Jesse's Birth Story

THE PREGNANCY STORY

All of my babies have come close to holidays (I went into labor on St. Patrick's Day with Nancy and had David on Christmas Eve). Since my due date was May 31 (and later changed to May 29, and even later May 26), I expected this boy to come on Memorial Day or my mom's birthday (25th) or maybe on our anniversary (28th). I never dreamed he would come three weeks early, right before Mother's Day. But in hindsight, I should have been expecting the unexpected, because everything about Jesse, from pregnancy to birth, has followed a pattern of subverting my expectations.

We had been trying to get pregnant since early 2019, but I didn’t particularly want to have another baby in December, so we avoided March. When we got a positive test in September, I was excited. When nausea hit hard at six weeks, I was less excited, but was still feeling positive because nausea was a good sign that things were well. I had hardly any nausea with David, and had thrown up every day for almost six weeks with Nancy, so I was already thinking this baby would be a girl early on—wrong. I spent a lot of time dry-heaving over a bucket, but only threw up a handful of times. I ate a lot of Cheerios and milk for lunch, and began having to sneak snacks along for myself on my outings with the kids. We spent a ton of time at Wilkerson Farm in October and I remember not having energy to do much beyond doing the tractor ride.

10 weeks

At 10 weeks, I felt the baby move. I was shocked because I had never felt a baby move that early. The Internet helpfully suggested that I might be having twins. Since twins sort of run in my family (my mom had two sets), I asked my midwives to do an ultrasound check around 15 weeks to see if there was only one. They did a very basic ultrasound with a small machine and computer, and then started asking me if I wanted to know the baby’s sex. Again I was surprised. I’d never found out the sex of the baby before 20 weeks. But I was curious, and the midwife said, “Well that definitely looks like a penis.” Ha ha! So we confirmed that there was only one, and he was a boy. Since I’d been convinced that my baby was a girl at first, it was a bit of an adjustment for me to think of myself as a mom to two boys. I have three sisters and had always just assumed that sisters and girls and womanhood would continue to be a part of my children’s lives. For the first time I realized that I would have more boys in my immediate family than girls. It bothered me a little bit, but the moment Jesse was born, I knew he was mine just as much as any girl could have been and I wouldn’t give him up for the world.

My pregnancy continued to surprise me in mostly uncomfortable and inconvenient ways. I had naively hoped that this being my third time around would be the easiest. Surely my body was used to this by now and I could handle everything that came my way. Ha. I began getting back pain early on, early in the second trimester, and started having pain in my pelvic and groin area soon after, making my hips hurt whenever I walked and eventually making it painful to even lift one leg off the ground. That had come with my other pregnancies, but not until I was well into the third trimester. My second trimester with David had been so easy I had forgotten I was pregnant most of the time. Not so with Jesse.

20 weeks

I needed to pee constantly, at least three times before leaving the house and so many times at bedtime I lost track. My hips hurt and Matthew had to adjust them every night to help me sleep and be able to walk. Walking got very hard. The number of places I could take my kids by myself got fewer and fewer, especially with the playgrounds being shut down in March. We ended up going to one spot by the Provo River over and over and throwing rocks. They both got into riding scooters and I became terrified they would run away from me and into the street, but luckily it never happened. I was grateful my two-year-old, David, is kind of shy and clingy and likes to stay close.

I wasn’t sure how I would make it to the end of May. When the pools closed, I took up riding my bike since I could barely walk for a few minutes without needing to rest. Halfway through the third trimester, I had trouble just standing long enough to cook a meal or do the dishes. I had one episode where I was lying down in bed and suddenly couldn’t breathe due to pressure on my ribs and lungs. I had never had this before and had to walk around the house until Jesse settled down low enough again that the weight on my lungs relaxed. Jesse was also the first of my babies who somehow kicked me in the ribs and at the same time put pressure down low on my pelvis. This made me think that he was or would be a big baby (he was actually my smallest, but I’ll get there). I also had a feeling early on that this baby might come early, but I squashed this thought down since I didn’t want to deal with the disappointment of reaching my due date and not having a baby.

30 weeks

The due date was a bit of nightmare. I had originally told the midwives my due date was May 31 (based on my cycle being longer than 28 days for the past few months before we got pregnant). I was really hoping for a May baby rather than a June baby (Matthew’s birthday and David’s half-birthday are in June). But I had been pressured to be induced and have ultrasounds and interventions when David was “overdue” and I didn’t want to deal with that again. So my due date started out May 31. Then my initial ultrasounds and measurements put me at about a week ahead at every single visit. Once I called the midwives to find out what date I needed to get past to be able to deliver my baby at the birth center, just in case he came early. That date was May 8. I was sure I could make it to May 8. No problem, right?

Well, when I started having what felt like labor pains on May 5, I called the midwives again—just to be safe, this couldn’t actually be labor, right?—and managed to talk them into changing my due date to May 26, which was the date one of my ultrasounds had given me as my “due date” and technically put me JUST in the window for being cleared to deliver my baby at the birth center rather than be sent to the hospital. For the record, I was never once worried that Jesse was premature, but was still surprised to even be considering that I might be in labor. I have a bit of a tendency to put off thoughts of labor until the last possible moment; denial is one of my coping mechanisms, I guess? The midwife told me to try to keep the baby in until the 8th, but Jesse had other plans. I’ll just add that even though Jesse was technically 36 weeks and 6 days (according to my app) at birth, he hit developmental milestones for 38 weeks and didn’t have any premature characteristics such as difficulty breathing (he came out with a very healthy and annoyed scream). In conclusion, due dates are the worst and mine keep screwing me over no matter what I do.

36 weeks (one week and three days before Jesse's birthday!)

THE BIRTH STORY

May 4 I remember as a particularly good day. I had done a lot of Star Wars, May-the-4^th-be-with-you-related work stuff from home, which was fun, and then that night Matthew and I… um… well… anyway, it was a good day. I also slept particularly well that night, with fewer pee breaks and less discomfort than usual. May 5 started out pretty normally, but somewhere in the morning I began noticing that I was having contractions that I had to breathe through, and instead of wanting to eat lunch, I was having some nausea. Then I started pooping. A lot. And still more nausea. The nausea was a new labor symptom for me—surprised again! But the pooping and the contractions by themselves were distracting enough to me that I was concerned. I managed to get through my work meeting at 1 pm, and after that called the midwives just to make sure I could deliver at the birth center so I wouldn’t stress out, then took a warm bath to see if that would make things calm down or go away.

The contractions did not go away, but they weren’t very close together or very hard at that point yet. The nausea and the pooping continued. I wasn’t able to focus on work. I wasn’t able to eat much either, though I tried, really hard. Every time I ate, I threw up. Once I threw up so violently I got petechiae. Finally I gave up and just stuck to drinking juice, Gatorade, and water. The midwives recommended vitamin C so Matthew went and got me some vitamin C powder packets. I was still in denial—this had been a weird pregnancy, after all—but I started timing the contractions that evening.

