Presley's birth story

I wrote this when Presley was about 15 months old, just to give you a timeline. I'm not a writer by any means. And this is really long, just to warn you! ****************************************************************************
The Birth Story of Presley Anne

I’ve wanted to write the story of Presley Anne’s birth for about 15 months. Now when I sit down to write, my mind has gone blank. Where to start….? I started my pregnancy like everyone else. I went to my women doctor and started there. Then my sister gave me a book (Ina May's Guide to Childbirth) that had a good list of questions to ask your OB-gyn in its reference section. Questions like “rate of episiotomies” and that sort of thing. So when I asked my doc about his rate of episiotomies, his reply was 95% of first time moms. He said it as if that were the answer I was looking and hoping for…uh…NO!!

So I started talking it over with Price and telling him I might be interested in a home birth with a midwife. He thought I was a little nutty and proceeded to tell everyone who we came in contact with that “she thinks she wants to birth this kid with no pain medication.” So then after some coercion, not as much as I actually thought, we met with a midwife, Tina, who I had talked with over the phone who I found where else? The Internet! She answered all Price’s questions and really calmed his fears of whether a home birth was safe. The great thing I like about Tina is that she knew her limitations. She didn’t try to come across as ‘all knowing’ as some of the midwives had when I talked with them briefly over the phone. So we called her back and told her she was the one for us and we were going to do it.

So Tina came to our house for all our prenatal appointments and we got to know her more and vice versa. Well, I hadn’t had so much as a fart cramp and I was nearing 40 weeks. Then on my due date, we were having dinner with Price’s family, and I felt my first sensation of a contraction. It didn’t hurt at all, but it was there. It was right before we left that I started having them. I didn’t want to say anything to the whole family for fear they would follow us home and be waiting in the driveway for any baby news. But when we got in the car, I told Price and we timed them all the way home. They were fairly consistent, but didn’t really get any more intense. I was still excitedly telling him when each one would start. So we called Tina when we got home just to give her the heads up. She told us when we should call her back, that we still sounded like we had a good ways ahead of us. Boy was she right! So we went to sleep Saturday night.

Sunday morning I woke to a pretty strong one that quickly got me moving out of bed. We called my sisters and we all headed to the mall to start walking and try to move this thing along a bit. Price was armed with his stop watch around his neck and was eagerly timing them. We were dorks! The contractions were not really that strong, but they weren’t going away….so that was a good thing. So it was me, Price, Kenzie, my niece, Chloe, Alison, and my brother-in-law, Jay. We ate at Luna de Noche, and my intentions were to eat light, but as usual, I ate more than a teenage, athletic male and was stuffed full. We headed back home with little progress. On the way we stopped at Target and got a kiddy pool to blow up and have just in case I wanted to labor in once the time came. We blew that up and filled it with water for some reason. But that night we were able to go to sleep again. I slept fairly well although the contractions intensified a hair.

Early Monday morning a contraction jolted me out of bed where I had to stand upright to make it through. Now we’re cooking, I thought. So all morning on Monday my contractions were a little more intense and I was vocalizing and rocking with Price to get through them. In retrospect, these contractions were nothing compared to what they were to become. Now I look back at my sillier self and laugh a little! Ignorance is bliss. Anywho, we went to Wal-Mart, got some last minute items (popsicles, flowers, who knows what else). Every time a contraction would come, we’d duck into an empty aisle and sway and I’d keep my noise level down. We got back home and my mom came over. We wanted to have her there for an extra set of hands. Well, she starts crying at my first contraction! I also felt a little inhibited vocalizing, which really got me through them, and after not that long, my contractions slowed down and the intensity didn’t increase and probably even decreased in intensity a bit.

At some point Tina came and checked me and I was only about a 4, but my bag of water was bulging and this was definitely labor. She told Price to call her when I had a change in demeanor. I was still in great spirits and looking good (well, as good as a 40 week pregnant girl can look with seriously no clothes that fit and ‘swole’ up all over) with my makeup on and I think my hair was even half-way done. A change in demeanor, huh?? So Mom decided to go ahead and go back home since things had slowed. I think she and I both wondered if she could really handle being there or not. Alison invited us over for dinner that night with the family – lasagna. Well every book I’ve read said you do not want to eat tomato-based anything before or during labor because it’s very unpleasant to throw up, just in case. We also planned to go for a hot June walk to help labor along. So we walked over to Alison’s and at this point the contractions were picking up. I had to tell everyone, or at least the girls, that I was having some major anal pressure, which now I know as back labor. After dinner, which this time I ate like a dainty ol’ lady, we started off on our labor walk that we had planned so many months before. It started off as me, Mom, Kenzie, Alison, and Chloe. We walked a good ways, stopping every once in a while if I needed to stop and have a contraction. But I think I was walking through them for the most part. Then we dropped Mom and Chloe back off at the house and took a break. At this point I would have to dash to the back room to deal with the contraction because I didn’t want to scare anyone, namely my dad, who was nervous about the whole thing. So then me, Kenzie, and Alison headed out for another hot June labor walk. We kept the pace up and I was stopping frequently to deal with the contractions and then we would journey on. We took a turn to go through an alley-type path when we heard a horse nay. We live in the city, so we weren’t quite sure where this horse and his hauntingly loud nay came from. Then we heard it again. We decided we weren’t fully committed to walking this direction and turned and went the way we came. Despite this rush of adrenaline, the contractions continued nice and strong.

