Christmas morning we went to mass with my sister and mom. Two nights before I had mild cx 3-5 min apart, but then they quit when I went to sleep. My due date was the 29th and I was definitely expecting to be a few days "late" since Faith was 9 days late. We came home and went for a walk and Mike put pressure on one of the labor induction pressure points on my ankle for like 5 seconds, so I'm sure thats why I went into labor. haha. I started feeling light crampy contractions around 5 when I was helping my mom make dinner. I timed them around 4 minutes apart for a few hours. They started feeling more uncomfortable and I decided to have our doula come over since I knew it would take her a while. She came over close to 10 with our photographer (I feel so fancy! We didn't have any pictures from when Faith was born and it made me sad, so we hired a photographer, who also happened to be a doula/student midwife). The base recently changed its rules for getting on base. It used to be anyone could get on with a drivers license, but now they have to do a background check and get a pass and someone has to go down to the gate to sponsor them in. its crazy ridiculous! So, Mike went down to the gate to get them on.
I was having some... uh, intestinal upsets during this whole thing. not pleasant at all. Then I started feeling nauseous after a contraction. The contractions varied in intensity, it would be a really strong one, then a mild one, then a really strong one again. Michael had brought home a TENS unit from work, which was AMAZING on my low back. I kept it on from like 11ish until Titus was born at 4am, minus the little while I was in the tub. I'm actually not sure its even recommended to leave it on that long. lol. I actually got out of the tub at the hospital because I wanted the tens unit back on and it felt better than the tub did. lol anyway, back to being at home. I layed on the yoga ball for a long time, which helped, but then my lower back was getting sore, so I just sat for a while. Then I drank some kefir, then I threw up twice. I layed/slept/nursed Faith on the couch for about an hour. Then I felt like I should change positions to speed things up. So I sat/layed on the ball some more. I started feeling a lot more pressure and felt like the baby was really low.
Faith fell asleep around 1 and we decided to go to the hospital. I had been debating about what to do with Faith, especially if it was the middle of the night because she really freaks if I'm not here when she wakes up, even if Mike is here. So the plan was she would come too, but I decided since she had just fallen asleep that she would stay here and my mom could bring her if she flipped out. The drive was NOT fun. It wasn't bad except for turns + contraction. yowza. I got into triage close to 2am and was 8cm with bulging bag of waters. Then they put us in our room and I got in the tub. The back pain was much much worse, so I only stayed in the tub for 30 minutes then got the tens unit back on. My ob showed up around then. I layed down in bed for a while (which I actually have no memory of). This labor was so weird to me, looking back. I remember in our bradley class that we took before Faith was born, they talked about laying on your side during labor and I thought that was crazy... who just wants to lay there during labor? But I totally did this time. I could have been hooked up to the EFM the whole time and would have been fine, I just wanted to lay down. lol. I started feeling a lot of pressure and sort of pushy. I did hands and knees and kneeling, it did not feel good. pushing didn't help with the pressure. I made quite a bit of progress though. I could feel his head with my fingertips, it was really cool! I also started feeling a burning when his head was still an inch or so in... really weird because I didn't feel anything until Faith's head was crowning.
I had a 2nd degree tear again (prob from the nuchal hand). I think I did something to my tailbone, because it was really painful to sit for any length of time for the first week. Overall I'm really pleased with our hospital experience... other than the above it was perfect. No one even asked to weigh him for an hour, no one asked to bathe him, I don't think he even wore clothes for the first few hours. We told them we wanted to leave as soon as possible and they basically pushed us out the door. They started getting us all our discharge stuff when he was just a few hours old. Faith came with my mom and sister around 10am and was sooo happy to see me. Apparently she had woken up right around the time he was born, and cried but fell back to sleep on our bed, which she has only done twice in her entire life (fallen asleep by herself that is). We ended up leaving (not without a stern speech from a nazi pediatrician about refusing the vitamin K injection) when he was 9 hours old, making our total stay barely 12 hours. We had to leave "against medical advice" because they won't discharge the newborn before 24 hours, but no one acted like it was a big deal.
He was 7lbs 6 oz and 20.5 inches long, born at 4:12am. 14" head, 13" chest (or maybe it was 13 and 12... can't remember. definitely an inch smaller, Faith's chest was 1/2" bigger than her head). He had some jaundice. He basically sleeps all the time, even still at 3 weeks. We started doing EC at 1 week old, just during diaper changes/if its been a while and he's still dry. The kid pees like crazy though, I seriously change him at least 15x a day. Oh and his name: Titus... from the New Testament. apparently there was also an awful roman emperor named Titus who killed a lot of Jews... I learned this when someone at the hospital on our way out asked us what his name was and just said "oh no" and walked away. such a good feeling! lol We have liked the name for such a long time I didn't even think to do a google search. And Augustine, like the totally awesome Saint (pronounced with a short i sound). So far his only nickname is Mr. Titus. Michael kept calling him a her/she for at least the first week. He also called Faith, Claire (his youngest sisters name) for a long time after she was born. lol he is funny. My super awesome friends (mostly from our local babywearing group) brought us meals for 2 weeks, then Michael's mom came last week and cooked all our meals so I have only cooked us one meal so far! It has been such a huge blessing!
Updated with pictures by our birth photographer. Also, as you can see in these photos I'm totally not the ecstatic woman who just had a baby. lol I'm smiling in like none of them, because well I just gave birth and was just tired and glad it was over