They were all over the place, from between 2 minutes to over 20 minutes apart, from 30 seconds long to almost 2 minutes long, and went on the whole night long. I got maybe a half hour of sleep. On Wednesday, I still felt too sick to eat and threw up when I tried. Contractions were mild and irregular throughout the day. I was too tired to work or focus on anything, so I just lay around and tried to nap, but just got maybe one or two one-hour naps because it was so hard for me to get comfortable. Around 2:30 pm I went upstairs to talk to Matthew and then suddenly fluid was dribbling down my legs. This was another new and baffling turn of events for me. My water had always broken right at the moment my baby was being born. I was barely having contractions when this happened. What could it mean? We called the midwives again and they asked me to come in for a check-up. I knew I wasn’t in active labor yet, but they did a cervical check and I was 60% effaced and dilated to a 3. She offered to strip my membranes but I declined—I hated the idea of interventions and the word “strip” is really just awful, isn’t it? Since my water had broken, the midwife said she would like for me to have the baby in the next 48 hours (obviously, we were past the “try to keep the baby in until the 8^th” advice). If I didn’t have the baby within 48 hours, I would have to be induced.

I felt slightly stressed about feeling like I was on the countdown clock, but was feeling so tired and sick of the ongoing nausea and lack of sleep that I was feeling ready for labor to just come on hard and get it over with already. At this point, I expected things to pick up Wednesday night, and maybe for us to have the baby during the night. At first, they did. I had regular contractions starting around 12:15 am, and they were hard and they were consistent and they were close together. For four hours. Then they got gradually farther and farther apart, until I was only having two contractions an hour. I was so disappointed. Another sleepless night and no baby. The word “stripped” was starting to sound not so bad after all. I was so, so tired, and tried to rest during the day. Family members were worried about the baby and kept asking me for updates. My mom called to tell me I needed to get up and go have the baby, and I knew she meant well, but I was so exhausted I couldn’t deal with her worrying and nagging, so I hung up on her—sorry, Mom. Later, I found out she also called my midwife to make sure my midwife knew that I needed to have this baby. Oh Mom. I continued to have about two contractions (hard, labor-like contractions, that lasted about a minute) an hour throughout the day. Eventually, after Matthew put David down for his nap, we decided to go see the midwives again and try a few methods to get this labor thing going. I remember having a bit of a foreboding feeling hanging over my head as we left the house, thinking, “You know, this could be and probably is the last time you’ll leave the house with this baby inside of you.”

We arrived at the birth center at 3 pm and they checked me again. I was effaced 90% and dilated to a 4, which was encouraging. My contractions, however, were still irregular. I had one or two in the waiting room, but they didn’t feel very strong to me—not as strong as the ones I’d had in the night for sure. And even the nighttime ones had never progressed to the point where I needed Matthew’s help to get through them. So it all still felt very early stages to me.

They offered again to strip my membranes and this time I agreed. I was expecting something horrific and painful, but I actually didn’t feel a thing. Maybe the student who did it was just incredibly gentle? Anyway, afterwards she reported I was dilated to between a 5 and a 6, and then they went to get the room prepped and ready for me to hang out for a while, as they put it. I texted Sarah, my sister, to come down at this point, still thinking in the back of my head that the baby was probably hours and hours away, but better safe than sorry, you know?

I had a few contractions while we hung out in the room, but nothing to get excited about. Sarah showed up, we chatted, I drank some water and was surprised to find I was hungry and able to eat some cheese crackers without throwing up. The midwives suggested trying to relax to get labor going, so they left us alone for a while—maybe 30 minutes?—and Matthew downloaded Superstore season 4 for me to watch on my phone. I watched maybe 3 minutes of it when the student came in with a breast pump and suggested I try pumping for 15 minutes. I did, and boom—the contractions were back. I didn’t go back to watching my show, and I stopped chatting with Sarah and Matthew—I wasn’t able to focus on the conversation any more. The contractions were hard and coming more regularly. I began needing more help to get through them. The doula came and introduced herself. I liked her a lot. She was calm and strong and encouraging and did everything I asked her to immediately. She and Matthew both pushed on me for counter pressure and it helped me get through the hard contractions.

Since things were getting harder, I asked to get checked again. I remember thinking, “Hurry up and do the check before another contraction comes—I don’t want to have one on my back!” I was between a 9 and a 10 at this point. Crazy! At this point, things get a little foggy. Certain memories stand out though: The student filled up the bathtub, but the water was way too hot. I could barely stand in it for a few seconds. I decided against the tub anyway, since they had helpfully hung a rope for me to hold onto in the doorway, and it was easier for me to be surrounded by people pushing on me out of the tub. They brought me a couple of different birthing “stools” to try sitting on, and I ended up falling off all of them and onto the floor during every contraction. Curling my body, not “pushing” at all, counter pressure, and a warm cloth right on my lower back helped me manage the pain, which was getting worse. I began to moan deeply and tried hard to bring my moans low down when they went high-pitched, though I’m not sure how much of a difference that actually made to the contraction. After giving birth three times, in my opinion the biggest thing regulating your screams does is that it keeps the other people in the room from freaking out as much because they can tell you’re not suffering from a complete panic, lack of control, etc. Anyway, they all gave me a ton of praise and encouragement when I made my deep low moans and said I was guiding my baby out and I was doing an amazing job, etc. I was glad nobody tried to tell me how I needed to sit or force me to labor a certain way or that I needed to start pushing, blah blah blah. I did most of it on my hands and knees or sitting between my knees, though I had to have gotten up at some point so the baby could come out. My labor was low down, not in my back or butt or anywhere else, fortunately, and I had no problem with hemorrhoids afterwards (yay!). There was no talk of a cervical lip this time, either.

At some point, I also remember reaching in, feeling Jesse’s head, and getting emotional. This was the moment I really accepted that I was giving birth and soon. It’s hard for me to get to that point when in labor because it’s right before transition, and it’s full of tension and fear as well as excitement and adrenaline. This had already been such a long labor in comparison to my other labors, and I was so mentally drained and weak and tired at this point that it was harder than even usual for me to, in that moment, say, “I’m ready now. Come out, baby.” But somehow I did.

Then came the three or four hard contractions, and my birthing noises got very disturbing and guttural. I was even surprised myself by some of the sounds I made. I held back on each of these contractions as much as I could—not pushing, not forcing, holding back and away from the dreaded burning and tearing of the “ring of fire.” I’m so glad I had the instinct to do this, as hard as it was, because I could tell that the extra time I was able to buy gave my skin the time it needed to stretch and open just enough. Around contraction four, there was a “pop” sound and I heard somebody said it, but I knew what had happened without even looking—the head was out. And I still hadn’t felt a ripping or burning. And I still had never actively or intentionally “pushed.” The contractions did all the pushing for me.

I waited for the next contraction, and there was another pop. Shoulders and body. Then another short moment, and another pop. Legs and feet! He was out! He was covered head to toe in vernix (which I had never seen before—it’s like pasty, oily, white coating), and was howling bloody murder—very loudly and indignantly. I felt that wonderful relief from overwhelming pressure wash over me, and with it the elation that I had not felt any ripping or burning. I hadn’t torn. I knew it before they even checked me. It was wonderful to just clutch Jesse and feel nothing but relief and joy in that moment. I looked at Sarah and told her “I have a baby!” and we laughed and I asked her to take some pictures. I loved having her there right at that moment.

After a few minutes of holding Jesse and sobbing with relief this time (as opposed to when I sobbed from the pain with David), I went over to the bed and delivered the placenta. Then Jesse got to nurse a bit and we took pictures and called everybody. They checked me and it was just like I thought—no tearing, except for a tiny 1 cm tear that I’m convinced was already there from when I reopened my stitches after David’s birth coughing in the night. They didn’t give me any stitches. I felt amazing, the best by far after any of my births. What a wonderful, happy conclusion to such a long and baffling labor that had frustrated and surprised me at every turn. My recovery from the pregnancy felt like a piece of cake (farewell, pelvic pain and pressure! I don’t miss you one bit!). Breastfeeding, on the other hand, has been more challenging this time around as Jesse had a painful latch on one side and I am, at 31, apparently too old and cranky to be getting up every two hours to deal with engorged breasts and tender nipples and a flailing newborn’s gums. So yep, I got mastitis after about a week and even though I’ve recovered from it now, one of my nipples is still healing from the first week of damage. Things are improving, slowly but steadily, and Jesse has already soared well past his birth weight.

