Solomon's [Home] Birth Story

Solomon turned 3 earlier this week [so like I did for his brother recently] I thought I'd share his [home] birth story---

Solomon Michael Georgi
April 14th, 2008

Charles, after losing 40 lbs in 40 days on a water only fast. Me, after gaining 40.

April 13th, was my birthday so we stayed late at my mom’s house and had the famous Costco chocolate cake that supposedly “threw” me into labor two years before with Nation. After being more than a week late I stopped trying to think “maybe it’s tomorrow.” So we came home, watched TV, got online---stayed up way too late : ) Hence why I only slept about an hour before going to bed after 1 a.m.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to wake up with mild contractions and I announced to Charles “I think I’m in labor (finally!!!)”. I let him sleep and decided to get up and clean and see if they went away or stayed. I proceeded to pay some bills, do three loads of laundry, dishes and clean up the house before calling my midwife to say, yes, they are still regular and about 3-5 minutes apart. 

We started making phone calls for people to come over, pick up Nation, fly in town, etc. I had intended on sending an email to say I’m in labor (there was a draft), but it never got sent---I honestly just was thinking “am I really in labor?” Yes, I was having contractions, but they were much milder than with Nation so I was nervous about announcing my false labor.

2:55 A.M.
When my midwife arrived I didn’t let her check me at first to see if I was dilated, but later felt more confident that I was probably in labor and wouldn’t be disappointed by her answer. 

5:45 A.M.

I believe this is around the time that Margaret checked me, and I was at 6 cm dilated. I couldn’t believe this because honestly up until this point things were still very easy, and I was doing a lot of walking around and talking and just not really feeling like I was doing the work of 6 cm. Getting to that point with Nation was a lot more intense work. So for the next hour and a half, I just concentrated on changing up labor positions around the house and really trying to find what brought the hardest contraction on. I'm all about getting in there and getting it done. No cheating. I want to meet this baby! I believe it was just a few hours later (maybe 1-3?) my midwife checked me again and I was at a 7. 

At this point I was still struggling because I really was wanting some stronger more productive contractions, but I felt nothing. Not only was I hardly having any, but I just felt bored. I didn’t want to rush things, I know that “stalls” can sometimes mean you need to work something out before progressing so I tried to patiently continue to do active labor movements without the real feelings of active labor driving them. Hours turned into more hours and things just weren’t going anywhere. 

3:00 P.M.
We tried everything and ended up trying some of Shonda Parker’s labor herbs to hopefully jump start contractions again, but with no results. It was nearing the late afternoon, and I was growing tired of all the squatting and laboring (with nothing resulting in contractions) and just really wanted to be awake for when I really did start feeling them. We made the decision at this point to let my midwife break my water because we all felt confident that this would most help the babies head put pressure on my cervix and not just on this bag of water.

My water broke very easily and even so it took about another hour before anything really started to feel like labor again. I took a shower.

4:00 PM

I think it was closest to this time when I had my first real contraction again. I remember being so happy and saying “yes, that was good” I knew we were moving again. It was a very hard one. For the next hour my transition contractions (7cm-10cm) were without break and very hard. Much harder than I remember with Nation and my response to them was as well. With Nation contractions were consistent for about 12 hours, with this child they were for a few hours in the morning (mild) and for about an hour in the evening (hard).

Last labor I was more of a "breather", this labor I was more of a "moaner". It just felt better. If I sat down on the edge of the bed they were not strong, but as soon as I stood up they were immense. So I would sit for a break, then stand up and lean over on Charles for every contraction. I kept thinking this is like when you are at the gym and you’re not in pain, but you are on number 8 of your set of 12 and you feel like “I’m done” but you look in the mirror and push it out to 12 and then drop your weights and think “I did it, I knew my body could”.

It was dark in the room, and I just clung to Charles and worked through them. He really helped me to remember to relax and feel confident I could do it. In my head I thought “I don’t want to”, but I never allowed myself to begin to talk like that.

Another bonus of this labor than last time was last time I threw up all day and couldn’t eat anything. This time I ate all day and only threw up right at the end.

Margaret using the Doppler on my belly to listen to heartbeat

My midwife checked me at some point and said I was at a 9, and a few minutes later I told her I was ready to push, and she checked me again and sure enough I was at a 10. This is where it got fun.

5:00 PM

Last labor I squatted for about half hour and then got up in the bed to push the baby out in about 15 minutes. It was slower, more controlled crowning and lots of pauses in between  pushes. This time was very different. I got up in the bed to push about 5:15 and did slowly grunt through some pushes for about 25 minutes. These were not that bad at all though, it actually felt really good compared to the previous contractions without the ability to push with them. I was feeling a lot of pressure in my lower back by this point.

Charles has two birth traditions 1: make bread 2: make fun of me in a photo or video

5:40 PM

I started to become really restless and went from pushing on all 4’s in the bed to the birth chair to squatting to standing all in about 3 minutes. I think everyone was having a hard time keeping up with me. By watching the video, I’m pretty sure no one expected me to have a baby as fast as I was about to either.

All I know is I was standing beside the bed and pushing when I announced I was having this baby and my midwife was trying to encourage me to take it slow and easy and that I wasn’t going to do it just yet. However, I hopped up in the bed turned around and my body took over. I had involuntary pushes coming forth. This was a first for me. I choose to sit up in the bed and give birth again, because it was familiar to me and seemed to work great last time.

Watching the video in a matter of about 2 minutes Solomon’s head peaked through, crowned, came out and then his whole body followed. Very different from the previous time with Nation where it all happened slowly and over the course of about a half-hour to an hour.

He came out with a question [hand raised] "Excuse me, where am I?"

5:54 PM

Solomon was born.

[He didn't stay blue...by the way.]

I believe one of my first comments  was asking Margaret if she thought he was small, like maybe 7 pounds. I thought he looked so small, but she laughed because she knew better. He was 9 lbs 2 ounces. 20.5 inches. 13 cm head.

I don't regret breaking the water, my only "regret" is that I didn't do it sooner. I think my Bradley classes had made me a little weary of doing it, but now I know it was the best for my situation. I could have had him without it, but it might have been the next day and I was already tired from missing one nights sleep.

My midwife later joked that next time she'd just follow me around with a stick and poke me sooner. For whatever reason I got to nearly transition very quickly and then had an all day stall, until we broke that water and he followed just a few hours later.

Nation [21 months] and Solomon [a little over 21 minutes old]