We headed back to Alison’s, who’s house is only a couple blocks from ours. Mom and Dad decided to take our dogs at my dad’s persistence. I was still thinking that we had a few days ahead of us. So I’m glad that he insisted. Between contractions, and running to the back room to have one when each came, we said our goodbyes and started walking back home. I distinctly remember holding on to Price’s arm on the way home and stopping in the middle of the street to have a contraction. I want to say they were really strong, and they were. But compared to how they got later in the night, they were still ‘sissy stuff’. And they were still nowhere near where we needed them to be in order to call Tina.

We were so tired, it had been a long couple of days. So we laid down and I propped myself up a bit to see if would allow me to sleep in between, I just wanted to sleep or have this baby….sleep or have this baby!! I didn’t last one contraction, I was upright swaying. I knew that I had to be standing to have a contraction. Therefore, there would be no sleeping in between. So then we prayed. This is my favorite part because it is a true testament that God is always with you, always listening to your prayers, and gives you just what you need when you need it! Amen! We prayed that we would either sleep or have this baby. Right after we said 'amen', I had a five minute contraction! And Price called Tina and told her there had been a “massive change in demeanor”….who me??? So now we were REALLY cooking. They didn’t stop or let up. It was about 12:45 when Tina arrived and quietly starting setting everything up and unloading. Price started filling up the kiddy pool with hot water and started boiling water on the stove to finish filling it up after all the hot water ran out of the tap. (We had to drain it from the day before earlier Monday, because we realized that there was no way to turn it from cold to as hot as it needed to be without starting from scratch when it was time.) Tina checked me and I was a 7, whoohoo! Once the pool was ready, I got in and oooooooh, how nice it was! I had my maternity bathing suit top on, but no bottoms. So yes, I was bare butt chillin' in the pool, and during each contraction “flopping around like a fish” per Price. I was still vocalizing with each one, which as I’ve said before, really helped. Price, still with his stop watch, would tell me when each contraction would peak and then I knew I was on the other side and on the way back down the contraction. Each time, thinking ‘I got through another one’.

It all happened so fast. After a while, the other midwife, Rose Marie, arrived. It’s always a pleasure to meet someone while you have no pants on, but nevertheless, it was nice to have another set of hands and additional midwifery knowledge and experience. She asked us what we were naming the baby. After we said “Presley”, she said, “so it’s a boy!” That made us all laugh. Meanwhile, Price was still running back and forth bringing boiling water to the pool to keep it warm. Although, it was feeling great, I was so hot and sick of the water. Tina checked me again and I asked, am I at least a 9? In which she replied, “no, just an 8”. In which I replied, a single profane word that starts with the letter F. That was the only time that I swore the entire labor and delivery, which I thought wasn’t too bad. I was just so tired at this point! And I had only progressed a single centimeter?

Then it got really intense, or should I say, even more intense. I remember one time, feeling ‘out of my mind’ and looking at all three of them – Tina, Price, and Rose Marie – thinking, begging for them to tell me what to do. As if there was something more I needed to do. I also remember getting frustrated because my bangs were all curled up and on my forehead (hot steamy water and curly hair don’t mix) and getting in my eyes and I was constantly moving them aside. Finally I asked for some bobby pins. Then suddently, I just wanted OUT of the water, so I got out and used the bathroom and I had one contraction. Price recounted it later saying I took a ‘swan dive’ back in. Definitely better in than out no matter how hot and water logged I was.

So Tina broke my water. I remember around this time that I was hanging on to Price over the edge of the inflatable pool and still flopping about that I leaned into him so close and I seriously almost bit him – twice. How weird is that?? I did have the sense enough to refrain, thank goodness. Soon, I was done with the water. I stood up and striped off my bathing suit top and hopped on the bed. Um, hello, totally naked?? Yep, and I didn’t care at all for some reason! So then I still wasn’t fully 10 cm, but Tina was able to stretch the last little bit of cervix over Presley’s head and I could finally start pushing. Yeah, the part of labor everyone and their mama said was the best part because you were doing something. Well, it wasn’t so great for me. I pushed and pushed and pushed….for two hours. Finally I was on my back, the position that I feared the most. But I was pushing the best in that position and I was getting to sleep a little in between contractions which weren’t as strong or as close together as they had been prior.

