Noah Daniel

Noah’s Birth Story

January 4^th: That night I didn’t feel well. Grandma and Papa had left, and Grandma Jones had arrived that evening, ending almost two weeks of having the Spinweber family for Christmas and Grace’s birthday.

Around 0530 I woke up thinking I had gas, and headed to the bathroom. I found a large amount of bloody mucus after wiping and noticed that my comfortableness was not really going away. The contractions started around 10 to 15 minutes apart. I got up, had a good breakfast, and decided to go for a walk with Daddy. We went around the neighborhood, walking, stopping every contraction and me leaning on him to breathe through it. We chatted about what was going on, how Grace and Grandma were going to get on with out us. After getting back from the walk, I was tired again, so I went to bed and tried to rest for a while. Labor in bed was hard, but I felt like it was all I could do with the energy I had. I labored on the ball for a while, trying to sit on it and relax over the bed. That got a little hard after a while as I was having to support myself with my legs and the pain was more intense when I couldn’t relax everything. So, my happy place ended up being lying over the ball, with my head and torso leaning over the ball. For some reason it was easier to relax when I did that. I spent a while there, the contractions averaging every 5 minutes. They stretched out at some point, however, making me leave the ball and get in the shower for a couple minutes. It worked. Just a couple contractions and I relaxed enough with the warm water for everything to start speeding up. I got out of the shower to contractions 5 minutes, and then 3 minutes. We thought we’d try to go for another walk, however, we only got to the mailbox (about 25 yards from the house).  I felt like they started to run together, and I couldn’t go anymore. Daniel clocked them at 2-3 minutes apart, and coming more intensely. We had been debating as to when to head to the hospital, and at that point it was completely clear that that was where we had to go. Daniel had everything packed and ready to go, so all we had to do was head back in, change, and get in the car.

We said goodbye to Grace, who was oblivious to what was going on, which made me cry and still does, just thinking of how things were going to change for our sweet girl. The car ride was by far the longest 7 minutes since starting that drive last March. Two contractions was enough to make me tear up as we made our way around bumpy corners and turns. Thankfully it was the afternoon, and there was parking very close to the entrance of the hospital! We made our way, very slowly, to the L & D floor, stopping a couple times to get through a contraction. I’m sure that I had eyes staring at me throughout that trip, but funny enough you don’t really care at that point! Looking back I have to laugh because people looked at me as if they didn’t know what was going on! Seriously?! Having a baby! Ha!

 Walking onto the floor, I was greeted by my most favorite pm shift nurse, Marci! I couldn’t have asked for a better greeter, it was like seeing family.  We headed into our room, they gave me room 10… apparently it has good vibes and successful births! Amy, our nurse, got everything ready for me, and as I was changing into my gown, my water broke.  As it did, I felt everything lower, and the contraction I was having became more intense.  That was the beginning of the hard part. More so because everything started moving fast, the contractions became incredibly intense, and because I was still in transition from home to the hospital, I felt that I never truly settled into labor again… it was hold on for dear life!

