the hosp (we were a good 30 minutes away). We did not know anyone in Spokane that we are that close to so we asked her about txfring to Holy Family Hosp. Which is farther away but one of the docs is VBAC friendly. She said she would call and see who was the on call doc. Thank God it was Dr. B. He said to MW that yes bring us in but he is thinking I would have the baby in the car. Well we finally got all loaded up and left the house at about 3:50-4am. We arrived at the hospital about 4:45 am (MW rode with us so she could check heart tones on the way) and made our way up to L&D. I still could not sit so I rode in the wheelchair backwards. This was a sight and we have some pics of it, LOL! When I arrived Dr. B came in to talk with us and asked me what I wanted out of this birth. The staff was very respectful of us and knew we were a HB txfr. I did have an IV and they put me on the monitor. Baby was still looking great so Dr. B asked if he could check me I was at about 7! I was so happy, I thought it would take forever to get back from a 3. My MW had said that it would not take as long, and I think that once I knew we were on the way to the hosp I felt safer. The Dr. talked alot and I don't remember alot of it. He talked about putting in an internal monitor but I said I did not want my water broken. He said he would give a few hours to see if baby would turn and if not then he would like to break my water and try and turn baby. After he left I talked with MW about this and she said that this is one of the reasons she likes Dr. B so much he is really good at turning babies so she said after a few hours maybe we should try that. So I labored on the bed on hands and knees (still needing the hip squeeze). After a while I was grunting every now and then and MW checked me. I don't remember what I was but she said keep doing what I was doing. Well a little bit later I grunted/pushed uncontrollably and my water broke everywhere. It was the loudest pop. MW and doula both said it was the loudest they had ever heard. LOL. Well the nurse asked if I could try and get up so she could clean up the bed. It was soaked! MW suggested the toilet and I said after this contrax well they could see baby at this point and I yelled "she's coming" The Dr came in and said he had been praying my water would break. I never made it out of the bed to get it cleaned and they threw some more chux pads under me. I pushed for 9 minutes on hands and knees and she was born at 6:09 am (a little over an hour from arrival). Her cord was wrapped very tight around her neck but the Dr. managed to get it over her head so that DH could cut it. Well she came out and they bagged her for a few minutes her apgar was a 3. Later my MW and doula said that she was really okay and was sneezing and starting to cry but the hosp just wanted to be safe. I was able to hold her a few minutes later and she was beautiful!! I did it!!! the placenta came out a few minutes later and about 15% of it had abrupted. You could see the spots where it had torn off the uterine wall. We asked to keep the placenta and they bagged it up and gave it to our doula. Marah latched on a little while later and nursed for the next four hours. They did not even get to weigh her. She weighed in at 7lbs 13 oz and was 19 inches long. Her head was 13 inches. She did not have a bath, rec'd no vit K, no eye ointment, no shots, and did not leave her mommy or daddy's arms the whole time. The pediatrician cleared her to leave the hosp at 9 am but I was not cleared until later so we finally got out of there at about 3pm. Our kids were excited to see us, DS did not seem to care that we were gone at all, he woke up to "Aunt Jenny" and the "kid doula" DD was upset that she did not get to cut the cord but we told her that she got to help give the baby her first bath instead and that we could all look at the placenta later. It was amazing, It was not what I wanted, a HB, but she made it here and I was not cut again. I thank god that Dr B was on call the other hospitals would have wanted to section me right away. The staff was really supportive of our decisions and it was a very nice experience. Not at all what I expected from a txfr. But all is well and Marah is still nursing like crazy she is one week today and now weighs 8lbs 6oz. We did look at the placenta the next day and it was great. Nothing like 2 kids covered in blood at the dining room table. My DH thought it was so gross but the kids were amazed. The sac was still there and some of the cord. So it now sits in our freezer waiting for a tree.