Birth Stories: Charlotte Marie Boland

Born May 17, 2003
8lbs 3 oz, 20 inches long

We weren't trying to have another baby, I wasn't really ready when I figured out that my period wasn't coming. Using Natural Family Planning (NFP), I knew we were a few days past the magic 18 days post the temperature elevation that indicated we were likely pregnant.

At the grocery store, I sent my husband, John, to get tomatoes in the next aisle over so I could hide a home pregnancy test. Later, I sent him to the car with our son when it was time to check out. Keeping my suspicions secret seemed essential until I knew for sure. Once home the test was positive and I waited until just before bed to tell him. I'd already scheduled a regular check up and yearly pap test before I knew for sure I was pregnant ...so the check up just confirmed my home test which is just as accurate as anything they do in the office.

Of course they tried to refer me to the women's clinic, a busy baby factory infamous for its gigantic census of 250 to 300 births a month, the busiest in the US Military ...yet the most neglected when it comes to receiving appropriated funds and resources. Been there, done that, wasn't even going to step foot through that door again. It took until week 20 for us to decide just what we were going to do about prenatal care, and the birth. By this time the rumors of deployment were flying. I was leaning towards an unassisted home, water birth. However, being completely alone did not sit well with John, who was likely not going to be around for the birth.

Also, during the beginning of the second trimester my cervix got really low. I figured my uterus was prolapsed along with the weak bladder (cystocele, when the bladder falls into the vagina, this due to my previous birth...in my opinion). This freaked me out and I began to research prolapsed uterus and pregnancy. There wasn't much, and it's commonly treated by hysterectomy. But my fears where put to rest when an obstetrician I'd worked with confirmed it's not impossible to deliver a baby vaginally when there's a prolapsed uterus. He thought it would likely just get worse. I didn't tell him I was asking for myself, and I then decided to continue with my home birth plans. Avoiding trauma would be easier at home.

So we chose a documented midwife, Laurie, who was very laid back and not invasive at all. Everything was optional. This was important to me, as I felt a need to do almost everything myself. Laurie was located about an hour and half away, and was also our closest option. Laurie came highly recommended by a friend who had already had her baby boy. I also had a friend who was three weeks ahead of me who also had hired Laurie.

John received his deployment orders and each weekend we expected to be our last together before deployment to the Middle East. They were delayed for nearly three months. For a while we hoped they would just keep on delaying, but the start of the War in Iraq guaranteed he would leave before our #2 would be born. We did not know until the day he left when he would leave, and then it was a terrible goodbye. We were suppose to have two hours at an Army gym to say good bye, we got three minutes. My son was traumatized and I was heart broken over how the good bye went. But off John went to do his job, and I hunkered down to prepare for the birth of our #2. I did not cry again after that night. I thank all the wonderful pregnancy hormones for keeping my emotions steady. I was justly confident.

Up to this point John had been able to attend all the prenatal appointments with me and Peter, our son. We kind of enjoyed the trips down there. There was a park close to Laurie's house we'd stop at to let Peter play and run. It also gave us a chance to go to Whole foods, a store with all kinds of natural wholistic foods, where you could find some rare treats...like Hansen's sodas. It was kind of comforting to still go to the park and Whole Foods even after John left. I'd stock up on nuts, sour dough bread, and a soy yogurt drink I'd found there, as well as prenatal vitamin and gummy kid vitamins.

From week 37 on I was anxious to get started. I'd been doing so much reading on active birth, water birth, pain free birth, and the like that I was just wanted to experience all these things instead of reading about them. I needed to know if they would work for me too. I wanted to see if some of the stuff I'd read was true. However, I made sure to not do anything to accelerate the onset of labor. Labor needed to come when the baby was ready and without any interventions. It had to be pure so I could avoid regrets. I also resisted a lot of offers of help from overly concerned folks...all worried about the poor pregnant soldier's wife all alone with just her toddler son. I leaped at offers of meals after the birth, and rejected just about everything else. I made a list of all the folks who wanted to watch my son, just in case I'd need it, but really I didn't.

THE BIRTH

Friday May 16, 2003 I decided that I would go for a long walk. I knew my husband would be wondering, along with everyone else if our #2 was born yet, and the only way for him to find out was to have the baby...and then the Red Cross would deliver the message. There's a 3 mile trail a few blocks away, so off I went, my son in a jogging stroller. It was bright and sunny, and pretty warm out. So I built up a little sweat and kept a pretty good brisk walking pace. I had been having mild braxton hicks throughout the day, and the walk helped to make them more regular, but not more intense. During the last mile, I had a small chat with #2 and said it would be all right if s/he decided to be born soon.

