Teagan's Birth Story

The Birth Story of Teagan Astelle

Here’s the short version. I woke up at 4:00am with contractions. I woke Price up at 4:30am. We called Tina at 5:00am. She got here about 5:30am and I got in the tub. Started pushing a little before 6:00am. She was born at 6:12am. She weight 8 lbs 14 oz.

Here’s the long version. Because I like details.

When Presley was about 6 months old, we found out that I was pregnant again. Presley’s birth was hard and long. She was so big that my cervix stayed very low afterwards causing me to be achy for months after she was born. I was literally “to’up from the flo’ up”. Six months was almost not long enough to fully heal for me let alone forget the pain of labor. Forgive me if I made Presley’s birth story sound peachy. It hurt like hell and I was scared to do it again. I knew I wanted to do it at home, but I just hoped and prayed that it would be faster and easier with it being my second. My prayers were answered. Thank you, Jesus!
(Side note: In my last trimester of pregnancy with Presley, Tina was over for a monthly checkup. After seeing a bag of snickers on the coffee table, and maybe hearing I had a major sweet tooth, Tina told me that I should try not to eat too many sweets from that point on because it all goes straight to the baby. I didn’t really believe her. But after Presley was born at 9 lbs 2 oz, I became a believer. And I was bound and determined to cut back on the sweets the whole dang pregnancy with Teagan.)

We had decided that we would labor in the tub and if I wanted to actually deliver in the tub, we would. We were just going to play it all by ear. The one plan we had in place was to call Alison so she could come be with Presley if she were to wake up. (Kenzie had just had my nephew not even three months prior, so she kind of busy to be calling in the middle of the night!) We didn’t know how I would handle the labor and Pres was still such a baby, I didn’t want to scare her. And I knew from round one that I needed Price to be with me.

The last four months or so of my pregnancy, I had lots of Braxton hicks contractions. So many that I thought I might be in a labor a few times. But my uterus was just practicing. Enough so that the day before I went into labor, at my scheduled appointment, Tina checked me and I was at a 4 not in labor. So that was a good sign. We ended up going to a high school football game that evening. I woke up about 4 in the morning with some pretty heavy duty contractions. They had never woken me up and required me to get up out of bed. So I timed them for a while and they never stopped or got less intense. It’s so weird because even a day after my due date, I continued to ask myself, is this really it? And then I actually doubted that it was. I finally woke Price up to get a second opinion. He immediately tried to pull the “let’s see if you can go back to sleep”. Which caused me to have another “massive change in demeanor”. Because damn it, it hurt and I was NOT laying back in the bed. So then I think he fully woke up and realized, oh my goodness, this could be it!! So we timed a few more and decided we better call Tina. We gave Alison a call as well. Tina made it here about 5:30am or so and checked me. I was about a 6/7 and she said I could get in the tub if I was ready. So I got in and it felt divine. Alison and Amanda, Tina’s midwife-in-training, arrived shortly thereafter.

While I was having a contraction in the tub, I would lie on my side and move up and down the tub using my legs to kick off the bottom of the tub. It worked to get me through each one. It’s weird because your body just kind of does what it needs to do and what gives you some relief at the time. Another fascinating thing about labor is that during a contraction your brain doesn’t think. Your body just takes over. But then after each contraction is over, your brain starts working again and you then actually engage in conversation.

At some point Tina broke my water which is never pleasant. But it wasn’t long after that I started having these grunty contractions that meant it was time to push. Tina checked me and again, just like with Presley’s birth, I had a little cervix left. So she manually pushed it back while I pushed Teagan’s head past it. Ouch. But it was all pushing from there. But then a new problem arose. The tub was so long that I couldn’t hold my legs, push and stay above the water. Price had made it clear that he did NOT want to be in the tub. And I don’t blame him. There were lots already floating around. We tried a few things to prop me up, but nothing was working. Price took one for the team and suited up and got in behind me. He basically held me up while I pushed. Once again, being my rock!

