Wesley Mitchell's Birth Story

Sunday, January 16, 2011 was the predicted due date for our surprise baby. We spent a nice lazy day as a family, no real exciting plans. I, at some point in the afternoon, remember looking down at my belly, giving it a poke and saying, “Well I guess you aren’t coming out today.” Around 3pm Chris, Claire and I all went to lay down for a nap. The birth tub was already set up in our room on my side of the bed. As we lay there I stared at it trying to visualize what the birth would be like and reminded the baby again that I was ready to meet him/her. Claire took a while to calm down and finally fell asleep. Chris and I were laying back to back and I could tell that he had fallen asleep too. I woke up to a humongous explosion feeling in my abdomen. I asked Chris if he had felt it. He grunted, still asleep. I thought maybe my water had broken but I wasn’t in a puddle so I talked myself out of it and tried to go back to sleep. That didn’t happen. I decided to get up and go to the bathroom. It was 3:45pm. I was excited to think that this could be the beginning of labor but I wasn’t feeling any contractions. In the bathroom I couldn’t decide if my water had really broken, it was just a trickle if it had and slightly cloudy fluid. I told my mom that I thought things were starting to happen. I suddenly felt like I needed to get dinner planned right away and woke up Chris around 4:15 and sent him off to Panda Express to get some orange chicken. My mom and dad started packing their bags and I packed one for Claire. Then I put Claire’s car seat into my mom’s van because I didn’t feel like anyone else could do it right.

I started feeling contractions right around 4:45 and sat down at the computer to try and find a contraction timer on the internet but my attention span was very short and I don’t remember even being able to sit still long enough to time two of them. I was in and out of the bathroom feeling like I needed to have a bowel movement before things really got started. I was not productive. Contractions were coming a little stronger. I was feeling them only in my pelvic area and in my lower back, not my whole stomach like I had with Claire. They were completely different and I kept waiting for them to change but they never did. Chris still was not yet back with dinner. I was writing down the time of contractions and they were starting to come 5-7 minutes apart. I decided to call our midwife, Audrey, at this point. It was about 5:25pm. She had just started a yoga class. I told her that my water had broken but contractions weren’t consistent and I was doing just fine. We decided that she was going to try and finish the yoga class and then come over after that. I called my sister and told her that tonight was the night and she promised to head over . Chris came back soon after that, he had taken a long detour to a cigar shop. I started scarfing down the food because I wanted it to have a chance to digest. Around this time my mom started asking me a lot of questions about getting things ready and what else they should take with. I noticed that I was getting irritable during the contractions.

Around 6pm Audrey called and let me know that she had not stayed for the rest of her yoga class. She had a feeling things were going to be moving fast so she had gone home to get ready and head over. She told me that she and her assistant Rhonda would be to our house around 6:45. My parents decided to stay until they arrived. I started to bounce on a yoga ball and try to ignore things. I went into the bathroom again and had a few contractions and a mini crying freak out while I was in there. I was sad that Claire would no longer be an only child, excited to be having a second child, and super scared about our crazy decision to have a home birth. I told myself to snap out of it and get serious. This was already happening and there was nothing I could do to stop it, nor did I want to.

My sister arrived and we all just kind of stared at each other in excited anticipation while I had contractions. I never really timed them again so I have no idea how fast they were coming but I was having to concentrate through them and leaning on the yoga ball. I was sitting on the floor when Audrey and Rhonda arrived. Audrey checked my vitals listened to the baby. Everything was looking great. My parents gathered their things and Claire. They gave us hugs and kisses and were out the door before I knew it.

