That's also when they started having trouble getting his heart rate on the monitor. Apparently he dropped two stations when my water broke so his heart was no where near the monitor anymore.
Between 9 and 9:30 they decided to check me again. I had progressed pretty quickly from 5 to 7cm and it had been a while since I was checked. It was a good thing they did 'cause he was definitely ready. The midwife Tanya came in to do the check. And she asked me if it was alright if she delivered my baby. It seems kind of funny that she would ask but that's totally what the midwives are about. And it makes me really glad that we chose them for this birth. So the fourth midwife we saw (Emily D. had popped in for a second at one point) was the one who helped Colin be born.
At one point the nurse Trish sat on the bed and explained how we would push. When she got up to take care of something my leg shot straight down the bed. I was definitely pretty numb. But it was funny 'cause it looked like I was kicking something.
They got everything ready and they asked how it all went with Kaida's birth. JR was bragging how I got her out in 5 pushes and that I only needed one stitch. I told him he was giving me a big reputation to live up to. But whatever, I rocked it anyway.
So unlike Kaida's birth where they pretended to get everything ready and had me do some pushes and when I made progress faster than they expected they hurried to really get ready, they got ready all the way to start with.
I asked for the mirror. It's hard to see what's going on while you're actually pushing but it's nice to be able to see the progress in between.
We did a practice push and everyone said "Whoa!" 'cause apparently that practice push made his head show. Tanya had me feel for it and it was really right there. I could feel a little bit to push this time so that was good. But my only indication that I was having a contraction was that it made me feel more hungry for a minute. Definitely didn't feel like a contraction though. Everyone thought that was funny. But hey, it worked.
I guess there were three more pushes after the practice push and he was born. His one arm was up under his chin and he stretched that out as soon as he could and then the other arm was down at his side so when he came out he had his arms spread wide.
They thought he looked like he was flying, JR thought he was saying "Ta-Da! I'm here!"
I pulled him up onto my chest and JR cut his cord. We got to stay like that for quite a while before they wanted to suck him and weigh him and get him warmed up.
6 pounds, 13 ounces, 20.5 inches long. 9:58 am.
Tanya delivered the placenta and said everything looked good and that I didn't have any tears or scratches. Everyone was impressed by my "stetchy bottom", I feel like I should be proud but that's a little strange.
He latched on like a champ and we actually nursed twice while waiting to go to our post partum room.
It was great.
After he was born I joked that he was one push faster than Kaida so we'd have to keep having kids until I'm down to no pushes at all. JR said that there must be a correlation between increased gestation and decreased pushing (+ 2 weeks of growing time = -1 push) so to get down to zero pushes they'll have cooked for so long that they'll just crawl out on their own.
It's good that JR was sick and he hurt his leg when he fell in the bathtub. When he's sick/injured he is fantastic at making me laugh. It made for quite the horrific/enjoyable evening.
I can't wait to read Bethany's version of our birth story. An outside point of view must be totally different.
Colin is Born Part I
Colin is Born Part II
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