When I got home, I had a mild evening with my son, he bathed and went to bed without a fuss and took a sippy cup to bed instead of insisting upon nurse as usual. I was still contracting, but I didn't want to make it too intense by nursing. It was around 10:30pm that I had some bloody show.

Laurie wanted to be called as soon as I thought labor was starting because she was far away and I was alone. I didn't get in contact with her until around 1pm Saturday maybe three hours after the bloody show. I puttered around a while trying to time contractions so I could be sure I was really going into labor, but it was too hard to focus on clocking them. I felt like I had better things to do. I started a load of diapers and began to set up the pool. I thought I would just kick into transition and it would go quickly based on my first birth experience, but my contractions were never very close together at all.

So my Laurie was on her way and I felt I needed to have everything set up. The pool had been blown up for weeks. It was just a kiddie pool that cost less than $20, but it was perfect. It was three rings, inflatable padded bottom, and just deep enough to squat with my entire belly still in the water. I had the pool filled up (using garden hose and a kitchen sink faucet attachment adapter) before Laurie arrived. I wasn't really sure when to get in, so I waited.

At 2:30 am the Laurie arrived. We sat at my kitchen table chatting a little while I folded diapers. It was weird, because it was calm and I didn't even need to pause or really think through the contractions at this point, but it had indeed started. When the back up Midwife, Meredith, came they went to work setting up all their equipment in my birth room. There had only been candle light in there before that. They brought some funky chair, called it a birth chair, and some basic crash box of emergency supplies. To be honest the chair looked kind of weird to me. As I had no intentions of using it, I ignored it. It took them a while to set up their stuff. Admittedly, I was distracted by this a little and wanted them to hurry up and get out of my room. I sat on my birth ball during this time, as the contractions were a little more noticeable. I wasn't yet comfortable with getting nearly naked and jumping in the pool. Finally, they were done and I got the lights back off, and the midwives went into my living room and rested. I had the room all to myself again, and it stayed that way pretty much the entire time after that. Setting up probably only took 15 to 30 minutes, but early morning hours sure can drag. Laurie would track me down every hour or so and check fetal heart tones. She would wait till I was done or just ending a contraction. She seemed to know that I needed quiet, peace and privacy. She was wonderful in how she respected my labor and birth needs. Heart tones were always great.

At this point I jumped into the pool, feeling the need to relax a bit and it was nice, but strangely boring. I hoped out and was antsy I guess, put in my Josh Groban CD (my husband had got me for Christmas), and tried to just get primal. That really never happened I don't think. I just didn't need to dig down that far I suppose. This birth was more about independence and self reliance. It was also a test of my own competence. Sitting in the water, listening to music things were very slow. Like I said, nearly boring.

At one point both midwives where asleep in my living room. It was nice to know they were there if I needed them, but I was glad they were able to sleep and be rested enough for when I really needed them...after the birth. I'd been hanging out in my pool up to now and decided to get out to see if walking around would do anything. Yes, just before dawn the contractions were more intense, hurting some, but there were no closer together. This was fine because I had always thought that time between contractions was good for recovering and preparing for the next one. Eventually, the recovering started to take longer as the contractions had progressed to transition strength. I had a few on the bathroom floor after having emptied my bladder (didn't want to hurt my poor bladder anymore, so I had been making myself empty it quite frequently). These contractions took much longer to get over, so I jumped back into my pool. For me, the water did not take away the pain during the contractions (the discomfort was just as intense), but the water helped me to relax almost immediately after each contraction was finished.

The water was a bit cold, so the midwives took some of the water out and replaced it with warmer water. Laurie had awaken and come to check on me while I was having my contractions in the bathroom. Once in the water and transitioning well, Laurie suggested I consider rupturing the membranes to maybe help things go a little faster. She was concerned my son would wake up before the birth. I was pretty adamant I wanted no interference, and since she wasn't pushy I just ignored her suggestion. She didn't seem to mind this much. At this point I leaned into the wall of the pool and fell asleep.

I woke up to the baby shifting down during a contraction and it was like something had popped. It startled me and at this point I said, "what are you doing baby?" This was the most vocal I got and besides a little wining perhaps, once this passed I knew my water had likely broke (on it's own) and things were almost done. I asked Laurie how long I'd been asleep, and she thought perhaps 10 or 15 minutes. That little nap really was just what I'd needed.

The urge to push wasn't very strong, but it helped ease the discomfort to do short little pushes at this point. I got into a squat during the contractions and would rest back down when they finished. As the sun was coming up and shining through the mini blinds my son could be heard rustling a bit in the next room. My baby was moving down well and could crown if I gave just a bit more effort. Of course, my goal was a slow gentle birth. So I continued with the short little pushes (non of those monstrous count to 10, hold your breath types, no sir). At one point I got the head partly out to have it just slide back in again.

