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Finding Out about Baby #4

Before we get into the birth story, I wanted to share some things about this pregnancy that I never got to share and want to keep for journaling purposes. 

So we found out we were pregnant with Hana in late November, when we were in Tokyo. We told my parents around Christmas when they came to visit, here's the video to that: 

We decided to keep it quiet from Darin's parents until we saw them next, and left it at that. we were planning to visit them in April so figured it would happen then. With them being such pranksters we wanted to make it a prank for them, so we decided to brainstorm in that time.

Covid-19 hit and changed a lot. NYC was hit hard and the hospitals were overwhelmed. I went to have my gender check at the hospital and it was a weird experience, everyone was in masks, I had to wait in the parking lot until my turn, etc. That was March, everything shut down that weekend. 

I really didn't love my OB in NYC, and I started wondering who we could have watch our kids when baby came. Birthing Hana in Utah sounded like a much easier option. Covid caused our flights to Europe to be cancelled, which meant we wouldn't see Darin's parents for a while, and so we decided to continue the prank to the birth. We drove 3 days to Utah to my parents home, and I switched over all my care and planned to have the baby here. 

Darin's parents came to Utah as well, and when we found out there was a likelihood they wouldn't be around for the birth we decided to surprise them pregnant--because we wanted an in-person reaction. Here is the reaction video to that: 

Finding out it was a girl was quite a shock. When I had my 13 week appointment to confirm pregnancy the doctor did an ultrasound. at 13 weeks babies both male and female have something between their legs, but this baby's was pretty big. The doctor said if she had to put money on it, it would be a boy. I accepted that,  and kind of got excited to be an all boy mom. So it was quite a surprise when they said girl at the 20 week appointment! 

okay, now onto the birth story! (in the next post)

Oliver's Birth Story

I should have started writing this post 8 months ago, when my memory was fresh. Now its been nearly 9 months and I am going to do my best to try and remember the best I could. This birth was much different than the other ones for many reasons, but mostly because I decided to go all natural. It was empowering and I think now that enough time has passed I would say I would do it again. 

So let's begin. With this pregnancy I started to dilate earlier than the previous two. I sat at a good ½ cm and then at 1 cm a good week or two. About 2 weeks before the due date (July 12ish?) I had false labor. I had continual cramping that woke me up in the middle of the night. I sat in the rocking chair and rocked through each contraction debating if I should call the OBGYN. After about an hour or two of continual consistent cramping (every few minutes) I decided to call. I left a message with the nurse and waiting for them to call me back. Miraculously (or maybe not? haha), the contractions stopped just before the doctor called and so I went back to sleep.

At my OB appt I asked if I could get my membranes stripped but the nurse said that since I was group B strep + they would not do it (in the case that I went into labor right away and couldn't get the antibiotic in time). Well, a friend of mine who happens to be married to an OBGYN offered her husband's services (why does that sound so wrong?) and I decided after talking it over to take her up on the offer. We went and had pizza for dinner at their house (this was a Friday evening if I remember correctly), and then he stripped my membranes. If I remember correctly, it was Friday July 14, I had had my baby shower the day before.  I cramped and bled for a few days with no labor.

no idea this would be the last time I would go anywhere pregnant!

Eating dessert at our girl's night

On July 18, I went out to a girls night to a yummy dessert place, and then headed home with no apparent cramping. 

I went to bed and was slightly crampy, but I figured just like any other night they would go away. I rolled around in bed waiting for them to let up but they seemed to get worse. I finally fell asleep for a bit and woke up at 1am again to go to the bathroom and had some more cramping. As I got up and started walking around they got significantly more intense (feeling VERY similar to the cramped I had the previous week). I tried to walk them out but very quickly decided to call the OBGYN. When I called they told me to take a warm bath, to try and drink some water and Tylenol and see in an hour how things were going. This had to be sometime around 1-2am. I tried filling the tub up and sitting in it, and quickly realized these were NOT getting better. Just then I got a call back from the OB office basically saying, "never mind, just called the hospital and there's room, so go on in whenever you're ready." 

I drained the tub and called the Tingeys, Gilles, and Ishams (the girls wanted to be there if they could, and we needed someone to come stay with the boys). I quickly packed my bags, and we were out the door around just after 3am.

We drove and the contractions began to really come on strong. once we got out of the car I used the time between contractions to run inside before the next one would begin. 

Unfortunately since Ben was over watching our kids, Jackie had to stay home with theirs. Katy rushed over to the hospital though, and met me there when they were taking my vitals around 3:50am. 

The midwife was quite short with me. She asked what I wanted to do for pain management and I said no epidural, and then lightly asked, "so if there is anything you recommend to help with the pain let me know!" to which she looked at me annoyed and said something along the lines of, "there is nothing, you just deal with it."

um.. okay. I immediately hoped she didn't stick around... haha

The midwife then checked my dilation she said she couldn't tell how dilated I was (in a not very nice, frustrated tone). I was a bit confused, like, aren't you a midwife, haven't you don't this before? Turns out it was because my amniotic sac was budging out, so she could get in to measure (she seemed a bit annoyed about that too, sorry my baby wants to come out? haha) but she assumed somewhere around 7-8cm, and about 50% effaced. When I heard that I was glad I didn't wait an hour or we probably wouldn't have made it!

