Home Water Birth #2

Jonathan Russell was born Jan 6, 2012 at 2:52 pm.  He shares a birthday with his Uncle Bud and is named after his Uncle Russell.  He was 9 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long.  My labor with him was the first I've had the started first thing in the morning.

Mom had been staying with us for, I think, a little over a week, and Dad had been at our house for two nights.    I woke up feeling good, a stark contrast from the deep depression of the previous few days, and wanted to get out of the house and get my mind off of the fact that there was still no baby.  We all decided to take the kids to Cabela's and walk around.  We entertained the idea of taking TRAX up to the planetarium in SL, like we did a few years ago with Grandma and Grandpa, but as the morning progressed and contractions did not die off, we decided we better stick a little closer to the house.  I put off telling Justin that any action was happening because I wanted to make sure I got out of the house.  He WAS a little nervous to leave but I could tell we had enough time.  Cabela's was fun and I'm sure helped the early part of labor go much faster than it would have sitting at home.

I had the perfect helpers for Jonathan's birth.  Dad kept Joshua, Austin, and Avin happy and entertained around town.  Justin, Mom, and Justin's Mom were perfect labor support, doing counter pressure, and helping me stay relaxed with affirmations.  They worked together perfectly and made it the easiest labor for me thus far because I was able to stay quite relaxed.  I read recently that fear creates more hormones in your body that increase pain, and relaxation creates more hormones in your body that act as natural pain killers.  It was cool I could really tell the difference with those relaxation hormones.  Danielle, my sister-in-law, did beautifully as the midwife, and Katelyn (sis-in-law) was the perfect errand runner for everyone during labor.

The end of Jonathan's birth was a little different and challenging because Jonathan kind of got stuck a few times and I could tell things were not progressing as usual at those points.  Luckily, they didn't last too long and even right after he was born I never felt like giving birth was something I would never want to do again.  Instead, for the first time, I felt like birth is something I could totally handle; not easy, but very doable.

Cool side note....the first night after the birth, I was up a lot in the night between the baby and my cramping.  Without really thinking anything of it, I was putting my hand on my cramping, hard as a rock uterus and noticed feeling comfort from that as I was breathing.  Even though I have been known to do energy work, I still wasn't even consciously, purposely thinking of it as that, it just kind of was happening.  I just kept breathing into my hand and uterus as it would ache and it would provide some comfort.  The thing that is extra cool about that is that my midwife/ sister-in-law said in the following days that my uterus went back down to size several days faster than usual.  I'm sure that was why.  A few other natural things I've been doing to try to assist in quick healing are herbal sitz baths and drinking some raspberry/ comfrey tea every day.  

Jonathan is SUCH a sweet baby, and hardly cried at all when he was born.  He already sleeps through the night (except just to eat of course) and his brothers love him to death.  I've been feeling really grateful, and love growing this fun family that will get to support each other forever.