Chiara’s birth story

Baby girl is here! I’m typing this – in way too much detail because it’s still fresh in my mind (sorry not sorry!) – with her sleeping on my chest. The best.

Chiara’s birth was … so cool. Looking back at it – and telling the story to friends – I’ve realized it had this intuitive vibe from the start. And so much grace! And I think it starts on Saturday morning.

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Saturday May 25
I had plans to go to confession, so just before 10am I got to campus and it was a gorgeous, sunny morning. As I’m walking up to the Basilica, a lady looks at me and says, “Wow, you look like you’re due any day now.” I think I said, “Yeah, just about,” and then thought, “That’s a bold thing to say to a stranger,” and also, “It’d be funny if I went into labor tonight, after she said that.” After confession, I had the idea to text friends to ask for prayer requests that I could offer up when labor did start, thinking I might as well do that now when I had some time. It was nice to get their responses and feel close to them throughout the day.

At home, I got a good nap, and then we all went to the baptism of our friends’ three week old baby. At the party afterward, as we were saying goodbye, my friend said, “See you at mass tomorrow!” And I had this split-second thought flit through my mind – “No, you won’t,” – before saying, “Oh, yes! See you tomorrow!”

We got home and immediately, before we changed out of our nice clothes or even went inside, I told Chris, “Let’s switch the car seats around right now.” It was so hot, but I couldn’t rest until the crumbs were shaken out, Evange’s new car seat was put in, her old one turned around for Zelie, and baby’s put in Chris’s car. Chris did it all, but he asked, “Why do you want this done right now?” And I said, “Well, you know, just in case I go into labor tonight.” He said, “You think you’ll go into labor tonight??” and I said, “I don’t know, maybe!!” Because it was starting to feel that the more last minute preparations we did, the closer she was to being born. And I wanted to be prepared!

Around 6:30, I noticed that the pressure I often felt was now feeling more like a cramp, and keeping an eye on the clock, I saw that it was happening about every 15 minutes. I didn’t say anything, but asked Chris to set up the co-sleeper and changing table in our room. Those were my last big nesting things to get done. I pulled out the newborn size diapers and clothes, and quietly started packing my hospital bag. I told Chris, “I think this is happening.” And based on how labor went with Zelie, I thought for sure I’d be having this baby by early the next morning. Only then did I realize – I have no plan in place for the girls if we need to go to the hospital tonight. I had been so sure that Chiara wouldn’t come until my mom arrived on May 29 that I hadn’t found anyone to be back up in case she came early. So I quickly texted two friends and got that sorted out.

After the girls were down, I watched Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals with Chris – which was actually a great game and a perfect distraction – and went to bed (too late) around midnight.

Sunday May 26

I woke up at 5:30am surprised that I was still at home, still having about the same mild contractions. My friend Annie was still on standby to take the girls if we needed to go, but by 8:30am they seemed to be slowing down, and I was really tired. It seemed like labor with Evangeline, except this time we had two kids. Chris asked if I wanted to try to get things moving, by taking a shower and walking around and I agreed, but when I went upstairs I ended up taking a bath and then napping for two hours, lol.

So it was turning out to be a slow Sunday at home. By noon I was feeling somewhat silly for having texted my friends to be on the alert, and a bit discouraged, and just confused – would contractions stop completely? I’d thought I’d already have a baby by now. After Evange’s quiet time, we had some good time together while Chris and Zelie napped, and every 20 minutes or so I’d pause and bend over and breathe through a contraction. (She wasn’t too bothered by this once I explained that it was called a contraction and that it was because the baby was going to come out soon. Zelie was more freaked out.) I started thinking that maybe we’d all go to a 5pm mass together and a friend’s Memorial Day BBQ after that.

By 4:30 though, the contractions picked back up and were coming every 10 minutes. We nixed the plan for mass and opted for frozen pizza, and Chris took the girls out to play in the backyard. Annie brought some groceries over for us around 5pm and offered to take the girls to her house for dinner. They were super excited about this so they all left and Chris and I sat in the backyard and ate together. Now contractions were getting more painful, 1 minute long, and 4-5 minutes apart. I found a ritual that was working well to get me through – I hummed a Taize song, Chris sang it, and he put counter pressure on my belly by pulling on a (mermaid princess) towel wrapped around my waist. The song gave me something to think about and kept me breathing, it was such a nice day, it felt good to be outside, and I felt calm and relaxed. I started to realize, though, that when Annie brought the girls back, I wasn’t going to be able to labor away by myself for an hour while Chris put them to bed. So I texted Annie and asked her if she could stay with me while Chris did bedtime.

