OK, so, I'm behind... sue me... :-) (Announcing.....)
On Monday, Jeanne gave birth to our beautiful baby daughter!!
Mali Rose, came into the world under water, in her mother's hands and immediately snuggled to her mothers chest as they rested in a tub of body-temperature water. Although I was Jeanne's eyes and, though Jeanne has no recollection of many externalities or time frame, I helped maneuver Jeanne's body while she was focused on bringing the baby out, Jeanne pretty much did everything herself.
She was completely unassisted -- only slightly planned that way -- we were planning a home birth, but labor and birthing progressed so rapidly that our midwife didn't make it in time for the birth itself.
Once the midwife arrived, Jeanne was already out of the tub, sitting on a stool, wrapped in a towel, baby still connected, so after a quick look-see, the cord was clamped, I cut it and a few minutes later, the two were wiped down and in bed.
Jeanne had already prompted the suck reflex and Mali immediately took to the boob. I guess when you go from belly to boob in one move, you don't need to be taught to suck. Jacob, on the other hand didn't get the boob for about an hour after being born and required nearly 2 days of training before he sucked properly.
It's amazing how much more energy you have (specifially for Jeanne, but me too) when you're already at home and your labor and birth are so natural, relaxed, and physically, emotionally and psychologically stress-free.
Using Jacob's story as our only guide, we totally misread Jeanne's body cues and were SO glad we were SO prepared to have the baby at home. Because, even if we wanted to go to a hospital or maternity center, Mali would have been born in the car in rush hour. Though the birth was text-book uncomplicated, We learned that Jeanne doesn't have a text-book labor. When alone to think about labor, she gets good strong, frequent contractions; when distracted or focusing on something else, her labor spaces out. If we'd attempted to go to a hospital (or whatever) when Jeanne was "pretty sure" she was in stage 1, it would have been sometime around 8am. By that point, she was actually nearly at "transition" (phase 3 of stage 1).
Forget it. There would not have been enough time to get anywhere. Jeanne went from working through the surges ("contractions") to full-out pushing in a matter of seconds (by now, a little after 9am) and Mali was fully born by 9:17am. One moment she's pregnant, the next she's a mom again.
Meanwhile, I'm running around trying to find a good spot for the Vornado™ heating fan, unpack the home-birth kit, gather towels, and put plastic drop-sheets (shower curtains) in place. Did I mention the boiling water? Well, the real reason you need it is in case you don't have steril stuff to cut the cord an such, but in our case we needed it to add to the tub. We ran out of hot water when filling it the night before and ended up dumping cool water for several minutes which really cooled it a lot.
The first pot of water really hit the spot for Jeanne, she got such a relaxing sensation from it that she immediately went into uncontrollable Stage 2 pushing... In her words, "before the pot of water, she had a choice, after the pot, there was no choice involved." By the time I came back with the second pot, Mali's head was already sticking out of the birth canal (Jeanne was saying how she could feel her kicking inside her!) and with just a little support from Jeanne (not that there was much gravity to deal with) the rest of her slipped out like she was coming down a slide. During this quick interval was when I was coaching Jeanne on where Mali was and what to do so that she didn't inadvertently pull on her before she was out, and (from my perspective) keeping Jeanne from bobbing down onto her butt.
Anyway... that's the play-by-play from the dad's perspective.
Jeanne was (is!) a champ! She was (is!) so happy and I was (am!) so proud.
Big brother Jacob simply reminded us that he knows the sound of a baby crying whenever he heard Mali cry over the monitors, but otherwise he was oblivious while being pre-occupied by Sally, our nanny, who's great! He seems interested in seeing Mali once in a while, but otherwise, he's still more interested in seeing his mommy.
We visited the pediatrician the same day (I mentioned how much energy we all had!) and he proclaimed her as all well and no concerns.
As of this writing it's about 50 hours since birth. So far, the transition is going well. Mom and Mali are doing great and I even got a pretty decent night's sleep. (Better than night 1 when I mistakenly thought I'd get a better night's sleep on the living room couch.)
