After a long-awaited arrival, Finnegan Jasper Dahl arrived at 6:23pm on Wednesday, May 13!
I have posted long and detailed birth stories for both of my other kids, so it's only fitting that I do the same for Finn. However, there was nothing long about his birth other than the pregnancy! In fact, I can probably cover it in a few sentences.
At 10 days overdue and after having had my membranes stripped unsuccessfully, my midwife sent me home with a container of castor oil and instructions to take 2oz. every two hours until I had taken all 6oz. At around noon, I held my nose (carefully making a point to not sniff the stuff before drinking it) and downed my first dose mixed in with a glass of pineapple juice. It was actually not too hard to get that first bit down. I fell asleep soon after that and napped for about two hours.
When I woke up, I felt crampy and kind of awful, but I chalked it up to the fact that I'd been feeling that way for a couple days, anyway. I thought it was just the gastrointestinal effects of the castor oil. I did not have any huge GI problems with the castor oil like some people have experienced, but it did make me have to use the bathroom a few times. No biggie though. I decided to get into the bathtub to help with the general queasiness I was feeling.
About three hours after I took the first dose, I texted my midwife and said I didn't want to take the second dose because I was feeling kind of icky. She encouraged me to try it, so after putting it off another hour or two (and rolling around miserably in the bed), I took the second dose. It was not so easy. I got about halfway through and had to spit a little out. And then, when I chugged the last bit, I started vomiting. I laid back down on the bed and within minutes, I started having defined contractions.
About 10 minutes passed before I pulled out my contraction timer at 5:10pm. My contractions were about one minute long and 2-3 minutes apart. That's fairly consistent with how my other labors started, but my others took 10/6 hours respectively. My hopes weren't up initially. But within just a few contractions, they were longer than a minute each and less than two minutes apart. My husband happened to arrive home around this time, and I told him we needed to go right away as I was already humming/moaning through the pain.
He told me he needed to fiddle with our baby gate arrangement before the big kids got home, and I told him, "Um, no. Uhhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. We have to go NOW."
As he helped me to the van, the kids drove up with the grandparents. Harper and Ezra were waving and saying, "Hi, Mommy!" I heard them, but I ignored them. I was humming and focusing on the pain. And even though we were in Portland's rush-hour traffic, we arrived at the birth center about 15 or 20 minutes later. The drive wasn't as miserable as my previous drives to the birth center because the contractions weren't quite as painful. I actually remember everything about Finn's labor - and I didn't with the other two because there were parts that were so unbearable.
When we arrived at the birth center, the midwives had already filled the birthing tub for me. There were candles lit, and it was a beautiful scene. I very quickly stripped down and got into the water. Ahhhh, relief. I asked for gas (nitrous oxide), and the head midwife responded that there was probably not enough time to get it set up before I would need to push.
Ha. Ha. HA! I thought that was hilarious given that my pain wasn't completely intolerable just yet, and my other labors had lasted far longer. But OK. I let one of the student midwives check my cervix (reluctantly - I REALLY didn't want to hear that I was only a 5 or something like that), and she said, "Um, you're complete. You can have this baby when you're ready."
What? WHAT? I mean, I did feel a little bit of a burning sensation on the way to the birth center (the kind that tells you that pushing is near), but I had no idea I was so close. But with that, I pushed down a little just to kind of test how it would feel, and sure enough, this baby was coming. Just a couple (maybe three? Head, head, body?) pushes later, and he was here.
That's right - from first contraction to delivery was a total of about an hour and 23 minutes. The contractions were definitely painful, but the whole thing was so quick that I never got exhausted, and they never hurt so badly I couldn't hum my way through them to cope. It was actually quite unbelieveable! When he came out, I sat in amazement that this thing had just happened. AND, Finn was my biggest baby at 8lbs 10oz. and 21" long. Ezra, my smallest baby, was my most painful since he was in the posterior position. Ouch.
There was actually no blood when he was delivered...no tearing...no stitching or any of that. Seriously, DREAM birth. The midwives estimated that I only lost 100cc of blood during the whole process which I guess is an extremely small amount for giving birth. They were all kind of in amazement at what had just happened.
Finn latched on to nurse within a couple minutes of being born, and we let his cord pulse for a while. Finally, I delivered the placenta, and they cut the cord. And that was that. His APGAR scores were 9/10. We ordered sushi to the birth center (which I didn't eat because the excitement of everything made me feel a little sick!), and the kids stopped by after their dinner with the grandparents to meet their new brother. I took a shower and settled in for the night with my new little guy. We went home the next day after being pampered with a massage and catered meals at the birth center.
Like I said, DREAM BIRTH.
Anyway, that was more than one paragraph, sorry! Now, Finn is sleeping on my chest as I type this. And I'm sure I have something I need to be doing. So, I will leave you with that! :)
