Zoals u misschien al kon merken aan de oorverdovende stilte op deze blog in de afgelopen maand: een kind gooit je schema overhoop. Maar ‘t is niet alleen Miles zijn schuld: de golf van VIB’s (Very Important Belgians) die we de afgelopen maand over ons heen kregen zit er ook voor iets tussen.
Op 3 april streken Magda en Luk – Wiet’s ouders – en Tania – Miles’ meter – neer, op 17 april volgde Sara – Wiet’s zus – en Jasper en Kirsten – Wiet’s broer en schoonzus – sloten de rij op 22 april, met hun valiezen vol myrre, wierook en goud. De kleine overrompeling kwam als een warme douche.
Het klikte onmiddellijk tussen Miles en zijn opa, oma, nonkel, tantes resp. meter. Hij ging van arm tot arm en liet zich alle aandacht welgevallen. Luk en Magda waren het langst hier en reisden wat rond tijdens hun verblijf: ze verbleven enkele dagen in Hot Springs en ontvoerden ons daarna naar het Natchez Trace State Park voor een paasweekend in een bescheiden boshut (met alle comfort en uitzicht over het meer). Tijdens een van de wandelingen in het park stapte Magda ei zo na op een slang – geen giftige. Het is een groot park, maar ik vermoed dat iedereen in het park haar heeft horen gillen. Op Paaszondag vonden we paaseitjes van Milka op de trap. Kwestie van de heimwee nog wat aan te wakkeren…
Jasper, Kirsten, Sara en Tania hadden er al een verblijf in New York op zitten toen ze bij ons aan kwamen en bleven dus rustig in Memphis. Ze verkenden de buurt, gingen eens kijken op Beale Street, pikten een jazz jam resp. een rooftop party mee, enzovoort. Maar de meeste tijd spendeerden ze met Miles.
Wij hebben er van genoten, we hopen van hen hetzelfde.
April 2009
30 April, 2009
2 April, 2009
The whole series of events that surround our birth story have been replaying in our heads ever since – thinking about it all made it hard to sleep in the days right after the delivery. We wanted to write it down from both our perspectives.
It started on Sunday March 8th, Heather’s due date, with prelabor back-aching contractions all day. Not excruciating, but not comfortable either. In order to get things off of our minds we drove out to Harbor Town for a walk in the park. That made us miss out on our weekly skype sessions, which led to a wave of speculation on our blog. In the evening, when these prelabor symptoms had been going on all day, we got a little bit concerned, so Heather called the midwives. They prescribed her a sleeping pill, because a good night sleep is crucial right before labor. So Wiet drove out to the super-pharmacy Walgreens at eleven pm. A 24-hour pharmacy – it comes in handy. Thanks to the sleeping pill Heather did manage to get some good sleep. Little did we know how crucial that good night’s sleep was going to be.
Monday morning the 9th around 4 am she woke up with regular contractions. They started off pretty close together from the beginning. They were immediately about 1 min long and 4 min apart or so, instead of building up gradually in intensity and frequency, like we were taught in class. Confusion. False alarm? Let’s call the midwives anyway. And let’s call Heather’s family. By late morning our apartment was filled with Bob – took a day off – Bethany – on spring break – Sheila – whom we had asked to be a second labor coach along with Wiet – and midwife Amy. Sister Amy had caught a plane from Columbia, Missouri as soon as she got the phone call, and she arrived around the same time as our other midwife Andrea.
It was a full house, and originally that made Wiet a little nervous. But it turned out to be a good thing: everybody helped a lot. Wiet, Sheila and the midwives took turns in the beginning staying with Heather wherever she was, either the office, where we had set up the birth pool, or the bedroom or the bathroom. The rest stayed in the living area most of the time. They helped by getting food for the others, keeping the pool filled with warm water and doing any other odd job that was required. In the beginning Heather didn’t need constant support and it was better to just keep things relaxed and not make too much of a big deal of the contractions. Heather got in the shower and stayed under the stream of hot water during contractions. She moved to the bedroom and leaned on the bed or just moved around. After a while she got in the birth pool. Wiet helped her a bit with breathing techniques, massage and cheers, and later joined her in the pool.
