Enter Oliver Scott

This post is very much overdue. I've been busy not only adjusting to a new little life in our home, but trying to rediscover myself as a person (plus my husband is in medical school, so I'm pretty much a single parent at the moment). I'll be seperating major events into different blog posts, so y'all reading it don't get too bored and/or overwhelmed by a massive epic. So stay tuned for more posts!

5/5/13: The Reveal to the Siblings (Syd's Birthday)

So much has happened these past nine months. I feel like I've lived several lifetimes, and yet it seems like it was just yesterday Oliver was placed in my arms for the very first time.

I'll begin with Oliver's birth story. As a warning, it may hold a bit more information
than some of you would care to read, so feel free to skip this post if you so desire.

Oliver was due on Halloween. Typically, the first baby a woman has is a week or two late. My mom had eight children, and all eight of us arrived late, so with both of these strikes against me, I was fully expecting an early-to-mid November baby. Thankfully he surprised us.

My mom flew in on Sunday night of the 27th. On Monday, we went for my weekly check-up with the nurse midwives at OHSU, and I was maybe 1 cm dilated.

For all of you who have no idea what that means in pregnancy/labor speech, 0-4 centimeters dilation of the cervix is considered early labor, but it is not uncommon for a woman to be up to 2 centimeters dilated several weeks before giving birth. Complete dilation is 10 cm, and typically the baby is born soon after reaching that stage. I found this lovely little chart for those who are more visual learners, like myself, when it comes to numbers.

We were discouraged, since it seemed like my body was taking it's time getting ready, and I wouldn't be giving birth for a week or two. The nurse midwives "stripped my membranes," hoping to help induce labor and get things going faster naturally. Then I took my mom sightseeing around Portland for the rest of the day. I still needed to buy some things for the baby (like a car seat and crib sheets and a stroller), but we thought we'd do that the next day since it seemed like we had a least a week to wait. We went to Powell's Book Store and Voodoo Doughnuts, ate some spicy food, and literally ran after the street car so we could make it back to the tram in time. Have you ever seen a 9 month pregnant lady run? I haven't either, but I'm sure I looked like a fat waddling duck trying  to fly.

On the 29th, Tuesday morning, at 4:00 am, I woke up to go to the bathroom and on my way back to bed, my water broke. Like in a gush. No room for doubt there. Excited, I woke up Bran and we called the hospital to let them know and ask what we should do. I wanted to labor at home as long as possible, so they said I was fine to do that, just to keep checking in with them periodically. Then we all tried to get some more sleep for the long day ahead.

I don't really remember when I started feeling painful contractions, but I don't think it was until sometime after noon. The nurse midwives wanted me to check in to the hospital by 6:00 that evening at the latest. Once your water has broken, you're are on a time limit because the baby can't survive that long without the amniotic fluid, and the risk of infection or something else going wrong is really high. So we walked down to the hospital around 6 and got checked in. I was still feeling pretty good, but I was only dilated to a 2 or a 3.

Mom and I walked around the hospital, trying to get labor going faster naturally, and that's when the first really painful contractions started kicking in.

I had decided I wanted to try and do a natural birth, but I wasn't set on it. I didn't want to be so focused on following a birthing plan that I wasn't flexible if the nurse midwives thought an epidural or pain medication would help. I had practiced and studied hypnobirthing a little, and I think that is really how I got so far. Breathing exercises and music and Bran helped me push through the pain and focus and take my mind off of what was happening. Brandon and my mom were wonderful supports. I don't know how I would have made it through the experience without them.

The rest of it is a bit of a blur to be perfectly honest. There are just bits and pieces I remember with any clarity. Labor is not something I particularly want to remember, and I am not too keen on repeating it, so I think I've supressed most of the traumatic experience. 

Mostly, I remember a lot of pain. The most comfortable position for me most of the time was on my hands and knees. Oliver was posterior, which means the back of his head was pressing on my spine, and he wasn't turning as his head descended, which is abnormal. A posterior baby's head is larger coming through the cervix because the angle makes the head oval-shaped rather than the circular shape an anterior baby's head would present. In other words, posterior babies are more difficult to birth because their head measures bigger than it would otherwise.

Our team of nurses and midwives were fantastic. I was in labor for so long, it spanned two shifts, but in the first shift, I had Penny.

Penny (left) was the midwife who did most of my prenatal care and she was absolutely fantastic. She was a calm, quiet influence that soothed while still empowering me. She was also the only one who could rub or touch my lower back during labor. My mom told me several days later that the midwives and nurses said that Oliver's birth was the most peaceful and calm first labor they had ever been a part of, and they were very impressed with how calm and in control I was. I'm glad I seemed calm, because I did not feel calm at all.

By the time I reached the pushing stage, it was around 8 am Wednesday morning. I pushed for two and a half hours. Eternity. Each push felt like it had to be my last. Not only was Oliver posterior, but he was kind of stuck. The midwife kept saying "Beautiful push, beautiful job," until I wanted to scream, "It's not a beautiful push if he's not coming out!"

Finally, the head started crowning.

At one point, my midwife told me to stop pushing for a moment to prevent me from tearing badly. Then she told me to push again, and then his head was out. 

Usually, once the head is out, they can maneuver the shoulder out and the rest of the baby slips out easily. That was not the case for Oliver. Once his head came out, the midwives had a difficult time getting the rest of him free. Like his head was before, his shoulders were stuck, and (according to my mom), it took both midwives pulling on him to get him to come out. It took 90 seconds from the time his head came out until they placed him on my chest, which, according to my mom, was forever. 

All I remember about this part was that it was the most painful part of labor, since this is when I tore, and I screamed.

Then he was out and crying. He was born at 10:18 am on October 30th, 2013. Total time of labor from water breaking to birth: 30 hours.

I was completely exhausted. When they put him on my bare chest, I waited for that relieved, glorious, this-is-heaven moment, but I just felt exhausted. I do remember staring at my baby, incredulous that he was so big.

He definitely did not look like the 6-7 lb baby I was expecting (Brandon and I had both been in that range). I thought that maybe all newborns looked gigantic to the mothers who had just birthed them, but no. He really was that big. 9 lbs 2.2 oz., 21 inches long, and it turns out his head circumference was in the 99th percentile. Did I say that I did this all naturally? As bad-A as that makes me sound, and as proud as I am to be able to say it, I'm pretty sure I'll go with the epidural if I ever have another child.

Bran held him skin to skin while they stitched me up.

My mom, the adoring grandmother. Isn't she gorgeous? I'm so grateful she was able to be there with me and help me through the most difficult times of my life. She really is the best mom in the world and I am so blessed to have her. 

Oliver has been one of the best things to happen to me. While I definitely did not appreciate it at the time, and the memory makes me shudder slightly, his birth has become special to me. Maybe someday I'll be courageous enough to attempt providing Oliver with a sibling, but at the moment, I'm just enjoying being a mom to one of the sweetest, happiest, and cutest babies around.