More Bean

While my little Bean sleeps I figured I'd post some more cuteness...

A little monkey

There is a Bean in there somewhere...

Bean's first Christmas!

Welcome Samuel!

So the October-December update might come later, or it might not.  There's more exciting things to talk about now! Namely, one thing, who is actually a little tiny person!

Samuel David Ayala, December 13, 2013

What follows is Samuel's birth story, for anyone who is interested. As far as I can tell it's not overly graphic, but my perception may be a little skewed. In David's opinion the one thing I didn't stress enough is how loud I was towards the end - minor details. So here it is:

Samuel’s birth story started back in March, the way most every birth story starts.  If you don’t know how that is, ask your mother!  The first four months of his birth story were spent making me sick.  The next five were spent with me eating ridiculous amounts of food and sleeping lots…  All in all, pretty typical.  That is until Wednesday December 11, 2013.

David and I were both way overtired and decided to put ourselves to bed early.  Our lights were out by 9:30, which turns out to be a really good thing.  About 11:00 I woke up with a strange sensation of wetness.  My water had definitely broken. I wasn't having much in the way of contractions, but we called the midwife and made sure everything was ready, just in case.  Then we went back to bed.  I slept on and off until about 4am and then the combination of contractions and excitement woke me up.

At 6am, when everyone else got up for morning chores I moved to the bathtub to try and relax.  By about 9am, my contractions were about 5 minutes apart.  We called the midwife again and I crawled back into bed to try and rest.  Amazingly, I slept.  The midwife arrived about 10:30 (it was a busy day for the midwives!) and when I woke up about 11 she checked me.  I was only 2cm, so she told me to rest as much as I could and call when things changed. 

I had some lunch and got David to fill up the birthing pool.  Then I went and hung out there.  It was wonderful.  Whoever invented birthing pools with inflatable floors was a genius! David set things up so my laptop could be down there with me and I distracted myself online and breathed easily through my contractions. Once the water cooled off, I got out and walked around for a bit, still breathing easily through my contractions.

By 4pm or so, the contractions started to get stronger.  Breathing quietly through them wasn't working as well.  I was back in the birthing pool.  David got supper started upstairs and then came to join me in the birthing pool.  We worked through contractions together.  Things seemed to be picking up.  David called the midwife again and we continued to work through things.  Once the midwife arrived, she checked the baby’s heart rate (perfect!) and my blood pressure (also perfect).  Things continued to progress, getting more and more intense.  I handled things alright at first…time started to blur.  I decided that I wanted supper and Isaac brought me some (he was a very excited and attentive uncle-to-be).  I managed about half a dozen bites.  Then I started throwing up.   Time continued to blur, alternating between contractions and throwing up.  At one point mom brought me my evening meds and I promptly threw them back up.

After about 24 hours of labor (roughly… I wasn't watching the time too closely) I began to reach my limit.  The intensity of the contractions had almost peaked (I didn't know that at the time) and I was exhausted.  We moved from the birthing pool to my bed so that I could try and rest better between them.  That only worked so well, because no sooner had we gotten upstairs than the contractions came closer and closer together.  At one point I was shamelessly begging for something to ease the pain – even though I knew I really didn't want anything to interfere with the baby.   We considered a transfer to hospital so that I could get something for pain – however, the thought of making the transfer was almost unbearable – not just the car ride there in a worsening storm, but the psychological aspect of perceived failure at a homebirth.  The midwife checked me (first check since the morning) and told me that all I had to do was get the baby beyond the lip of my cervix and it would be done.  We were almost there.

We didn't transfer to the hospital.  Instead I moved to the bathroom where I continued to throw up and bellow through contractions (no more quietly breathing through them!).  David went to the bedroom to lie down.  I don’t think he slept though.  Soon I felt the urge to push.  I could feel the baby's head coming.  The midwife called David to come back in.  With a few more pushes Samuel was born into David’s hands and then placed onto my chest.  David moved behind me to support me as I cradled my newborn son on my chest.  We sat like that for a while until I passed out (oops!). David was a champ and brought me water sweetened with honey as well as a spoonful of honey while the midwife held my feet up and I laid flat on the floor. It didn't take long before my blood pressure stabilized and I was able to sit up with my baby on my chest again. Once the cord stopped pulsing, David cut it and we announced the name of our little Bean. 

While it wasn't the quiet, gentle, hypno-birth I had dreamed about, the result was a beautiful little boy – Samuel David, 7 lbs, 14 oz, and 22 inches long. 

snuggled up after a bath

Snuggling with Daddy