My surprise doula 

get yourself a doula friend

From 6:30 to 7:30, Annie stepped in to help, and I quickly lost any feelings of self-consciousness and got back into my groove of humming my Taize song and letting her pull on the towel. And I discovered that Annie was exactly the person I needed to help me. She asked if I’d like to be massaged, and started massaging my arms and legs between contractions, and hips and back during them, and it was AMAZING. She was the doula I didn’t know I needed. In my bedroom, with sunshine pouring through the open window, we chatted away until I would groan, signaling the next contraction was starting, and we’d get in position, and then carry on talking when it was over. I was still so relaxed, and I realized, “This is my Ina May moment!” LOL.

By the time Chris came and found us, we were walking around the backyard – me leaning/hanging on Annie’s shoulders during contractions – and he asked if I was ready to go to the hospital. I was starting to think we should go soon-ish, but wasn’t feeling rushed, even though they were coming every 3 minutes or so. I was like, “I don’t know, what do you think?” And Chris was like YUP.

What I did know was that I wanted Annie to come with us. At that point, I didn’t think I could have this baby without her so I called an audible – sorry, Chris. (He was fine with it). So she called another friend to come stay with the girls, and Kate was here by 8pm. Chris got our bags in the car, and only then did I realize, “Oh shoot, can I even get in the car??” L-O-L.

Finally going to the hospital 

I had two contractions in the car on the 10 minute drive to the hospital that were TERRIBLE because I was sitting down. Then one in the parking lot, two in the ER lobby, and then we were up in triage. I was humming away, and the humming was starting to turn into moaning/yelling but I did not care anymore. And, lo and behold, I was at 8cm!! Chris and I couldn’t believe it. I think we’d been so chill because we thought maybe I was at 5 or 6cm. But this was HAPPENING.

In the delivery room, I leaned on the couch by the window for a while because it was still sunny and there was a pretty view from the fourth floor, but that soon became uncomfortable and I didn’t care about the view anymore. The midwife raised the bed and I stood and leaned on it, with Chris behind me with the towel, and Annie massaging my hips and legs, and neck and head, once she arrived. (The midwife couldn’t believe she wasn’t a doula, btw.) They put an IV in my arm – I think in case I needed fluids? – and said I could keep an epidural open as an option, if I wanted. I said, sure. I had a moment of slight panic thinking, “I’m at 8cm – wow – but how much longer is there? Can I make it to the end without the epidural?” But mostly I felt confident and not afraid and just good. I stopped thinking about the epidural and just focused on doing my ritual and really, not thinking. (I think I ended up ripping the IV out accidentally and not even noticing.)

Then, during a really big contraction, my water broke, which had never happened to me before. It felt to me like a huge gush and splash all over the floor – I thought it had soaked Chris’s jeans and shoes (it had not). After that my midwife suggested I try getting on hands and knees on the bed, which sounded good to me because my legs felt like they were about to give out. She had asked me a couple times if I felt like pushing, and I had said, “I don’t know,” but once I got on the bed a contraction came pretty quickly and I think I yelled, “I want to push!” and I pushed a few times through that one. I thought she would move Chris out of the way immediately, but he stayed behind me until right before the next contraction, and on that one, I pushed baby out. CRAZY TOWN.

Chiara Julie was born at 9:40pm on Sunday May 26. Chiara is for some inspiring Italian women – Blessed Chiara Badano, Chiara Corbella Petrillo, and Saint Clare of Assisi – and Julie for my mother-in-law. She was 7 pounds 11 ounces (same as me and her aunt Megan) and I never heard how long she was. She looks exactly like Evangeline as a baby, and maybe Chris too. She’s gonna lose all that hair on the top of her head and be a lil monk baby, and I’m wondering if she’ll be our first blue eyed girl.

She was my unexpected natural birth. Slow and fast. Peaceful and intense. Surprising and amazing. What a gift, so much grace.

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Zelie’s birth story

I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about labor as the third time around approaches – wondering if it’s going to follow the pattern of the first two (slowwww) and getting stressed out about sort of wanting/wanting to want to do it naturally and then finally getting back to where I was at originally (there’s no trophy for that and epidurals have been great for me and we’ll see what happens). And I figured it would help me to remember an actual labor I went through and better late than never on writing out Zelie’s birth story!

Zelie was due on April 14, which was Good Friday. It made for an interesting Lent for me, because it was a time of preparation in lots of ways. With her birth, I would stop working indefinitely and a couple months later, we would be moving to Indiana. A lot of transition on the horizon.

