Olivia Nicole has FINALLY arrived!!

Everyone wants to read the labor story, so here it is!!

Olivia Nicole Pelletier 6/28/2010 7:55am 8lbs 10oz 22" long

Sunday June 27th Tim, Dylan and I decided to go hide for the day at the movie theater movie hopping.. we went to see one movie together then broke up and the boys went to see one movie and I went to another on my own. When we left something stupid happened and of course being overly pregnant and sensitive I started crying. Dylan and Tim were both trying to comfort me and we decided to go to an early dinner.

IN the back of my mind I had heard having a good cry started labor so I decided not to worry about crying and let it all go. I cried through dinner at the restaurant, I'm sure Tim & Dylan were thrilled but other people around us managed to ignore me which I was grateful for.

So we got home and I just was feeling cruddy from crying so I went to lay down and Tim's parents came over (they had just driven in from Arizona for a visit). Around 7:30 I finally went out for a walk with the dog and ran into some neighbors who wanted to talk.. While on my walk with Blue I started having some contractions that actually hurt. Then once I got home I was talking to Tim's mom and noticed the contractions stayed going and were strong, but were not consistent.

As soon as they left Tim & I went back out for another walk, hoping to keep the contractions going. Once we got walking they stayed but were all over the place.. one minute apart, 4 minutes, 7 minutes.. this continued after we got home. I called my mom just to tell her and started logging the contractions but they were still 4 minutes apart then 11 minutes, all over the place and obviously false labor. I finally fell asleep around 12:30 and woke up to a few contractions over the next couple hours.

At 3:50 am I woke up to the worst contraction yet, I was screaming and Tim was fumbling all over the bed to try to find me to figure out what was going on. He managed to find my hand just as I felt a POP and felt a major gush and I was yelling "oohh my god" and Tim was all "whhahhht is going on"? I got up to go to the bathroom and sure enough more clear amniotic fluid came gushing out. I grabbed a towel and laid it out in the middle of the loft, took off my night shirt and was on all fours yelling for Tim to get my phone and was dialing my mom. I was on the phone with my mom and got back up because I thought I had to go to potty again and was on the phone screaming bloody murder with my parents listening on the other end (I heard later my mom had the phone on speaker so my dad heard the whole commotion).

My parents got in the car right away and I called my midwife who sent the nurse over. The nurse came over rather quickly, it seemed like no time had passed but in that time Tim was busy setting up the birthing tub and trying to help me the best he could. The nurse Karen was the first to arrive and she got to the top of the stairs and here I am naked on all fours on a towel in the middle of a contraction. All she could say is "oohhhh sweeeeetie" and she dropped her bag and was at my side. Karen became the only person that I wound up listening to and focusing on throughout the labor, not sure why but even when my midwife would say something for some reason I couldn't process it unless Karen repeated it or touched me.

My parents showed up next, my dad came to get the dog which luckily Blue didn't put up a fight. From the second I popped out of bed screaming to hours after the birth I couldn't figure out where the dog had gone. I felt really bad because I must have scared the devil out of Blue. My dad assures me that Blue was fine and continues to do fine over at his house although the first day was a little rough for him.

So now my mom is there so she is running around trying to get pots of water boiling for the tub, the tub is now mostly filled and I'm getting in but it's too cold to birth the baby in. The nurse checked me and I'm dilated to 8, never heard how effaced I was but to me I was so glad that I wasn't the girl who cried wolf. For all the pain I was in I was worried that the nurse would get there and I would only be dilated to 2 and still have a long painful labor ahead of me.

Time was all a blur for me, the next thing I know my midwife was here with her assistant Becky.. a house full of very supportive educated woman and my poor hubby trying his best to do everything that needed to be done. I had everything very organized in preparation for the birth but of course while I'm in labor people are asking where this or that is and I'm all frustrated growling that "IT'S ALL HERE, UNDER THE TABLE, IN THE BIN" etc pointing towards rooms/areas where I had the supplies.

I was in the tub laboring, trying not to tense up and every contraction I would just put my hand outstretched (a trick I'd learned from my cousin to keep relaxed) on the outside of the tub. Funny enough I had just been reading BREAKING DAWN (the last Twilight book) that day and was reading the part about Bella burning. The words "it felt like I'd gone from being tied to the stake as I burned, to gripping that stake to hold myself in the fire" kept recycling in my mind. The pain was what it should be, my body was doing it's work and the pain was bringing me closer and closer to holding my precious baby safely in my arms. Karen would put her hand loosely on top of mine and talk me through the contraction, breathing and telling me my body was doing it's job. That's all I needed to hear to keep focused.