After all the vitals were checked I was starting to get a bit uncomfortable and they realized it was already time to push. They rolled me to the delivery room and hoisted me onto the bed there. There was no way I was gonna make it walking. Pretty soon after the urge came. I can only describe it (9 months later) as intense pressure and pain. The nurses picked up on it right away, because my deep groaning suddenly got louder and a little bit higher pitched. The only way to ease the pain was to curl down and push. The hospital nurse quickly called the midwife and said, "she's pushing!" and the midwife (yes the one from earlier) came running in. The Midwife started to try to coach me but I just wanted to curl onto my side. The pain made me do whatever eased the pain, but she kept yelling at me to get back onto my back (and I was just trying to deal with the pain). She then started yelling at me "focus! look at me! stop, you need to FOCUS!" got right in my face, and used her two fingers to align are eyes (do you know what I mean? like when people say "I'm watching you." She didn't like that I was pushing I guess? She wanted me to hold my breath in when I pushed, but I liked to slowly breathe out while pushing, and anyway whatever I was doing was not what she wanted. This just made me have one more thing to think and worry about while I'm just trying to survive. haha The nurse there at the time could tell it was a lot of pressure and suggested I take a break from pushing for a moment. The midwife gladly stopped and left the room to help another patient.

Earlier contractions were managed with Darin letting me squeeze his hands and breathing.

Pretty soon after the midwife left the urge came yet again, and I tried NOT to push but I couldn't help myself. I was curled onto my side and bearing down as I tried to push through the pain. I felt like I was pushing a balloon or something out, and just then there was a large "POP!" and slight immediate relief that lasted about 2 seconds. Then I felt warm fluids rushing out and I knew I had popped my water. The pushing urges got worse and I apologized to the hospital nurse for pushing, telling her that I didn't think the midwife liked what I was doing. she was so sweet and said, "you don't worry about her, you do what your body is telling you to do, don't worry" She then let me push a little on my own, but realized that baby was in transition and called the previous midwife who said she couldn't come, so she coached me through a lot of the pushing while they tried to find another midwife. 

Finally, a different midwife comes running in around 5am, looking a bit disoriented (I think she was sleeping on call). She came and helped me finish pushing. She was the total opposite of the tough-love midwife. She was like almost OVERLY validating. She had such a soft, kind voice when she spoke, constantly telling me I was doing great, and how she was so impressed with me (a part of me was thinking it was a bit overly nice, like really? I don't think I was doing that great of a job, just trying to survive haha). She, the Nurse, Katy and Darin were cheering me on saying I was SO close, that they could see the baby, but okay, I had heard this before. With both of my previous kids they said I was so close for a good hour (I pushed for an hour and a half with both of them), so "almost" or "so close" just didn't hold the same value to me and quite frankly I was getting a bit bugged haha. So I finally said to the midwife and Darin, "stop telling me I'm so close if I'm not! its just discouraging, like really tell me, like REALLY how close am I?!"

Then, the midwife said, "you really are getting there! you want to feel his head? it's already sticking out, go ahead! put your hand down and touch his head!"
that was such a cool experience. I reached my hand down and sure enough, I could feel his fuzzy little head starting to emerge. That gave me a bit more motivation to push harder. In the midst of all this one thing I remember very vividly was the intense burning (sorry to get graphic but hey, this is for me to remember) that my friend referred to as "the ring of fire." it was so intense the cramping didn't seem to bother me so much anymore. I just remember thinking to myself, "yup, one time is enough, I don't think I ever want to feel this sort of pain ever again."

Pushing was exhausting! Darin let me pull down on his arm.

I was so grateful to have Katy there, she was able to take some photos, and help coach me through and just cheer me on. Darin was my stress ball, I would squeeze him every time I had to push. Both were great to have there.

At 5:34am on July 19, 2017, after about 45 minutes of pushing, Oliver Yuto Brinley made his way into the world. The immediate relief you feel when baby gets pulled out is probably one of the most satisfying feelings ever, suddenly you can feel your stomach once again! Ollie was a healthy boy weighing in at 7lbs 9oz. The nurses were so great at CMC Pineville, and the second midwife was so sweet too. 

I was SO sweaty, the cool towels on my face felt amazing

SO much relief after he was born

Recovery felt to be much quicker with Ollie than the rest of the boys. Not sure if it was because of the length of time being shorter or maybe because I didn't get an epidural and so I could pace myself better, but I was grateful for a speedy recovery for sure!

Later that morning Darin went home and brought the boys. This was the first time they met Ollie!

While I was in the hospital Darin would go home and stay with the boys and during the day we had the Tingeys and Gilles help watch them. Trina also stayed one night with the boys so that we could have a night together at the hospital. Narisa stayed with me IN the hospital one night so that Darin could get a good night's rest at home. I am so grateful for such a great group of friends!

 

 

these hospital beds aren't big enough for 4 of us!

Time to go home!!

FINALLY HOME!