Mali Rose, came into the world under water, in her mother's hands and immediately snuggled to her mothers chest as they rested in a tub of body-temperature water. Although I was Jeanne's eyes and, though Jeanne has no recollection of many externalities or time frame, I helped maneuver Jeanne's body while she was focused on bringing the baby out, Jeanne pretty much did everything herself.
She was completely unassisted -- only slightly planned that way -- we were planning a home birth, but labor and birthing progressed so rapidly that our midwife didn't make it in time for the birth itself.
Once the midwife arrived, Jeanne was already out of the tub, sitting on a stool, wrapped in a towel, baby still connected, so after a quick look-see, the cord was clamped, I cut it and a few minutes later, the two were wiped down and in bed.
Jeanne had already prompted the suck reflex and Mali immediately took to the boob. I guess when you go from belly to boob in one move, you don't need to be taught to suck. Jacob, on the other hand didn't get the boob for about an hour after being born and required nearly 2 days of training before he sucked properly.
It's amazing how much more energy you have (specifially for Jeanne, but me too) when you're already at home and your labor and birth are so natural, relaxed, and physically, emotionally and psychologically stress-free.
Using Jacob's story as our only guide, we totally misread Jeanne's body cues and were SO glad we were SO prepared to have the baby at home. Because, even if we wanted to go to a hospital or maternity center, Mali would have been born in the car in rush hour. Though the birth was text-book uncomplicated, We learned that Jeanne doesn't have a text-book labor. When alone to think about labor, she gets good strong, frequent contractions; when distracted or focusing on something else, her labor spaces out. If we'd attempted to go to a hospital (or whatever) when Jeanne was "pretty sure" she was in stage 1, it would have been sometime around 8am. By that point, she was actually nearly at "transition" (phase 3 of stage 1).
Forget it. There would not have been enough time to get anywhere. Jeanne went from working through the surges ("contractions") to full-out pushing in a matter of seconds (by now, a little after 9am) and Mali was fully born by 9:17am. One moment she's pregnant, the next she's a mom again.
Meanwhile, I'm running around trying to find a good spot for the Vornado™ heating fan, unpack the home-birth kit, gather towels, and put plastic drop-sheets (shower curtains) in place. Did I mention the boiling water? Well, the real reason you need it is in case you don't have steril stuff to cut the cord an such, but in our case we needed it to add to the tub. We ran out of hot water when filling it the night before and ended up dumping cool water for several minutes which really cooled it a lot.
The first pot of water really hit the spot for Jeanne, she got such a relaxing sensation from it that she immediately went into uncontrollable Stage 2 pushing... In her words, "before the pot of water, she had a choice, after the pot, there was no choice involved." By the time I came back with the second pot, Mali's head was already sticking out of the birth canal (Jeanne was saying how she could feel her kicking inside her!) and with just a little support from Jeanne (not that there was much gravity to deal with) the rest of her slipped out like she was coming down a slide. During this quick interval was when I was coaching Jeanne on where Mali was and what to do so that she didn't inadvertently pull on her before she was out, and (from my perspective) keeping Jeanne from bobbing down onto her butt.
Anyway... that's the play-by-play from the dad's perspective.
Jeanne was (is!) a champ! She was (is!) so happy and I was (am!) so proud.
Big brother Jacob simply reminded us that he knows the sound of a baby crying whenever he heard Mali cry over the monitors, but otherwise he was oblivious while being pre-occupied by Sally, our nanny, who's great! He seems interested in seeing Mali once in a while, but otherwise, he's still more interested in seeing his mommy.
We visited the pediatrician the same day (I mentioned how much energy we all had!) and he proclaimed her as all well and no concerns.
As of this writing it's about 50 hours since birth. So far, the transition is going well. Mom and Mali are doing great and I even got a pretty decent night's sleep. (Better than night 1 when I mistakenly thought I'd get a better night's sleep on the living room couch.)
posted by Hillel at
11:16
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