Eventually Debbie my midwife wanted to check me and she said right away that my cervix had a lip so she wanted me to get out of the tub to have it pushed back. Once out of the tub I was still laboring and did start pushing but that darn lip kept coming back.

Later I heard that I had pushed Olivia's head really far out 5 times in a row and I kept stopping short and she would slide right back in. At some point Debbie was telling me to push past the "ring of fire" and I wasn't there yet. I thought I was only thinking I wasn't there yet, but my mom told me that I actually did say it out loud. Pushing on the floor outside the tub on the floor wasn't working and my midwife suggested we move. Luckily Tim & I think Becky (the midwife assistant) had gotten the bed ready in a short amount of time and in bed I climbed. I didn't like laying down to push, so then I was on all fours in bed.. that wasn't working and I wound up on my right side with Tim behind me and my mom standing behind the bed behind Tim. Debbie was still holding that lip of my cervix trying to guide me where to push and Becky & Karen were holding my legs in place and verbally walking me through the birth.

Eventually I could feel her moving down and from what my mom said I actually said this out loud, but I do not remember actually saying that out loud either. Once I got her head out I was breathing in a hyperventilating type fashion and all I was saying was "okay okay okay okay okay okay" or something like that just trying to focus. I had to get the shoulders out and Debbie was down there trying to get them out and the next thing I felt was a huge gush of relief. I looked down and she was out on the bed, Debbie, Becky, and Karen were scrambling to clean her up a little, look at her, and get her to my chest.

Tim was behind me crying, my mom was crying and babbling, and all the ladies were cooing over how beautiful she was. Funny thing was, I never stopped myself in that minute as I normally do to breath in and out and really etch that moment into my memory. I did that with Dylan's birth and with some other major times in my life where I wanted to remember everything as it was happening around me. I didn't do that but I don't think I'll forget.

A few things that I didn't fit into the story. Any noise that diverted my attention REALLY ticked me off during the labor. At one point my mom was making coffee downstairs, and her coffee maker has a grinder on it (I don't drink coffee so my mom had to bring her own supplies for everyone). I was yelling down the stairs to "SHUT THAT FUCKING NOISE UP RIGHT THE FUCK NOW" or some such shit.

Also, Tim was behind me on the floor next to the tub and he kept trying to get behind me to support me but I was just REALLY uncomfortable no matter what position I was in and didn't want to be moved or touched. At one point again a noise that diverted my attention annoyed the hell out of me, it was Tim's breathing in my ear. So I waved my arm to get him away from me and smacked him in the face.. ooops.. I heard later my midwife said that she had never felt so sorry for a husband in a homebirth situation because I wouldn't allow him to help at any time. Tim really thinks it's because I was transitioning already when I was awoken in major pain so we never had the time to labor together and for him to figure out what I liked and didn't like. Of course, it didn't help either that he had to be running around setting things up and once Karen got here and I focused on her there was no breaking through my mental blockage for anyone else.

Another noise that was annoying to me was the birds outside.. they were going from the time I walked in the loft to labor until I'm sure after the birth. As with Dylan's birth I kept thinking "once the sun comes up this will be over" so in my head I could have this birth done and over with by 7:02 am (the time of Dylan's birth). Once we moved into my bedroom I had my eye on two clocks and we passed 7am and I wasn't happy that she wasn't out yet. Once she was born I heard 3 different times she was born and realized it was because the two clocks are a few minutes apart. Everyone agreed she was born at 7:55am in the end.

In closing I have to say that this homebirth has completed something for me I wanted to do in my life. Part of my bucket list if you will??? Something I always said "if I ever get pregnant again this is how I want it". I didn't get my tub birth, but I got my home birth. I never imagined I'd deliver in my bed, but now I realize it was HER BIRTH and in the end I wouldn't have changed a thing about it.

My worst nightmare of one driving, one in diapers has become what makes my heart beat every minute of every day and what NOW completes my world...

"I GAVE BIRTH AT HOME. NOT BRAVE. NOT CRAZY. JUST EDUCATED" ~ AUTHOR UNKNOWN