Jesse Valentine Covington
Born May 7, 2020
7:03 PM
6 lbs 15 oz
21 inches long

The Wild Bunch

My Miscarriage, Part 2

Here you can read about the conclusion of my miscarriage.

February 22, 2015

"I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write this down. After it happened, all I wanted to do was talk about it, and the more time passes, the more my body recovers and my body has almost now completely forgotten the experience. It's like a dream or a lifetime ago. I'll try to tell you as much as I can remember.

After the ultrasound, we went home. Sarah and I went to Smith's, and then the ward activity at the church. I was feeling pretty well all evening. No cramps or bleeding that was strangely strong or anything. I went to bed around 11:30 pm. Matthew was pretty tired but I was feeling uncomfortable and awake, and thought I'd probably need another hour to settle down. So I asked him if I could watch Netflix on his phone. Around midnight, the pain started to get worse. I couldn't even find a single position in bed that would offer relief. I couldn't lie still, and I was starting to get sleepy, but was frustrated because I kept cramping and needing to pee. I decided to take a warm bath and that helped a lot with the pain. I was bleeding and passed some small clots. In my ignorance, I wondered if any of them could be the tiny baby. I kept Matthew's phone with me and watching Call the Midwife helped me to keep awake and not be too panicked. But after two hours of being unable to leave the tub to go to bed - I kept trying, drying off and getting a fresh pad and returning to my clothes, but then feeling so much pain and discomfort nothing would make it feel better but returning to the tub - I got scared.

I had read miscarriages take hours, days, or even weeks, so I was terrified of having to endure this for DAYS. I needed sleep badly but more than sleep I needed a break from the pain. I was exhausted and scared of having to go through this the whole night by myself, so around 2 am I woke Matthew and told him I felt really bad. He didn't know what to do, but he did try massaging me. It didn't help. I was feeling like I had a box inside my stomach pushing up and out and all around like I was going to explode. It sounds silly describing it and I can't quite recall it to my body's memory even now, but my mind was very clear that that's what it felt like at the time. Also, I was seating but couldn't leave the tub to cool off. My lower half wanted to be on fire and my upper half was dripping with sweat. And I was so exhausted. The pain never gave me a break. I could tell there were moments when it escalated, but I could never really feel it subside. The only way I recognized that it had subsided was when it shot up again.

Having Matthew awake and there for me was a great mental and emotional relief: he followed me back and forth from the bed to the tub with the computer, my clothes, towels, etc., so all I had to focus on was the pain. But there was no physical relief, and I really was starting to panic when even the tub didn't bring me any relief. We timed the pains, which by this time I was beginning to recognize were actually contractions, and the time seemed to both pass very quickly and drag on. We switched from Call the Midwife to Arrested Development when I began to be in so much pain I couldn't even pay attention to the computer for long stretches of time. Having something playing in the background was a good distraction and helped to keep me from noticing the slow passage of time.

As for pain relief, I tried everything. I took Tylenol very early on, but nothing else - perhaps I was too far gone, exhausted, and cynical to think Ibuprofen would even help? I meditated. It helped weirdly a little bit in the beginning, but not further on. Nothing helped further on. Matthew massaged me, but as all the pain was in my abdomen and not my back, it didn't really help. I tried "going with" the contractions instead of fighting them by tensing up. That felt very scary. Just giving up and letting the pain completely take over and just decide to go away or not on its own whim. Sometimes it helped a little though and the sharp hard pains went down a little to more manageable pain. And breathing. Good Lord did I breathe. I breathed every possible pattern I could think of, from quick, fast breaths to long, slow breaths to even, relaxed ones. It kept me alive but wasn't doing a whole lot else. I distinctly remember grabbing Matthew and being like, "WE ARE GETTING AN EPIDURAL!" at some point and I meant it, absolutely, 100%. I was positive that this wasn't normal and I couldn't take any more. I don't remember much of what I said. I kept saying, "I'm so tired. I'm so tired" over and over, and also, "all I want is for it to stop." At one point I felt might die? But not really? I didn't think it was worth it to try to go to the hospital and I guess I'd rather die at home than try to get in a car or call an ambulance.

Another thing that made everything more difficult was (TMI, but really, this whole post is TMI) pooping. I hadn't eaten very much, but around 3 am or something I kept having to go to the toilet. I was in awful pain and just wanted to stay in the tub but was so upset I kept having to poop. It was painful and unavoidable. I've never been in so much pain and somehow annoyed that I still had to interrupt my pain so I could take care of a bodily need.

I hated that I couldn't rest in the tub. I needed a floating pillow or something. My neck ached and my head and shoulders were too hot and even though I was dead tired, I could not sleep. There was one point when I almost dozed off on the bed with Matthew rubbing me and the heating pad, but it was only about a minute that I was actually asleep before the next pain jolted me awake again. I don't know how to explain that I managed to fall asleep in those minutes between contractions except for sheer exhaustion. I also remember shifting in the tub to try to find a position that offered relief and I found that going from sitting up to lying down hurt like hell, but once I was lying down, I felt a little better.

The changes in my body were very unpredictable. I felt I had 0 control over what was happening, but my body was figuring it out and taking charge without me. I am so grateful our bodies have this programmed into them. And I am amazed in retrospect at how much my body is capable of. The process of making a baby is truly awe-inspiring. Anyway, around 3 am Matthew and I discussed options. I really wanted drugs. I thought maybe my dad or the midwives could help me. We called our midwife at 4 am on the hotline and boy, she was unhelpful. A midwife had called me earlier on Thursday around 8 pm and told me to expect "a heavy period" and asked if I had any questions. Ha. Of course I was fine then and said so. So the poor tired girl at 4 am told us the pain would last "a chunk of time" and told us the usual spiel about relief methods that we'd tried and that weren't working at all. I don't remember anything else she said.

I quickly began focusing on the promise of drugs to get me through the pain. The vague hope and possibility of drugged relief was what I now clung to. At 5 am we called my parents, who knew nothing of the ultrasound or miscarriage, so it was a bit of a shock. My dad answered, said he was sorry, and said they had Lortab, which I remembered taking after getting an IUD, and it did help. So I was absolutely on board with Matthew driving to my parents' to get drugs. I was feeling a little better, just able to hold on, and my brain had become accustomed to the idea that we wouldn't be asleep for a while. Maybe it was my second wind. Matthew left me in the tub and I watched Call the Midwife and clung to the tub's soap dish holder in lieu of Matthew's hand. Fortunately, it seemed a very short time until he came back. I think the idea of "drugs on the way!" helped me get through. I took the Lortab immediately. Matt said my mom had given him a big hug and had a crumpled face and that meant a lot to me. After taking the Lortab, I waited for something to change. About 20 minutes later, the change came.

