Birth Ramblings

For those that have been following me since my pregnancy with Ian, you may remember that I had planned a homebirth but was made to transfer to the hospital to have him....and you may have noticed that I never posted a birth story.

Today when me and the whittles were driving home from Sam's, I took a shortcut to bypass traffic. That led us by the hospital where I was stopped at a red light and looked over at the entrance to the woman's center where I went in that night. I was instantly taken back to that night when I went through those revolving doors and had to kiss Johnny good bye and tell him next time we met again, he would have his brother. Sounds sweet enough right? No, it is very heart breaking on both of our parts. You see, Johnny was looking forward to the homebirth almost as much as I was. He had tears in his eyes and was very sad that he was not allowed to be a part of it anymore. It was ripped away from him in the same way it was ripped away from me.

He was there when Ava was born and never left my side throughout her 17 hour labor. He was there when I looked down in that birthing tub and saw we had another girl! He was the one to cut the cord after she was born. He is so proud of that and I hope it is a memory that he will always have, especially since he was only 4 at the time. He was so happy to be having a brother and to be able to do it all again. He was at almost all of my prenatal appts. sitting on our couch watching Anne do all her things to his mama carrying his brother.

My emotions over the loss of my birth are still so raw and I am not sure when I can open up and write Ian's story. You see, it is still special to me, I just need to finish mourning the hopes that I had and the struggles I went through. When I was about 28 weeks pregnant with him, we learned he was breached and he stayed that way for almost the rest of the pregnancy and I was so angry about it. I just was so focused on getting him turned and keeping him that way, that I couldn't enjoy the pregnancy as I had hoped since it was to be my last. I really enjoy being pregnant and this time I did not because of the stress. I wanted the homebirth again so bad that anything to threaten that, made me uneasy. I was so worried about cord issues and fluid levels and where his feet and hiccups were supposed to be that I just couldn't relax.

In the end, he did flip and was in great position and labor was smooth but things happen that we can not control. And I think back on it all the time and replay it and I am pretty sure that no matter what other things could have happened, we were suppose to be in that hospital for him to be born. Everything fell into place the way it should have and I still see connections of events that show me why we were in the hospital.

But it still hurts. When I had to come home and see my deflated liner for the birth pool laying on our back porch, it hurt. And when I looked at all my birth supplies in the box waiting to be used, it hurt. And when I had to tell all the naysayers who never believed in homebirth that I had to go to the hospital, it hurt. And when I had to go back to the hospital 5 days after his birth to have them draw blood from 2 spots on my arm and then from my wrist and put it into my spinal column to hopefully cure the fluid leaking out and causing a spinal headache, oh yeah, that really hurt.

Well, that's enough self pity for one night. I've got some paypal burning a hole in my pocket so I am off to find some bigger cloth dipes for my 20 pound 4 month old!

I promise, one day soon, I'll write it.