Israel’s Birth Story

Well, I’m afraid the midwife’s prediction of a prodromal labor was right. I had stronger contractions for about four days before the actual thing, although they were not terrible consistent. It was exhausting, both physically and emotionally, but the real day did eventually come, eight days after my due date.

Around 4am, I was having some contractions, but was able to go back to sleep. But by 5am, I was sure they were real labor contractions and couldn’t sleep anymore. I woke Fabio up about 5:45, and by a little after 6:00, my mom and the other kids were up too, and I called my sisters-in-law, Amanda and Suzy, to let them know to get ready. The kids and mom pretty much stayed in the other end of the house and left Fabio and I alone in the bedroom, as did Suzy and Amanda when they arrived around 9:30.

A little after 10am, I took a walk down the hall to visit the folks in the kitchen, and things started to pick up then. Fabio was filling the pool, so about 10:30, I went back to the bedroom to get in the pool. That’s when it started getting intense. It seemed from that point like one continuous contraction that had a peak every 2-3 minutes, but never let up completely, for about the next 45 minutes.

I started feeling extremely hungry, so in between the peaks, I wolfed down two pieces of homemade bread toasted with butter and honey, and some plain yogurt with applesauce.

About 11:15, the contractions changed. They became much longer and stronger, but then gave me a total rest of about 3-4 minutes between each one. I started getting a lot more vocal then.

I thought baby would come by noon, but I was wrong. About 12:30 or so, I was getting discouraged because I didn’t feel like I was making a lot of progress (although I probably was), and I was having HORRID back labor, which I had never had before. It didn’t feel like the baby was moving down, my water hadn’t broken, and I wasn’t feeling like pushing. It just felt with every INTENSE contraction that I was being split asunder; that every contraction threatened to splinter every bone from my ribs to my femurs into smithereens! It was SO much worse than my last labor!

Before 1:00pm, the contractions started feeling “pushy” and I could feel my uterus bearing down. I didn’t know if I could take it! I was in so much pain. I started crying through contractions, sobbing, tears running down my face.

I could tell this was a big baby. My back KILLED, and Amanda pushed against it with all her might, and still it was not enough pressure!

I tried to reach and feel his head, but instead, I just felt the water bag bulging. I wished it would break and give me a little relief. It did, after a few more minutes, and he started to crown – fast. I felt his head BULGING out of me, and it didn’t feel like my perineum was stretching at all. I was sure I would burst asunder.

I tried to slow his descent the same way I had with Dominique- pushing against his head with my hand and trying to breathe through contractions and not push, to give my perineum time to stretch. That worked for a little bit – maybe a couple of contractions? I had no reference of time at that point. Then, all of a sudden, his head was out! Another couple of pushes and the rest of him was born, “sunny side up”, as he was posterior and never did turn. Daddy lifted him out of the water and gave him to me while everyone was exclaiming, “It’s a boy!” It was 1:40pm.

I was still in so much pain that I couldn’t even open my eyes to look at him! I just held him and cried and kept saying, “That was SO hard!” and “I hurt!” I wished I could be enjoying the moment more, but I was just in too much pain.

After a few minutes, we got out of the pool and the placenta came within a couple of minutes. He was just BEAUTIFUL! His color was perfectly pink immediately and I’ve never seen a newborn with such a perfect complexion. He had no mucous in his nose or mouth and cried right away. His head was perfectly round with no molding at all and only the very teeny tiniest soft spot. He was just beautiful!

We cut the cord after about 45 minutes. I had wanted to wait longer, but it was getting too cumbersome. Then we weighed him and were all surprised when the scale went to nearly 11 lbs (10lbs, 12oz.)! He measured 21 ½ inches and his head circumference was 14 ½ inches.

After measuring, we got in our herb bath and he was so calm and tranquil. It was there that we finally decided on his name. And then we were ready to go to bed so I could start the (rather long) recovery process…