THE WORST PAIN I'd ever felt in my life. The previous stuff times 10. I couldn't hold in my screams any longer. I screamed into one hand, gripping Matthew with the other. It felt hugely powerful, overwhelming, dangerous, out of control, and if it hadn't gone away, I might have passed out. But it did. I thought we had reached a new level of pain and I'd be in this new hell for the forseeable future. I knew I couldn't bear it. I was crying. Another one came, just as awful as the last. Horrible, horrible, blackout pain. I think there were only 3 or 4 of these. I reached inside and became aware I could feel something. It felt like it could be another fold of lip or skin or something else. The more I felt it the more I realized it was coming out of me. But it was stuck. That made me excited because I finally had a measurable goal that I could work for, and if I could just get this thing out, there would be change, and possibly relief. So I started pep talking myself. "You can do this! I'm so close! You're soooo close! COME ON!" But it wouldn't come out, despite me pushing as hard as I could and giving it my all. Matthew said to wait and push with the next contraction. That was the first moment it really dawned on me that my pains were indeed contractions, and they were all building up to a big moment of pushing out something big.

I didn't want any more contractions. But ultimately, Matthew was right. I felt the exact moment the contraction came, somewhere while I was reluctantly taking a break from pushing. It was like my insides expanded suddenly and a big push, not from me but from something inside my body, forced the "thing" out all at once. It was huge - much bigger than I expected by far. Big enough to cup in two hands. Maybe the size of my fist. I felt a rush of relief and I was panting and lying back and the water was turning red all around me because so much blood had come out. I still felt a little bloated but the awful box-explosive feeling had slacked off hugely. I had trained myself not to move or do anything to disturb any amount of relief that I came across during the experience, so it took a few seconds for me to sit up, but I really wanted to see what had come out because it was so big.

So I sat up, slowly, and then - WHOOSH! - a flipping over, compression, release, turning over feeling happened in my abdomen and another huge object shot out of me like a torpedo. And then INSTANT relief. Powerful, overwhelming, beautiful relief. I've never felt anything so good. I felt I'd been reborn and had a new body. The exhaustion even seemed to go away. I felt like I'd immediately returned to normal, that everything sick, dead, and bad had come out of me, and my body was new, healed, and wonderful. I couldn't believe how the fast the change from pain to relief had happened. It was like a magical potion.

Matthew put the two objects on the bathtub edge. They seemed foreign and otherworldly, even though they had come out of me. He determined that what I'd thought was the baby was actually the placenta and the second object, a completely enclosed ball held together like a balloon, was the baby and amniotic sac. I was afraid to look too closely, but I knew that I had to, that I had to look and see if I could recognize our baby. So Matthew cut open the sac with his knife and immediately found the baby. It was so small but still very recognizable as a fetus. Matthew asked if I wanted him to take pictures. I wasn't sure, but I said yes. And I'm glad I did.

Looking at the pictures helped me feel a sense of reality, as in yes, this actually, really happened to me. And closure. And peace. And awe. So much awe. I felt that his baby had not suffered and that it had been dead for a while, it didn't have the means to feel pain yet. So seeing it was purely for us. We flushed it down the toilet afterwards, though I gave it a little almost-kiss first. I was worried I would feel very sad or emotional afterwards, but instead I was elated with relief and in shock and what my body had just gone through. There wasn't really room for anything else. A lot of blood came out after that, but I felt nothing. No pain. Maybe the Lortab kicked in by that point. I wasn't even tired any more. We stayed up recap-ing it and talking about what had happened for an hour. So many things made sense re: how my experience had built up and progressed just like labor. I was so grateful that in the end, my miscarriage only took a total of six hours, Matthew was there before the worst contractions, and the baby and placenta came out so wholly and entirely. Some people don't have complete miscarriages and then they can lose another baby when they get pregnant because the uterus is still coughing out parts. But I really felt absolutely certain that my miscarriage had been complete.

After Friday, I had cramping and bleeding very much like - surprise! - a heavy period. It lasted about three days. Every day after that, I felt stronger and stronger. I was even able to go swimming and have sex later that week. It was surprising, but one of the first feelings I had after the miscarriage was that I was ready to get pregnant again. I was inexplicably excited and giddy about it. Lortab? Inspiration? Hormones? No clue. It seemed that most of my friends who had experienced miscarriages had had D&Cs that were a lot more controlled and less violent. I definitely hope to never go through what I went through again, but the recovery was undeniably amazing, and it felt great to have all that strength and power to heal already within me. And we saved a ton of money by not going to hospital. Go me!"

My Miscarriage, Part 1

Okay, deep breath... my name is Ruth, and I'm addicted to birth stories. I guess it's not really that odd, considering I'm still technically in the "baby" phase and most of my friends have or have had or are planning on having babies. Lately, I've been poking around a lot of my friends' blogs and reading their birth stories, just because I find them so fascinating and powerful. I've even popped back here to my own blog just to read my birth stories, and capture a little memory of those intense feelings and experiences.

But one story I hadn't shared on the blog kept popping up also as a part of my birthing memories. And that was my first, my rawest, my this-is-the-closest-I've-ever-been-to-giving-birth experience. And it was, in some ways, a tragedy.  Yet I felt strongly impressed that I wanted and needed to share it on the blog, so if anyone were like me, stalking around blogs to read birth stories, they wouldn't miss what has been an essential part of my body's journey in pregnancy and childbirth. 

When we got pregnant in December 2014 (after trying for a little over a month, no less), I was so naive and unprepared, blissfully certain that everything would go perfectly according to plan and already telling people about our new addition to the family at Christmas, even though my due date wasn't until August (I thought I would never forget the due date, but lo and behold, four years later, all I remember is that it was in August - my journal tells me it was August 23, 2015). 

I felt very tired throughout the month of January, but not particularly nauseous, and I never even came close to throwing up. I was also having more headaches, and gradually learning that I needed to start eating smaller, closer-together meals to stave them off. In late January, my energy started coming back, which made me feel pretty good. Later I learned that this is when the baby had stopped growing. In my journal, I am full of optimism though. Baby is the size of a lime, now! I'm finally 10 weeks pregnant! Hooray, double-digits! 

Now I'm mostly going to start quoting my journal, since my memories get very detail-vague and feeling-specific (as in, I remember the details wrong but the feelings that accompanied the events are still burned very strongly into my mind). 

February 8, 2015: "2nd trimester this weekend, baby! Honestly I haven't felt very pregnant the past two weeks. Since the nausea has gone away, I've just felt a little bloated. Like having gas (oh, and I have that too). I probably won't be able to feel the baby move for another month. I haven't had any other trouble. I was really energetic and bouncing off the walls on Monday, so on on a whim, I went to work out at my parents' after work. It felt awesome, but after about 10 minutes of fantastic workout mode, I got really tired and kept having to lie down and breathe. I listened to my body and slowed down and did everything to stay comfortable. My workout took me a lot longer, but I felt great. Mom sent me an email reminding me to be careful about exercising while pregnant and recommended swimming. I thought that was kinda sweet. Glad she's thinking about me and Baby.

Matthew and I went to the birth clinic this week. The appointment was a little dull. They didn't check Baby at all, just took my blood pressure and asked me questions about my period and insurance. The midwife made a worried face when I said my November period was super light, but didn't explain any of her thoughts. I could guess what she was thinking since I thought myself, hey! Maybe I was pregnant back then! But I took a negative test in early December, so probably not. I felt this would be an awesome place to have a birth away from doctors and hospitals and epidurals. But I am really impatient to meet Baby or just have some proof of his/her existence. I want to hear a heartbeat, see a picture on a screen, find out the gender, and get a belly! I am automatically thinking of the baby as a boy because I want a David so bad. But if it's a little girl, that would be great too.

