Finn's birth story - hopefully another birth story will be up here soon!

***Updated with photos!***
I guess I'm sort of getting into a reflective mood about my upcoming birth and I've been thinking about Finn's birth. I never posted it on here because of the hospitalization and then life was just so crazy trying to get used to mothering two children plus all of Finn's extra formula, medicine, etc.
So I'm going to post it now! I'm afraid if I wait any longer I'll forget the details. I know a lot of people are like me - birth junkies. I love to read birth stories, but if you don't, then just skip this post because you will not like it! Before I get into it, though, I have to share something about my past births. I remember reading in one of my birth books about how it's good to have a "labor project" to do in the early part of labor to keep yourself busy. The book suggested a sewing project or baking cookies to give to the nurses at the hospital, or some other hands-on project. My labors had gone so fast that I never really had the slow part of labor at the beginning where contractions are only coming every 15 minutes or so. I had told Susie, my midwife, at one point in my prenatal care about how I was disappointed that I never got to do that. I know it sounds stupid but it just seemed like a sweet idea to me (plus I love baking so I knew my labor project would be baking cookies). All right, now that we're all up to speed, here's the birth story.

I had started dilating around 36 weeks which freaked me out because if I went into labor too early I knew I couldn't deliver at home. Susie put me on semi-bed rest, basically telling me just not to exercise or do too much physical stuff. I didn't have to stay in bed or anything but I just had to take things easy. At my 37 week appointment she checked me and I was 4 cm dilated (in case you didn't know the first stage of labor is dilating from 1cm to 10cm, and then it's time to push). So I was almost halfway there without any contractions. This was good and bad for me because it made me feel like any minute I was going to go into labor, even though I knew with my brain that that wasn't necessarily true. A few more uncomfortable days passed and Susie wanted to check me again. I hadn't been having any contractions yet but I was just feeling like any normal 9-month-pregnant woman - tired, cranky, and huge, plus I had been having lots of cramps. Not contractions, really, but cramps. Susie came to check me again at almost 38 weeks, and I was at 6 cm...but still no contractions!
(Susie, the best midwife ever!)

With me feeling frustrated she promised to come back the next day and see if anything had changed. The next day, March 18, came and I decided I wasn't going to just sit around waiting to go into labor. I took Maggie to our downtown library for their wonderful story time. As I pulled up to the parking garage I saw a sign that said, "Lot Full." Now, it's normally irritating if the lot is full because parking there is validated and right next to the library. But in my mental and physical state I was just not about to drive around looking for a spot and then have to walk a ways to get to the library. I told Maggie, "Sorry, honey, but we just can't go to story time today." Of course she could sense I was stressed which made her more sensitive and she just started bawling. I felt sorry for her and, let's face it, sorry for myself, so I started bawling, too. We both just cried the whole drive home. I decided we would at least go do something fun so we stopped at a playground and played for as long as I could stand it.
A few hours later Susie came by to check me and I was 7 cm! She said since there was a change in my dilation, given my history of very quick labors, that we would try some natural things to get labor started. Grant came home and I called my mom and my sister, Erin, to come over. We tried a few things. I took some blue cohosh (I think that's what it was) and it tasted like dirt but I was willing to try almost anything. We also tried a few other things - using a breast pump, etc., but contractions still weren't getting strong or regular.
(In labor, hanging out with Maggie)
Susie thought it would be good to get up and walk around a bit so we all ate dinner together (it was like a big party). After dinner Susie said, "Courtney, I think it's time for you to bake your cookies!" So Maggie and I put on our matching aprons and had a lot of fun making my mother-in-law's famous chocolate chip cookies. I think I got one batch in the oven before I got a little tired and asked Susie if I could go back to bed to rest more.
We went back to my bedroom and she checked me again...still 7 cm. Our concern was that my labors typically go so fast and Susie lives about an hour away that we were afraid that I might just wake up in the middle of the night with the urge to push (kind of like my mom's labor with me!). We talked about breaking my water and decided to go for it. But by the time she tried to break my water it had kind of retracted. She pulled her arm back and my water just broke on its own. Shortly after that my contractions started coming regularly and with some strength. I think this was around 7 or 7:30pm. Grant got on the bed with me and was rubbing my back and talking me through the contractions. They were getting more and more intense and around 9pm they started feeling like they were double-peaking and that one was coming right after the other, with very little break in between. I started feeling a little like I wanted to push. I remember at one point Grant was talking to Cindy, Susie's assistant, and I thought, "STOP TALKING! WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME?!" I think I said something more like, "Grant, I need you." I guess that's about as rude as I get in labor.
I still had a little "lip" of cervix left and Susie said I could try pushing a little and see if I could push past it. This was different for me because with my two previous labors I felt a definite strong urge to push; this time I wasn't sure and felt a little ambivalent. Anyway, after about 45 minutes of pushing (which, by the way, was way harder than my previous labors) Finn was finally born with his little fist up by his head. He came out like Grant, who I believe was also born with his fist by his face, except Grant had a little black eye when he was born! So manly:)
We were so glad to have Finn here and were surprised to find that he weighed 8 lbs, 14 oz, which was 1 lb and 10 oz more than Maggie and about 2 full pounds more than Elle!
(Grant and Cindy, Susie's assistant, weighing Finn)
(I think this was before his bath. Check out Maggie's get-up. She's wearing her pajamas under a new dress Grandma Howard brought her that night.)

