Mielle Elise Isabelle Fehler

March 25, 2008

2:45 p.m.

at home

8 lbs bathroom scales, 9.5 lbs fish scale!

20” long

Head 35 cm

Hair light brown

Eyes—dark blue

Smoochy lips, round face, tiny delicate arms and legs

A blessing from God

Toward the end of pregnancy, every twinge, every change is an augury of impending labour. But after a few days of ‘Is this it?”, I was feeling like it would never be real labour. The baby just wasn’t ever going to come.

I had breakfast Tuesday morning and looked around at the children and the house, feeling unsettled. I wasn’t sure where to start, or what I wanted to accomplish and I was very uncomfortable—I’d been having strong braxton hicks, that combined with my achy hips and pelvis made me a sitting down kind of mama for the last little while. I’d had some showy looking mucus for a few days before, but it didn’t seem to mean anything.

I left my mom cleaning off the breakfast table and went upstairs to use the bathroom after two really strong braxton hicks, and found that the show was streaked with bright red blood, and I appeared to be leaking amniotic fluid again as well.

I sat there and thought for a minute. I should have known this was labour, but I didn’t want to call my husband at work and tell him to come home, only to sit there looking at each other with no contractions. I was having some hard ones, but they seemed so far apart. After maybe three of those, I decided that this was most likely the beginning and went into the bedroom to call my husband, who was teaching. I asked “Can you come home now?” He said he’d be right home.

I sat in the chair with the massaging shiatsu back and turned it on, and my little girl Haven turned on the cd player and found my cd of Psalm 23, and put it on repeat for me. I breathed through the contractions and concentrated on the warm massaging, but I noticed they were further apart than usual for one of our labours—when Travis got home and into jeans, he started timing them and found they were coming every 5-11 minutes, usually every seven, instead of every three.

I wondered why things were different, but I had fervently prayed for a painless birth and I wanted to trust God in the whole labour—to make the pain bearable, to make me brave.

After a few hours, the contractions were becoming stronger, but seemed to not just build and build, but some easier ones would happen, too. I had a towel between my legs for counterpressure, and T had filled the pool until the hot water ran out—about 1/3 full.

I asked him to fill it when the water tank had replenished. Meanwhile, we could hear the children, downstairs with Granny. This was different, too. With the last birth, it seemed the whole world was asleep except us, and this time I felt anything but alone.

So much of this labour was in my spirit. I concentrated on the phrase “close by His side, I will abide” and really concentrated on pushing in, trusting Him anew for each contraction. And although there were some harder ones, I felt like they were not too much. I loved pressing back into the shiatsu chair and concentrating on that area of my body and talking with God in between.

At almost 12, I realized that it had been two hours and contractions were still seven minutes apart and I knew this was not going to be fast (my fifth labour was only an hour from start to finish). I felt a fearful voice inside say “How long is too long?” for labour to go on without getting to the pushing stage (I know this sounds weird, but my longest labour to this point had been my first, induced labour, which was 4.5 hours start to finish). I remembered a phrase I had read out of my midwifery text the day before “incoordinate uterine action” - and the warnings from doctors about “older mothers” who had had a lot of children and whose uteri were “tired”. But I felt God asking me the same question—only when He said it, it felt more like “Can you trust me for one hour? Two? How long?”. I got back to a place of peace,

trusting Him for each contraction and looking ahead to the good parts and not the parts I wasn’t ready for yet.

I thought of my friend, Penny Raine, who had been praying for me and my fear of pain going into this labour—how she had prayed not only for freedom from fear, but for a good labour that I would actually enjoy. I felt God was being good to me, and faithful to her, answering her prayers.

Around 1 p.m., it had been a little over three hours, and the contractions were getting a lot harder. I was trying to keep my bladder emptied, but getting up and peeing triggered hard contractions. T had the pool filled now and asked if I wanted to get in. I wasn’t sure, as my “signpost” for getting in had been “when I get grunty (pushing phase) I’ll get in” and I felt like this labour was nothing like what I’d had before. I knew God would make it work, but I wanted to know from Him that it was time. I asked T to pray about it, and he said he asked for a sign. I sat through two more really hard contractions, no longer feeling the peace of the massage chair, breathing deeply.

