I'm the most horrible blogger that ever existed. My last post was at 41 weeks pregnant, and my sweet baby is now almost 10 months old. But I've decided to get it going again, starting with Quinn's birth story. Enjoy.
I woke up 4:30 am on March 20th in active labour. I was 42 weeks and 3 days pregnant. After timing contractions and counting 13 in just 35 minutes, I called my midwife, Jayme, my doula, Tina, and my Aunt Cathy (who was to be there for Jesse) and then puttered around doing a couple things before waking up my mom. I let Steve and Jesse sleep (Steve was sleeping in Jesse's room because Jesse woke up crying in the middle of the night). Jayme, her assistant, Dawn, and Tina got here around 6:15 maybe. Jayme took my vitals and checked fetal heart tones and told me to eat (I didn't want to but she insisted) and everyone else went to work setting everything up. Tina gave me a bit of a neck massage. Steve, hearing all the commotion, thought my mom was up making a racket and was about to tell her off when he saw all the people and figured out what was going on. Jesse figured out that the baby was coming, lifted up my night dress and started rubbing my belly saying "open...open". (hilarious!)
The contractions were quite strong, and I gripped a chair and swayed through them. They were very manageable though, and there was plenty of time between contractions to recoup. I decided at around 7 am that I should go pee (last time I used the washroom was around 5 am) so I went upstairs. I peed and then things started getting really intense. I had a couple of serious contractions where I just had to vocalize and I started feeling grunty. The birth pool was about filled at that time and I said I wanted to get in "NOW". Apparently Jayme said something about making sure I was at least 5 cm dilated before getting in and I cursed at her (don't remember doing that!) and had another contraction and felt really pushy and felt something come out (likely a lot of bloody show) so I whipped off my night dress and jumped into the birth pool. That was 7:20 am. I immediately got on my hands and knees and leaned against the side of the birth pool. The next contraction I had that really overwhelming urge to push and gave 'er. My membranes ruptured with a pop and I felt the baby move down and felt the stretching and burning. The baby started crowning and I was cursing and yelling. I yelled, "I wish I had that ****ing gas!" All this while Jesse was so calm (my mom was watching him...Aunt Cathy was coming from 2 hours away and didn't have nearly enough time to get there before all this happened). He brought me over his baby doll (the one that I had as a child) to make me feel better. Anyways, baby was crowning FAST. I did my damndest to "breathe the baby down" but in the end instinct won over and I pushed HARD and out came Quinn's head and then his shoulders. Jayme said "Amber, catch your baby!" and I put my hands down and she passed him through my legs and I pulled him up and sat back down in the pool. That was 7:29 am. I'd been in the birth pool for 9 minutes.
Quinn was corded twice so Jayme quickly unwrapped it so I could pull him up a bit higher. He was breathing right away. Jayme had been prepared for deep suctioning because a nurse at my second last biophysical profile had said that a hazy area of fluid looked like meconium to her. In the end, there was no meconium and she didn't even need the bulb syringe. Everyone started saying, "What is it?!" and someone said to let Jesse check. So we asked Jesse (I held the baby's legs open) and he said, "It's a BABY!" We asked again and he said, "It's a boy!" So sweet. The midwife checked the babe out a little while we sat there in the pool and he was obviously fine, with the exception of some facial bruising and a couple of broken blood vessels in his eyes (due to the precipitous birth). Apgars of 8 and 9. She was a bit worried about me though because I was a bit shell-shocked. She kept checking my pulse, and I think she might have been considering breaking out the oxygen for me.
Shortly after that I started feeling really bad. I was aching really badly. So with the baby still attached and him in my arms, everyone lifted me to stand and helped me out of the pool and onto the bed. They got me all dried off and we got the baby latched on to help encourage the placenta along. Jesse, seeing a baby on his boobies, insisted on nursing too....the more the merrier! I wasn't bleeding much at all though. I cramped and delivered the placenta at 8:03 am. Jayme estimates I lost less than 250 mls total. Shortly after that she checked me out and I had torn...we just weren't sure how badly. After I rested a bit she was able to assess me better and figured the tear was too much for her to suture, so she called my family doctor, who said I should head in to the L&D ward for the repair. We sort of decided to wait a bit and then go, since I was still pretty out of it and didn't really want to move at all. In the meantime, the baby was all weighed and measured and Jayme did his newborn assessment. He was 9 lbs 3.5 oz, 52 cms long, with a 36.5 cm head (completely unmolded, just like Jesse's was at birth).
We went to the hospital that afternoon and met my family doctor at the L&D ward. He decided I had a partial 3rd degree tear so he got the OB to come in and assess me and she ended up doing the suturing. The repair was done under local numbing (though I could still feel a LOT and it was incredibly uncomfortable) and then I got to go home. We were only there for about 2 hours total, and the suturing took a good hour of that, so it wasn't too bad. Then we came home to a wonderful supper delivered by my mom's friend.
The next day we finally decided on our sweet boy's name. We'd been throwing around the name Quinn for a while, and Steve figured it was appropriate, since the baby was born on the spring eQUINox. Then we had to figure out a middle name. And really, there isn't much that goes well with Quinn, but we both liked Oliver. So, Quinn Oliver.
