Hannah Louise Pew
***Caution: Some of these pictures are a little personal. Although they don't show anything but skin, there may be some that make you uncomfortable.***
Also, I'm the first to admit, I'm not poetic. I'm very left-brained, so this birth story is more detailed and analytical. I hope you don't mind.
We were so blessed when we welcomed the fourth addition to our family. Hannah Louise Pew came into the world on June 6. She is perfect and we feel so grateful to have her in our family. After waiting 9+ months, it's been fun to finally see what she looks like and to see what her little personality is like.
Here is Hannah's Birth Story:
After much education, research, and prayer, Clark and I decided that we wanted to have our fourth child at our home. Our thinking and reasoning behind this will be explained in another post, but for now I'll say that having a home birth felt like the right thing for our family.
My "guess date" for this little child to arrive was June 1, 2011. I was hoping to have a May baby, but I also knew that I did not want to be induced, so I was content letting this baby come when she wanted. I had many contractions (we like to call them surges in hypnobirthing) throughout the last couple months of pregnancy, many of which started off feeling like the real thing. Towards the last week or so I'd have an hour where the surges would come about five minutes apart, but then they'd die down. It finally got the point where I decided that I didn't really know my body at all. As my "guess date" passed, I tried to stay positive. I tried not to stay home too much. I got out and tried to be as social as possible. This, I have to say, was the hardest part, because by this time, everyone knows you're overdue and has to make some comment about being late or when is that baby going to come, as if I knew. My friends and family were good to be careful with how they worded things around me. So overall, I was feeling good.
On Sunday, June 5, although it was not very comfortable, I went to church with our family in the morning. After church, my mom took my kids and I tried to rest at home. After resting, I rubbed some oils on my belly (hoping to get things going), then went for a walk with Clark. During the whole walk, my tummy was tight and contracted. I thought things might get going, but as soon as I arrived at my mom's things slowed down. Later that evening, however, I had another hour of good surges about four minutes apart and lasting about 20 seconds. But this only lasted that hour. When we got back to my house and got the kids down to bed, I began to have more surges. My mom had come over, sure that I was going to go into labor for real anytime. We played a game of Dominion and timed the surges. Again, for an hour, they were 4-5 minutes apart and lasted about 20-30 seconds. After that hour, they slowed down and then stopped. I sent my mom home and decided to go to bed. I rested quite comfortably all night only having a surge or two through the night.
The next day, Monday, June 6, I woke up feeling good. I continued having a few random surges, but nothing to indicate that this baby would come soon. My friend had offered to come and take my kids from 11am to 3pm that day, which I was so grateful for. Right around 11am when the kids left, I began to have more surges. These surges were much like the ones from the night before. They lasted about 40 seconds and came about every four minutes. I decided I should get in my birthing attire (yes, I had carefully thought about what I'd wear during birth. A girl still has to look cute as she's bringing a baby into the world).
During these surges I continued to do my "surge breathing", which helped me stay calm and relaxed. The surges weren't painful. I was excited to know that with each surge, I was getting closer to seeing my baby. After a little more than an hour, the surges started to get about three minutes apart and I was pretty sure they weren't going to stop. We called Heather, our midwife, to let her know. At this point, the surges were getting stronger and harder to breathe through. I decided it was time to get in the bathtub. This was probably around 12:30 or 12:45. Oh man, I can't even tell you how great it felt to get in the water. As the tub filled up, Clark poured water over my belly. It was heavenly.
At this point I think the surges were coming pretty quickly. Janae, another midwife, got there first right as I was getting in the tub. Heather arrived about 10 minutes or so after that (I could totally be off on the times, as I was not focused on watching the clock). I was getting uncomfortable by this time. My arms and legs felt very tingly and were going numb. They gave me some oxygen, which helped a ton.
Although I'd always envisioned reclining slightly in the tub to give birth, it didn't feel right, so I ended up either on my hands and knees or in a squatting position. I soon began to feel like I needed to push. Mentally, this was the hardest part for me. By this time, my water had not yet broken (in all of my previous pregnancies my water was broken for me). For some reason, in my mind, I didn't think I could push since my water hadn't been broken yet. I kept thinking, "what am I going to do, push the whole bag of water out?" I kept asking for my water to be broken so that we could get this thing over with.
