For any male readers out there, here's the guy version: I had a baby. It was a boy and he was born at 5:45am on April 25th. He was healthy and adorable and we named him John Shepard. The end.
And now for the girl version...
It was 2am on Saturday morning, April 25. That was when I felt what I would later realize was the beginning of labor. It wasn't painful or really even all that different from the contractions I'd been having fairly consistently for the previous several weeks, and after taking notice of it I fell right back to sleep. I'm sure they were coming pretty regularly after that point, but I was blissfully unaware and able to sleep for over an hour. By 3:30 I knew for certain that I was in labor and assumed things would pick up pretty quickly. I was ready for some company by then so I woke Jimmy. He's not typically the easiest person to wake, but he was wide eyed and bushy tailed as soon as I told him the news. This was our first middle-of-the-night baby and it was exciting to think that everyone who would be so happy to hear about our new little one was sound asleep, completely unaware of the surprise that would be waiting for them when the sun came up.
The next 30 minutes were spent timing contractions (it's Jimmy's favorite part of labor, I think) and getting last minute things all set up. Even though I was still in "easy" labor at this point I was already so thankful to not be getting things ready for a car ride! Though I suspect that Jimmy was a tiny bit disappointed by the fact that he wouldn't get to make the "my wife's in labor I HAVE to drive like a maniac" run to the hospital that he usually gets to do.
Jimmy is much better about knowing how close things are getting than I am. He starts to get antsy once contractions get to around 7 or 8 minutes apart because he knows that they don't stay there for very long! By 4am that's exactly where we were and I had noticed a difference in the level of intensity. Lisa, my midwife, had given me a whole list of numbers where she could be reached. Jimmy called her cell phone first and it went to voicemail. No big deal, he then tried the house phone (the phone she had called me from just hours earlier) and was told that the call could not go through. Minor panic threatens to creep in, but it's okay because we still have a few more numbers to try... Husband's cell... voicemail. Birth center where she also catches babies... voicemail. Her cell again. 3 times. Voicemail each time. Now I'm starting to panic (just a tiny bit). My knight in shining armor knows that this problem cannot wait to solve itself; he's going to have to act, and fast. He quickly decides that he's going to make the drive to her house (25 minutes) and get her himself (I think it was his secret ploy to get that crazy drive in after all!). This was SO not my favorite idea (and I think I started crying), but I also didn't want our very carefully planned, peaceful homebirth to be attended by an ambulance crew either!
Thankfully we had already made arrangements with our good friend and next door neighbor to come over during labor to take photos and run interference should any of the children wake up needing us and she was "on call". Jimmy ran next door to tell her it was time and to add the little wrench in the plan - the fact that he was leaving for almost an hour. He ran back home while she prepared to come over and decided to put Lisa's numbers into his cell phone so that he could continue to call her while he raced to her house. As he entered her home number the call went through, it began to ring... and she answered! I have no idea why the call wouldn't go through from our house phone but it would go through on his cell, but I really didn't care at that moment because I was just so relieved that he didn't have to leave the house. With that small crisis averted, I was then able to settle back into my peaceful labor.
Having read and heard from many sources how relaxing and helpful warm baths are during labor, I had planned on experimenting with that for myself this time around and decided to get into the bathtub around 4:15. Those sources were right - it was ridiculously amazing. I really couldn't believe how much it relieved the contractions, which had begun to get more and more intense. Lisa and I had talked about waterbirth during my prenatal appointments and knowing that she was perfectly willing to allow me to stay wherever I was comfortable I began to think that I just might stay there until baby came. Lisa arrived about 25 minutes after I had gotten into the tub, at around 4:40. Despite having delivered a baby just a few hours before and being awakened after just 3 hours of sleep, she was so cheerful and happy when she came into our room. She sat and talked with me and we decided to check on the progress. I was about 7cm. Having already discussed my history of reletively quick labors we knew it wouldn't be too long before baby made his/her entrance.
Jimmy was wonderful, as usual. He stayed right there with me, telling me how great I was doing. I felt like I was handling the contractions pretty well, though I was glad for the two-ish minutes between contractions where I could just sit back and catch my breath. I remember looking up at him and telling him how thankful I was to NOT be getting into the car at that point! Caryn, Lisa's assistant, lives about 45 minutes from here and was on her way, though knowing how quickly things would likely progress Lisa enlisted Sarah's help in getting things set up and ready. She had turned our bedroom into a "birthing room", complete with various "stations" for laboring (a ball to labor on, a birthing stool and a bed prepped with tons of pillows), extra lighting, and all of her supplies, complete with an oxygen tank should either baby or I need it. When Lisa and I had talked about her role during my labor and delivery she had told me that she is very "hands off". Her philosophy is that a woman knows what she needs to do to get her baby out and she's just there to be the "expert in normal". At first I felt like I wanted to have someone tell me what to do, but realizing that I was able to do whatever I wanted or needed to do was an awesome feeling. By around 5:20 I was starting to get shaky and the happy, peaceful confidence I'd felt up until that point had been replaced by whines of, "I don't remember it being this hard" and "I'm ready to be done!", both of which are sure signs of transition for me. That bath that had felt completely amazing to me an hour before now made me want to jump out of my skin. I was hot, uncomfortable and nauseated on top of it all. My little piece of advice? Even though you might think you're doing good things for yourself by drinking a big green smoothie right before you go into labor, you're not. Don't do it. Let's just say it didn't taste nearly as good the second time as it did the first time. I was ready to ditch the bath and move to the bedroom. I moved to the stool for a couple of minutes, which is where my water broke. This was Jimmy's second favorite part of the labor. I felt and saw water shoot across the room, to which I replied, "I think my water just broke?" Apparently I was stating the obvious and Jimmy found it very funny. I, however, was not laughing. After a couple of minutes there I wanted to get onto the bed. Things were really moving at this point.
