this was NOT the birth plan

sorry for being such a blog tease. things are a little hectic with emails and phone calls (but not really too bad b/c we haven't even left the house! we are just enjoying our quiet time getting to know nate! it is SO CALM.)

first of all karl and i would like to state that delivering our child unattended at home was NOT in 'the birth plan'. we were intending on going to the hospital. (we looked at the birth plan after delivery this morning and laughed - i guess we got every single thing we wanted - no drugs, no ivs, immediate contact, and oh so much more...)

on the drug note, i would like to say the only drugs i have taken since this whole whirlwind started - two aleve after delivery for the stitch up! i didn't even have time to THINK about drugs. seriously it happened so fast i couldn't even tell you what i thought about. there was no focusing or breathing through ANYTHING. there was no music played. no sitting on the birth ball. no getting in the bathtub. (well the shower i did make use of several times.)

so details are as follows: (this may be long and i hope i don't gross anyone out with details.)

players: karl, kat, nate, kim (our doula who is also a certified midwife thank the lord) and stephanie (awesome assistant doula).

karl and i go on a walk around 9 p.m. - having the usual braxton hicks mini-contractions i have been having for weeks. annoying, not so painful. we come home... i guess around 11:30 or so I have a contraction and i think "now THAT was a real one! this baby might come tonight!" but i still didn't want to get my hopes up in case it was fake! ALL of our classes and pretty much the whole world says first time moms have on average 12-16 hour labors and are usually overdue. we wanted to labor at home as long as possible to avoid the monitoring at the hospital - plus i had some irrational fear the hospital would say i wasn't really in labor and send me home.

so we hang out for about thirty minutes and i have some contractions. i am hoping my timeline is right here. time got a little crazy. around midnight we decide this is probably the real deal and decide to give kim a call:

kim: on a scale of one to ten, what is your pain level (10 being highest).
me: 2. (dead serious. i said two! and had a baby in my arms two hours later!)

kim says sounds like early labor; i should try and take some benedryl and get some rest to gear up for tomorrow and to call her if anything changes. i try to lay down but this proves to be IMPOSSIBLE. i decide not to take the benydryl. contractions are coming about three minutes apart but are only lasting like thirty seconds so i really didn't think they were 'doing their job.' (generally THE PEOPLE say good contractions last around 60 seconds - i swear i never had one that lasted that long but they were one on top of the other so i guess it's all relative.) i showered (THE BLUE BATHROOM IN OUR MASTER BEDROOM WAS WHERE THE WHOLE THING WENT DOWN!) on and off for the next hour or so. the only comfortable things were standing in the shower and sitting (excuse me) on the toilet. i just went back and forth.

then things got a little crazy and hazy. i can't sit still. karl decides to call kim to have her come (no time concept here) who gets up to get on her way (she is about 30 minutes from us), saying we should meet at the hospital b/c it sounds like i am progressing fast. i should mention at this point that i am pushing b/c i can't possibly do anything else. i have to push. have to.

i should also say at this point karl and i have a short conversation that goes like this: (i am in the blue bathroom; he is on the bed timing contractions (on contractionmaster.com HAHA!) i do not want him to touch me or be near me really.

karl: (accusatory and in shock/disbelief): are you pushing?!?!
me: NO. (total and complete denial. at this point, i really still think they are strong contractions. looking back the pressure was kind of insane down there so i am not sure HOW i could have thought that. i just didn't think it was possible to progress that fast.)
karl: YOU ARE PUSHING. i am calling kim again to tell her. (tattle tale!)

karl puts bags in car. karl goes to let dogs in backyard. he never makes it. (arlo and roxy watched the whole labor and delivery quietly from their front row seats in their beds; they didn't bother us once but they sure were paying attention the whole time!) i let out some sort of blood curtling scream while he is in the kitchen. i don't know WHAT it sounded like but it sent him back at 90 miles per hour. turns out, my 'bag of water' was ON THE OUTSIDE. no, not broken. no gush, no 'water breaking' like in the movies. it was perfectly in tact and HANGING b/w my legs. just dangling, really. (sorry if this grosses you out!) it was the most bizarre feeling in the whole world. it was long and stretchy. totally freakshow.

kim says (she and karl are still on the phone so, really, the I-phone played a key role in the delivery so THANK GOD karl has one. i am confident no other phone could have done the job as well.) we need to either get to the hospital RIGHT NOW or stay put. (all this time we were like 'oh the hospital is only 5 minutes away, no way we wouldn't make it there! we could walk there!') karl asks me what i want to do and i must have looked at him helplessly b/c he said "ok. i am making the call. we are going to the hospital." i asked him to get me some underwear to which he laughed at me b/c the BAG WAS JUST HANGING there. ew. sorry. i put on some basketball shorts and i could here karl rifling thru the closet to find me some matching shoes. (thank god we did not go to L&D - can you imagine what they would have thought?!?! and for those of you that know me well, he could only match my purple flowered slipper hut flip flops. THAT made me smile during labor.). this was the only part of the whole labor and delivery that felt panick-ey. once we decided to stay home, we just did it. i don't know how else to explain that.

