Julian Jr.'s Birth Story

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Julian Jr.'s Birth Story

This is for all the pregnant moms and moms-to-be who have a ferocious appetite for reading birth stories.
I remember!

While I was pregnant there was a song on the radio by Donna Lewis called "I Love You Always Forever." Hearing that song would make my heart soooo happy. If a heart could have wings, mine did and still does whenever I hear it. I bought the CD for this one song and I'm putting it in Julian Jr.'s time capsule for the future. (In case you are anti-midi or you just really hate this song, you can click the two lines || on the console below and it'll stop.)

When our baby boy was born I was 37 and my husband was 56. My husband had a vasectomy in 1979, so I was ASTONISHED to find myself pregnant!!! When you want, you can read all about that by clicking on the Vasectomy Story link *if* you want! But I give you fair warning...it contains more minutiae about my life than you ever wanted to know! :D

Often when I was pregnant I felt pure joy. It would flow over me and envelope me; when I was driving, or sitting, or talking. Just anytime. It's hard to describe, but maybe you know just what I mean. It was calm and excitement; it was looking forward to the future yet really trying to absorb the very minute I was in. I practiced my own mantra for the baby saying over and over, "You have a sweet, sunny disposition. You are such a happy boy. And, you make us happy too." I'd rub round and round on my belly saying this. I talked with him and sang to him and read to him while he was growing in my womb.

I had my first child when I was 18. My eldest, David Christian, who is in the Marines now (Semper Fi!), was born by cesarean because my cervix never dilated more than about two cm. With David I labored for 21 hours, had a saddle block, and delivered him by c-section on May 12, 1978. He weighed 6 pounds and 11 ounces and at the time I thought he was a big baby! I'm 5' 2" and I barely put on 23 pounds. It was an easy pregnancy from beginning to end.

The second time around I put on 43 pounds. The first six months were fun. The seventh month was a little challenging. The eighth month started to get a little hard and the ninth month was harder. The last two weeks were killer and I'd never ever want to go through them again. I had a midwife and an OB/GYN, and though I knew I needed to be prepared to go to the hospital, I prepared and hoped for a home birth.

My water broke first, at 5:00 PM on a Friday night. My husband had just bought a Mozart cassette tape and we were listening to it when I got up from my chair and, taa daa, some water came out. It kind of leaked actually. My mucous plug had been coming out little by little for a few hours so it wasn't a complete surprise. My midwife came over but my labor pains at home were never bad. They didn't even qualify as labor pains really. So once we were convinced no labor was really happening she went home. My husband and I decided to go to the hospital the next morning. I called Claudie (my midwife) and told her we were going and she said she'd meet us there. She was really supportive and understanding.

Nowadays, doctors will go to great length to avoid performing an unnecessary c-section, so I had pitocin, an epidural, internal fetal monitoring, IVs; the whole shebang, hoping I could accomplish a VBAC. The pitocin was brutal. But just like my first birth experience, my cervix simply did not dilate.

My big belly (and our dog).

Claudie acted as my doula at the hospital. She held my hand, helped me to manage the pain, and told us what to expect and what should be happening as labor progressed (or didn't progress, as it were). At the hospital I ended up with a doctor who had the WORST bedside manner. My own doctor was one of five in a medical practice so I knew there was a 30% possibility I might not get her for the birth. Unfortunately for me, I ended up with the one I didn't want. But with Claudie there I didn't worry about decision making during my labor and I didn't have to rely on only one doctor's professional opinion regarding the progress of my labor. I had Claudie's point of view which was based on an extensive foundation of knowledge and experience. Unfortunately, as time went on, and I still didn't dilate, my preferences as listed in my birth plan became less and less relevant. As it turned out, my birth plan never even came out of my bag, but I learned a lot about pregnancy and birth and newborns from putting it together.

It's really hard for the man who loves you to see you in labor so having Claudie there was good for my husband too. You know...you both have prepared for the birth. You plan what he will do, what you will do, but you really don't know how it's going to be till you get there and you're doing it.

Some women don't want to be physically touched during labor; I didn't want eye contact with anyone. At one point, the pains were coming so big and so fast that I had no time between contractions to even recover. The pit causes that. It just so happened that this was the time the doctor picked to put in the internal fetal monitor. This was probably the most painful time for me because I had to be on my back which immediately pumped up the volume of the pain! To help me get through it, Claudie encouraged my husband and I to look into each other's eyes. Marshalling all my powers of concentration I focused on my husband's eyes. My husband is not a man who caters to wimpiness and my plan was to be a "real woman" and bear these pains courageously. Boy was I delusional. I wanted out of the whole situation really bad! (Too late for that, eh?) But when I looked into his eyes, I felt really connected to him. That minute seemed like forever. Now it's a memory that will always be near and dear to my heart.

On May 17, 1997, after 17 hours at home and ten hours at the hospital Julian Joseph Junior was born by c-section. We will never forget the sound of his voice when he first cried. It was awesome. He weighed a robust 8.8 pounds! There was thick meconium in the amniotic fluid which isn't good. Also, he was born four days before my projected due date but they said he looked like a baby who was overdue. We watched the nurses wash him and Julian was never outside of our sight. The hospital was good about that. The nurses helped me to get started with breastfeeding him within 30 minutes of his birth. He stayed in my room with me at the hospital and I kept him in bed with me the whole night on the first night. I think it's unusual for them to let you keep your baby in your bed all night after a cesarean, but no one asked to take him out of my arms. Having him next to me, holding him in my arms, was heavenly.

Julian almost three months old.

Before I had this baby, I was absolutely positive I didn't want any more kids. Nothing about children appealed to me. They cry, they whine, you've gotta watch them all the time, they have to go to the restroom during the best part of a movie. And don't forget, they grow into teenagers you know. It makes it all the harder for me to come up with a logical explanation as to how I can be so happy about being a mom all over again. But I am. Having another baby changed my heart, changed my self, changed my being. Both of my babies changed my life. In different ways, but I needed both of them and I didn't know it.

Julian is a sweet boy and as we watch his personality developing more and more every day we see that he really does have a sunny disposition. Sometimes I wonder if my mantra has anything to do with that. It could be. One thing for sure though. We can never know what He has planned for us in this life. God works in mysterious ways that I know I'll never understand. But I guess I don't really need to understand it. My job now is to be the best mom I can be. Again!

Wishing you a joyful pregnancy,

Shawn (Mamma to David, 5/12/78, and Julian Jr., 5/17/97)