(Finn after his first bath)(Susie, getting a little snuggle)

After plenty of time to cuddle him, Susie and Cindy got Finn all weighed, washed, examined, and back to me for more snuggling. This was about 10 at night and even though it was getting late we had lots of family come by to meet him. I think about midnight everyone was gone, including Susie and Cindy, and we got settled into our house with our sweet little guy.
(Little sweetie)
(The next day, getting some sunlight to help with his jaundice. Can you see his face is bruised? He gave himself a black eye by being born with his hand at his face.)
(Getting sunlight with Grandma, Maggie, Aunt Erin and cousin Jack looking on)
(With Grant's hand)

Home Birth Supplies

All right, since so many of you have said you're interested in the contents of the home birth kit and my other supplies, I thought I'd go ahead and put it on here. I don't think there's anything too gross, for both of my male readers :) But I won't be offended if you just skip this post.

From In His Hands Birth Supply:
16 Chux Bed Underpads, 23x24 (you know, those big blue absorbent sheets they have at the hospital?)
12 Chux, 23x36 (not sure why the two sizes)
1 Peri Bottle (you moms know what this is!)
1 Povidone, 4 oz (I think this is an antiseptic cleanser)
1 Lube Jelly, 4 oz (yikes!)
12 Gauze Sponge, 4x4, 12-ply (not sure what this is for)
1 Scrub brush, dry (to wash/comb baby's hair)
1 Bulb Syringe (snot sucker for the baby)
2 Plastic Cord Clamps (for the umbilical cord, duh)
6 Alcohol prep pads
1 Quick Heel Lancet (I think to draw blood for the newborn screening test)
1 Herbal Cord Care, golden seal and Oregon grape (at the hospital they use alcohol, this is just a homeopathic option)
2 Infant hat
2 Stretch briefs, unisize (Moms, you know those crazy mesh undies you get at the hospital? Well if they're your thing, you can order as many as you want from this website :)
1 Tape Measure, infant
a bunch of sterile gloves
2 Plastic backed sheet, 40x72 (who knows?)
Vitamin K, .5ml ampule, 8" needle (for the baby's Vitamin K shot at birth)
And the best part...
2 flexible drinking straws! I think this one is funny but even funnier is the fact that they include them for free.
So the whole kit costs about $70, not too bad.

There's not too much weird stuff in there but when I was looking online to see what else they had I found some scary/strange things. Curious?

