Okay, I've been gone for too long from this blog...I've used my time well, though. I've been incubating & giving birth to baby number three! Welcome to Henry Bartholomew Cooper who joined us on March 20, 2008 at 12:01 am in our bedroom :)
I have a brief birthstory that I wrote up for anyone who's interested enough to read about Henry's arrival...it only took 45 minutes for him to arrive, but it took over a month for me to finally write about it. He obviously doesn't have his mother's procrastination genes!
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On Tuesday night my water broke at 7:00 when I was just about to put Joey to bed for the night…I waited until nearly 8:00 and called the midwife, Paula, to let her know that things would be starting sometime in the foreseeable future. (With both Lucy and Joey, my contractions started about two hours after the water broke.)
Wednesday came…no contractions! Nothing going on! I went on a loooooong walk & spent a leisurely day watching movies with Gene since I wouldn’t let him go to work in case things got going. Still nothing after that walk. Paula called to check up on me in the afternoon to remind me to sleep if possible since we knew things would go sooner or later. Who can sleep, though, when waiting to meet the little person you’ve been anxiously awaiting for so long?!
After a few more phone calls, Paula said she’d come over around 9 pm to give me a castor oil “shake” to kick things into gear since my water was broken & we wanted to move things along as naturally as possible. I drank the lovely concoction at 9 & Paula checked me to see if I’d dilated at all thus far before the castor oil started its (ahem!) magic. When she checked me, she let me know that I was already @6-7 centimeters with no contractions. At that point we waited for the castor oil to have an effect. An hour passed…no contractions…no castor oil effects…Paula checked again only to find that I’d dilated to 7-8 centimeters. At this point I was joking that maybe the baby would just fall out with no contractions since I was experiencing the beginning of transition still without contractions.
At about 11:00pm, Paula’s partner, Claudette, arrived at our house to join the birthing party. She & I were sitting and chatting in the living room with Paula when I finally experienced two contractions (around 11:15) that felt like they might be starting to do some work. I only felt the contractions really low instead of across my entire belly, so I assumed that things were just beginning & that there would be a bunch more before something big happened…THEN…
I felt a little sick & thought maybe the dreaded castor oil was coming, but when I went to the bathroom, I just threw up a few times. I got up from the floor & went into the bedroom since I wanted to get away from the toilet. Upon getting into the bedroom, I had a couple of *serious* feeling contractions during which Gene & the midwives were trying to fill the birth tub. That wasn’t going to happen fast enough since then I dropped to the floor and started feeling like pushing…and I did as my body cued me to do…it was so nice to push without anyone telling me I could/was allowed to like they do at the hospital!
Things were happening pretty fast, so the midwives had me lay on my left side in bed. At this point, baby’s heartrate dropped, so Gene had to hold the oxygen mask up to my face in hopes that the heartrate would rise again…no luck. So down to the floor we went again. I was so glad to get off my side! I don’t know who finds that position comfortable for pushing babies out, but I’ve had that position tried on me for both this birth as well as Joey’s labor and couldn’t stand it both times! Uck!
Happily baby liked it when I was on my hands and knees, so I continued pushing while Gene held up the oxygen mask for me. I really loved how cold it felt on my face! I was *so* overheated! Soon Paula was busy catching the latest addition to the family! Welcome little Henry! Once Henry was out, I was helped into bed to await the arrival of the placenta while admiring how handsome our little man was. Thank goodness Claudette was a good photographer…we have lots of photos of those first moments with Henry. I couldn’t believe how great I felt after giving birth! I even was able to take myself to the bathroom later…talk about major differences in even the smallest details from the miserable c-section recoveries!
Henry is the biggest baby we’ve had yet…he beat Joey by 2 ounces. Henry was 8 pounds, 3 ounces and 21 inches long. He was born at 12:01am on March 20. Who knew what a difference 45 minutes could make in our lives!
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Here's the tub we never got around to using...I was so excited about it, too! Maybe next time!
Henry's first real photo!
Here's Gene cutting Henry's cord with Paula's assistance. I'd never seen any of this before, so it was really pretty neat!
Here's our first real family photo of Momma, Daddy, and Henry.
This was Easter morning...Lucy & Henry just LOVE Henry!