Clark kept reminding me that we didn't want my water broken. Finally, my mom (who was working all the cameras at the time) looked at me in the eye and said, "Amanda, stop worrying about your water. If you feel like you need to push, then push." So I did. I gave a little push, and I think my water broke just a few minutes after that. I then felt like I need to push some more. I got up on my knees and gave another push. As I'm remembering it, it all went so fast that it's hard to put it into words. But as I watch the video back it seems as though there was some time that passed in between the few pushes. Being on my knees in the water, there wasn't a lot of room in the tub for her to be birthed, so the midwives asked Clark to get in the water to help hold me up a little higher.
He sat on the back edge of the tub and put his arms underneath mine. I was able to rest my arms on his legs a bit and give another push. Within a few minutes Hannah's head was out. Again, there wasn't enough room for the rest of her, so I got in a squatting position, but at this point I was too tired to lift myself up. Hannah's head had been out for about a minute and a half and they needed to get the rest of her out, so Clark gave me a big lift up, and as soon as he did, Hannah came plopping right out. Sounds kind of yucky, but that's really how it was. She kind of just plopped, at 1:29pm.
I immediately got to hold her and love her. She was kind of blue and dusky (which I hear is common for water birth babies), so it took her a few minutes to pink up. Her heart rate was kind of low, but slowly got back to normal. They gave her some oxygen, and Clark even got to give her a little one breath mouth-to-mouth to fill her lungs a bit. Within five minutes or so, Hannah was doing great. She was perfect. She had vernix covering her head. It went from her eyebrows all the way to the back of her head. She looked like a little alien. Her fingers and toes were long with beautiful, long nails at the end of each one. Pretty quickly she began sticking out her tongue which was our first indication that she wasn't tongue-tied (all three of our other children have been tongue-tied).
After another ten minutes or so, the placenta came out and I was ready to get out of the water. I'll be honest, this was the part that I was a little disgusted by. The water was kind of nasty and I didn't want to be in it for very long. Clark took Hannah and I got to get into my bed. I loved being able to be in my own bed and not some hard hospital bed. Clark and I then took some pictures with Hannah. She kept sucking on her hand the whole time, so we decided we should cut her cord and feed her. Because she wasn't tongue-tied, she latched right on and did a great job nursing. I've never had a child do such a good job nursing. I was so relieved.
Later in the day, another friend, who had taken my kids from the first friend, brought them by to see Hannah for the first time. It was so exciting. They loved her. They wanted to know what we named her. We'd talked mostly about naming her Hannah, but we also discussed a few other names, none of which the kids loved. They all loved Hannah. When I told Addi that we named her Hannah, she was so excited and gave me a big hug.
Also, I'm the first to admit, I'm not poetic. I'm very left-brained, so this birth story is more detailed and analytical. I hope you don't mind.
We were so blessed when we welcomed the fourth addition to our family. Hannah Louise Pew came into the world on June 6. She is perfect and we feel so grateful to have her in our family. After waiting 9+ months, it's been fun to finally see what she looks like and to see what her little personality is like.
Here is Hannah's Birth Story:
After much education, research, and prayer, Clark and I decided that we wanted to have our fourth child at our home. Our thinking and reasoning behind this will be explained in another post, but for now I'll say that having a home birth felt like the right thing for our family.
My "guess date" for this little child to arrive was June 1, 2011. I was hoping to have a May baby, but I also knew that I did not want to be induced, so I was content letting this baby come when she wanted. I had many contractions (we like to call them surges in hypnobirthing) throughout the last couple months of pregnancy, many of which started off feeling like the real thing. Towards the last week or so I'd have an hour where the surges would come about five minutes apart, but then they'd die down. It finally got the point where I decided that I didn't really know my body at all. As my "guess date" passed, I tried to stay positive. I tried not to stay home too much. I got out and tried to be as social as possible. This, I have to say, was the hardest part, because by this time, everyone knows you're overdue and has to make some comment about being late or when is that baby going to come, as if I knew. My friends and family were good to be careful with how they worded things around me. So overall, I was feeling good.