I really have no recollection of time during this portion of labor, though I do know that it felt like forever and I remember thinking that I hadn't remembered just how hard it is to birth a baby. After having done it four times before you'd think that the demanding nature of the task would be permanently etched in my mind, but I remember thinking at that point that it was harder then it had ever been and that this baby was surely a nine pounder. It had to be. Ben had been a little over eight pounds and I had noted the difference between seven and eight pounds during his birth. I was sure that I was about to beat my previous record! The room was so calm and quiet, no one was rushing around, no one was telling me what to do and everyone there was incredibly encouraging. When those ten minutes of pushing felt like an hour and I was thinking we weren't even close to meeting our baby, Lisa would tell me how fast baby was coming and how close he or she was to being born. It was exactly the help I needed. Finally that incredible relief of baby's body sliding into the world and coming to rest on me caused me to immediately forget, once again, about the incredibly demanding nature of the task I had just completed. My mind immediately filed the previous hour-and-a-half under the "no big deal and totally worth it" category in my brain as I saw that precious little person for the first time. "It's a BOY!" was what Jimmy and I both said in total surprise. We had been certain he was a she! But as certain as I had been and as much as I had planned on that, it didn't take even a second for me to realize how perfect he would be in our family and how much we needed another little boy. We named him John Shepard; John for my dad and Shepard for Jimmy's mom's family. We called him Jack from the very beginning.
Jimmy looked at the clock and noted that the time of his birth was 5:45am, just over two hours after the start of labor. Though I was still holding on to the thought that he was huge, I knew as soon as I saw him that he really wasn't. He was long and thin, unlike all of our other babies who had been short and chubby, and his feet looked huge! The fact that he definitely had Jimmy's feet was one of the first things I noticed. His little face was so round and full and his perfect head was covered in dark, curly hair, a Kyker-baby signature. We all just sat and admired him together while we waited for his umbilical cord to stop pulsing before Jimmy got to cut it. Having asked doctors to do this in the past, we've always been used to the impatient one-minute "wait" before they just clamp and cut. This time no one was in any hurry at all. We all watched as his cord turned from a dark purple, full of rich blood, to a pale, empty gray over about ten minutes. His one minute and five minute APGAR scores were both a healthy ten. And that nine-pounder I was certain he was? Not even close. Lisa's great little scale - a comfy sling - registered a 7lb, 5oz little stinker.
Over the next few minutes, Caryn helped me to get changed and settled back into my own cozy bed while Lisa completed his newborn exam. It was absolutely amazing to be so comfortable in my own home, completely relaxed with my husband and sweet new baby. I didn't even notice them scurrying around getting my room put back together and then quietly slipping out to leave us alone. Caryn came back in around 6:45 with breakfast for both of us - eggs, toast, yogurt, fruit and juice. Yes, the way to my heart is through my stomach, especially after childbirth. All of the conveniences I've mentioned were great, but I'd be lying if I said that eating my own food right after birth wasn't one of my favorite parts!
Right around 7am, just when I was getting anxious for the kids to meet their new brother, Travis woke up and started to head to our room. Caryn was able to catch him, knowing that we wanted all the kids to come in together. Jimmy went and woke the rest of them up, telling them that he had a huge surprise waiting for them in our room. The door opening and them coming in will be one of the most precious memories forever etched in my mind. They were in awe. They crowded around me begging to know if they had a sister or a brother and my eyes fixed on Caroline as I told them that he was a boy. Her little shoulders drooped a tiny bit and I could see the disappointment on her little face (she had SO been hoping for a little sister), but Lisa came right beside her and said, "And since you are the only big sister I'm really going to need your help getting him all cleaned up and dressed. Will you come help me take care of him?" and from that moment she was nothing but completely in love with him. The kids all got to sit and and hold him and kiss him and Caroline helped to get him dressed. They were all so happy that he was here. Jimmy and I both loved how special it was to share those early hours of our little guy's life with his big brothers and sister.
After Lisa and Caryn had fed the bigger kids their breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, folded some laundry and checked over baby Jack and I one last time, they left us to ourselves at around 8:00am. At that point we were still experiencing the "birth high" and still had lots of phone calls to make, but we knew the crash would be coming. We had, after all, been awake most of the night! So Jimmy declared it a movie day and we looked forward to snuggling on the couch all together. A friend from church brought us a delicious lunch upon hearing the news, neighbors came over to meet him throughout the day and we just relaxed and enjoyed our sweet boy all together. The three older kids were so attentive to any need I might have and really wanted to take care of me. Caroline would look at me every few minutes with wide eyes and say, "Our very own BABY! Can you believe it?!" Ben would wander up to Jack every few minutes and just kiss his little head and then wander away again. It was such a sweet and wonderful day. So "normal" in that there was no major upheaval, yet so preciously different in that we had a whole new little person to love. I am so incredibly thankful to have had the chance to experience a birth at home. I'm thankful for Lisa's calm expertise. I'm thankful for a wonderful and supportive husband. And I'm thankful, yet again, for God's goodness to my little family.
The homebirth of John Shepard Kyker (click here to view a slideshow of Jack's birth and the days and weeks following)
