a long time coming: the miles peter story

hello, my name is miles peter

{but you can call me pj}

it's funny when you tell yourself something for a long time, you begin to believe it. I told myself that pj would come no earlier than his due date {today} if not after. I wanted to prepare myself mentally for that since it happens so commonly in first-time pregnancies. pete, apparently, believed otherwise and knew this kid was coming early.

when my water broke last thursday evening I was in a small state of panic. this couldn't be happening now. it was at least a week too early. all my projects weren't finished. mentally I wasn't ready. I hate to say it, but I was slightly freaking out. {and after months of preparing for a calm, gentle birth experience through hypnobirthing, this didn't seem like the right thing to be doing.}

since the midwife I talked to wasn't convinced it was my water that had broken, we waited it out until friday morning to finally go to the hospital. it was pretty apparent that baby wasn't just sitting on my bladder funny for 15 hours. I was not peeing my pants here.

since it had been so long since I had ruptured the midwife really wanted to get things started. pitocin was definitely not on my list of things I wanted during my birth: drugs to induce me, harder labor contractions, et cetera. not what I wanted. but after four hours of trying to get things going naturally and no real results, I was hooked up to the machine and they started the pitocin drip. which, by the way, meant continual monitoring for both me + baby. not what I wanted either.

I labored naturally for 20 hours on the pitocin. I had some serious back labor, meaning all my contractions were felt in my lower back, not uterus. it was hard, it was intense, and for all of you doubtful of the whole "no pain, just pressure" mantra so commonly used by hypnobirthing mammas I'm hear to tell you that it's true -- well, it's all in your perspective of pain. I will tell you one thing, without hypnobirthing there is no way I could have done it for so long without getting some sort of relief. I was having the calm and gentle birth I had envisioned, even if it wasn't the way I had envisioned it. I was strong. I felt empowered. I was a women doing what millions of other women had done before me: I was birthing my baby. it really is an amazing process. I encourage any woman who is considering going the natural route to look into hypnobirthing {don't let the hokey sounding name scare you off -- all it really is is teaching yourself to go in and out of a deep state of relaxation when you want to. of releasing the fear of childbirth and realizing the power of the body; it was made to birth and the baby's body was made to be birthed. really, you are working together.} because I am such a firm believer in it now. the breathing techniques and the affirmations are what helped me through. I can't say enough about it.

by early friday morning I was dilated to a 9. almost there. it could be any minute. a few hours later I was still only dilated to a 9. that's when the bomb was dropped on me: we will have to up the pitocin considerably and it might take 4 - 5 hours to get your body where it needs to be. during this time pj had apparently been sitting on some sort of nerve and my whole right leg hurt terribly and my right foot had started to go numb. there was no way I could keep this up after 20 hours under these conditions, especially with higher dosages of pitcocin running through me. I needed relief. I needed to rest. I chose to get an epidural.

and yes, the epidural was nice. I got to sleep. I was relieved of the intense back labor. I mean, after all, I still needed some strength left for pushing. after 20 hours, I was ok with the decision.

a few hours later I was finally dilated to a 10. okay, we can try pushing now. I'll tell you this, it was all a little anti-climactic. there we all were, after I had just taken a long nap, and I was told to push as everyone sat there looking at me. kind of awkward, really. but I started to do the whole pushing thing to bring little pj down the birth canal. which they let me do for five hours. five hours of pushing. they were strong enough to get him all the way down -- you could even see his head -- but then he wouldn't stay in that station, but slide back up. eventually they said something had to be done soon, so they tried the forceps. which didn't work either because even though I could push him down far enough, the docs couldn't get a good position on his head to make it safe enough to even attempt. last resort: c-section. again, the last thing that I wanted. ever. my birth was not going according to plan here. but I am ultimately ok with that: I feel that I did everything possible to get him here and he just wasn't cooperating. why wasn't he cooperating? well, his head was just in a funky position -- brow up, as they say. because of this it was hard to get my cervix to finish dilating and it was hard to get him through the birth canal. he was just stuck.

the c-section was the quick part in this whole process. they wheeled me in, cut me open, grabbed little pj, sewed me back up. pete got to watch the whole thing. at 11:56pm on saturday night, our sweet babe finally entered the world.

after he was out pete went over to look at him, he came rushing back to me and said he thinks it was a miles. it was so sweet. and so fitting; it took a lot to get this kid here.

I am now at home recovering after a full week spent in the hospital during this whole ordeal. I developed a little case of foot drop that will hopefully resolve itself on its own. otherwise I feel great under the circumstances. we have loved becoming our little family of three.

thank you one and all for your kind thoughts + actions. once again, we feel the love all around us.

miles peter | 8pounds 7ounces | 21 inches | 11:56 pm | saturday, september 19, 2009