• Organic Ultrasound Gel, in case conventional is just not good enough for you :)
• Enemas (!!!!!)
• Donut Ring (Lord, may I never need one of these!)
• baby t-shirts that say "I'm special, I was born at home!" Okay, I'm about as big of a home birth advocate as you'll find but even I think that's a little obnoxious.
• Bed pan
• Water birth net (to remove debris from the water birth tub - which if you know me well you know that's something I'd never need. Baths do not relax me, I think they're disgusting, and I can't imagine being in a tub or pool during labor.
• SHOULDER-LENGTH GLOVE!!!! When I first saw this one it totally freaked me out. I couldn't imagine why anyone would need a shoulder-length glove but then I figured out that it was to fish stuff out of the pool. Glad it's not for use on a laboring mom!!!

All right, so that's the birth kit stuff that's more medical. Now here's the list of other required items that I need to get on my own.

• 2 older pillows, 4 older pillow cases, 2 sets of cotton sheets (fitted and flat), 2 older blankets
• 6 large flannel-backed vinyl tablecloths (2 for bed, 4 for floor)
• 6 bath towels, 4 hand towels, 6 wash cloths, 2 beach towels
• 1 pkg baby wipes and 1 roll white Viva brand paper towels
• 2 large bowls (for the placenta and not sure what else)
• 2 gallon ziplock bags
• 4 plastic grocery bags
• 1 kitchen-size plastic bag-lined trash can with 4 extra bags and 4 large black outdoor trash bags, 1 plastic laundry basket
• crock pot and small table to set it on and extension cord (Cindy, the midwife assistant joked that this is the 21st century version of "boil the water, the baby's comin'"! It's to make warm compresses for the pushing stage of labor.
• Digital thermometer with covers
• Flashlight with fresh batteries (A lot of women like to labor in low light, I guess that's what this is for)
• Duct tape (Hmmm...)
• Camera if desired
• Heating pad and extension cord
• 2 bottles of Recharge Juice by Knudsen, or equivalent (for after labor - like a natural Gatorade)
• Ice
• Chicken soup, eggs, bread, fresh fruit
• Red Raspberry Leaf Tea (I skip this one. Tea? Gross.)
• Medium-size table
• X-Strength Tylenol
• 1 new small bottle of olive oil (for the last stage of labor)
• Sanitary pads
• For Midwives: (This is my favorite part!) caffeinated coffee, 1/2 and 1/2, real sugar, food, a resting place (if needed)

For Baby:

• 2 cotton onesie undershirts
• 2 cotton night gowns or sleepers
• 4 cotton receiving blankets
• 2 pairs booties or socks
• 2 small cotton hats
• 1 baby towel, 1 wash cloth, baby shampoo/soap
• 24 q-tips (not 23, not 25)
• Newborn diapers (at least 1 pkg disposable, even if you're cloth diapering)

So nothing too crazy, in my opinion. Since we're already on the topic of home birth, I'll go ahead and answer a few of the most commonly asked questions about home birth (at least, most commonly asked of me).
How about the mess?
I have to admit, this was a big drawback for me for a while. I just thought, "I do not want to have a big mess in my house or be cleaning stuff up right after I have a baby, thank goodness for the hospital!" But I didn't clean up a thing when Finn was born and the mess was really no big deal! The midwives take care of everything. It was about 1 load of laundry, and nothing was ruined. There were also about 2 bags of trash (all the disposable Chux pads, etc.). And this was a little strange - they wrap the placenta up in about a million bags and put it in the freezer. There are some women who do things like plant their placenta or eat it (GAG!!!!) but most women just throw theirs away. Apparently it's technically considered a bio-hazard and therefore can't be thrown away in the trash, but we just kept ours in the freezer until the morning of our trash pick-up and then stuck it out there, wrapped in its million bags. So the mess was really a non-issue.