One more baby thing: after I worked out on Monday, I thought I had fixed my energy problem, but I kept getting waves or bursts of energy that burned out when I tried to work out after 5 minutes, but drove me crazy if I did nothing. Also, I was super horny. After one time [okay, we had sex, y'all], a little bit of brown fluid came out. I'd read this was fairly normal [sidenote: this is because the Internet will tell you whatever it is you want to hear when you're Google searching stuff about babies and pregnancies. The Internet has seen it all], but was still a little worried and grateful when nothing more brown came out later. It would be devastating to lose a baby, and I'm not even that far along! I can't imagine how awful it would be in the 2nd/3rd trimester."

My next journal entry is on February 12, 2015, and I want to note that I had not actually yet had the miscarriage at this point:

"The last 24 hours have been very difficult, physically and emotionally. I lost the baby. I was only 10 weeks (I was actually 12, but the ultrasound measured me at 10) and the baby stopped growing at about 7 weeks. We had an ultrasound today after I started cramping and bleeding pretty heavily over the past 24 hours. I had a sinking feeling ever since our appointment when the midwife couldn't find a heartbeat. I'd waited so long for that moment of reassurance and it was really hard to have more uncertainty. By Wednesday it was killing me. I was afraid I'd done too much heavy lifting on Monday or Tuesday moving books, but knowing that Baby had stopped growing three weeks ago meant it didn't really matter what I'd done. Even though I'm full on cramping/bleeding, I feel much more clear-headed and put together. The hard part now is telling people. My co-workers were very sweet, so sweet their texts made me cry almost more than I did finding out. The more the technician apologized to me and said she was sorry, the worse I felt. I had to go to the bathroom and have a meltdown and took ten minutes to come out. Then Matthew and I drove home and I got Sarah and we spent the evening together. 

I'm just ready to get this period over with. It should hopefully only last a few days. Maybe in a week or two we'll be trying again. I hope so. It will be a little fun to be in the "Are we pregnant?" phrase again [sidenote: as anyone who has been in the position of trying and wanting desperately to be pregnant after a miscarriage knows, it was not fun. It was stressful and heartbreaking.]. Not looking forward to a second first (ha!) trimester again though.... ah, whatever. I'm ABSOLUTELY looking forward to it. And now I'm writing furiously to get through these painful cramps. Bring them on. "

Another note: I'm actually editing quite a bit from these journal entries. I tend to ramble a lot when I'm writing, and spun off into a couple of side-thoughts about Sarah having a potential boyfriend (which came to nothing, but hey, now she's GETTING MARRIED SO THAT OBVIOUSLY WORKED OUT OKAY), how sweet and thoughtful my co-workers were/are, and some other personal thoughts/feelings that are actually a bit too painful for me to type up and relive here. Anyway, if you're looking for the ACTUAL miscarriage story without all the painful build-up, it starts here:

February 15, 2015:

"It's strange to look at my last journal entry because I don't even feel like the same person any more. As I was writing it, I was thinking about how little I knew in the previous entries and how naive I had been. Well, this entry is here to explain how little I knew and naive I was just in that last entry! I've learned more in the past few days about pain, myself, what I am capable of, what my purpose is, and what really matters to me than I might have learned or experienced in my entire life. I do feel that I've come closer to understanding life and death, and I feel that I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. And yet, I feel  incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully blessed. It still hurts to see other people pregnant and to know that it will be longer than we hoped before we get to have a baby. But I am feeling confident in our decision to get pregnant and more prepared physically, spiritually, and mentally for the experience of birth and labor. I also feel in awe of the great power and miracles at work within my body without my knowledge or control. I took a while to write this entry, even though the experience of my miscarriage was barely a few hours after I wrote my previous entry, because I struggle to find words strong and meaningful enough to convey the sensation, feelings, and events that took place on Friday, February 13, from about midnight to 6 am.

Once the pain began to subside, my words were just "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," and the relief/shock/awe/amazement/fear that I was going through still seems inexpressible. The memories of agony were replaced so quickly and profoundly with relief and awe that they faded almost immediately. It is only with some tough mental effort that I can recall just how terrifying and painful what I went through was. I'll do my best to write it down. Since it happened, I've told the story over and over again. It never feels complete. It feels like I must be leaving something out because how could a story with such powerful and incredible moments ever possibly be really told fully? Although miscarriage is very common, it does not seem that we talk very much about what it is LIKE and above all I want to change that so my sisters and daughters will know the truth of my experience, the fact, what to expect, what is happening. Knowing these things would have been hugely reassuring to me. I was fortunate to know as much as I did. If we hadn't had the ultrasound, I might have panicked even further, worried over whether the baby was alive/in pain, and been emotionally overwrought over the traumatic taking away of my last piece of hope for a healthy pregnancy.

By the way, emotional is not a word I would use to describe the miscarriage. I believe I was blessed, after my long period of crying in the bathroom (post-ultrasound), to let my emotions go and to focus instead on the physical healing of my body, which took 100% of my concentration. I honestly had no room to spare for emotion while going through the miscarriage (or m/c, as the Internet labels it). I found it to be a very mentally exhausting process, having to keep my panic and paranoia under control, managing pain and fatigue, and essentially keeping myself in survivor mode. But above all else it was PHYSICAL. The most physical experience I've ever had that I recall. I tried to think of things to compare it to in terms of pain, exhaustion, duration, intensity, fear, uncertainty, etc., and everything I come up with just seems ridiculous. Post-IUD cramps? Pretty bad, but I was able to stay on the bed the whole time and never felt I was going to be ripped apart or explode. Hiking Timp? Ha, please. I could stop and rest whenever I wanted. Workouts? Nope. I was always in control and never pushed myself to the point of searing pain, thanks. Depression/grad school? Well... this was grueling because it took so long to go through, I'll grant you, but even then I had breaks from hating myself and hating school and there were good times mixed in with the bad. Oh, and my favorite comparison? A heavy period. Ha ha ha ha hahahahahaha. If that's a heavy period, you're going to need your uterus removed. But here's the frustrating thing: the ultrasound tech, the midwives, the Internet - they all said the same thing, that a m/c at this stage would be like a heavy period, with "clots and tissues." I read helpful suggestions like taking a shower, massage, peaceful music, heat pads, and rest would help. I've done heavy periods before, so I though, okay. I can do this. It will be harder emotionally than physically, right? WRONG."

Okay, at this point I had to take a break from writing about the miscarriage and I didn't get back to it until ten days later. My next journal entry (about the details of the actual miscarriage itself) is over 16 pages long, and this blog post already feels pretty long by itself, so I'm going to go ahead and post this.

Christmas Day 2014: The morning we found out we were pregnant

February 2015: This was about a week before I found out I had lost the baby

11 weeks pregnant

David's Birth Story

My blog is basically dead, but I love birth stories, and I just had my second baby, so here it is!