On Palm Sunday, I went to an event at my parents’ church in the afternoon and I felt kind of “off,” so I wasn’t terribly surprised when contractions started around 9pm that night. I tried to be chill about it and waited like half an hour before telling Chris, and then told him we should try to go to sleep, because who knows how long this would go on. After probably an hour of not sleeping, I gave up, because standing and moving felt better. I called the birth center at some point – maybe to see if they had a bed available? – and they suggested I try taking a shower. That felt great, and contractions sped up, so I called my mom so she could drive over the hill from San Jose. She arrived and I think I told Chris to nap and my mom helped put pressure on my back, and then they switched off and by 5am or so it seemed like we should go in. I think my mom stayed with Evange and then dropped her off at a dear friend’s house at a more reasonable hour (like 6am – thank the Lord for moms being up early!) and joined us at the birth center. (Wow, so much I don’t remember about that night – I really should write my birth stories before two years have passed…)

I was only at 3cm when I arrived at the birth center and I was worried they would send me home, but they did not. PRAISE. Once I was in my own room, it was close to 7am and I hadn’t really slept all night, so Chris and I both tried to sleep. I remember being tired enough that I really did doze off and would just squeeze his hand through the contraction and then fall back asleep until the next one. That went on for maybe an hour or so, and then the midwife came in and checked me – and I was maybe at 6cm – and we talked about laboring for a while longer and then getting an epidural. I was surprised that it was offered so soon – everything felt like it was going so much more quickly compared to Evangeline’s labor. I’d only had one sleepless night so far! The pain wasn’t even that bad yet! I felt like I was wimping out with getting the epidural this early on, but I also knew how I had dilated so quickly after getting it with E, and I didn’t want another 50 hour labor. So, at this point it was morning, I was up and walking around, eating some food, laboring away, and feeling just this pleasant surprise at how quickly and yet peacefully everything was proceeding. As I got the epidural, my mom was chatting up the nurses and the anesthesiologist and I just kept thinking, “Wow, I don’t feel like I’m dying right now. Is this okay?”

The epidural wasn’t as strong, or didn’t work, or something – I wasn’t completely numb like with Evange. But I was happy about that because I still had these nagging worries that I was “cheating” somehow since I hadn’t hit that same low/discouraged/exhausted point like I had before. So I felt half the strength of the contractions, and when it was time to push (not much later), I could feel the pushing this time. And when she came out, I felt the “ring of fire,” and yelled in this way that seemed totally involuntary, like a primordial scream from my gut, totally out of my control, and she was born and it. was. awesome.

It was only 11:30am. The sun was shining, it was about 14 hours from when the first contractions had started, and I had a baby in my arms. She was 6 pounds, 7 ounces and seemed so much smaller than E had been. And she was hairy! Little hairy back and butt. 🙂 So cute. I kept feeling surprised that it had been so chill and peaceful, and was over already.

It was Monday of Holy Week, and I felt well enough, and we had family in town, that I was able to do Triduum stuff with her and Chris – and it felt like no big deal taking a newborn out! Crazy how much I’d learned and how expectations had shifted in those 19 months since E.

 

Now I’m anticipating meeting this next baby girl in less than two weeks! Gonna try to type out her story (maybe one-handed) this summer while it’s still fresh in my mind.

 

first born out of my womb (a birth story three years late)

First born out of my womb, love of my life. That’s something my mom would say to me growing up, or at least how I remember it. Kinda weird but also great, like my mom (love you!). Chris and I are both oldest children and, let’s be real, there’s just something special about that first baby. Evangeline Marit made us parents for the first time. And, as I’m realizing, everything new about parenting, we’ll hit first with her. At least the basic developmental things in these early years. So, as we celebrated her third birthday last week and I reminisce about these last three years, I thought I’d finally typity type out a birth story. If that’s your kind of thing, read on.

I went into labor three days before my due date, on a Tuesday night. I was lying in bed when I felt some cramping start and I was like, OMG IS THIS IT?? It died away and came back and so I was like, THIS IS HAPPENING! THESE ARE CONTRACTIONS, THIS IS LABOR! I made Chris get out the contraction timing app we had found and start timing me and had all this adrenaline going. We were both so excited. Labor is exciting! I was also so curious what contractions would actually feel like, because talking to moms and reading about labor, it seemed like no one could describe the pain very well. I had in my head that labor would be like running a marathon. It would be hard, I’d need endurance, and perseverance, but I could trust my body, it was made to do this, and I could do this. I would be smart about it, I would breathe my way through the pain, it would be awesome. So, it’s Tuesday night, contractions start and I am SO PUMPED.