Didn't you miss being in the hospital and having the nurses help?
No way. When I was in the hospital with Maggie I barely slept because I was so anxious about Maggie. I was afraid someone would try to steal her and every time they had to come get her I was so worried that something would happen to her when she wasn't in my sight. I was also a little nuts about the whole "attachment parenting" thing and thought if I wasn't with her for every single minute that she would grow up to be a psychopath or something. I don't think she left our room for more than 30 minutes at a time, no more than 1 or 2 times. I really had an actual anxiety problem; it wasn't just new-mom jitters. But being at the hospital was so stressful for me.
When Finn was born Susie (my midwife) and Cindy (her assistant) stayed for several hours after he was born, taking care of both of us and making sure we were okay. They got us all in bed and then went home. It was great. Also, Grant's mom stayed with us that first week (it happened to be her school break so it just worked out that way. My mom came the next week.). I was able to rest so much easier in my own bed, with my own, regular house noises and smells, and no anxiety!

What about the possibility of this baby having Isovaleric Acidemia (IVA), like Finn? Won't that be a problem with a home birth?
This actually isn't a big deal at all. Even if Finn had been born in a hospital, we would have been home by the time his symptoms (lethargy, failure to thrive) showed up. We do have a 1 in 4 chance of this baby having IVA (in the general population it's more like 1 in 300,000) but we'll just take the baby to Vanderbilt when she's 6-12 hours old and have them draw some blood to look for the IVA. They'll be able to let us know in a couple of hours and we'll put her on the medical formula and supplements if it turns out she has IVA.

What if something goes wrong? Aren't you worried about not being at the hospital?
This one is kind of interesting. I think some people think since we lost Elle that we should be lined up at the hospital at 9 months pregnant, checking everything and making sure she's fine. But first of all, that's not really my personality, but the bottom line is, it didn't make any difference with Elle. She was born at the hospital and there wasn't anything they could do to save her.
But more generally to home birth, things don't usually happen like they do in the movies, where one minute everything is fine, and the next minute the baby's dying and they have to do a C-section to heroically save mom and baby. Typically there are signs long before a big dramatic moment, like mom's blood pressure keeps going up, or baby's heart rate isn't recovering well, so if Susie sees something that worries her, everyone goes to the hospital. When she has her hospital transfers (which do happen occasionally, and aren't the end of the world), it's well in advance of a true emergency. We're about 10 minutes away from the best hospital in town and we feel really comfortable with that.

There's (more than) everything you ever wanted to know about home birth! If you stuck with it for the whole thing, kudos!

Still alive...

What can I say? It's summer and we're busy! I promise I'll post more...soon?!

Quick update - Finn took 6 steps by himself to his Poppy and then 10 steps (again to Poppy) on Friday and has taken about 3 more in a row since then. Obviously he is physically able to walk but just isn't that into it. Grrr.... He still makes us laugh all day long. He loves to tease - he'll put out his hand like he wants to give you five and then he'll pull it away at the last minute. He also loves to purse his lips in a ridiculous pucker and then makes an awesome smooching sound.

Maggie- Sheesh. If she weren't so adorable, amazing, and smart we would have sold her to gypsies by now. I don't know why but the last two weeks have been really hard - maybe it's the heat or maybe it's just getting back to life after so much disruption (travel, etc.). She's been very defiant and acting like a ...gasp...teenager. On the good side, she always says things that either astound us or make us swoon with her adorableness. Tonight she and I went to a birthday party for my sister-in-law and she left one of her dolls (Peter) in the car. When we got back to the car it was dark, and she sighed and said, "Well, at least Peter got to see the beautiful sunset."

Grant just finished a music video for Andrew Peterson and it's so amazing. I don't want to build it up too much so why don't you just watch it for yourself?

Dancing in the Mine Fields from Grant Howard on Vimeo.

This upcoming weekend he's working on the 48-Hour Film Festival where he will be randomly assigned a genre and then will make a short film in, you guessed it, 48 hours! So basically it will be at least 48 hours before we see him, but it's such a fun challenge for him.

The baby and I are doing great! She's moving a lot and growing. I'm about 6 months along now and entering the home stretch. It's a little overwhelming to think of all we have to do. Just for fun I'll make a bulleted list.