It was an act of faith to leave what had worked so far (counterpressure, shiatsu) and get into the pool, but T helped me take off my shirt and socks and shakily climb in. I got into a comfortable position, leaning on the side with one arm, holding myself up with the other on the floor of the pool, and then I could reach with that hand to do counterpressure during contractions.

Once in the tub, the contractions quickly shifted to every two minutes, with some piggybacked. But the water really helped smooth things out, as did using my hand to press in against the contraction. I still used my deep breathing and blew out on my arm, which cooled me down. As soon as I got in, I reached in to see how close baby was (as Granny got back from the grocery store with the girls, bringing purple flowers in for the labour room) - and I was delighted to feel the sac of waters like a thick rubber ball, only an inch and a half in. The contractions became much more purposeful and my body began to spontaneously bear down on some of the hard ones. I found reaching in and keeping my finger on the bag of waters helped to distract from the pain almost as much as the counter pressure did.

I began to wish the sac of waters would break, to relieve the pressure and bring the baby to the birth. I prayed that verse about “Do I bring to the birth and not bring forth?” but I prayed also that God would continue to direct and guide me.

Then in the middle of a very challenging contraction, it burst and the relief mingled with the pain of the long, intense contraction.

On the next six or so contractions, I roared. I wanted to listen to God, but I felt desperate to get the baby out! I could feel the little head come to the outlet and then slip back a little.

Finally I gathered my strength and just pushpushpushed baby. The head was at the outlet, then out to the nose, then baby rotated in my hand and the rest of the head and a shoulder was out, and I didn’t want to stop there, so I kept pushing, and she was halfway out, to the waist, and that didn’t seem a good stopping point, either. I kept pushing and she was finally all out in the water and I scooped her up and brought her to the surface.

The cord was pretty short, so I had to cradle hold her, which she didn’t like as much as being upright against my chest, but she spat out some mucus and cried a little bit, turning nice and pink and looked around in little peeks.

I told T to call the children up right away and they all came in to see their new baby sister. It was a little much for Wyatt, I think, to see his mom in a bra, sitting in a vernixy pool, but the other littles gathered around to admire their new baby.

After a little while, they trooped out so that I could get out and deliver the placenta. There hadn’t been much blood in the water to this point, but now some started to pool on the bottom, and I wanted to get the placenta out and take some antibleed tincture.

T helped me get up and sit on the chair he prepped with towels and chux (and towels on the floor, too). The umbilical cord was still about a cm and a half thick, but was white and cold so T clamped it twice and cut in between with the surgical shears my mom had just sterilized. Then he took Mielle, wrapped in towels, and sat facing away from me while I tried to push out the placenta, but it didn’t come easily and the chux

pad was pretty gruesome when he accidentally looked at it. So I got the “placenta pail”(ice cream bucket) and knelt on the floor to give a few big pushes, and it finally, slowly, came out with all the membranes attached.

Then my hands were kind of bloody and I was so physically tired. T prepared the bed and helped me get fresh underpants and a T shirt on, helped me get in to bed and start nursing the baby. I took some antibleed tincture and T and my mom started cleaning up, emptying the pool with the sump pump that Granny had brought, examining the placenta with the Hearts and Hands guide, weighing her on the bathroom scale (8 lbs) and the fish scale (9.5 lbs). We measured how long she was (20”) and finally got a diaper on her (too late! The towels were a little dirty with meconium and some got on our duvet and sheet which Granny took and washed, along with a ton of towels that had made a ring around the pool. ) Haven helped Granny remake our bed with fresh sheets and I cuddled Mielle on the nursing chair, in her little pink onesie and swaddled in the pink fleecy receiving blanket, then back into my bed to nurse a by-now ravenous little baby (both sides and very efficiently).

Travis had fallen asleep, I think through sheer stress and exhaustion and relief and I nursed her laying down, getting a little rest while Granny herded the children out of our room and downstairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Travis was asked at work if he wasn’t scared—he said no, I kind of know what’s going to happen next and I know Stephanie knows what to do and I don’t have to take over and be proactive—just be there and be supportive.

Which he did, beautifully.