As I hold Miss Tatum Lee and watch her sleep I cannot help but replay the last 24-48 hours in my head.
All the emotions, happenings, love, and prayers have been and are so overwhelming that I know I will not ever be fully able to express them to anyone.
Before I go on I will say to anyone who has had a really long and hard labor, don’t get too jealous while reading, my dues came at the end J
I had a crazy crazy labor my midwife was puzzled by it and I was even more at a loss to what the heck was going on. As crazy as it was, I was blessed by God at how things progressed throughout labor and for this I am truly grateful. As my midwife said I could consider myself having had an extremely long labor (over a week) or a short labor (2 hours or so).
I went in to an appointment on Wednesday the 8th and was 4cm dilated 50% effaced and started losing my mucous plug. I was not due until Monday but they were expecting me to most likely be back before then in labor…. Monday passed and not much. I had some contractions on Sunday during church but they decided to stop.
So we went back in for an appointment on Wednesday the 15th and I was 6cm and 80% effaced and she was at a station 2 - still no contractions.My midwife proceeded to ask me "Are you sure you aren't in labor?" and I replied "I don't know you tell me." So my midwife sent us home and said to try the whole castor oil thing. I was hesitant since I have heard so many horror stories but since I was already so progressed I decided to give it a try. It went down fine with some sherbert and a shake but then the last sip sent me to the commode. It really was nice to get it out of my system and I felt better after that. I then proceeded to play cards with Gretchen and was having to focus on whether or not I was having contractions or not. They were so slight and very irregular. My midwife had said that morning to go in as soon as I felt anything so I called her and told her I could barely feel much of anything every once in awhile. She said to come back in so she could at least check me to see if I had progressed at all from that morning.
When we got back to the clinic I was 8 cm and 100% effaced! Still with barely feeling much of anything!
So even though my contractions were not screaming ‘labor’ she wanted us to stay because she expected when I did start feeling the contractions she would come fast and she would be born where ever we might be….little did we know it would still be over 7 hours before she would show her beautiful face to the world!
So we checked into the clinic at 5pm on the 15th.
I still was not feeling much of anything. We watched “When Harry Met Sally” and Evan played his guitar for a while while I munched on some fruit. Tried to get things rolling by walking, lying down, sitting on the birth ball and all sorts of other things. Still when my midwife would ask me if I was having a contraction my famous line was “I don’t know…” Once I got to 9cm I finally felt them! They were pretty intense and the moaning began, my best guess was that that was at around 10:45pm.
In another hour or so I began pushing. I don’t think there is any way to describe the feeling. It was my most ‘painful’ (if I would even call it that) part of labor but it was incredible. It was amazing and perfect to have Evan beside me encouraging me through and my mom at the end of the bed smiling and encouraging me along as well. I will say that crowning was painful but nowhere near as painful as the rest of the evening’s crazy events. Feeling her make her way all the way out into this world and hearing her sweet cry was nothing less than miraculous! Instantly she was brought to my chest and she stayed there for quite a while. It was the best feeling ever to finally have her in my arms after all those months of growing to love her!
Evan cut the cord and then the craziness really began!
My placenta was apparently not as ready as Tatum was to be birthed and would not come out. As a Midwife outside of a hospital Vicky could not legally try and remove the placenta because I if I began to hemorrhage I needed to be at a hospital where they could take care of it in a timely manner. So an ambulance was called and I was taken to the hospital to hopefully birth my placenta. As all this was happening Evan was holding his beautiful daughter for the first time, he said it beautifully on the way home from the hospital. He said, “It was difficult and weird feeling to be starting to love this new life in front of you and being torn as you are worried about this other love you have known for awhile."
It was not necessarily an emergency yet but could turn into one quite quickly. The longer my placenta stayed in the more the cramping hurt. I really had to focus on my breathing so I was getting enough oxygen and didn’t pass out as they were getting me into the ambulance. Evan came with me to the hospital and my mom stayed with Tatum at the clinic as the rest of the grandparents arrived. It was hard to leave her so soon after meeting her, at this point I was kind of out of it but still the feeling of leaving her was not the best feeling ever.
We got to the hospital and thankfully I was able to push my placenta out my self (the other option if I couldn’t push it out was surgically removing it). I had started to bleed quite a bit at some point but after the placenta was out it stopped pretty quickly. I believe this was due all the prayers that were surrounding us. The Doctor at the hospital was actually quite relieved and impressed at how things turned out.
Anyways the 2 or so hours at the hospital before the placenta was out were awful! I was in a lot of pain and was so tired at that point that I was NOT handling it well. Finally I was able to see my baby again after everything went down…. it had been close to 3 hours with both of us away from her!!!!
The whole experience and now the first few days of being a mama are so surreal. Birthing this beautiful child and being able to feel everything my body would allow me to feel J was absolutely amazing. I am loving learning to be a mom and we are loving the first days of parenthood!
We are so in LOVE! And God is sooooo GOOD!
