William Felix Leo joined our family on August 12th and it could not have gone any better! I'll write up a full birth story eventually, but I thought I would post a quick time line and pic while I have a spare moment (which are rare these days!).
Tuesday Aug 7th: I had my 39 week appointment. My blood pressure was high, something completely irregular for me. It was so high it alarmed the midwife I had my appointment with (not my primary or secondary) enough that she asked Matt and I to stay in Owen Sound and go to the hospital 4 hours later to have it checked again along with a non-stress test of sorts and some blood work to rule out pre-eclampsia. She did a stretch and sweep and then we went to the mall to do some shopping and went out for dinner. I freaked out quite a bit because if I was going to have to have a hospital birth, I did NOT want it to be in Owen Sound! Martha (my secondary midwife) met us at the hospital at 6:30 and I was hooked up to the monitors to check babes heart rate and any contractions I was having, along with keeping an eye on baby movement. I had blood taken and peed in a cup. About 45 minutes later everything came back clear! Martha gave us the go ahead to head home! We could not have been more thrilled!
Friday Aug 10th: Because of my high blood pressure they asked that I come up for a mid-week appointment, so we headed up to Owen Sound again...this time with a bag just in case! I was meeting with Martha again and she checked my blood pressure and said it was still a little high, but no higher than on the Tuesday, so she gave us the go ahead to still plan for our home birth! She did a stretch and sweep and said I was easily at 2cm, but could be stretched to a 4. Woohoo - progress! We came home and went for a walk and I bounced on the ball for a while, I was having contractions, but nothing consistent. When I had the S&S with Sloan I started spotting right away, but had nothing with Will.
Saturday Aug 11th: More contractions all day. I timed some and they would be consistent when I was sitting a certain way, but would stop if I started to do anything. I thought things might progress in the night so we had Sloan go to my parents house for a sleepover just in case. I paged the midwife on call just to give her the heads up that we might be calling in the middle of the night and was given the news that someone else was in labour and at the OS hospital so if I went into labour tonight there was a good chance we would have to go to the hospital. We walked around the BIG block a couple times and I bounced on the ball and things seemed to pick up, still not painful, but starting to have to think and focus through some contractions. We watched Grown Ups, hoping it would be really funny and the laughter would help things along, but only parts of it were really funny. Then we watched 90210 reruns (on Netflix), and that slowed things down and I decided to go to bed! Other than getting up to pee a couple times, I slept through the night!
Sunday Aug 12th: I woke up around 5am and knew it was because of a contraction and grabbed my phone to start timing. At around 6am I sent Laura (who was going to be my doula and photographer!) a text and told her things were starting to get stronger and more consistent and that today was probably going to be the day. At 7am I paged the midwife on call - she was the one worried about my blood pressure - she had been up all night at the other birth and didn't think she could come, but was going to call around to see if someone else (along with a secondary) could come. At 7:30 Martha called and said she and Heidi were on their way! Yay! Matt brought the birth pool upstairs and started getting it filled and we called my Mum to come over. Everyone was on their way! My Mum arrive around 8:30. At this point I wasn't in the pool yet and was just standing and rocking through the contractions leaning on the bouncy ball that was on the chair arm. Martha and Heidi arrived around 9 and I was in the pool at that point enjoying some peanut butter toast (the perfect snack prepared by Nanna, just like when I was in labour with Sloan!). Laura arrived around 9:45ish and things were well on their way then. The pool helped SO much! We were laughing and joking around and I was telling the midwives the story of how Matt and I met while I breathed through the contractions. Just like with my labour with Sloan, I really felt like I needed to pee, and got out of the pool to try, but couldn't which made it hard to focus on the contractions. I decided to have my water broken and it was like instant relief and I was able to pee! Around 11:30 things started to pick up and I was really having to breath and brace myself through each contraction which seemed to start coming almost on top of each other. We were joking that the babe might come at 12:12 on the 12th of 2012! I'll have to get the notes from my file for the timing (which I'll get at my 6 week visit), but I started feeling the urge to push and just went with it. This whole time Matt was right by my side calming talking me through and holding my hand. My Mum tried to hold and rub my other hand/arm, but just like with Sloan I couldn't handle the softness of her hands! After babes head was out I felt like something wasn't quite right and couldn't push with the next contraction, Martha was worried his shoulders were stuck (which she only said after the fact) and had my Mum and Matt pull my legs up to make more room for him to get through and at 12:17 Will was born! The first thing I noticed was how chubby he was and how massive his hands were! My Mum shrieked - 'look what he has' and we knew it was a boy! We were both so surprised and it made waiting to find out so exciting! I stayed in the tub to deliver the placenta and then got out to watch Will get weighed and was stunned as we watched the scale go past the 9lb mark, then 10lb mark, then 11lb mark and almost make it to the 12 pound mark! Crazy!
Everything was absolutely amazing and I would do it at home again in a heart beat!
Now that I've written all that I realize it's not a brief timeline at all! I probably won't need to elaborate much on that! haha
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