I suddenly remembered that I wanted a mirror down yonder so that I could see my progress as I pushed. (This would have been a great thing for me to have had while I was pushing Presley out, but in ALL the hubbub I nor anyone else thought of it.) I hadn’t thought about it beforehand so all we could find was this little mirror that was in our bathtub that’s fog resistant, so it wasn’t clear and I kept asking whoever was holding it to move it up or down. But it still worked fairly well and before we knew it, Teagan’s head was out. We had to wait until the next contraction to push the rest of her out, which seemed like eternity. Finally she was out and up on my chest. Her umbilical cord went on for miles so Price could have held her from behind me!

Teagan’s first few breaths sounded very wet. So Tina used some sort of contraption to suction out probably about 50cc’s of water. Afterwards they put some oxygen on her for a few minutes. When she first came out, we thought she looked JUST like Presley. But then over the next few hours, she had her own look and no longer looked anything like her big sister.

After a little bonding time in the tub, the cord was cut and they took her into the next room to clean her up and do her APGAR score and get measured and weighed. That’s what I was most curious about!! She weighed 8 lbs 14 oz. Whoo hoo!! I saved myself 4 whole ounces and I appreciated every single ounce. I still can neither confirm nor deny the validity to the whole ‘sweets go straight to the baby in the last trimester’ thing, because it really makes no real sense. (I’m assuming it’s not just sweets, but any additional calories above what you and the baby need.)

After Price and I cleaned up, Presley woke up a big sister! Perfect timing!! She was curious about the new baby that just appeared! She might have had a few moments over the next few weeks where Price and I looked at each other and asked, “is she acting out”? But she did great!
Teagan was a great nurser from day one! Pair that with the fact that my milk came in super fast and we ran into a little bit of a problem. Teagan would eat and then get way too much and then projectile vomit. There was no amount of preparation that was suitable to catch or contain it. It went everywhere!! So when she was three days old we had to take her to the doctor. It finally got better as my milk adjusted. And then she never spit up again. (She preferred massive blowouts!)

We went into raising baby number two with the assumption that we knew what we were doing. We quickly learned that what worked for the first, did not always work for the second. We had to learn Teagan and find out what she liked. For example, she didn’t like to be rocked and cuddled to sleep. She wanted to be put down and left alone. She didn’t want to be held like a baby in the crook of your arm, she wanted to be held upright so she could keep an eye on everyone. And the biggest shock of our lives – she did not like a pacifier! (Presley was literally obsessed with ALL of her’s!) I tried every make and model manufactured to no avail. Overall, we worked it out and are still learning what works and does not work for each of the girls.

Before I had Teagan, I got a nice hand-me-down pump to use. I didn’t pump much with Presley and I was looking forward to being a little more free to leave Teagan knowing I could pump and she could have a bottle. Well! First Teagan wouldn’t take a bottle. It was like poison in her mouth, just like with a pacifier, tried every make and model. Second, Teagan wouldn’t go to anyone except me. She didn’t even like Price for a good little while. While flattering, you can imagine that this plum wore me out!! When I would leave her with someone, mostly my poor mother, I would pick her up saying “Thank you and SORRY!!” It wasn’t easy for them, her, or me to leave her. But oh how I was refreshed after I picked them back up! (She didn’t quite feel comfortable with others, even family, until she was a good 18 months old. She still doesn’t like big crowds and remains weary of new faces. She’s 3 ½.)

Having the girls so close together, I look back and it’s literally a fog of memories. When both girls would be crying at the same time, Price and I would look at each other and laugh. That’s all you could do! My motto soon became “whatever works for now”. Some things that worked included co-sleeping (all four of us), naptimes in the baby carrier (I would put her in there, cover with a blanket, and give it a shake), nursing on demand (I WAS the pacifier! Price called it ‘the silencer’!), late nights and late mornings, glasses of wine – oh wait, that was what worked for me!!