 Things started with 15 minutes of being on the monitor, getting an IV, being checked and starting the ampicillin. Poor Amy, I was squirming the whole time, trying to breathe through each contraction, which was about 2 minutes apart. Upon checking me, I was 5 cm. I’ll admit I was a little distressed to hear this! I had labored all day, the contractions were almost unmanageable at this point, and I was only half was there! Daniel was my rock though, he talked me through that moment and we refocused. Amy got the IV on the second attempt, and by that point I could get off the monitor and start moving around again. We tried hanging over the head of the bed, which didn’t work; again, having to support myself with my legs made the contractions unbearable. Of course this was when Lab came and wanted to get blood… his only saving grace was that he got it on the first stick and I didn’t even feel it, even as I was watching it, there was no pain. Everyone gave him props for that! I moved after he was finished, to the ball, leaning on the bed. Again, not comfortable at all, but this position seems to make things lower again, pushing more amniotic fluid out, opening everything up. I crawled up the bed each contraction and started feeling out of control. I remember one contraction in particular something was too much, something was moving and I all I did was cry, “Amy!” Don’t know why or what I was meaning, but she seemed to know, and asked if I wanted to get checked again. Bless the labor nurses, they have enough experience that even when I did not know what was going on, they did. Good news was coming at this point, upon recheck I was 8 cm! This was 30 minutes after the last check, and even though it was a very positive move, all I could think was, “Oh, transition and I really CAN”T do this!” I believe I just started repeating that over and over, in between yelling. Oh, that’s when the yelling really started, and interestingly enough, I started bearing down. There was a very imperceptible change in my pain, which lowered from belly, down to bottom. I remember trying to breathe through the contraction and thinking, “If I bear down, maybe it will help.” That’s what I did and at that point more people started coming into the room. Dr. Walker was called, and I just kept holding on. I was in bed, on my side, one leg up as it was more comfortable that way.  Contractions at this point were 90 seconds apart. They really just didn’t stop in my mind! My body took over at a point and without control over it, I naturally just started bearing down. Thankfully Dr Walker came in at this point… kind of lackadaisical, and apparently saw a little head because all of a sudden the bed was being torn down and I was literally being moved in bed! Pushing started right then, and what an experience! That ring of fire is FIRE! Ha! You think you can’t possibly push into that pain, but you just do. I had three pushes, between the first two I had a blessedly painless break that I actually relaxed for, and then between the second and last one, screamed bloody murder and Noah’s little head popped out. The third push had the rest of him out and our handsome little man entered the world!

 They placed him on my chest and, unlike Grace’s birth, I looked at him and saw a familiar face… Daniel’s and Grace’s! He was a chubbier version of her, but the same. And so handsome! He screamed, and pinked up nicely. I looked right at Daniel and exclaimed, “We did it!” He was such an amazing coach and even seeing me in such pain and choking up, he guided me so well through everything (even as I lost my self control and fell FAR away from the Bradley way).

 Noah Daniel calmed well and we did skin to skin time until he started rooting and squirming his way down to eat. They weighed him and measured him, 7-10 and 20 inches! Two pounds heavier than Grace was! The ladies were wonderful and helped clean me up and tuck me in, smiles all the way and lots of praises for our natural birth. I was slightly embarrassed by the screaming at the end, but know that I couldn’t have controlled it even if I wanted to! I will never feel embarrassed for a woman I hear doing that while at work again!

 The whole experience was amazing, I wouldn’t do it any other way! I was up within the hour, taking a shower and eating anything I could get my hands on! The shower was heavenly! Its like you’ve done the most intense workout you can think of and you just need to clean off.  I would have wanted to do it anyway, but another reason for the quick clean up was Grace’s visit. Since it was close to bedtime we wanted to get her over to the hospital quickly to meet Noah. Mum Jones was her ride over, which was amazing considering she had just arrived 24 hours before and was driving to the hospital without help and in the dark! They made it though and it was priceless watching Grace come into the room. She went right over to Noah and said hello. I showed her my tummy and said, “Grace, Mommy doesn’t have owie tummy anymore because Noah is here!” She repeated everything back to me, “No owie tummy, Noah HERE!” She gave him kisses and then Noah “gave” her a present for becoming a big sister. She opened a Little People’s Noah’s Ark, and was SO incredibly excited! She kept going back and forth from the present to Noah, saying, “Thank you Noah, Thank you!” It was an amazing moment to watch! I didn’t expect her to be so excited honestly. She did not like when I gave Noah over to Daddy and tried to pick her up. She told me very firmly, “Mommy, hold Noah!” Little did we know how much she enjoyed coordinating Noah’s care and day. That’s for later I suppose.

 We hung out for 24 hours in the hospital and then headed home the next night. Daniel had to go back to school on Monday, Mum Jones was still figuring everything out, and I just wanted to be in my own bed, so 24 hours was good enough. Grace was once again ecstatic that Noah was home and continually thanked us for bringing Noah here. J  We settled in nicely and it was as if I hadn’t had a baby twenty four hours before! I can’t think of a more different experience between the two births! I was on a euphoric high for about a week over it all, and then reality set in and that went away. It hasn’t been bad, but going from one to two with a toddler has proven to be challenging. Thankfully Noah is a very good baby, and even though I wear him a LOT, he’s happy and has fit into our family lovingly. We couldn’t be happier and I am thankful that everything went well, and that Noah is HERE!

 Ciao Tutti!