Friday, January 23, 2009

Daddy Loves His Baby Girl


First Cloth Diaper


The first two days I decided to use Earth's Best disposables, so that the meconium wouldn't stain the cloth diapers. Today Zoa is 3 days old! Since she's already passed all the meconium, she's now wearing her organic cotton prefolds with either a sugar pears wool cover or wool pants. Here she is in her prefold with a snappi (the yellow thing-has claws that grip the cloth instead of using pins)

First Chiropractic Adjustment for Baby!


Dr. Steve Thain of Wellness One in Bellevue was so sweet to come to our home the day after her birth to give Zoa her first chiropractic adjustment. Her neck was tilted slightly to one side after the birth and now is officially perfect ;)



Baby Zoamore Rachelle


Zoamore (Zo ah mor ay) Rachelle (Rah shell)

Born in water at home into her Daddy's hands!

Born on 1/21 at 1:21pm and 21in long!   8lbs 4oz

Zoamore was born painfree and I'm so blessed to be a new mommy.

Pain Free Childbirth


So contractions started around 3:30am. I did some reading online, took a shower, and crawled back onto the bed. I slept in between the contractions and when the contractions started I would roll off the bed to get onto the birth ball. I would either bounce on the ball or rotate my hips around in circles.

Around 11am I went to get an adjustment from my chiropractor, Dr. Steve Thain. He's my midwife's husband and his practice, Wellness One Bellevue, is attached the Eastside Birth Center. He gave me one adjustment and I started having a contraction, so I went over to my husband who was sitting on the chair and I held his hand for support and did a little hula girl dance (rotating my hips around in circles).  I got back onto the correction table to finish the adjustments, my whole back released very well and I laid on the table for a minute in pure bliss!

We were picking up my chart and birth stool from the birth center and when she came to bring it to me she offered for me to come back into the center and get checked. On my birth plan I had asked to have minimal checks though was a little curious how far dilated I was... thinking I was only 3-4 cm. Well... I was 7-8cm!

We headed home with the midwife following us and our doula, Carisa Kimble, and the student midwife meeting us at the house. They were an awesome birth team and my husband and I are very grateful for them all. Another way I liked going through the contractions was resting my head on my husband's shoulder, my arms around his neck and hanging, which let me loosen up my body. So while my husband was busy filling the birth tub, Carisa supported me through some contractions. I then got onto the birth stool and totally felt something bulging out, but not a head. Called my midwife, Christine Thain, over to me to check out what it was. Totally forgot that my water hadn't broken yet and that's what was bulging. She told me that it was time I got into the tub, which felt great. Sometimes my calves would get a little tingly from sitting kinda funky and my husband would massage one and Carisa would massage the other!

Even though the contractions were intense, I was feeling no pain during labor. I have been doing a lot of reading and praying on painless and even orgasmic births and have been speaking that over myself throughout the pregnancy. My husband and doula were also in agreement with me and they both prayed over me during labor. Okay... back to the birth tub... So my water breaks and I say "my water broke!". It was a strange feeling to say the least to feel it break while being in the tub. My midwife told me that I could bear down if I wanted to but still had it in the back of my mind that it wasn't time yet. I was still waiting for transition! I had been told so many times that all women go through a stage where they want drugs or feel like they can't go any further. I never got to that part, skipped right passed it.

My midwife told me that I could feel the baby's head if I wanted to and sure enough I could. It was a soft ridge of skin and on either sides of the ridge was hard, which was the baby's skull. The soft ridge was the skin of baby's head. Finally it dawned on me that it was time that I could push. In between these contractions that I was pushing on I would lay my head on the tub or onto my husband and fall asleep. When the contractions came back I would hold my husband's hand and my doula's hand while I bear down working with the contraction and blowing breaths out or deep moans.

One of the last pushing contractions I even started laughing half way through it! I was feeling so much joy as the baby's head was crowning that all I could do was laugh. I think we got that part of video tape... so I'll get it up here soon.

My husband checked the cord wasn't wrapped around baby's neck before I pushed the shoulders out and he pulled baby up out of the water into my arms.

It's a girl!! Husband and I are shocked as we both felt so strongly that baby was a boy. We are both estatic to have such a healthy and beautiful baby girl.