On Sunday, June 5, although it was not very comfortable, I went to church with our family in the morning. After church, my mom took my kids and I tried to rest at home. After resting, I rubbed some oils on my belly (hoping to get things going), then went for a walk with Clark. During the whole walk, my tummy was tight and contracted. I thought things might get going, but as soon as I arrived at my mom's things slowed down. Later that evening, however, I had another hour of good surges about four minutes apart and lasting about 20 seconds. But this only lasted that hour. When we got back to my house and got the kids down to bed, I began to have more surges. My mom had come over, sure that I was going to go into labor for real anytime. We played a game of Dominion and timed the surges. Again, for an hour, they were 4-5 minutes apart and lasted about 20-30 seconds. After that hour, they slowed down and then stopped. I sent my mom home and decided to go to bed. I rested quite comfortably all night only having a surge or two through the night.
The next day, Monday, June 6, I woke up feeling good. I continued having a few random surges, but nothing to indicate that this baby would come soon. My friend had offered to come and take my kids from 11am to 3pm that day, which I was so grateful for. Right around 11am when the kids left, I began to have more surges. These surges were much like the ones from the night before. They lasted about 40 seconds and came about every four minutes. I decided I should get in my birthing attire (yes, I had carefully thought about what I'd wear during birth. A girl still has to look cute as she's bringing a baby into the world).
Clark kept reminding me that we didn't want my water broken. Finally, my mom (who was working all the cameras at the time) looked at me in the eye and said, "Amanda, stop worrying about your water. If you feel like you need to push, then push." So I did. I gave a little push, and I think my water broke just a few minutes after that. I then felt like I need to push some more. I got up on my knees and gave another push. As I'm remembering it, it all went so fast that it's hard to put it into words. But as I watch the video back it seems as though there was some time that passed in between the few pushes. Being on my knees in the water, there wasn't a lot of room in the tub for her to be birthed, so the midwives asked Clark to get in the water to help hold me up a little higher.
He sat on the back edge of the tub and put his arms underneath mine. I was able to rest my arms on his legs a bit and give another push. Within a few minutes Hannah's head was out. Again, there wasn't enough room for the rest of her, so I got in a squatting position, but at this point I was too tired to lift myself up. Hannah's head had been out for about a minute and a half and they needed to get the rest of her out, so Clark gave me a big lift up, and as soon as he did, Hannah came plopping right out. Sounds kind of yucky, but that's really how it was. She kind of just plopped, at 1:29pm.
Clark holding Hannah for the first time.
After we cut the cord and fed her, she was weighed and measured. I expected her to be pretty big. Kimball was four days late and weighed 7-15. Addi was a day early and weighed 8lbs even. So I figured with Hannah being five days late she'd be over 8 lbs, but she wasn't. She was 7lbs 7 oz. She was, however, very long, 21 1/4 inches.
I love the above picture. First, because it shows the darling quilt my friend made for Hannah. Second, because she still looks slightly alien like with a little film of vernix still on her head. And third, because it shows her cute, un-tied tongue sticking out.
Looking a little better wrapped up with Grandma holding her.
Later in the day, another friend, who had taken my kids from the first friend, brought them by to see Hannah for the first time. It was so exciting. They loved her. They wanted to know what we named her. We'd talked mostly about naming her Hannah, but we also discussed a few other names, none of which the kids loved. They all loved Hannah. When I told Addi that we named her Hannah, she was so excited and gave me a big hug.
Sammy holding Hannah for the first time.
Addi's turn to hold Hannah. She was so excited, and Kimball was right there trying to help.
Comments
Thanks for sharing, I have a friend who recently had her baby at home. It's so interesting to hear the details :).
Katrina
Thank you for sharing it with us.
xoxo
Mônica
i will show this to Bianca, she is all kind of supportive of this type of delivery.
Wag Paiva