Rewind a little. Tina had estimated Presley to be about 7 pounds after palpating my stomach with her hands. Just a rough estimate, I understand. Ok back to the head now coming out after two hard and long hours of pushing. Tina looks at Rose Marie and says “I don’t think this baby is 7 pounds.” Rose Marie says to Tina, “I don’t think she’s 8!” Of course I was oblivious to all this. What I wasn’t oblivious to was the fact that once the head was out, Tina causally, as if we had all the time in the world, asks Price if he wanted to catch the baby. Well he was to my left, and I distinctly remember saying, “uh…can we just…” PROCEED was what I was thinking. But Price quickly got prepared to catch Presley and soon she was on my stomach. How special that he got to catch his first born.

Her umbilical cord was really short so she couldn’t even come up all the way until it was cut. Presley was born at 4:45 am. She wasn’t crying, which I was wanting to hear, just to confirm all was well. No one else seemed concerned. She was good and pink and looking up at me with her big open, blue eyes. Oh it was so good just to see her little face and see what she looked like! And what a relief that it was all over….well almost. The placenta was like pushing a bean out compared to Presley, who wasn’t 7 or 8 pounds. She weighed 9 pounds, 2 ounces!! Who would have thought, not me. But my dad had guessed that exact weight when we were poling weights and heights and dates. He was only one day off from her birth date too!

Anywho, she was so bruised on her face. She didn’t quite enjoy the passage out either. She got a vitamin K shot and the bruising went away within a couple of days. So right when she was on my chest, Price started calling the family to come over and meet Presley. Presley and I took a herbal bath to clean up and by the time I was done with a quick shower, a couple of stitches, and first attempts at breastfeeding (it wasn’t as easy as I’ve heard – and what a curiously strong suck for such a little thing!), everyone was here. They were already holding and enjoying Presley for a couple minutes by the time I was dressed and back in bed. It’s no secret that I wear Price’s ‘panties’ (they’re pretty much panties, very panty-like, anyway. They’re briefs and very comfortable, especially when I’m pregnant.) So Tina was helping me get dressed and asked where my underwear was. I had to explain that I wear Price’s panties and where they were. She said that was the first time she had ever put “man panties on one of her mama’s”. I guess it’s nice to be the first in some form or fashion.

Everyone came and stood around the bed and heard all about the experience while we all bonded with Presley and passed her around, I wanted my turn too! Mom brought me a boiled egg and some pita bread – I was starving at this point. Price and I were euphoric, but completely exhausted! He said we would have handed off Presley to the Taliban at that point just to get some sleep. The family took Presley and we went to sleep for about four hours, they made breakfast and celebrated Presley’s birth. We woke up and it was the beginning of being cared for, and we needed it! When we went into having a home birth, we didn’t even consider or think about the fact that we were going to need help after the birth. Our families effortlessly stepped into that role without even being asked. My mom didn’t stop cooking and cleaning for a couple days! How fortunate we were! Mom stayed with us for the first night. And Price’s mom stayed with us the second night. How nice it was to be able to get a couple hours of sleep knowing that Presley was in good hands! We were feeding her every two hours because she was so big, that’s what we were instructed to do. So we didn’t leave a lot of time in between.

With so much company, when Price and I did have a minute to get some shut-eye, all we could do was talk and relive the whole experience. We were still euphoric days and even weeks later! I seriously could not have done it without him. He did amazing through the whole thing, way surpassing any and all of my expectations! We are closer having made that journey together! How could you not? His confidence in me never wavered, although afterwards, he said that he had his doubts at a couple points. I never would have guessed it.

We praised God for His hand in the middle of it all and for blessing us with a perfect, healthy baby girl! We continue to praise God for Presley Anne and seek His guidance in raising her and now we praise God for his hand in speeding up the conception of Teagan Astelle (a little sooner than we had on our timeline). At 36 ½ weeks along, I can’t sleep well and falling asleep is really hard. So tonight, instead of just laying there thinking, I decided to get up and write this story. To not only document the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced, but to reflect on Teagan’s soon-to-be arrival. This time, I’m more nervous because I know what to expect. I know the intensity and I fear Teagan’s birth weight…surely she won’t be bigger!!! I have faith that just as God was there with us for Presley’s birth, He’ll be with us for Teagan’s birth. Just as I was anxious to see Presley’s face, I am just as eager and anxious to meet Teagan! We have faith that Presley is going to love her little sister dearly! I look forward to writing about Teagan’s birth in the upcoming weeks!