The story begins the week of December 19, which was my due date. I had been feeling pretty normal-miserable, like I remember feeling with Nancy at about 35-37 weeks. Things were hard but not unbearable. I was still getting some sleep at night, though I was getting heavier and heavier and could tell that David was putting on some weight. At my 36 appointment, I was measuring about 33-34 cm. I was measuring the same at 37 weeks, and the midwife suggested I think about getting an ultrasound. I was enjoying feeling kind of small though, and because David was moving around all the time and his heartbeat was fine, I didn’t want to spend $160 just to be told that everything was okay. I knew my body, and my body was doing just fine. I was confident that David was just an easier pregnancy than Nancy, and a slower one too. He was taking longer to “cook,” and that was just fine with me (well, at that point anyway). Then we sort of jumped to the 39-week appointment, and by then I really did feel like I put on some weight (4 pounds after only gaining 1 pound the last time). With the weight, everything got even harder. I was SO tired out so early in the day even if I did barely anything with Nancy. Matthew was home by this point—he had graduated, hooray!—but still hadn’t really adjusted to spending all day home, or spending all of his free time taking care of Nancy, so it was kind of hard on him and we had some meltdowns over it where he felt like a single parent, I felt like I was doing my best and was super frustrated with myself that I couldn’t do more with Nancy just because it was so, so hard.
December 19 came and I shocked everybody at work when they’d ask when I was due and I’d say, “Today!” Everybody kept saying I was too small and didn’t look like I was about to have a baby and yada yada. At first it was nice but eventually it made me feel desperate, like the baby would never come and I really was going to be pregnant forever and maybe he wasn’t growing enough and why wasn’t this pregnancy exactly the same as my first one, etc. It was really hard to reach 40 weeks and nothing. I knew I wouldn't have to wait much longer, and two weeks isn’t THAT long, but I was ready to be done at 39 weeks and hadn’t mentally prepared myself to go even past 40, let alone to 42. So, nothing happened on December 19. I really felt discouraged and started to worry about being induced and having an unnatural, overlong, painful labor that would end at the hospital. A different midwife saw me at my appointment and she basically insisted that I have an ultrasound the next day. I tried to push it off but she basically gave me no choice. I still felt like it was unnecessary, and honestly I still do, but I understand why they pushed it—they wanted to have as much information as possible and to know if there were any severe problems. I didn’t feel close to labor but I didn’t feel bad, either. I mostly felt like I felt with Nancy at about 36-37 weeks, which was also discouraging because that likely meant two more weeks of misery.
I tried to work as much as possible over the next few days because my job was one thing I could do without feeling totally exhausted (though walking across the parking lot and through the library was getting very, very tiring). On Friday, Dec 22, my sister-in-law watched Nancy while Matthew and I went to get the dreaded ultrasound. It took forever to get to West Jordan because there were at least three car wrecks on the freeway, even though there wasn’t even any snow!

The ultrasound was pretty much exactly what I expected. Baby’s movement and growth and everything looked fine. My fluid levels were normal. I was just small and the tech predicted Baby would be here within 1-3 weeks. (Super helpful! Not!) He didn’t really give me a new due date but confirmed that the due date from my 20-week ultrasound (December 25) was more accurate than this one. Ugh. Also we forgot to bring a flashdrive so our only pictures of the ultrasound were on our phones. The tech kept laughing at David’s big pouty lips on screen and saying that we could lick them and stick him to the wall. It was fun to see him and reassuring that everything was fine, but I was annoyed at the bother and cost when I knew everything was fine to begin with.

I finally began to mentally accept that this would probably be a January baby and I would just have to suck it up and get through Christmas. We had a nice Saturday—Unc and Daniel and Matthew and Nancy and I went to the All-Together Playground in the morning. I thought I was walking around pretty well but Unc thought I was barely keeping up and marveled at how attached Nancy was to Matthew. It has been hard for me to be apart from her for so long—she has bonded with Matthew more than me and wants him always, and I miss her. Lately she has began cuddling more with me though, and I put her down for her nap today for the first time in FOREVER it seems, so we’re working on it. I couldn’t believe how big she was when I changed her diaper though. GOOD LORD. She is huge. She also weighs 26 pounds apparently. Yikes. The playground was fun, but Unc and I were tired and ready for lunch pretty soon. I showed them the library and my office and then we went home. That evening after Nancy’s lap, my sister-in-law took her and Matthew and I went to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I had a few contractions during the movie but didn’t think anything of it. I left to pee during the Rose/Finn scenes... loved the Luke/Rey/Kylo stuff.

After the movie, we got Nancy and went home and ate and got ready for bed and I was still having contractions now and then, but around midnight I was thinking, hmmm, these seem to be coming somewhat regularly. So Matthew downloaded an app on his phone to time them and I ended up using that app ALL NIGHT LONG. Yep, the contractions came roughly every 20-30 minutes from midnight to 8 am the next morning and I did not get a wink of sleep. Matthew woke up around 5 or 6 or something and I told him I was pretty sure I was in labor, especially since I’d started pooping at 2 am and then having diarrhea/pooping the rest of the morning. Exactly like I had with Nancy. The system was clearing out! He was worried because he was supposed to lead choir and sing two solos, and I didn’t want to be alone in the house with Nancy. We called my mom and told her I was in early labor and we’d need her to take Nancy, and then I asked if Sarah could come over and stay with me while Matthew was gone. She did and it was probably the sweetest time of the whole ordeal.

Sarah was very excited for baby and reassured me that this was exciting news and I was probably right that this was the real thing (my greatest worry that it wasn’t, that it would all go away, or that it would take much longer than I hoped, maybe even all day) and that it would progress quickly. She even told me that Grandmama was here in our house—she felt her presence. That made me cry because during the middle of the sleepless night I got a little scared thinking about labor again and wanted to pray but couldn’t bring myself to pray to a male figure or father of any kind, so I simply prayed to “Mother” and I really felt like someone or something was there, a “Mother” of some sort. Sarah also said that Grandmama was watching over Nancy right now too, which we guessed explained why Nancy slept in for so long.
I can’t remember a lot of the rest of the morning, except that Matt had my phone and I had his (because his was timing the contractions) and I got texts asking if Matt needed to go home and to just go and leave the choir. Ha ha. Matt had apparently announced it at practice or something.

Matthew got home, skipping the last song, and my contractions were about 5-10 min. apart and getting a little more intense. I did not like being touched during them, which was unusual and different, and I couldn’t find a comfortable position. I just squeezed Matthew or Sarah’s hand and tried to breathe through them and not clench up or tighten my muscles or fight the sensation, which did seem to help a little. Labor felt low down and dull, like I remember it being with Nancy, but much more in my butt than I remember. Once the contractions had been coming at 5 min. intervals (or thereabouts—5 to 7 min) for close to an hour, I decided that was close enough and we needed to go to the birth center. It was somewhere between 11 and noon. Matthew had quite an ordeal trying to get a midwife to answer the hotline. He called, left voicemails, left texts, and eventually got a student at the birth center who called the midwife, who was in Salt Lake, but said she would hurry back and meet us there in about half an hour. The contractions were getting harder and I was getting a little nervous about being at home and having to possibly labor in the car without any help, so I got Matthew to call again and tell the midwife we were going to go to the birth center and wait for her there. The car drive was uneventful. I had one contraction about a minute after we arrived at the birth center, and then suddenly everything stopped, like David had sensed we were in a strange new environment and he wasn’t sure about coming here. I was discouraged again, and bored on top of that, and impatient, and ended up just lying down on the bed and trying to rest for about 20 minutes. 20 minutes of nothing, not one single contraction, not even a weak one. I was pretty upset and was going to have us leave and go home for a few more hours, but THEN I had a very intense, two-minute long contraction that would have made me make Matthew turn us around and come right back because I was suddenly sure that we were going to have this baby soon.
After that, the contractions returned, and we stopped timing them, just waiting for them and trying to endure. A doula and the midwife arrived and checked me (it’s always so uncomfortable but knowing how much I’m dilated is a huge mental boost) and said I was at a 6, which was pretty encouraging. Over halfway there! The doula’s massaging was pretty ineffective—her hands were cold—but I liked having her there anyway and she found a position for me that really seemed comfortable and helpful. I was on the bed on my knees leaning forward onto the exercise ball, holding her hands while Matthew rubbed my lower back. The contractions were intense and I was sweating or shaking through them so I felt like I was making a lot of progress, but after what seemed like a good long while, the midwife checked me again and I was only at a 6.5. A freaking 6.5. I was so annoyed.