Heather continued to switch between the pool, the shower and toilet seat (yes really, it’s a comfortable place to labor), and the bed in order to change positions. She sipped tea and water, ate some spoonfulls of honey and even a few bites of banana throughout the day. She threw up a few times, but the food helped her keep up her energy. Being sick occasionally wasn’t a big deal and even brought a feeling of relief from the contractions. The deep birth pool, filled with nice warm water, really helped to soothe the intensity of labor. Heather could float in the water during resting moments and assume various positions that would have been much more tiring and uncomfortable out of the pool.
The built-in heater in the pool didn’t seem to be working and, unfortunately, the landlord chose that exact day to work on the water system. So suddenly we couldn’t replenish the hot water in the pool. Bob went out to find the culprits and Wiet called the landlord. Pretty quickly the water was back online. Not much later one of the workers came by, asking “Is that baby born yet?” The news that Heather was in labor spread to our neighbors quickly. Heather can’t really remember knowing when she was in transition but she does remember labor getting tougher and tougher and she was surprised every time that she could handle more and then still more and then still more again with each hour as the intensity got stronger. Pain is always relative and in labor it is always relative to what came before. So, by the time it’s over, the first parts seem like nothing in comparison to the toughest moments.
When she had 7 or 8 cm opening Heather felt the urge to push for the first time. It was around 5 pm. By nightfall her water broke. “It’s almost over now”, everybody thought. But, from then on things seemed to slow down. Heather got more and more exhausted, and the lack of progress made everybody demotivated and nervous. Luckily the baby’s heart rate remained stable – better than stable: his heart rate was so healthy that, “you would think he wasn’t feeling the contractions at all” according to the midwives. The constant reassurance that he was doing so well kept Heather motivated.
When the pushing seemed to be stalled, the midwives discovered that a lip of cervix still wasn’t dilated and was preventing the baby’s head from moving down into the birth canal. It had gotten swollen during the first part of pushing. Perhaps if Heather’s dilation had been checked sooner the swelling could have been avoided. In order to take the pressure off of the cervix and help the swelling to subside, Heather had to lie down in a knees and chest position and then a bit later on her side and try not to push for an hour. That was the toughest part of the whole experience. Sheila helped Heather not to panic by coaching her to use very fast shallow breathing. It took all of Heather’s concentration to focus on the breathing and not to give in to the pushing urge. When your body feels like a runaway train, it’s so much easier to work with what your body is trying to do than to have to work against it. That was about the toughest part of the job of labor coach: seeing your wife / daughter in such pain. It had been a while since Wiet cried as much as he did.
Eventually the midwives allowed Heather to get back into the pool. But still there was hardly any progress. The slow progess was because of the baby’s very difficult position. Afterward we learned that the baby was turned “sunny side up” and a bit sideways, with the widest part of his head coming through the cervix. The baby’s position makes a huge difference during labor and this was the most difficult position possible, they told us. The midwives suggested that Heather rest a bit. Not easy. Heather tried to push gently while lying on her side. When that didn’t seem to help either everybody got even more nervous. Sheila reminded Heather that she could choose to transfer to the hospital. Bob later told Wiet he was about to step in and insist on a hospital transfer at that point. But Heather never cared for a transfer. She and the baby were still fine, considering the circumstances, and we had already come this far. There was no real emergency just a long and tiring labor. We started to wonder whether he would still be born on March 9th, like we expected…
After a few more experiments with different positions Heather crawled back in bed and laid back on Wiet’s lap. We had planned to have the birth itself in the pool, but Heather ended up giving birth on the bed. In spite of everything we learned in our childbirth class about positions that work with gravity being the best and most efficient – lying flat on her back, not even semi-upright, seemed to be the best way for Heather. The midwives saw that this position was the way that her body seemed to be able to make the most progress. There’s always an exception to the rule.
