So many moments.  Pivotal moments, ordinary moments, moments that linger forever, and those that go by all too fast.

My pregnancy with Anwen was a series of interwoven moments I may have hoped for but never expected to have...learning I was unexpectedly pregnant, allowing myself to trust in my body's ability to carry a pregnancy to term, approaching labor and attempting a VBAC...

...Overcoming obstacles (breech presentation, going past my due date, heart decelerations) and succeeding at a VBAC.

Succeeding at a VBAC.

***

I woke up a week after my due date with a nagging feeling.  I hadn't felt Anwen move much (at all?) over night.  I tried to get her to move.  I drank orange juice, pushed on my belly, changed positions again and again.  Nothing.  Flashbacks to Rhys and Quin's birth started running through my mind.  We called the midwife, and her instructions were simple: "get here now."

At the hospital, we were relieved.  They found the baby's heartbeat.  They checked my fluid levels.  Everything looked good.  Except.  The baby was having some heart decelerations after contractions.  The midwife was afraid she wouldn't tolerate labor.  They couldn't let me go home, at 41 weeks pregnant, knowing I was having contractions, with a baby whose heart rate was dipping.  They could fit us in for a c-section at 3:00pm.

I cried.

I called our doula.  Instead of attending the birth, would she be willing to instead provide postpartum support?  She would.

The doctor came in.  She confirmed what the midwife had told us: a c-section was likely.  

But.

Would we like to try a trial of labor?  We'd be on a short leash - IV, constant monitoring, and a first class ticket to the OR at the first sign of distress - but she was willing to let us try a pitocin induction.

A window of opportunity.  

They started my pitocin around noon.  Early labor was lovely.  My pitocin dose was low (2 milliunits) and the contractions were bearable.  Kyle and I walked around the unit, we had tea, we listened to music.  (Live harp music, at that, from a musical therapist visiting the unit!)

At four the OB came in to check my progress.  A centimeter and a half.  We discussed having her break my water.  It would allow my body to kick in to help, and I was already on a time frame because of the induced VBAC.  I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Water broken.  Contractions coming in waves.  I felt suddenly disorganized and panicked.  Pain.  Relief.  Pain. Relief.  But instead of feeling like a rhythmic pattern, my contractions felt tangled up with each other, with my mind.  Kyle brought me a hot pack for my back.  Helped me get into a more comfortable position.  I regained composure, found a rhythm.

I lose track of time.

Pitocin up to six.  Want hot water.  Into the tub.  In a rhythm.  Waves of pain.  Relief.  Laughing.  Pain building.  Cresting.  Dissipating.  Hot water is amazing.  Again and again.  

The pauses between the waves get shorter and shorter.  Contractions build, peak, and dissipate...and build, peak, and dissipate.  Relief slips through my fingers before I can grasp it.  I feel panicked.  I had planned not to use any medical pain relief.  I also had planned not to use a medical induction.

"I want to talk about pain meds."  As I'd requested months earlier, Kyle and my doula try to talk me out of it. The doctor checks me.  I feel like I'm in transition, and yet I know, I KNOW, that I am nowhere near that point.  I tell Kyle and our doula, "if I'm seven centimeters I'll go on without meds".  I say seven.  I mean eight or nine.

The doctor checks me.  Almost three centimeters.  I am not discouraged.  I am relieved.  "Get me an epidural."  It's all I can say, again and again, until I'm laying in bed savoring sweet relief.  

Two hours later.  4 centimeters.  Okay.  It's okay.  I'm not in pain.

Two more hours pass.  It's time to push.  

At first I can't feel when to push.  The nurse has to cue me.  But then I can tell.  I'm not in pain.  But I can tell.  

I push for an hour.  The baby's heart rate starts getting low towards the end.  Into the sixties.  The midwife talks about the vacuum.  It doesn't scare me, just motivates.  We don't end up needing the vacuum.  Kyle is by my side, holding my hand.  We are doing this.  We are in the hospital, we've been induced, I have an epidural, but we are doing this!  The lights are dim.  We are surrounded by flameless candles and beautiful music.  The doctor is in the room next door, so we're back with the midwife.  Does Kyle want to help deliver the baby?

And then she's out.  Anwen.  She's tiny and warm and wet.  She has an amazing strong cry.  She's crawling up my belly and all I can see are her beautiful big eyes - blue and deep and so, so new.  She has matted dark hair and I'm already in love.

