What Love Is

My sister-in-law, Heather, is an amazingly talented photographer. She does family portraits, newborn and kids pictures, weddings, engagements, pregnancy pics... and has wanted to branch into other events, like birth photography. When she expressed interest to me a while back, I thought, "Ok, if you want to be there, great... but if not, no big deal. I'm sure we'll get some snapshots of our own." I am so glad that Heather did end up being there. First of all, we never got any photos ourselves; we were a wee bit preoccupied. But secondly, there is no way we ever could have captured the emotions of the event the way Heather did. For that, I cannot express my gratitude to her enough. I will cherish these photos always. They really express what love is. The love and patience Heather had to take them. The love of a wonderful, supportive spouse who never left my side. The love of a caring, concerned mother who offered her support throughout the labor. And the love of a younger mother who could not be more overjoyed to bring another little spirit into this world.

Now for the official birth story:

Having hired a certified professional midwife and planning for an out-of-hospital birth, we started out in a birth center. The night before I was to be induced at the hospital (as required by law because I was 42 weeks), the midwife broke my water. Labor began almost immediately, and I quickly dilated to an 8. I labored in a birth tub (we had planned on a water birth) and took the contractions as they came (1 and a half to 2 minutes apart). People knock natural birth (and there is nothing wrong with choosing an epidural as you will later see...), but let me tell ya, there is something so wonderful about natural childbirth. It felt so good to work with my contractions, to experiment with different positions, and just feel my body preparing to have this baby. It was quite an amazing experience. Pretty soon, I had the overwhelming urge to push... but when the midwife checked me, I still had a cervical lip. But I could not control that urge to push- not pushing was so painful (just ask Heather, Jonathan, or my mom about the screams coming out of my mouth). So the midwife tried holding the lip out of the way so that I could push. But it didn't help; my cervix just needed to finish effacing. Meanwhile, I was in so much pain from trying to refrain from pushing. Every time I had a contraction, I had a vaso vagal response and vomited. Keep in mind, I was recovering from a cold, hadn't slept for nearly 24 hours.... I was just plain exhausted by that point. So we decided to head to the hospital for an epidural, which would control my urges to push until I was completely dilated. Within 5 minutes of receiving the epidural, the urge to push had gone away. I was able to sleep over the next few hours while we waited. Then I was given a little bit of pitocin because the lip was still there. I had just been administered the pitocin when the doctor came in to say we needed to perform a c-section, though there appeared to be no reason for it, other than the fact that he was on his lunch break and it was convenient. We stood our ground, and had a wonderful nurse midwife (CPMs do out-of-hospital births; CNMs do hospital births, but are ultimately bound by doctor's decisions) who helped buy us some more time to push, since I was finally fully dilated. I pushed for 3 and a half hours, trying all kinds of positions. I did everything I could, but at the end of that stretch, the midwives informed me that the baby had moved all of 2 or 3 MILLImeters and that his head was starting to swell. So now, the c-section was inevitable. But I was happy. We stood our ground and weren't bullied into a c-section before it was necessary. And I did all I could; the rest was in the Lord's hands. I had been given the opportunity to try for a vaginal birth and did a large part of it naturally... and, for me, there is just something empowering about that.

As you already know, Nolan Phillip Hoehne was born at 5:03pm on October 13th. He was 21 inches long..... and weighed in at 10 lbs 1 oz!