The Birth Day

I was finally able to give birth on Wednesday, August 7th! After a week and a half of contractions and thinking "surely today is the day", every day, the contractions on Tuesday evening really were the beginning of the real thing, and I didn't even call Suzanne with an update! And after all the encouragement that those early contractions would surely make labour that much easier and all the great stories from second time moms about second time births being shorter and easier, I labored twice as long as the first before bringing my second beautiful baby into the world. Being a language lover I think about the truth of that phrase "giving birth" and reflect on all the effort I gave in order for Julian to be born (it was a lot, in case you didn't guess) and as my dad's doctor said about his current recovery from breaking his femur, "no pain, no gain"; the truth there is that all the effort I gave and pain I went through was more than worth it to gain the company of our dear boy, Julian Mark Rundall.

So, here's the last chapter of the story of my pregnancy, the chapter that gets really exciting, but is much longer than the other two chapters, so if you're not into storytelling go ahead and skip to the pictures below.

Tuesday morning Suzanne called me and accused me of standing her up again because I had called her with yet another fruitless FYI update on Monday night then gone to bed and had all action fizzle out, yet again. She told me on the phone that I should come by her apothecary and get some herbal extract to move things along over this seemingly unsurmountable hump that had been leaving me with a giant bump in my belly. So Tuesday afternoon I started taking doses of blue cohosh and Tuesday evening I had a couple hours of mild contractions on average six minutes apart, nothing monumental and quite possibly another false start, so around 10pm we went to bed. Then at around 1:30am I was slapped awake by some contractions that said "this is it f@#!er, go time!" A couple of those type of contractions confirmed it was time to wake up Chris, but then they mellowed way out so we had a little backgammon tournament. Chris was able to use his obviously unfair advantage to win 2 of 3 games. After his exciting and rare victory Chris needed to rest so he laid down while I continued to work. I decided to call Suzanne after I'd had about 45 minutes of more consuming and quite frequent contractions, she arrived at our house around 4:30am and again things seemed to slow down. We really got cranking around 10am and that's about when I lost any sense of time or place except for the thought that this was taking a long time and wondering how much longer I could do it. Things may have moved slowly because my water never broke so there was always a cushion between that bony head and the birth canal, or because Julian had both arms bent and hands up to his face making him that much wider, or because he just wanted to take his sweet time moving on out, who knows why but I know it made for some excruciating passage of time. One thirty post meridian, or 1:27 pm to be exact, was the time of birth, I'm not complaining just giving the facts. Very shortly before that time, I sat down on the birthing stool and discovered the baby had maybe 3/4 of an inch to go before I could be done with my work, what a short but excruciating distance! So, pushing time had arrived with no urge to push, that was okay, I'd push anyway, even though it is one of the most counterintuitive and excruciating (am I overusing that word? its just so fitting) things to do, it was the only way to get the baby out. A few pushes and his head was out of the birth canal but still in the amniotic sac, which is a phenomenon that is rare and considered good luck. I then had to wait (yes more waiting) for the next contraction to push out the rest of his body and finally got to hold him in my arms. Because he was born "in the caul" he inhaled some amniotic fluid and his breathing and cries were a little gargly at first, but Suzanne did some rubbing on his body and he did some sucking on my finger and the fluid worked itself through quickly. Hurray, Julian was born! Chris and I had a boy name and a girl name picked out already so as soon as we saw it was a boy we started calling him by his name and telling him how precious and amazing he is. Here are some pictures of him as he was examined by Suzanne:



Seven lbs, seven oz

19.5 inches

Here's Big Sister, home from the neighbor's house and ready to meet the baby:


She was tentative at first, but quickly warmed up to the baby brother, started using his name (pronouncing it "julie IN"), and asking to hold him.

Julian's second day:



By this time Audrey was forgetting his name and calling him Teagan which is a friend's baby sister's name.

Julian's third day: