November 15th, 2009 by Overallgirl

Pushing my son out was truly a powerful experience…but also a little non-traditional I hear.  When I was finally ready to push, my birth team (2 homebirth midwives and doula), hubby, and the nurse were all in the room.  I was finding it way too distracting and couldn’t focus with so many people watching me when I didn’t even know quite what I was doing yet.  It felt like being on a football field with the whole stadium watching you when this is your first time playing football-you just want to get a leeetle more adept at something before you invite everyone over to watch you…and I wasn’t just playing football here!  I needed to get into my groove first.

I asked to have the lights off and to have everyone except Ben leave the room.  My birth team quickly made their exit but of course the Nurse on staff was hesitant because technically she was supposed to stay with me, by hospital rules.  Being as nice as she was though, she agreed to leave for a little bit and just check on me every 10 minutes or so.  Not too long later she checked in on me and found my husband sequestered away in the bathroom reading on a stool.  Yes.  I couldn’t even focus with Ben there at first so I had asked him to go into the bathroom and close the door for awhile so I could be totally alone in the dark to work out this pushing thing.

Later the midwives told me the Nurse saw this and came out to them and said something to the effect, “her husband is in the bathroom….should I be concerned?”  They assured her, that no, everything was fine and just to go with it.  She said okay but that this was a first for her- someone asking everyone to leave the room.  I guess I’m pretty fortunate that I got my wish in this case- not everyone would have been so obliging.  A little later the nurse checked on me and gently tried to help show me how to push more effectively.  To be honest, I was a little irritated that she was staying in the room so long watching me push and giving me pointers before leaving again, but of course in the end it’s good she did, because it would have taken a lot longer to push him out if she hadn’t helped me get into a better technique.  All total, I still pushed for 2 hours and 45 minutes before our baby boy popped out.

Did I ever let Ben out of the bathroom?  You bet I did!  I didn’t want him to miss seeing how powerful I really am!  So finally as I was getting closer to the head crowning, I called him back and my birth team and the nurse came back in.  At first when they were all there different ones would speak words of encouragement when I was pushing like, “that’s great, your doing so good….”  I found this distracting as well so on the next break I said, “please don’t talk when I’m pushing.”  All was silent for the next contraction, but then at the break while I rested it felt eerily quiet and made me self-conscious, so then I added, ” you can talk when I’m resting if you want.”  Then the doctor came in and I think she might have started to speak but everyone quickly warned her that I needed it quiet.  Again, I ended up having a great doctor who humbly acquiesed to my requests.  She even allowed the lights to be off through the very end, which is also unusual I believe.

All in all, while the majority of my labor was excruciating and so very difficult (another story for another time), the pushing phase really felt great and powerful and was actually fun for me.

November 14th, 2009 by Overallgirl

Apparently as a baby, I was a very quick, determined eater- wanted to get it over with as soon as possible so I could move on to other things. Nolan is the complete opposite- he would be content to simply snack on and off all day long, laying against me 24/7. Snack, fall asleep for a little bit, snack, fall asleep for a little bit…..the only problem is Mommy has to occasionally do things like, oh I don’t know, eat, use the bathroom, and take a shower. So we’re trying to get Nolan to be a little more focused when he’s eating instead of taking 2-3 hours to complete one meal….I can’t say for sure where he get’s his slow eating habits, but there are 2 people in our family who are known to this day for being slow eaters….(not naming any names- you know who you are…)

November 9th, 2009 by Overallgirl

Well Saturday and Sunday Nolan seemed extra fussy- he seemed to need to eat literally non-stop, cried voraciously when not feeding, and didn’t sleep almost all Saturday night! I think it was a growth spurt as they say infants have one between 2-3 weeks- Nolan’s behavior fit the behavior bill dead-on. And the neat thing is…I really feel like I can tell his little brain has grown! Ever since Sunday he’s been looking around him a lot more and you can tell he’s seeing new things and learning! It’s so neat to watch his face and eyes as he takes everything in around him.