Welcome to the World, Sweet Julian!

The morning Julian was born, after Andrew and Granny had fallen asleep with Cecilia and Francesca, Maran had left and Bill was loading his things into his car, there was a resounding "hoo-hoo-hoo-hooooo, hoooo," outside my bedroom window. An owl had come to sing to Julian and I, hours after his birth. My first thought was that the Dine' think the owl is a very bad omen . . . but I pushed the thought out of my mind and decided that this was a good omen. Julian made it into the world and an owl had come to welcome him. Later, my auntie Kathie found some stuff about the owl being a good, strong omen, a symbol of wisdom and heroic endeavor. (Thanks KJ!) I really want to journal Julian's birth, so that I don't forget things, but the final moments of his birth were pretty hairy, so I guess its not a story for the faint at heart. I feel sick to my stomach when I think too hard about his birth . . . mostly when I think what could've been, so let's just not go there! But here's his story - as best as I can remember it:

I felt a bit odd all day Sunday. Having read that ultrasound due dates can be as much as two weeks off, and feeling like my baby wasn't big enough to be born yet, I ignored the obvious signs of early labor and went about my day. Sunday night, after the girls were fast asleep and my laundry was folded, I crawled into bed at about 10:30 and labor began. My surges started out 14 minutes apart, steadily moving closer together. I called Bill right away and told him that I definitely wanted him to come as soon as possible, as I didn't want him to miss the birth. I then phoned Maran Perry, our friend and hypnobirthing Doula. She said she had been on antibiotics and shouldn't be contagious (with walking pneumonia.) I told her I'd call her back after doing some research about it, and then called her back to say come on over, if you don't mind wearing a germ mask. She agreed, although I'm sure it wasn't fun for her to wear it all night.

We phoned my mom and she arrived first. My labor progressed much the same as Francesca's labor. I was smiling, talking, having a good time and breathing down the baby with every surge. I felt like I was holding some tension below and I'm not sure if I was trying to be quiet, trying not to wake the girls, or if I didn't want to make a mess. After 3 1/2 hours or so of relaxed labor, I was ready to go. My water broke and there was a lot of it. The baby's head presented itself and we all looked and felt the baby coming into the world. Then, something started to not feel right. The birth chair/bar, the ball, squatting, kneeling, all fours, nothing felt right. I couldn't get comfortable, so I tried getting on all fours. I felt the baby float up, and then back down again. During the next surge, the cord presented itself before his head.

Bill told me we had a cord, and he made attempts to push it back up or relieve some of the pressure on the cord. He told someone to call 911. A prolapsed cord is rare, (1/1000) he had only seen it once before in his 25 year career and that was with artificially ruptured membranes. Most midwives probably will never see it. He made another excruciating attempt to push the cord back in, and/or relieve the pressure on the cord so that the baby's oxygen supply wouldn't be cut off. It was more than I could stand so he told me I had to just push the baby out, and fast. My contractions stopped completely. Maran said that with any mammal, if confronted with fear during labor, labor will shut down, so that the mammal can escape from impending danger. I waited for a contraction, but nothing came, so I pushed. I pushed his head out, and then his body. He was completely lifeless and he was so scrawny I couldn't believe it. I held him in my arms, and Andrew and I rubbed him, talked to him, blew in his face and in moments he began to try and breathe. Bill 'bagged' him with a breather thing a few times and then when he finally began to breathe, he put him on oxygen (we were both on oxygen.) All of this happened in 10 minutes. It took five minutes to push him out, from the time the cord presented itself, and five minutes to get him going. I was calm, through and through. I think I knew that there would be some challenge, or maybe I willed it, by giving the thought of something going wrong any energy at all. The what-ifs are so scary that I can't even think about them.

My mom fell apart, when I was trying to push him out. I looked up, thinking I couldn't do it, and saw her collapsing onto the bed and suddenly I had the strength of Wonder Woman and he was out. Andrew just kept telling me I was doing great, and that I could do it. He was strong. Bill was sure, assertive, and calm. I can't imagine keeping my cool the way he did, and at the same time being so assertive. He is truly amazing. I feel so blessed in so many ways, so many things happened just perfectly to let Julian join our family.

The paramedics looked like deer in the headlights. By the time they arrived, we didn't need them, but still had to reckon with them. If you call, they have to file a report with the hospital and give their DR boss the scoop and then its his call on what to do. Genevieve walked into the room with a smile on her face and after getting up to speed, went to bat for us to NOT be transferred to the hospital. Once Julian began breathing, his apgar score was 10 and he was fine. There was no reason for us to go to the hospital, except for their morbid curiosity

(tests, tests, tests and interrupted bonding/breastfeeding, germs, too many people, they would treat us like criminals, etc.) Luckily, Genevieve had two of her four children at home, so she and Bill together talking to the St. Mary's Doc were able to convince him that we didn't need transfer (a first for this doctor, "I've never left a baby," he said.) What are the chances that this woman would be a part of the Palisade paramedics team? I am so grateful. She came by on Wednesday and said that if it had been the chief, he would have made us transfer. I saw a glimpse of the chief in the hallway and he didn't look happy, but he wasn't in charge that night, Genevieve clearly was in charge. She's fighting St. Mary's on protocol for something like this, because she wasn't happy with how things went. What balls!

Later, after Julian calmed down (he cried for an hour - it was stressful for him!) he began to nurse. He has been nursing every hour or two ever since. He's filling out, his skin isn't hanging off his hands anymore. His cord wasn't doing the job. The placenta was on the small side and the place where the cord was connected to the placenta was in a weird spot. The vessels were just clinging onto the placenta, so we think that he wasn't getting enough food in there. Which would explain why I WA S so small. Not because I wasn't eating enough, clearly I had gained sufficient weight and was eating plenty of protein, but the cord just wasn't doing the job. Poor baby! Its hard not to beat myself up and say that I should have taken it easy and maybe the placenta and cord would've been better but, shoulda, coulda, woulda . . . maybe if Julian had been bigger, I wouldn't have been able to push him out at all . . . like I said, its hard to even think about all that, so . . .

So - I have a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I am the luckiest/blessed woman alive right now. I am so grateful for EVERYTHING in my life. From the sun that shines down, to the leaves that fall, to the full moon and my family, I am so, so grateful. My midwife couldn't have been more prepared and right on. I remember at one point in my pregnancy, talking with friends that had hospital births and thinking, maybe that's something I want to do? The stigma attached to a home birth is so intense, that maybe I just want to join the club and go to the hospital, but I trusted my gut and had a home birth - I am so grateful. A prolapsed cord in the hospital means cesarean and all of that takes time, and I believe that time was of the essence in Julian's birth. Had he been in utero longer, who knows? So, for Julian and I, it was best that he was born at home. Is home birth safer? Maybe - but I think that if I learned one thing from all from his birth it is that trusting your gut is always best. So, if it is best for one woman to trust her gut and have a hospital birth, then that is what is best for her. Its not always easy to trust your instincts, but I think that in the end, it is always worth it.

Probably that owl in our backyard was also doing just that - he thought he smelled a chicken dinner, but it was just the smell of Julian's heroic endeavor. Thank you, sweet Julian for coming into our world and lighting up our lives. We love you more than words can say.