Now for some pics....My cousin, our birth photographer, made it about 15 minutes before Quinn was born.
I woke up 4:30 am on March 20th in active labour. I was 42 weeks and 3 days pregnant. After timing contractions and counting 13 in just 35 minutes, I called my midwife, Jayme, my doula, Tina, and my Aunt Cathy (who was to be there for Jesse) and then puttered around doing a couple things before waking up my mom. I let Steve and Jesse sleep (Steve was sleeping in Jesse's room because Jesse woke up crying in the middle of the night). Jayme, her assistant, Dawn, and Tina got here around 6:15 maybe. Jayme took my vitals and checked fetal heart tones and told me to eat (I didn't want to but she insisted) and everyone else went to work setting everything up. Tina gave me a bit of a neck massage. Steve, hearing all the commotion, thought my mom was up making a racket and was about to tell her off when he saw all the people and figured out what was going on. Jesse figured out that the baby was coming, lifted up my night dress and started rubbing my belly saying "open...open". (hilarious!)
The contractions were quite strong, and I gripped a chair and swayed through them. They were very manageable though, and there was plenty of time between contractions to recoup. I decided at around 7 am that I should go pee (last time I used the washroom was around 5 am) so I went upstairs. I peed and then things started getting really intense. I had a couple of serious contractions where I just had to vocalize and I started feeling grunty. The birth pool was about filled at that time and I said I wanted to get in "NOW". Apparently Jayme said something about making sure I was at least 5 cm dilated before getting in and I cursed at her (don't remember doing that!) and had another contraction and felt really pushy and felt something come out (likely a lot of bloody show) so I whipped off my night dress and jumped into the birth pool. That was 7:20 am. I immediately got on my hands and knees and leaned against the side of the birth pool. The next contraction I had that really overwhelming urge to push and gave 'er. My membranes ruptured with a pop and I felt the baby move down and felt the stretching and burning. The baby started crowning and I was cursing and yelling. I yelled, "I wish I had that ****ing gas!" All this while Jesse was so calm (my mom was watching him...Aunt Cathy was coming from 2 hours away and didn't have nearly enough time to get there before all this happened). He brought me over his baby doll (the one that I had as a child) to make me feel better. Anyways, baby was crowning FAST. I did my damndest to "breathe the baby down" but in the end instinct won over and I pushed HARD and out came Quinn's head and then his shoulders. Jayme said "Amber, catch your baby!" and I put my hands down and she passed him through my legs and I pulled him up and sat back down in the pool. That was 7:29 am. I'd been in the birth pool for 9 minutes.
Quinn was corded twice so Jayme quickly unwrapped it so I could pull him up a bit higher. He was breathing right away. Jayme had been prepared for deep suctioning because a nurse at my second last biophysical profile had said that a hazy area of fluid looked like meconium to her. In the end, there was no meconium and she didn't even need the bulb syringe. Everyone started saying, "What is it?!" and someone said to let Jesse check. So we asked Jesse (I held the baby's legs open) and he said, "It's a BABY!" We asked again and he said, "It's a boy!" So sweet. The midwife checked the babe out a little while we sat there in the pool and he was obviously fine, with the exception of some facial bruising and a couple of broken blood vessels in his eyes (due to the precipitous birth). Apgars of 8 and 9. She was a bit worried about me though because I was a bit shell-shocked. She kept checking my pulse, and I think she might have been considering breaking out the oxygen for me.
Shortly after that I started feeling really bad. I was aching really badly. So with the baby still attached and him in my arms, everyone lifted me to stand and helped me out of the pool and onto the bed. They got me all dried off and we got the baby latched on to help encourage the placenta along. Jesse, seeing a baby on his boobies, insisted on nursing too....the more the merrier! I wasn't bleeding much at all though. I cramped and delivered the placenta at 8:03 am. Jayme estimates I lost less than 250 mls total. Shortly after that she checked me out and I had torn...we just weren't sure how badly. After I rested a bit she was able to assess me better and figured the tear was too much for her to suture, so she called my family doctor, who said I should head in to the L&D ward for the repair. We sort of decided to wait a bit and then go, since I was still pretty out of it and didn't really want to move at all. In the meantime, the baby was all weighed and measured and Jayme did his newborn assessment. He was 9 lbs 3.5 oz, 52 cms long, with a 36.5 cm head (completely unmolded, just like Jesse's was at birth).
We went to the hospital that afternoon and met my family doctor at the L&D ward. He decided I had a partial 3rd degree tear so he got the OB to come in and assess me and she ended up doing the suturing. The repair was done under local numbing (though I could still feel a LOT and it was incredibly uncomfortable) and then I got to go home. We were only there for about 2 hours total, and the suturing took a good hour of that, so it wasn't too bad. Then we came home to a wonderful supper delivered by my mom's friend.
The next day we finally decided on our sweet boy's name. We'd been throwing around the name Quinn for a while, and Steve figured it was appropriate, since the baby was born on the spring eQUINox. Then we had to figure out a middle name. And really, there isn't much that goes well with Quinn, but we both liked Oliver. So, Quinn Oliver.
Now for some pics....My cousin, our birth photographer, made it about 15 minutes before Quinn was born.
