Woot.
Miriel and I are spending the morning listening to church while the rest of the family is at church... it's very quiet.
My sister (and at least one of my friends) could hardly stand it that we didn't have a name for sure yet a few weeks before she was born. Mostly because we were out of girl names and neither of us really liked each others lists. Well, Bob was not a fan of my science-y names. haha. I think Curie or Ester would be adorable girls names! I really like the name Miriam but Bob wasn't sure since he had a great aunt named that. The girls have been lobbying for Violet since the beginning, but there was another great aunt, and it cracked the top 50 for girls names, and I'd like to avoid this generation's version of "Jennifer." (Seriously, Jennifer was #1 for 15 years! There.are.so.many.Jennifers.) Bob really liked the name Myrelle... but... I'm not a fan of the 'mur' sound in names (apologies to any Myrna's or Myra's). And then I found a list of Tolkien names. Miriel is pretty, and it's got parts of both of our favorite names. Plus, Tolkien reference for the win! I think middle names are hard- so since the girls really liked Violet, we went with that. They were pleased. And not even too sad we didn't name her "Violet Flopsy." So Miriel Violet checks all the boxes- Pretty, old fashioned sounding, gender specific, not trendy, and impossible to find on any of those cheap personalized licence plates/key chain/pencil things.
I'm sure you've all been dying to hear Miriel's birth story. Or not. haha. Somewhere along the line I have become a bit of a birth nerd (not as bad as my sister... but close), but I realize not everyone cares about such things. You can skip the rest of this, I won't mind. Also, it's mostly family friendly, but I did put in a little bit of detail at the end for the sake of the story soooo... be warned. :)
So. By the fourth time around you learn a few things… like,
how and when to tell people so that you get to share (or in my case, not share)
as you so choose….. turns out, it’s a lot more fun when you get to tell people
yourself! Ha. Anyway. And also, if you know that you’ll most likely
go overdue and you’ll most likely have a “big” baby and your fairly laid back
midwives/obs start to freak out more and more the farther past 40 weeks you go,
you maybe fudge dates a little bit.
Like, I told them what I knew to be true, and guess what, it totally
matched up with the initial sonogram measurements! So I bought myself two days’ worth of
time… And then I was deliberately vague
when I did tell people (sorry, not sorry).
It definitely helped cut down on the amount of horrified looks I got
from people. I mean “soon” and “May”
and “not more than 2 weeks” sound a lot less immediate than a specific
date….
I was fully expecting to go to 41 weeks because the older
girls were born at 40, 41, and 41. Plus
there was no sign of anything happening.
Other than an increasing tendency towards introversion and not wanting
to be around people at all... The two days before Clayton’s wedding I felt a
lot more Braxton Hicks and I was slightly panicking because I really wanted to
go to the wedding; and then they stopped and I was slightly relieved. We got to
go to the wedding, Monday came and went as normal, and I even had groceries
ordered online for Tuesday pick up.
My alarm went off at 7 Tuesday morning and I got up to get
Cecily ready for school… and my water broke.
I’ve been super paranoid about not making it to the hospital since
Cadence came so fast. I even had a bunch
of supplies ready to go just in case I was waiting for Bob at home and we had
an accidental home birth or something. So I called my mom to come right away and
called my doula Bethany, grabbed a poptart (which I’m normally not a fan of and it was
disgusting but it was quick and I needed to eat something), and we left for the
hospital ASAP. We got there around 8,
and Bethany wasn’t too far behind, and then…. Nothing happened. It was a busy day in L&D so we were
hanging out in a triage room (reminiscent of when Emmy was born…) I was at 3 cm
and I had a few mild contractions here and there, but we were mostly just
sitting there twiddling our thumbs and watching the soothing nature video on
the tv. Bob and Bethany ate lunch and snuck me a banana.
My midwife had two other patients, one at the hospital across
the road so she was in and out and I didn’t see much of her. Once I got the first round of antibiotics, we
started walking the hallways. And
walked. And walked. And nothing was happening.
And we read all the signs and looked at all the pictures on the walls a
million times and I was somewhere between utter boredom and fear because the
longer it went the more time I had to feel nervous.
Finally at 2:38 I had an actual strong contraction. And they had a room open up so they told us
we would be moving over there soon. That
was also the point I told Bob, “I don’t want to do this…” We got into the room around 3:30-45ish and
they checked and I was only 4-5 cm. My midwife suggested maybe we should
consider Pitocin since my water had been broken for a while already, Bethany
and I both said noooooo, don’t think that will be necessary, ha. We were right. I pretty much went straight to transition and
the next 45 minutes is a bit of a blur.
I remember lots of really strong contractions (it seemed like) one right
after another. I was on my knees pretty
much clinging to the back of the bed for dear life and sweating like a porpoise-
somebody was busy bringing me cool damp rags.
I remember thinking, well at least I know it’s almost over! I heard the
nurses calling my midwife and then the hospital resident- “she’s really pushy!”
and resolving to ignore them if they tried to get me to stop. The resident came in and wanted to check me,
on my back, um… I said no and made them work for it. Guess what, I was complete already.
My midwife still wasn’t there and the resident must have read
in my chart that they thought the baby would be big because she suddenly
started insisting that I should be on my back in case of dystocia. Um… no. (Flat on your back gives you the
smallest pelvic opening, and is the worst way to give birth, which she should know…) I ignored her because I had discussed this
with my midwife and read a lot about it when Cadence was predicted to be big,
and again this time, plus there was no reason for it if the baby wasn’t
actually stuck yet. She kept telling me
I needed to move so they could help me and I yelled “No!” I was so annoyed. I heard Bethany tell me
“good job listening to your body!” Haha.
The resident wouldn’t give up though, and told me to look at her-
pretty sure I didn’t, but I snapped at her that I was listening. We compromised and I agreed to be on my side,
I think I said “fine” not very nicely, and she caught Miriel a few minutes
later at 4:21. She was really a very
nice lady after the fact… unfortunately all of the worst parts of my deliveries
have involved residents. My midwife made
it back to me not long after Miriel was born.
I was not surprised to find out that she weighed only 8lbs 4oz- she did
not seem as big as Cadence, and I was pretty sure they had estimated too
high.
The nurses were funny- they’d watched us walk hallways all
day and then suddenly we’d had a baby- one of them said, “Well that escalated
quickly!” And another said I was only
the second un-medicated birth she’d seen in the 10 weeks she’d been there- “it
was really cool!” haha um… thanks? I
think? I should have asked what made it
cool. I think I'd describe precipitous labor as insane rather than cool. :P I am glad that we didn't wait around at home though, we would have been cutting it really, really close if we'd have waited for something to happen! I might have needed to use my home birth kit... and Bob might not have survived. haha.
Blessings.