(Photos by Allison Connor, our wonderful doula)

Anwen Bay

4.9.11

6 lbs 15oz ~ 20.5 inches

Successful VBAC!!!

Details to come. 

After I change some diapers.  And get some sleep.  And nurse the baby.  And calm a tantrum.

She is bliss.

39 weeks.

I'm 39 weeks today. 

This is a weird feeling, considering my last pregnancy ended abruptly with the emergency delivery of Rhys and Quin at 33 weeks. 

As of my appointment with the midwife today, the baby is no longer breech...following a week that consisted of three visits with a chiropractor who specializes in the Webster technique, lots of DIY moxibustion, a heavy dose of Pulsitilla, hours of inversion, and a totally fast, painless, and successful version.  I'm so thankful that we're back on course for the VBAC, even if I am still reeling from the stress of the situation and dealing with it like an uninhibited ninety-year old woman with a knack for saying all the inappropriate things that cross her mind and no thoughts of apologies. 

Now we wait.

On the one hand, I love the waiting.  I have something awesome about to happen - I don't know when or how or what it will be like, but at this point birth is pretty much a guarantee.  Though I did see a TLC show once about a woman who had been pregnant for something like sixty years.  But that unfortunate woman aside, this kind of feels like when you have a box full of maple sugar candy in front of you and not even one has been nibbled yet, and you know you're about to go hide in a corner somewhere and just gorge yourself.  The delicious anticipation.  If you're not from a maple sugar candy area, I'm sorry.

And then on the other hand, there's the reality that the time between now and delivery may seem short to those who are not carrying an extra human being in their womb while chasing two toddlers around all day, but for those of us who happen to be in that boat, well, OH MY GOD HOW AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH NEXT WEEK BECAUSE THE DAYS ARE SOOOO LONG AND THERE IS STILL SNOW ON THE GROUND AND THE WEATHER ISN'T LOOKING LIKE WE'LL BREAK THE FORTY DEGREE MARK IN THE NEXT FIVE TO SEVEN DAYS.

And I want to see her.  I want to see her eyes, and whether or not she has hair, and if she looks like Rhys or Quin or Kyle or me or none of us...I want to experience this birth process that I've been fascinated with for as long as I can remember...

I'm so close and so far.  I try to settle in and remember that it's always more exciting to have the full box of maple sugar candy rather than just the empty wrappers with a few maple crumbs in the corner of the box, but then I remember that that's a terrible metaphor because in this case instead of empty wrappers I get an actual baby that I get to keep.

So there's that.

I thought writing might help me find a nice Zen place.  Instead I find that since I rarely write anymore, I'm rusty, which means my writing is 1. of poor quality and 2. hardly satisfying.

Instead of some nice Zen insight, I offer a crude summary:

• Baby is, at this point, head down. 
• VBAC plans are, at this point, a go. 
• I am, at this point, excited and anxious as shit.

38 Weeks.

Baby is breech.

VBAC plans in jeopardy.

This is not the update I'd hoped to be posting.

30 weeks

I don't want another c-section.

Early in this pregnancy, we decided we'd go for the birth we'd hoped for with Rhys and Quin but weren't able to achieve; first because of the twin pregnancy and then later because of the unexpected placental abruption which led to their early emergency arrival at 33 weeks.  We decided that this time, we'd go for a VBAC in a freestanding (non-hospital affiliated) birthing center.

It felt so right.  I immediately began thinking about whether I'd want to bring patchouli candles to create my birthing ambiance, or whether lavender would win out.

Our ability to move forward with the VBAC as planned was contingent upon my placenta being in the right place during our OB consult and ultrasound after we hit the 20 week mark.  At 23 weeks we went in, nervous and excited to get the go-ahead for moving forward.

First we had the ultrasound.  Learned we are having a girl.  Learned that placenta-wise, all was as it should be.  Placenta far away from my Cesarean scar, far away from the cervix.

Next was the OB consult.  We went in, giddy about our girl, giddy about our green light.  The OB talked to us about the risks of VBAC.  She talked to us about  Rhys and Quin's birth.  She mentioned that although the placental abruption probably would not recur, if it did, being so far from a hospital, our baby could die.  I could die.

Suddenly, I was back at the hospital the night Rhys and Quin were born.  Laying on the bed and bleeding, waiting for the ultrasound, waiting for them to tell me my babies were dead.  I was on the operating table as they pulled my babies from my body and whisked them away.  I was in recovery, confused and cold and shaking, wondering if we'd all survive.