And so, finally, there was progress, albeit in tiny steps. The baby’s head started to crown – “Wow, so much hair!” – and the pain bumped up a notch. Heather was tired, which slowed the contractions down. The stretching and burning sensation made her start to feel panicky and scared she would tear. She started to hyperventilate and felt her hands and arms and even her face going numb. Her mom and Wiet helped her get her breathing back under control. Then suddenly his head popped out, and the umbilical cord was quickly and expertly unwrapped from around his neck – a situation that can sometimes be dangerous, but in this case it was fine. And finally, finally, finally the magic moment arrived when that little heap of human being tumbled into this world and the midwives placed him on Heather’s chest.
Miles was born on March 10th, at 1:30 am.
Things weren’t over. Miles was rubbed dry, his mouth and nose were suctioned, his breathing was checked, the placenta was born, the cord was clamped, etc. The midwives were working really hard, while we were completely absorbed with finally meeting our little baby Miles. He was doing fine and was very alert but didn’t cry. He was a big baby 9 lbs 6 oz and 22 in long! He had lots of dark hair. He didn’t breastfeed immediately – didn’t seem to know what to do. He must have been quite tired too. And suddenly he pooped all over Heather and himself!
Everybody in the house woke up and gathered around Heather and the baby in a quiet enthusiasm – taking photos and discussing it all. Somehow Heather still had the energy afterward to eat and shower and talk. It’s amazing what an adrenaline rush it is! Wiet made a few long distance phone calls to his family members, who were all starting their working day. Everybody got really excited, whether at his office, on the bus or on the train. As soon as Sara walked into her office she changed her Facebook status to “Sara is aunt of Miles.” Not much longer our e-mailbox was stuffed with congratulations messages from colleagues, friends and family. It’s a sign of the times: I heard it through the Facebook grapevine.
The midwives finally left around half past four. We fell asleep with Miles in between us. Sheila stayed with us and slept on the futon in the living room, as she would continue to do for several nights to come. We felt so much more confident and secure as brand new parents because she was there to help us out.
During the delivery Wiet caught himself thinking a few times: “What on earth are we doing? Why didn’t we just go to the hospital, then it would have been long over by now.” Looking back we are very happy that we chose a home birth though. In the hospitals here in Memphis the long labor would have lead to a cesarean section, because the hospitals set a time limit for labor, even without complications. And we avoided that.
For Heather, the psychological aspect of being able to give birth at home was very important. She felt most safe at home with family and trusted professionals who knew our birth preferences. She could totally focus on what was happening internally without any external stress factors like being in an unfamiliar place and among strangers. Afterward Heather realized that she didn’t have her contact lenses in the whole time, and maybe that was a good thing. She really doesn’t see well at all without lenses or glasses and so she was more able to mentally retreat into herself and just feel and hear the people around her who were supporting her.
Heather often gets comments from people who are amazed that she did it “without drugs”. The midwives Amy and Andrea even said that Heather was really polite the whole time! From her perspective she was just working really really hard and begging her body to get it done, and to her that’s definitely not the same as really “torturous suffering” like it probably seemed to people observing her. Even though the tough labor left her weak and sore for several days afterward, mentally she felt really strong and confident through this experience.
Heather’s mom, Sheila, has been a fantastic birth coach. We don’t know how we would have managed without her. Bob, Amy and Bethany helped a lot with providing food, keeping the temperature in the birth pool stable, and so may other things. But Heather is the true heroine of that day. In labor for 21,5 hours, of which 7 hours pushing, without a single drug or epidural. Wiet has been radiating with pride for his wife for a week now. Whoever still calls women the weak sex has obviously never attended a birth.
