Thursday, February 4, 2016

A Birth Story: Logan Paige

 Many people have been curious about Logan's birth story, especially because I did things a little less traditionally, my sweet girl Logan Paige was born in a birth center with a midwife and zero medication. When people ask why I chose this route I have come to give the same answer, because I wanted to! I'm not anti medication, I'm not anti hospital, I am the furthest thing from a naturalist you could find, but I wanted to have a natural delivery, and I wanted to do it this way...there was really no other reason for it, and you know what...I will ABSOLUTELY do it again:)
Logan's birth story began on Saturday January 9th. I was exactly 41 weeks pregnant, and ready to lose my mind. I had gone in to see my midwife twice already that week and each time had zero progress towards labor (i was barely dilated to a 1 and 0% effaced.) I hadn't had a single contraction either, and my spirits were low. Kyle and I went in Saturday morning at 10am because I had been having some concerns the day before (we'll call the prego mom anxiety, there was really nothing wrong) but to calm my nerves my midwife, Nancy let me come in for a non stress test, and a urine test. At my appointment she decided to check me again, and to my dismay, still no progress. Nancy decided to be a little more aggressive in her exam, and actually stuck her fingers up in my 1cm dilated cervix..."maybe this will help some" she said. We didn't think much would come of it, I had learned to not get my hopes up at this point, and she sent us on our way.
Kyle and I had planned to go to my parents house so that Kyle could take down the Christmas lights for my crippled father (he had torn his achilles tendon the week prior). Luckily for us the birth center is only about a 10 minute drive from my parents house, and we had made sure to keep all of our birth center bags and diaper bag in the car, just in case. We got to my parents and, I assumed that we would be there for a couple hours and then leave. Around 12:30 I started having some slight cramps, I recognized that they were contractions and got excited thinking to myself, "finally! maybe I'll have this baby in a couple days!" (assuming that like most people I would have contractions for a while before going into labor.) That was not the case...
Within the hour my contractions had progressed. They were lasting about 30 seconds and were only about 30 seconds apart, so I was getting no relief. This lasted for about 2 hours before we decided to call Nancy. She said that my contractions weren't long enough to come in to the birth center yet, but that because I was having signs of active labor (throwing up) she would call in an hour to check in on me and we'd evaluate at that point. During that hour I labored at my parents house. It was nice to have so many people there to help me keep my mind occupied (in the 30 seconds I had between contractions haha). During that hour my contractions started lasting longer, about a minute to a minute and a half, still only about 30 seconds apart. When Nancy called back she said that she wanted us to come in at 5:30, which was an hour later, hallelujah, I was excited!
We pulled up to Lake Side Birth Center at 5:30, and my contractions were rockin! When we got in Nancy checked me, and I was dilated to a 3 and 100% effaced! She said that usually she'll only have people stay at the center if they're dilated to a 4 or higher, but since I was completely effaced (and progressing so fast) we decided it was smart for me to stay.
My mom and sisters showed up at the birth center to hear how my progress was, and when we decided we were going to stay Nancy put on a movie for us, and we all hung out on her comfy sofa. I was continuing to have extremely painful contractions, and Kyle was doing AMAZING at coaching me through them. He really was the perfect partner for labor! He was exactly what I needed, he comforted me exactly how I needed him to, and I was so blessed to have him there.
At approximately 6:30 pm I asked the doula (who had shown up within the past 45 minutes or so) if I could labor in the tub. She let me know that I could as long as I was dilated to a 6, so Nancy checked me and I was dilated to a 6, but my water hadn't broke, so she broke my water (which was the craziest sensation WHOA!) It was tub time! Getting in the tub was AMAZING! I can't say that the contractions were any better (they were actually the strongest they had been) but there was something SO relaxing and soothing about the warm water. Nancy and the doula (Ingrid was her name:) checked in on me periodically, but they let me and Kyle have our space while I was in the tub. It was so nice, however it was short lived because after about 25 minutes I called Ingrid in and told her I was feeling like I needed to push! She seemed a little shocked, and so did Nancy, but they got me out of the tub to check me, and low and behold they next thing I hear is Nancy saying "okay, on this next contraction I want you to push!" (apparently that meant I was dilated to a 10).
Pushing was such a relief after having had such intense contractions. It hurt, don't get me wrong, but it was a gratifying hurt because I knew what the prize was! I had three big pushes before we were able to see Logan's head. When her head appeared Nancy said to Kyle "okay come on down here, you're catching the baby." Kyle was NOT prepared for this at all, he had planned on staying by my head the whole time, but as he puts it, "he soon felt his legs moving and somehow ended up right down in the action." I pushed for another 25 minutes before our girl arrived. As mentioned, Kyle caught her and laid her right on my tummy. It was such a surreal experience. Logan looked right up at me and we made eye contact for the firs time. It was like she was saying, "hey you're that voice I've heard the past nine months." It was a surreal, life changing experience. Kyle was crying, which rarely happens, and we couldn't believe she was finally here.
She stayed connected to the umbilical chord for 10 minutes just laying on my belly and then Kyle cut the chord. Nancy went and weighed her and we found out she was 8lbs 8oz. Nancy was shocked because she was so skinny, but we soon realized she was a long girl, 21 inches! My family had been waiting in the other room and soon came in to meet our little Logan girl. Kyle's family arrived soon after. We enjoyed having them there for a couple hours and then cleaned up and headed home for our first night together.
It was all such a beautiful experience. I couldn't have asked for a more comfortable environment to give birth in. The atmosphere was warm, cozy, and positive.
Many people called me crazy for doing it the way I did, but I had a different attitude towards it. Nancy said in her book that birth is "hard work'' and I really tried to keep that mentality through the whole process...yes this is painful, many things in life are, but this is a short span of time, some hard work, and it will be over soon and the reward will be so worth it, and she is :)



 and that's our little story<3

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