I posted M’s birth story, but I stopped it right at his birth and left the rest for another post. It took a month to get the first part written out and I didn’t want to wait any longer while trying to decide how much of afterwards I wanted to talk about.
So, Milo had just been born. What a loud one he was (is); I’m surprised he didn’t wake the rest of the house with his crying. He calmed down and nursed easily. I thought he sure was a decent size fellow and wondered if he weighed about what his brother weighed at birth (9lbs.).
I was sitting in the pool, loving on him and waiting for the placenta to come. It didn’t seem to take very long, but time was suspended with a new baby in my arms. I felt it bloop out and we searched for the bowl to put it in, but it had mysteriously disappeared (only to be discovered later at the bottom of the pool). It got put in some container and after another minute or two I decided to get out. Before doing so, though, I noticed that there were still some squishy clotty-feeling things hanging out and I mentioned that to my Midwife, D.
I think M took the baby while I got up and started to get out of the pool. I’m glad he did because I felt woozy almost immediately. We had discussed prenatally my previous experience with getting woozy and had decided that I would take it very easy after the birth and “stay down”. I told D how I was feeling and we laid me down on a couch-cushion pallet made up right next to the pool. I kept up a play-by-play of how I was feeling and D kept talking to me. The other Midwife, C, was working and whatever she and D were doing/thinking did not show to me. The only things I saw were D and M’s faces. They were calm and composed, keeping up a conversation with me. I wasn’t scared of something going wrong or dying or even going to the hospital, but I was disappointed that my baby was not in my arms. I knew and trusted that the Midwives knew what they were doing. I knew that they would take care of me and that if we needed to transfer, it would be the best thing in that particular situation. Each step of the way, one of them would let me know what she was doing and I greatly appreciated that. I don’t know how long it took to get everything taken care of, but it felt like an eternity. I was sad to have someone else holding my baby so soon after giving birth to him, but I knew both of us were in good hands. I also remember baby being held to me and/or right beside me several times, which made me feel better.
Once things were calmed down a bit, M cut baby’s cord and we weighed him. I was shocked when he came in at 11lbs. 14oz.!! Whoa! To be honest, I think the whole room audibly gasped. Now it made sense why I’d been so uncomfortable during the last few months…that was a whole lot of baby!
I was so grateful that I had chosen the birth team I had. My husband was wonderfully steady during this time, having experienced something similar with our last birth. My aunt just jumped in, as did my cousin (who ended up holding baby for a while, just as he had done with my other son). My friend and photographer stayed back and watched silently while capturing shots, as we had agreed upon previously. My Midwives worked diligently and quickly to get my body back on track. Each person had their role, and each person fulfilled it brilliantly. I am forever thankful to each of them. While my preference would have been to just easily glide from labor to birth to postpartum without any complications or issues, if I was going to have this experience, I’m glad it was with these people.