I'm terrible at keeping up with this blog as of late. Sheesh! It's a month now since baby #2 was born.
So baby number one was born Sunday night/Monday morning. I slept a few hours in the morning, but then was up for the rest of the day doing life as usual. I was like a zombie on crack. About 6 hours sleep in 3 days. Monday night I went to bed around 10pm and my phone rang at midnight. It was the parents of baby #1. They had some baby concerns, so I got up, slung on my boots and drove to their house. back in bed by 1am. The baby was fine, but apparently came without its manual...
Baby #2 was a little over a week late. A third baby. We had an incredible snow storm that Tuesday night. As I drove home that evening, I actually paid attention to the gas-light on the dash that indicates I've got about 5 more miles before I run out of gas, and filled up the tank. I went to bed by 9pm. Got a call at 2:30am saying her contractions were 10 minutes apart, but very strong. They didn't need me yet, but I told them I was coming anyway because I had no sense of what the roads were like and she has a history of quickish labors. The drive, which normally takes about 40 minutes took an hour and fifteen. My lovely Swedish Vulva wagon is old, and has rear-wheel drive. Absolutely sucks on the snow (great car for a midwife any other time of year). I white-knuckled it there, following 20 feet behind a salt truck for the last 5 miles.
I came in their house around 4am and mama was still having very strong contractions, but every 10 minutes still. I called both my assistants. One decided to come, the other decided to wait in case one of her 3 doula clients went into labor. My assistant arrived around 5am. Mama was having contractions every 5-6 minutes maybe. we set up our supplies. Contemplated filling up the birth tub, but figured we wouldn't have time to fill it. This mama was very modest and didn't get naked like so many women do. She stayed in a tshirt and shorts and quietly did her thing. I was down stairs in the kitchen when he husband came down for me. "She's turning a corner," he told me.
I went up to see her leaning over the bathroom counter. Contracting every 2 minutes or so. She was shaking and not really able to talk. We watched her have maybe 5 or 6 contractions like this and I suggested she go back to the birthing room. She nodded, stepped into the hallway and then fell to her knees for a contraction. Grunting. Contraction ends.
"Can you make it to the room?" I ask her. I'm eye-balling the pristine white carpet in the hallway and the birth tray 15 feet away. Wondering how I often end up on white carpet when people start pushing...
She nods and walks on her knees to the wood floor of the birth room.
"Can I take your shorts off?" I ask her.
She nods again.
She's upright on her knees.I slide her shorts off her hips and past her knees, one by one. As I get the shorts off her feet there's a huge gush of water and I look at her bottom and there's a WHOLE baby head there! No crowning for this baby! My right hand touches the back pocket of my jeans where a pair of latex gloves are, but only for a nanosecond. I immediately just thrust my ungloved hands out and catch this sweet baby who oozes out like toothpaste from the tube in one fell swoop. At 5:41am.
What is that for a second stage? 45 seconds? I envy her!
Baby is healthy, fine, sweet and a girl. The first baby sister to two boys! Lovely and peaceful. The children were woken up just in time to see her swoosh out like a little fish. So sweet.
My assistant and I were at a nearby diner having a celebratory breakfast by 10am. Yaay for Butter Births!:)
Later that day I was hanging out at a kid's indoor play place with my friend when I got a call about Baby #2's spit up. She was spitting up/gagging on brownish-pink fluid/spittle. I left the play place, took my daughter out of school an hour early, dropped both kids off at my friend's place and drove back out to the client's house.
My initial thought/response was that this baby never had a chance to be squeezed in the birth canal. Her head popped out as the amniotic fluid popped out. She probably swallowed a lot of it as all that happened simultaneously.
Nevertheless, I drove there with Holistic Midwifery II opened on the passenger seat, glimpsing rare but possible causes of this situation. Crazy things like malformed intestines and bowels, meconium coming up instead of down, etc. Stuff that makes you say, I'm a midwife, not a pediatrician! Especially when you're sleep deprived and trying to read Anne Frye on an 8 lane interstate.
At any rate, the baby was fine. Clear lungs, nursing well. No labored breathing. Just amniotic goo here and there. We called the pediatrician who agreed with my theory. the ped did ask, "Didn't your midwife suction the baby at the perineum?"
Nope, sorry. That baby wasn't parked there long enough to even think about grabbing the bulb syringe.
So there you go. Another fabulous birth story. I'll get to #3 of that week soon. That was another 3 day affair.