LOL.

so large

and so tired

Those contractions (which I know now were very early pre-labor contractions) kept me up most of the night and were still far apart and I could talk through them (which I felt great about, because I had nothing to compare them to). Wednesday morning Chris didn’t go to work and we tried to figure out what do to. We went to daily Mass, came home and I managed to nap a bit, and then we got fro-yo and went for a walk on West Cliff. Oh Santa Cruz, I miss you.

Wednesday night – after 24 hours of this early labor business – I tried going to sleep because I was exhausted. But there was still so much excitement and adrenaline, so not much sleep. By 10 or 11pm the contractions seemed to be getting a bit more intense, so we called my mom and she drove over from San Jose. We called the birth center to ask when to come in and to see if they had room for me. They said to wait until contractions were closer together, but that we could come later. My mom arrived and relieved Chris, who had been putting pressure on my back during contractions, so he could nap. Then, around 5am, we headed to the birth center. And I was still so pumped. Like, I appeared calm, and I was focusing on breathing, but I was just so excited that it was actually happening. And that I was handling it well, so far.

We checked in and I was only at 3 cm. I was a bit disappointed, but I shook it off. We got into my room, and it was super nice. I ate breakfast, walked around, sat on a yoga ball, took a shower, and walked some more. At this point, I hadn’t really slept for two nights, but I was still riding the adrenaline high. The contractions got more intense throughout the morning but I had my head in the game. I was breathing through the contractions and kept thinking, My body knows what to do. I kept imagining that the more painful the contractions got, the more effective they were, and surely this was going somewhere.

The midwife checked my progress around 11am and I was at 5 cm. Okay! And then, around 1pm, 7cm! Woot! Things were getting more intense, and this was slower than I’d liked, but there was progress! And then … still 7cm. An hour later they broke my water to try to speed things up, and checked again an hour after that, and said, “Oh, looks like it’s 6cm.”

WHAT! I’M GOING BACKWARD?? That’s when I realized, This is nothing like a marathon. I have no idea how long this race is. There are no mile markers, there is no way to tell when the end will be. And with that, I was crushed. I was so discouraged that Chris got really worried. Without telling me, he sent texts to family and friends asking them to pray for me. I think it was probably around this point, I remember asking, Can they just cut the baby out of me? I’d really be okay with that. 

The midwife suggested getting in the tub to try to help me relax and get some rest. Chris got in with me to keep putting pressure on my back, and I tried to lean on him and sleep a bit in between contractions. After the tub time, I rallied a bit and decided to ask for some intervention. They gave me fentanyl, which takes the edge off the contractions, but only lasts for an hour. Once I got the IV in, I had to stay in bed, which was super uncomfortable. I have memories of lying on my back, staring out the window at the sun setting, and crushing Chris or my mom’s hands every contraction while making the weirdest, terrible moaning sounds. Part of me was amused at how weird I sounded, part of me felt bad for Chris and my mom having to sit there and listen to it for so long, and part of me just wanted to black out and wake up with a baby outside of my body.

Finally, around 8:30 or 9pm, I got an epidural. Sitting still on the edge of the bed for the needle shot was hellish, but at this point I didn’t care, because relief was finally coming. It had been 48 hours at this point. Once the epidural took effect, I was able to relax. The plan was for me to sleep a bit, but things started moving quickly. Soon, I was being told to push, and right after that, we met Evangeline!

We didn’t know if she was a boy or a girl, so that was a sweet surprise. We’d come with two boys names and three girls names, and right away I knew she was Evangeline Marit. With the epidural, I didn’t feel the pushing or her coming out, so I didn’t have as strong of a feeling of relief/giddiness as I did with Zelie, but man, when they held her up and said she was a girl and put her on my chest, it was amazing. And they left her there for over an hour, just letting us do skin to skin. And Chris pulled off his shirt so he could get some skin to skin time too. So cute.

skin to skin!

awwww

first diaper change!

It was a crazy long labor, and not what I expected, but I’m glad it was what it was. I wanted to have a natural birth, but I was open to whatever came up and open to interventions if needed, and it was definitely needed. There’s so much weird guilt, in some circles, about epidurals, so I’m glad I’ve had the experience of using one so I can say, You do what you have to do to have a good birth experience. Every woman is different, every baby is different, every birth is different. It wasn’t anything like running a marathon, it had some crazy emotional ups and downs, and we got this baby girl at the end. Now we’ll see if I get around to sharing Zelie’s birth story before she turns 3.

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getting some some to help that jaundice

one week old, hit the beach!