Eleanor Elisabeth

[kandrinchae]

Here is the amazing, wonderful, and hard birth story of Eleanor Elisabeth, born on Thursday the 10th of April 2008 at 11:27am.

On Wednesday the 9th my IFs and I decided to get together, maybe work on a puzzle and go for a walk near the cottage they are renting. Before they came over my fiance tried to give my body some encouragement to get labor started.

The guys and I went and got another puzzle to work on and went back to their cottage. Then we went out for a nice walk on a path behind where they are staying. It was nice and I started having mild contractions as we were walking. They were regular, but I was able to walk through them mostly. We walked from about 7ish till about 7:50. Then we got back to their place and I started writing them down. They were about 4 minutes apart and while we were trying to put the puzzle together I was having a danged hard time concentrating on it. It wasn't that the contractions were hard, just that I was loosing my outward focus.

Finally at about 8:30 I decided to have Dietmar take me home, as Richard was busy cooking their dinner, so I could get an 'encouragement' acupuncture treatment from my mom. I got that and things continued and were picking up nicely so I called my midwife and then the guys.

We got to the birth center at about 11pm and got settled in a room. There was another family here and that mom was in transition and soon to be pushing. It was nice to hear that as I got settled in.

At about 1am things started to peter out (Again) and so we went and did a bunch of 'encouragement' tricks. I used the breast pump for twenty minutes, was taking cottonroot bark and had an ear treatment. None of those seemed to do much and at around 3am one of the other midwifes, the one who originally opened the birth center, came in and stripped my membranes. I felt encouraged then because she could easily feel my cervix, where the other false alarms it was real hard for anyone to feel it. I had a lot of bloody show when she was down, but no real strong contractions yet again.

I started getting some, though only when I was standing, when we decided to let me go home and try to get some rest. I was very very tired at that point and it seemed to make sense to me. I had a feeling, though, when we were out by the car, that I would be back in a few hours and I told the guys this.

On the drive home the contractions REALLY picked up to where I needed to moan deep in my chest with them. I got home and got in bed and they continued and got more and more intense. I would doze, somewhat, between them and then be woken up by a contraction that would make me moan real deep. My poor fiance had some strange dreams that night apparently.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore lying in bed and called my midwife again and said I needed to come back in. At this point it was 6am. So back to the birth center we went and that trip was unpleasant, but the contractions had spaced out a little bit thankfully. Once we got to the birth center, however, I definitely was moaning deeply with each contraction and feeling it intensely.

I got in the water and that was really good. It felt nice, though my contractions were harder and harder. I was very surprised however that I never had the urge to throw up like I did with my own labors. Nice change that. I hit transition but it was not as hard on me as my own so I didn't really realize it till one contraction. Then the next my midwife checked me and I was shocked to discover I was essentially 10cm with a little lip that my midwife was able to push out of the way when I pushed.

This is when things got very hard for me. I pushed quite a lot, but she wouldn't descend and the lip came back. So I got out of the water because the contractions were really hard in my hips because her waters hadn't broken yet.

I found that the toilet was the best place for me to work my way through that lip and work my way to feeling the urge to push. It was 8am when I moved from the tub to the toilet and I was there for about an hour and a half, though my sense of time is really bad. While on the toilet the lip finally did go back, though my water had yet to break and I certainly didn't feel a great urge to push.

One of the interesting things I learned from this time around was that I could get some good pain relief by jostling my legs up and down during a contraction. That hard jarring motion helped to mildly numb my hips so that the contractions weren't so bad.

Back in the water the contractions continued and sometimes it helped to bear down with them so I did, sometimes it didn't. However during one hard contraction I did bear down a bit and my water broke, which was a great relief. The other nice thing is that the contractions had spaced out a bit so I was able to get a touch of rest between them. I had another few contractions and when I would bear down more of the waters would break. Finally there was nothing left of the waters, but I still had little urge to push. I did, however, and she would move down a bit and then yo-yo back up.

My midwife finally decided to have me sit on a birthing stool in the water and she applied some pressure to help give me an urge to push. This is what finally did it and I was able to bring her down. It was interesting at the end because her head was almost out and they had me stand (with a baby in the birth canal mind and head almost out) and sit back down in the water. Sitting back down got her head out and then another mild push brought little Eleanor out.

Dietmar was in the water with me and Richard was right next to the tub. We all had out hands in the water and brought her up to the surface together. Each of us supported a part of her and she gave her first little cry and then opened her eyes and looked around. It was really quite amazing.

We spent some time in the water waiting for her cord to stop pulsing so she could get out and be with her daddies and I could rinse off and get checked for tears and the like. I was offered an unexpected and wonderful gift by Richard to cut the cord, which I tearfully and gladly did.

One thing that is very memorable to me is that someone said Happy Birthday to her and I just started singing happy birthday to her and Richard and Dietmar joined me. My mom managed to get that on her camera as a video so I can't wait to see it.

Now it is 30 hours since her birth, she is lovely and eating VERY well. I have managed to express over 2 ounces, now, of colostrum and my milk is coming in now too. Last night I had her for about 5 hours while the guys got some sleep and was able to nurse her. I slept for most of it, but it allowed me to get the needed stimulation for my milk to come in and allowed the guys to get some sleep. The plan is to do that again tonight while we can and hopefully I will be able to start pumping enough that when I bring them milk over the next few days they will have at least two if not more feedings' worth.

Overall it has been and remains to be an amazing and wonderful journey. I am over the moon happy and it is just...there are no words to describe the joy and fullness in my heart now. To see the joy and amazement on my IFs faces is more of a gift than I can ask for. This has truly been an amazing few days in my life that I will NEVER forgot and cherish till the end of my days.

Welcome to the world my surro-daughter, Eleanor Elisabeth. 7lbs and 15.5 ozs, 21 inches long with a full head of beautiful dark hair.

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