philisha.net

You can’t say, you haven’t been warned. I’m really not sure how you give a birth story without giving “too much information”, so for those that don’t want all the gory details, here are the basics:

Zach Aaron Christopher Hagelberg was born at 12:24AM on Thursday morning, August 20, 2009 after 5 hours of labor. He weighed 9 lbs. 3 oz. and was 22.5 inches long. We are all doing fine. We have a photo website for Zach at http://zach.hagelb.org.

For those of you who want more details….

Labor began at 7:30PM on Wednesday evening right as we were finishing dinner. I had been having some irregular contractions throughout the afternoon and wasn’t feeling 100% at dinnertime. I went to go sit down in the living room while the rest of the family finished eating. One of my contractions was bothering me, so I asked Phil to help me up since I didn’t want to be sitting anymore. As I was standing up, my water broke. And when I say my water broke, I mean my water BROKE. I think that something near a gallon of water filled my pants immediately. I was rushed to the bathroom - so excited that I was going into spontaneous labor.

For the next hour or so, I just kinda chilled. Contractions slowed down, and I called my midwife, doula, and some of my family to let them know what was going on. I really wanted to shave my legs while in early labor, so while Phil put Noah down for sleep, I got into the bathtub and shaved.

Once I got out, though, the pleasantness of the labor was over. Without warning, I was having extremely intense contractions really close together. At about 8:30PM, we started to time them. They were about 1 minute long and about 1-2 minutes apart. At first, I thought that they must be irregular since I couldn’t possibly be that far into labor already. However, when they didn’t let up after a half hour, I was begging Phil to get us to the hospital as soon as possible.

The trip to the hospital was agony. I was in the backseat just screaming as each contraction came on. Obviously, I couldn’t get into a good position. We got to Group Health Hospital in Capitol Hill around 9:30PM. I could barely make it from the parking lot to the hospital. Thankfully, my midwife had called them to let them know that I was coming so they were prepared with a wheelchair for me to get to my room quickly. Our room was already buzzing with activity. There were at least 5 nurses getting everything ready. They had to get me into the bed, put in the hep lock in my hand, and get the fetal monitor on. I was already pushing.

My midwife, Cindie, and my doula, Eliza, showed up within the half hour to help me out. I heard the nurses tell Cindie that I was almost fully dilated, and that I had refused to have them push back what I had left. By 10:15PM, I was fully dilated. Everyone was really amazing as they helped me those next two hours. Eliza was always wiping my face with a cold wash cloth and making sure that I was getting some water and Gu (some really yucky energy stuff that has lots of calories). Phil was telling me what a good job I was doing, and looking at me with so much love that I’ll never forget it. Cindie was constantly telling me how much progress I was making. She even brought over a mirror so I could see the baby’s head. (Before labor, I thought this sounded kinda gross, but in the midst of it, it was super encouraging and exciting.) I changed position a number of times to help the baby along. Finally, Zach was born at 12:24AM on Thursday, August 20th.

I tore a fair bit, so for the next hour, I was being stitched up by Cindie while Phil got to have some bonding time with our new son. I had also thrown a part of my back out, so I was pretty uncomfortable for a while. Around 2:30AM, everyone left, and we were finally able to get some much needed rest. Zach started to breastfeed about an hour later.

We were in the hospital until Friday afternoon, and we have been enjoying our time with our two little boys. Noah’s still getting used to him, but seems to be enjoying the “baby Zach”. He likes to wave “hi” to him and sing to him and bring him toys. Sometimes he gets jealous of one of us holding him, so he’ll try to take Zach to the other parent so he can cuddle with the parent Zach is with. He’s so gentle though. It’s really a joy to watch.

Zach has been such a good baby. He doesn’t cry very much, and sleeps a lot. Even when he is awake, he’s content just to lay there and look around. Very different from Noah who seemed to need constant care. We are really enjoying our time with him.

I learned a lot from this labor. I really felt God’s hand on what went on. Everything came together so perfectly. My mom had arrived a week before so Noah was really comfortable to be left with her for a couple of days. My labor started at 7:30 which allowed us to get Noah to bed before he saw me in a lot of pain or being rushed off to the hospital without a proper good-bye. My labor was so intense that I knew once I got there that it would be useless to request an epidural being too far along. (I really wanted to have an unmedicated birth, but wasn’t sure that I would have the stamina to make it.) And, I got my successful VBAC! I also finally felt like I did the right thing with the cesarean at Noah’s birth (this is complicated to explain, but if you’d like to ask me about it, I’d be happy to tell you in person).

In closing, here is our sweet baby happy at home:

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