Audrey and Rhonda started to prep things. I was group B strep positive and had elected to have antibiotics during the delivery. Ideally we would need to get two doses on board before delivering the baby. By 7:15 I was hooked up to the IV and sitting in a wooden rocking chair with a towel on it. Big mistake I would soon discover. I have crazy veins so we opted to use a butterfly needle in my hand. The downside to this is that the meds take longer to flow in and there is a needle stuck in the hand instead of a catheter so I needed to keep my arm still for 30 minutes. Those were the longest 30 minutes ever. I was contracting like crazy and my legs were cramping up from all of my tension. I had Chris and Melanie periodically sitting with me but also running around and getting stuff ready. I remember them filling the tub and looking for the supplies we had gathered for the birth like towels, hats and blankets. I really enjoyed the feeling of a cold cloth on my head at this point. I draped it over my face and had my eyes closed for a lot of this time. During every contraction I was leaning towards my left arm that had to be kept still. My tailbone was starting to hurt like crazy from the hard wooden surface. I was vocalizing through contractions at this point. Different sounds than I made with Claire’s birth. Finally the antibiotics were in and we removed the needle. As that was happening I was exclaiming that it felt like I had just had 20 contractions while I sat in that horrible chair. For the next contraction I slid out of the chair to my knees and leaned against the couch. I felt an emergent need to urinate along with all of the pressure I was feeling and couldn’t hold it. A huge gush of urine and amniotic fluids came with the contraction. Audrey suggested removing my pants and heading into the bedroom. Even though they had started to fill the tub and boil extra water, there was not enough water in the tub for me but at that moment I didn’t even care.

On the way to the bedroom I had a contraction and I remember thinking that I really didn’t want to have the baby in the hallway. I climbed onto the bed on hands and knees. It was about 7:45pm. Every contraction I was having was coming in waves of three with very intense pressure. The first part was a medium sized mountain to climb, hurt but not unbearably. The second part was a small mountain, kind of a nuisance. The third part of the contraction was the most humongous mountain with such an intense rush of pain that I thought I was going to throw up everywhere. This is the moment where I realized that orange chicken was a really bad idea. A garbage can was placed on the floor next to the bed. Chris stood next to me through the contractions. I could feel my legs turning into noodles and I rolled onto my back to get a break. I was holding back from pushing because I didn’t think I could possibly be ready to after such a short time. I hadn’t even had any pelvic checks! I made it through a few more contractions on my back with my left leg pulled up to my chest. This was not a good position. I felt a sudden need to squat but the position that Audrey demonstrated to me just did not seem possible and I would have to catch the baby. I decided to go back onto my hands and knees and try pushing. During the first contraction in this position I went for it and in the third wave of the contraction I started pushing and immediately had to throw up orange chicken acid and got some on Chris’ pants. A few more contractions with warm compresses on my perineum and encouragement from the team and I felt like I needed to push just a bit harder the next time and the baby would arrive and all of this work would be complete. I pushed gently during the first two waves and then harder during the third. I felt the head pass through the ring of fire and the body quickly slid out as well. It was 8:27pm. Chris caught the baby and my first exclamation before the baby was even all the way out was “Is it a boy or girl?” Everyone laughed because there was no way they could have looked yet. They passed me the baby through my legs and I remember thinking, this is still stuck to me, what the heck am I going to do now? The baby was purple and slimy and hairy and crying. My legs were super weak and I shakily rolled into a sitting position. At this point I took off my shirt and bra and the baby was put back on my chest. At that moment Chris checks and says, Hi Wesley, with a shaky voice. We had thought it would be a boy and luckily he was because we didn’t have a girls name picked out, not even a few choices. I had refused to talk about them in the last few days because we hadn’t been getting any closer to agreement and we were going to have a boy any way. He was so big and beautiful. Chris held him and talked to him and finally the crying stopped. Audrey and Rhonda told me that we should try to get the placenta out. I laid on my back and put my knees up. It was tough to push when I didn’t feel like it. The placenta didn’t want to budge. They told me that coughing or laughing might help. My sister was next to me so I just looked at her and we laughed. It felt like delivering the placenta was way harder than delivering the baby. Upon examination I had some minor tearing that could have been stitched but only for cosmetic purposes so I opted out. Audrey said that my perineum didn’t tear but both of my labia did tear because he came out with his left hand up by his face. After nursing for a little bit I was able to head to the bathroom to shower. When I returned to the room Chris, Wesley and I were able to spend some time alone together. We were just in disbelief that everything had happened so fast and excited that we had our baby boy in our arms.

Wesley Mitchell Byers was born at home after 4.5 hours of labor. He was 8lbs 6 ounces at birth and 20.5 inches long. His head and shoulders both measured 14.5inches around.