he grabs the flip flops and i let out some other crazy noise and i really can't not push. i can NOT explain the URGE. (by the way i am standing in the blue bathroom - supported by one arm on the sink and one arm on the window for leverage - that is how i delivered.) he reaches down and says something to kim about crowning/feeling what he thinks is the head. we immediately decide the car is not going to work and i will, in fact, deliver on the side of the highway at 2am if we get in it. i hear kim through the phone saying something about how awesome we are doing and how she is going 90 miles per hour down the highway.

then i just let my body push out the baby. i mean, i can't stop it. i hear them talking about which way he is facing or something.... i don't know. i hear karl say 'he has hair'... then 'his head is out' and then he just slipped out all fast and slippery like and karl catches him. (and then hear karl say 'he has a penis!') three pushes maybe got him out? it was crazy. i remember thinking HE IS HUGE - how did that come out of me? he cries once or twice and it doesn't sound fluid-ey at all. then he just stares at us. eyes wide open.

(and i would like to state for the record that i didn't even say one cuss word the whole time!! now afterwards...)

kim is still on phone and almost there. thank god. baby is still attached to his cord. she has karl sit me down on the floor of the bathroom. it's starting to look A LITTLE like a CSI crime scene in our bathroom. (sorry but there was blood everywhere! it splattered all over the wall! you probably didn't need to know that.) anyway, my lovely PLACENTA slides out once i am sitting down. (and, yes, it was HUGE and purple. and it is in my freezer right now b/c, well, we weren't at the hospital where they just dispose of it and, we can't throw it out b/c it is summertime in the south. you probably didn't need to know that either. but i figure if you have made it this far in the read, you want to know!)

things are a bit surreal here. karl and i are just staring at each other and the baby like 'what the _______ just happened here?' it was like 2, 2:30.

kim walks in, clamps the cord (she asks karl if he wants to cut it and he tells her at this point cord cutting is a bit anti-climatic since he just caught the baby! haha!), she cuts the cord, and gets me up and in the shower (which was totally awesome b/c 1. it was RIGHT THERE one foot away and 2. it was MY shower. so much for all those travel shampoos i bought for the hospital!) kim's assistant stephanie is right behind her with some other miscellaneous supplies - i won't go into too many details about these but they include diapers. and not for the baby.)

she does check me and i do have some tearing (2nd degree for all you moms out there... i still don't really know what that means, but whatever.) so we need stiches. i mean, really, the baby came so fast how could i not tear?!? and no, i did not feel anything tear. she tells me at this point we need to decide if we want to call my doctor and go to the hospital to get stiched and checked out (both me and baby) or if we want to contiue the midwifery/homebirth model, we can stay home and she can take care of both of us. honestly, the hospital sounded HORRIBLE and they definately would have looked at us like freak shows so the decision was pretty simple. we stayed.

she stiched me up. (she did give me a local shot of lanocane? to numb me. but i would like to say i could still feel the threading. very odd. not painful, just odd.) OH AND i would like to say that i played my labor mix during the whole after birth time. and it was relaxing dammit!

then we got on to the fun part - THE BABY CHECKING. he weighed in at 7 lbs. 4 ounces and was 21 inches long! (it also should be noted he has freak show long toes like his father!) everything else checked out fine... his temperature was a little low... but kim came back later and it was fine. we are also going to the pedi in the morning. (so i am sure we will get to hear all about what horrible parents we are for having a (albeit somewhat accidental) home birth.

so, really, that's it. i can't even explain how it happened. i feel amazing and have been up walking around all day! crazy. i just felt NORMAL afterward. (i did look a bit ghost-like with all the blood loss.)

and whoever LIED to me and said my ankle swelling would go away immediatly after birth is going down....it is still there. also, my stomach looks ca-razy and i want my innie back now. please and thank you. also, i am still having contractions as my stomach/uterus shrinks back. (yea, nobody tells you that those hurt a lot too. i thought they would just be annoying but they really hurt!)

what other questions were there? CONGRATS to CARRIE for winning the cash $$ from the baby pool. karl says we can NEVER move now that we have birthed a baby IN THE HOUSE. i will have him put up a post tomorrow with details from his point of view. roxy and arlo have sniffed the baby and licked on him a bit. pretty sure arlo could care less, but roxy seems a bit spooked. she did love sniffing all that blood all crime scene canine like. (she could smell it after we cleaned; we didn't just let her sniff it). i don't think he really looks like anyone yet - he is still swolled up though from his short journey through the birth canal. it was so fast his head was barely misshappen.

and, yes, karl would forevermore like to referred to as a 'doc-tour' of midwifery.

so, yea, we had our baby. in a bathroom.

further questions?

1 day old (almost exactly 24 hours!)