By the way, I wasn’t sure why but I didn’t feel like laboring in the tub this time around. The tub just seemed too small and I didn’t feel like getting wet or going through the same experience as I had with Nancy. I liked the bed and the ball best.

After checking me, the midwife said I had a cervical lip. Not a surprise since I’d had one with Nancy too. Anyway, the best way to get Baby past it so the contractions would actually push Baby against the opening of the cervix was to have her hand up in me while I was having contractions. Supremely uncomfortable, but it worked. I sat on the super uncomfortable birth stool and Matthew and the doula held up my sides and my knees and I squeezed them like they were my lifelines because they seriously were. The midwife was very calm and seemed to know what she was doing, but I hated the way she didn’t communicate with me. She just acted like of course I should know what was going on and kept making comments about how I needed to lean further back or was pressing too hard against her shoulder or something—yeah, sorry, I know your comfort should obviously be the first thing on my mind here. And I was more than a bit angry at her when she told me to try pushing a little with the next contraction and I was like, no way! I’m not pushing. I’m at a 6.5! I’ll tear! And she said, no you won’t. You’re almost at a 10. I mean, my mouth dropped open. A FREAKING TEN?!?!? HOW LONG WERE YOU PLANNING TO SIT ON THAT? So yeah, I was flabbergasted—I’m almost at a ten? I asked, Can you feel the baby’s head? And she said yes she could. And I just kept repeating it—you can feel the baby’s head? You can feel the baby’s head? YOU CAN FEEL THE BABY'S HEAD? I couldn’t believe it. We were SO CLOSE to meeting our baby! It gave me a huge mental wave of strength at a time when I really could use it because the pain was very intense, more than I remembered even with Nancy (not surprising since my brain had to block that stuff out so I would even get pregnant again), and I just could not get comfortable at all once a contraction started. I did NOT like the birthing stool—I wanted to be leaning forward. But the midwife wasn't budging, so somehow I made it work—with the next contraction, I pushed. I hated pushing, by the way. I couldn’t really “feel” the urge or even the pushing itself. I just closed my mouth and held my breath and that sort of made it happen because the air that I wanted to let out in a scream stayed in and forced everything downward. I still did scream a little bit but not nearly like I had with Nancy. It was more a lot of shaky low moaning and whimpering. Still, the midwife told me to try to keep it in and hold my breath so it would all go to the pushing.

Finally, with one of these pushes, she exclaimed, “Ladies! We’re having a baby!” and I felt “stuff” come out and a shift or a drop from inside. So, presumably, Baby was now “past” the cervical lip. I got very excited but the worst part—CROWNING—was just around the corner. Suddenly all the midwife students were there in the room and there were towels everywhere all over the floor and then we were all just waiting and waiting for the next contraction. Oh my god it seemed like such a long wait. Then it came and I pushed because I was excited and I was at a ten *or almost* *who knows?* *maybe the midwife but of course she wasn’t telling* and HOLY HELL IT WAS THE WORST PAIN I’VE EVER FELT. Also, once I pushed it felt like I couldn’t stop. It really felt like I lost any kind of control I had and my body just took over and was like yep, yep, we’re getting rid of this, it doesn’t matter what happens to you. So yeah, I knew right away I was going to tear and I recognized it and I was like to hell with it I can’t do anything anyway. But yeah, it tore and burned and hurt every bit as bad as I remember with Nancy and worse. Strangely, though, I only felt it on one side. It seemed to take David a lot longer to actually come out than Nancy but it was still pretty quick. One thing that was different this time was that I definitely felt like a poop was coming at first, but then once I went with the “okay I’m going to poop” feeling it suddenly became very clear that it was NOT a poop and that’s when the burning and HUGE BABY COMING THROUGH sensation came and then I started screaming/crying because it hurt so much and I actually didn’t stop crying even when David came out at last and I heard his sweet little cry. Mentally I was relieved but physically I was shaken up all over again and traumatized and couldn’t stop crying because it was so INTENSE and painful and harder than I remembered. I had my eyes closed when he came out and kept them closed for a little while just to feel like I was protecting myself. Still, they handed him to me pretty quickly and holding him and sobbing for a while felt pretty good, like I could have done that for quite a while.

Finally, when I could stop thinking swear words and saying “Oh my God,” I turned to Matthew and said something I can’t remember like we have a baby or something stupid. They wrapped him in a towel and got both of us over to the bed and I still hadn’t delivered the placenta and didn’t want to ever be touched down there ever again, but after a few minutes the midwife gave my stomach a little push and “plooop” it came out like a jellyfish, more surprising than painful. I never actually got a good look at the placenta but it seemed smaller than Nancy’s.

7 pounds, 20.5 inches, born at 2:22 pm

It felt like we only got to cuddle for a few minutes before the midwife wanted to sew me up. I swear I was still shaking from the adrenaline. I was a little incredulous—now? Really?—but she was serene, obnoxiously so, and then she had the nerve to tell me I had to not kick her—like I had any control over my shaking legs while she was poking me all over down there. I asked them for laughing gas but she got in a few pokes before they brought it to me. Once they got me that, I calmed down a lot more and was able to relax. I can’t believe she started trying to numb me before they even got me the gas! Fortunately, there was one student there who was absolutely my kind of person. She had tattoos and her hair in cornrows and she was take-charge and assertive and vocal and communicated with me and looked me in the eyes and was like, “Ruth. Go away from here. Find another place you can go and just let it go.” She was everything I needed right then and I was really grateful she was there and wished she had been there sooner/through the whole thing. I’m sure the midwife knew what she was doing and was very experienced, but she just did not communicate enough with me or make me feel comfortable. The student just radiated strength and support and I was immediately comfortable with her.

Once they got me the laughing gas I did a lot better, as I said. I really like that laughing gas. It makes me talkative and a little bit "tipsy" (at one point I teasingly yelled at Matthew, "Take your shirt off!" so he could do skin-to-skin with David), but I still understood and processed everything going on around me. It just felt slower and a bit foggier and funnier. At one point, I said “OW” but didn’t feel the need to move, just to say “Ow.” I only had first-degree tearing, which I counted as a major, MAJOR blessing. I couldn’t remember how bad it was with Nancy, obviously, but after a day or so at home I knew that it had been worse with her because this time around I was able to sit, cross my legs, go to the bathroom, sit on my legs, sit in different positions, and I’ve already even almost stopped bleeding after only just over a week! I haven’t had to use nearly as many frozen pads, witch hazel, or anti-bacterial spray either.

After they finished sewing me up, it was nice to have the worst part over and then get back to snuggling with David and Matthew. David had been chewing on Matthew’s bicep and I wanted to let him latch on me. He actually did a pretty good job! Even though my nipples were like OW, they also remembered what it was like and it was a lot easier for me after having gone through all that crap with Nancy and pumping beforehand. Mainly I just wanted to look at him, of course. We took a lot of pictures and called our families. Last time I had spoken to Sarah she called me in the middle of active labor and I had to hang up on her because a contraction started. She was giving me a Nancy update and I was just like, “Okay, I have to go now, a contraction is starting.” Ha ha. It wasn’t quite as exciting to tell everyone this time because they all already knew that I had been in labor all morning. Still, everyone was excited to have a Christmas Eve baby! 