• Buy a minivan.
• Choose bedding
• Paint the nursery
• Buy another infant carseat as Maggie and Finn's was "expired". Did you know they could expire? It's true - after five years!
• Choose a name! We're having a bit of a hard time but I think we may have settled on something.
• Start cooking meals to freeze.
• Buy my home birth kit and additional supplies. I should put the contents of the home birth kit on here just for laughs. There's some funny/weird stuff in there.
• Buy some clothes and things for the baby. We gave all of Maggie's little baby stuff away and a lot of it was thrown away because of stains. So I need to get mostly the teeny baby things like gowns, pajamas, and some pink waffle blankets we like to swaddle with and some pink baby towels. Obviously the towels aren't a necessity but I don't want to use Finn's blue ones on her. Yes, I know that's stupid.

So I need to get busy! I'm working on choosing nursery (or am I brave enough to attempt making it?!) and getting the painting done in the next week or two.

All right, now that I've bored you to death with my lists...gooodbye! I promise not to drop off the face of the earth.

The Vile Stomach Virus

I know I promised Greece and TX photos but we've been a bit busy around here. We returned from TX on Sunday night, spent most of Monday and Tuesday recovering from travel and trying to get back to normal, and then Tuesday night...the vile stomach virus hit Finn.
He was sick all day Wednesday but was able to keep some Pedialyte down. I checked his pediatrician's nurse triage and they said he didn't need to come in but we should come if he vomits bile. Well, the next morning, sure enough, he was vomiting bile (sorry if this is too graphic for you). His pediatrician sent us to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital ER and shortly after being there they admitted us. His geneticist wasn't on call so we had to take the doctor who was. I'll call her Dr. MacMeany. About two hours after we got there and shortly after meeting her, Dr. MacMeany told me, "I hate metabolic patients. They can go to fine to dead in four hours." Seriously? What kind of thing is that to say to the parent of a metabolic patient?
Also, because he was so dehydrated they had trouble getting an IV in him, so the poor guy was turned into a pincushion and was poked and pricked dozens of times. At this point Finn was drinking Pedialyte from a cup and keeping it down (they had given him an anti-nausea medication at this point). We decided that Grant would stay the night at the hospital, Maggie was staying with my mom and step-dad, and I went home by myself. Sometime in the middle of the night, despite the fact that Finn was improving steadily and had been drinking from a cup hours earlier, Dr. MacMeany decided that she wanted him to have a feeding tube to get a continuous amount of his medical formula. So our little sweetie had to withstand having the feeding tube put down his little nose and then was so traumatized and irritated by it that he hardly slept the rest of the night. Ugh.
We begged and pleaded with Dr. MacMeany the next day to get the darn thing out and after about 24 hours it came out. We think that a lot of her actions were basically covering her butt and she felt a little out of her comfort zone taking care of Finn (she specializes in birth defects rather than metabolic disorders like Finn has). It was just beyond unfortunate and this hospitalization was really hard on Finn - trapped in his room in case it was a contagious GI virus, a million blood draws and IV attempts, the feeding tube, the successful IV, and the inability to rest due to being bothered by drs and nurses around the clock. He got to the point where he would cry if a nurse or doctor even came in the room. Needless to say it was hard on us, too. Dr. MacMeany reiterated her fear of metabolic patients again a few days later and told me AGAIN, "One minute metabolic patients are fine and the next minute they're dead." I told her, "You should NOT say that to parents of a metabolic patient." Her response? She said, "Oh, well, I don't mind taking care of Finn, but..." Rest assured that we'll be bringing this up with our regular genetics team at our next appointment.
We ended up staying for four days and were released around 7:30 on July 4th (or as I called it, "Independence from the Hospital Day").
Although we hated being at the hospital we're very grateful that Finn got the help he needed, and while we were there I gained a lot of gratitude for my children's health and empathy for families of children with frequent hospitalizations or dealing with something like cancer. Wow. Vandy is such a great place but it's just so sad to think about being there for weeks or months at a time.
All right, go hug your children and thank God for their health!