And then  I was back in the OB consult, sitting next to Kyle and nodding at the doctor's blurred words.  I knew I wasn't going to be bringing patchouli candles or lavender candles or anything else with a flame to this baby's birth.  In one startling second, the idea of a birthing center birth went from being exactly what I wanted to something I knew I'd never have.

The next day I transferred my care to a group of midwives who deliver at a local hospital with a decent VBAC rate, and began attempting to stem the flow of fear that suddenly gushed from every molecule of my being.

What if she's born too early?  What if I can't conquer my fears enough to let go in labor and VBAC successfully?  What if IT happens again?  What if IT happens again and I'm at home alone with the boys??????

I'm scared.

And I'm angry.

I'm angry at the doctor who was on call the night Rhys and Quin were born.  That doctor, who for whatever reason, knowing I lived 30+ minutes from the hospital, told me I probably had a kidney stone when I called an hour before my water broke complaining of terrible back pain and cramping.  Suggested I push fluids...at 33 weeks pregnant with twins, after a positive fetal fibronectin test, several hospital visits to stop my pre-term labor, and a steroid shot that morning to develop the babies' little lungs.  A kidney stone.  That same doctor who didn't call me back for over ten minutes when I called the emergency on-call service to say my water had broken and I was gushing blood all over my living room floor.  That same doctor, who responded to my report of blood by saying, "it's normal.  Put on a pad and come to the hospital" and then adding a cheerful, "congratulations, your babies are going to be born tonight!"  

I'm angry that my trauma over the babies' birth is still there.  That I'm scared shitless.  That I didn't need to go through some of the trauma.  That the doctor could have said, "why don't you come on in" when I called the first time, and should have said, "get here NOW" when I called the second.

But it is what it is.

I have ten more weeks to go.  Ten weeks to get to an okay place.

I've made progress since our consult.  We've hired a doula.  I talk a lot to our midwife.  I'm reading and re-reading Birthing From Within.  I'm working and trying and processing.

I've accepted that this is the next leg of my journey.

It will be what it will be.  In the end, I get to determine what it becomes.

28 weeks

This morning I decided to make a smoothie.  Although I seem to have no trouble gaining weight in this pregnancy, I feel like really "taking care of myself" has been a struggle.  So a smoothie.  Full of brewer's yeast, wheat germ, flax seed, fruit, yogurt, milk, all the good stuff.  It took me ninety minutes to make.  Not because I had to pick the fruit, milk the cows, or even grind the flax seed myself.  No.  It was because I am Mama and this morning, that meant diapers and bartering for peace and returning boy bits into diapers where they rightfully belong.  But finally, I hit "blend" and had a luscious smoothie ready for my enjoyment.  Sixty minutes later, after taking two sips and spending at least three quarters of an hour searching for (but never finding) Cookie Monster, I decided to really buckle down and just drink the damn thing.  Enter toddlers into kitchen.  "Noothie! Noothie!"  Thirty minutes later, after consuming a good 80% of my breakfast, they were both busy tantruming over my glum announcement that our smoothie was all gone.

This is why I have not posted in four months.

This is the one thing that scares me about having a third baby.

I don't know how to get it all done.

Mothering, working, cleaning the house, making sure our refrigerator has more than an old jar of artichoke tapenade sitting on the top shelf, making sure we don't run out of dog food or milk or toilet paper, making sure Rhys and Quin know how much we love them and have the security in their world to grow into the people they deserve to be, making sure I remember to eat so that this new baby is born strong and healthy and robust...

...these are the things that I love and that consume me and often claim victory over my life.

And although it is crazy and full and hectic every second of every day, life has been really good. 

We're lucky.

I am still blown away by how lucky we are.

I still can't believe I'm pregnant.  From sex. 

By surprise.  Unplanned.

An infertile girl's dream come true.

Speaking of girls, I'm gestating one, and feeling pretty thrilled about that.

I have other things I need to write about.

I need to write about how I weaned the babies and it broke my heart, about how we're planning a VBAC and I'm simultaneously thrilled and terrified, about how this pregnancy has been an exercise in feeling confident in myself as a mother while finding the strength to ignore advice and input that isn't helpful to me, and  about how I'm trying to squeeze every last drop of experience out of this pregnancy to savor the right now.

It all has to come later, and I confess that I have no idea when that will be.  Maybe this week, maybe next month.  It all depends on how things go with my morning smoothie.