So there you have it. My second experience with natural childbirth. Worse than my first in some ways (the anticipation and fear going in were stronger because I remembered how bad it was and I couldn't help but compare it to my first, and then be disturbed/taken by surprise when things strayed from the first time) but better in others (I knew what was going on, knew what to expect, and had a much quicker physical/mental/emotional recovery and quicker bonding with Baby). Giving birth naturally is by far the hardest thing I have ever done, but I don't regret it, or being pregnant, even though I hate that last month of the third trimester, because I know how lucky I am to be able to get pregnant, to be healthy enough to carry my babies to term, and to have as few interventions as I've had to have my children. I have never felt such a deep, fierce, passionate love for anything in my life as I have felt for my babies and I can't imagine life without it. I have especially loved how quickly David has taken to nursing and how much of a bonding experience it has been for the two of us. At one point, I was sick but still nursing (wearing a mask and hand sanitizer) and Matthew said, "You're a little jealous of this baby, hon." I asked him what he meant and he said I had an expression that just said, "This is my baby and the world can go to hell." Ha ha. He gets me.

To sum up: David Charles Covington was born at 2:22 pm on Sunday, December 24, 2017, after I'd been in labor about 14 hours (but "active" labor only about 3 hours, and I pushed for just 8 minutes). I thought it somewhat fitting that Nancy had been due March 24, and came on the 18th, and David was due the 19th, and came on the 24th. They are so far opposites in everything. Through Nancy's pregnancy, I got a very distinct impression that she was a "strong" baby, and through David's, I felt impressed that he was going to be a "quiet" baby, though I still associate his quietness with strength and resilience of a different kind. I love them both. After having a baby in 2016 and another in 2017, my goal this year is to NOT get pregnant. I mean, look at this 40-week-pregnant face. 

40 weeks!

A week after giving birth. I lost ten pounds immediately, and another ten-ish the next week. Still have ten-ish to go, but not going to worry about it yet, because nursing makes me crazy hungry!

Nancy's Birth Story

So I am woefully late writing down my birth story and pregnancy seems blissfully long ago now, but I wanted to share it anyway. We took a Hypnobirthing class in January and were the only ones in the class who were NOT birthing in a hospital (we went to a birth center), and I remember being a little freaked out by that, but the class gave me so much confidence in my baby's ability to be born and my body's ability to have a natural birth (though it was much tougher than I realized).

My last pregnant picture (38 weeks, I think):

I was 39 weeks pregnant on the dot when I woke up March 17 at 7 am with "gas pains," and they kept waking me up every hour to poop. I ended up staying home from work but felt very well-rested and was able to nap and eat and relax the whole day in between the cramps (which I thought could be Braxton Hicks since I hadn't experienced them yet). We had a baby appointment at 5:30 pm, where they checked me and said I was 90% effaced, 1 cm dilated, and the baby's head was "right there" (but she had been low down and engaged for a long time). The midwife told me, "Girlfriend, you look like you're in early labor!" However, I didn't get excited because I was in denial--I had mentally prepared myself for a 42 week pregnancy, ha ha. After we got home, the contractions got more intense. I still had good energy and had made it through most of the day just fine with slow dancing/low moaning/very little discomfort at all, but around 7 pm I began needing Matthew to do hip counter-pressure on me to help me through each one. We timed them, but they were pretty sporadic. I had tried eating a little bit in the evening but threw it up. Believe it or not, I still wasn't 100% convinced this was true labor until about 11:15 pm and I went from moaning to screaming (I was trying to muffle it by screaming into pillows, but our landlady told us later she could hear me and was glad to see when our car disappeared, oops) and feeling overwhelming pressure. We called our midwives - in between screams/groans, I was trying to tell them that we hadn't really effectively timed the contractions (because we were both focused on me and not on the timer), but the midwife said, "I'm timing you now and you've had two a minute apart, so you should come in!" Ha!) and after the phone call I started to get bloody mucus, which excited/panicked me, because it finally seemed like proof with a capital P, I guess, that something was actually happening (no duh). 

We drove to the birth center, which in spite of being 5 min away from our apartment, felt like an alarmingly long way to go. I had to do one contraction in the car by myself without any help from Matthew, and I remember yelling as loud as I could and nearly fainting from pain because I had no one to do counter-pressure on my hips. When we got there, I tried to talk but had a contraction in the middle of the front door and just doubled over. A midwife immediately came and started rubbing my hips and it felt SO good. They checked me and I was dilated to a 6, so they told me to get into the tub, which was warm (not scalding hot, like I would have wished), but at that point, I was too far gone to feel helped out by anything other than counter-pressure.

In the tub, I really wished there were a chain hanging from the ceiling I could yank on while squatting. My mind was very frustrated that no one had thought to supply this - it seemed so reasonable, so doable, so simple, and yet it was not there. It seemed like just a few minutes but was actually an hour that I labored in the tub--I remember the midwives scurrying around a lot, trying to get me the GBS antibiotics, but as it turned out I barely got an hour's worth because we arrived at midnight and Nancy was born at 1:49 am. One of the midwives told me I had beaten her record by giving birth less than two hours after arriving at the birth center. So it was a rather quick labor, but those almost two hours sure felt like a long while.  

Every contraction was intense and frightening but the rest periods and the midwives' encouragement combined with the fact that I did not feel tired at all (in sharp contrast to the miscarriage, when I was completely exhausted and just wanted to sleep) let me keep going. Among all the thoughts that went through my head what helped me the most was remembering from class the affirmation of "Yes" instead of "Oh no" when each contraction started, accepting that we were having a baby tonight and that "the only way out of this is THROUGH," and complete confidence that my body was taking care of my baby and I did not need to worry about Baby at all. 

I wanted them to check me but didn't want to have not made any progress, so I was so grateful that when they checked me again I was dilated "all the way" and just had a cervical lip to get Baby's head past. Picturing the toy baby in the pelvis from our class and the way the teacher curled her body around to breathe it under the pelvis helped me envision what I needed to do with my body--things got more intense when I focused on pushing this way but the midwives said I was making amazing progress and I finally reached in and felt her head, which gave me a huge boost of excitement and much needed reaffirmation that things were progressing. By then I was feeling "ripping" and "burning" and was definitely screaming (I was hoarse the next day) through the contractions but the progress and my energy helped me through. My water broke with a big pop and I remember screaming to everybody, "My water broke!" and looking at Matthew like "oh wow this is really happening" when Baby's head was just a hand's length away. It was only 2-3 contractions later that Nancy Louisa came out all in one whooshing surge. She looked very roly-poly - like a Mr. Potato Head-sized doll, I remember thinking, but then she uncurled and my goodness, limbs everywhere! I knew I was torn up pretty bad (2nd degree... yay...), and it still hurt, but everything afterwards was much, much easier to bear. The placenta came out SO easily with the slightest push from me and I felt nothing. Peeing was harder - it took me maybe 15 min and I was shaking like crazy from adrenaline but that was it. Being stitched up for 45 min for vaginal tearing was NOT fun at all but they gave me laughing gas and I was still on an oxytocin kick from the 2 hours they gave me to recover and bond with Nancy and Matthew first) and I was SO HAPPY to no longer be pregnant and that Nancy was healthy. I never questioned that she would be, which I know was a tremendous blessing. 

Nancy weighed 7 lbs 9 oz, was 20 inches long, and was (and is) absolutely perfect.

Me the day after giving birth (I sweat off about 20 pounds over that weekend--crazy!):

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