After that contraction my son was starting to wake up. He generally stirs and fusses some before he wakes, so I knew I didn't have much more free birthing time left. With the next contraction I pushed harder and got the head all the way out, and then kept pushing as I fully expected to birth the entire baby with that last contraction. I did, but not before I got to experience the feeling of the baby turning and short of kicking it's way out. I had backed into the wall of the pool for support in a squat and was supporting my baby's head and got ready to catch myself. My son woke up and started walking down the hall as I was helping the baby come all the way out. When my son was born he had just slid right out once his head was born, and #2 seemed to have to do a little bit more maneuvering.

Once #2 was born I raised my baby out of the water and to my chest right away. There was a bit of squawking, but then #2 settled down right away and looked at me with big bright wide and alert eyes. The cord was kind of short so I couldn't get a look right away at the sex. Instead, I took a moment to just take in the baby before figuring it out. "Oh wow," was all I remember saying. A moment later, I was able to look and found I had a little girl. Charlotte had lots of hair and was very round and coated in chunks of vernix. I just held her and gave the maternal check up. First thing's first, no cleft lip on this baby. She was breathing right away, was pinking up quickly and looked perfect.

We both sat in the water for a while. It was great to just sit there and hold her and not have anyone messing with either of us. Instead, Laurie was holding my crying son who was kind of shocked to find himself sleeping alone all night long, and now his mommy holding another baby in a kiddie pool. We tried to get him to come in with me and Charlotte, but he wanted nothing to do with that. So Laurie got his diaper changed, fixed him breakfast and he went straight to work playing and running around the house. In the mean time, the Meredith got an herbal bath ready in my bath tub.

It was getting cold so I decided to get out before the placenta was born. As I was standing the placenta came out and fell into the water. Opps, and the midwives rushed to help me collect it into the bed pan we had for it. I had to kind of hold both Charlotte and the placenta for a minute as the cord was being pulled on with me standing up. Plus, I was a little woosie, and just needed to sit back down. Blood pressure has a lot of adjusting to do right after birth. I transferred to my upright futon. Looking at the soggy placenta I had wanted to try a lotus birth. With my hands full of my daughter and my son running around I felt overwhelmed by the thought of a smelly placenta hanging around my house as well. So when my Laurie asked if I wanted the cord cut I said, "okay." (See The nearly lotus birth).

Charlotte cried sorrowfully when we clamped and cut her cord. I felt so bad about that.

But once she was no longer attached to her cord and placenta I was able to get into the tub with her and sit in the nice warm herb bath. She loved the bath and has enjoyed bathing immensely ever since. Finally, I asked my Laurie to hold her while I showered real quick and they checked the weight and measurements while I showered. Then I was able to crawl into bed with her. A friend came and took my son out for a few hours so Charlotte and I could sleep. Laurie and Meredith cleaned up, emptied my kiddie pool, made me breakfast, and did a load of laundry all before leaving.

At 5p, my son came back home, and I received dinner from my friend. For the next eight nights dinner was brought to me and this was the best baby present I could have ever received. I had left overs galore. By the next week I actually was looking forward to cooking again.

Laurie visited later the next day and helped me get lunch, which was awesome. But this time word had gotten around that I was super woman having birthed my baby at home, and catching her all by myself. To me, it was the only way. The super thing was that I was allowed to do this.

It's now been 10 weeks since my Charlotte was born. She's grown so long. She's been smiling since she was three days old, and gets more social everyday. But her birth story will not be complete until her Daddy comes home and holds her for the first time. There is really only one element missing from the perfect birth story and that element is her Daddy. When he gets home it will be finished.

Each day is entirely consumed with the care of my two children and myself. We are coping pretty well without any respite. Having such a successful birth really set me up to handle the real challenges to follow; that of taking care of two babies alone...double diapers, tandem nursing, and single parenting. I'm not hung up on this birth, like I had been after my son's birth. His birth still haunts me, but Charlotte's birth has slid hazily into the past and only brings on good thoughts and happy memories. Having kept the relatives and medical interventionist at bay really helped me to bond to my child and I know that she's mine and I've never had to feel the sorrow of having my child taken from my arms. My emotional well being is so much healthier because of this home water birth. Unnecessary interventions were avoided. Laurie encouraged and empowered me to be responsible for the decisions made during my pregnancy and birth. I was able to do nearly everything on my own and the outcome was absolutely excellent!

I will likely never find reason to birth in a hospital again. Unlike Peter's birth, Charlotte's birth has taught me not to fear birth, but to welcome it. A good birth is one you don't agonize over, and you don't necessarily think much about afterwards. That's a great birth.

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