The baby's here!

Dad setting up the birth pool the night before. We were pretty sure it was going to happen that night--and it did. Jacob and Peter were helping.


Jacob and Peter had to try it out to make sure it was adequate for Mommy and the new baby!


Peter was very curious about what was going on. This was definitely outside the realm of his normal experience.


This is pretty much how it went. I labored while they watched. Jacob (Dad) was looking pretty intense. We have to remember it is the dad's birth experience too. This time he had to tend to Pete and Jacob too.


Very first shot--I thought it was amazing holding him like that instead of having him whisked away until he was all cleaned up and "pretty." There is nothing more beautiful than a brand new baby.

Yes, the baby is here. I was shocked when he was born to discover it was a boy, but as soon as I saw him I knew it was perfect. His name is Aelwulf Isaiah O'Neil. Don't worry, you'll get used to the name. I think it's awesome. It's pronounced pretty much like Ale-wolf and it translates roughly to Elf Wolf from Old English. His name was inspired by two Saxon kings from the 9th century, Aethelwulf (Noble Wolf) who converted to Christianity and became very devout, and his son Aelfred (Elf Counsel)--who united all of England, emphasized education for everyone, and who was the only English monarch ever to be granted the title The Great. You might think I came up with the name, since I'm the history geek and I even studied English history--but it was actually Jacob who decided on that name. Aelwulf was born at 9:13 a.m. on Monday, February 7th. He weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. and they measured him at 20.5 inches long, but I'm pretty sure he was at least an inch longer than that. He looked really long when he was born and at 12 days he measured at 22.75 inches, and I'm pretty sure he didn't grow more than two inches in less than two weeks.

Sorry it took me so long to post, but things got kinda crazy. The birth was amazing. I will never have another baby in the hospital again. After having had one at home and having it be such an amazingly spiritual and empowering experience, I don't know why people ever switched to doing hospital births as a rule. I absolutely believe that in some high-risk cases it is necessary, but if there is nothing wrong then in my opinion home birth is the way to go.

It was only 7 hours of active labor, which was a big improvement for me on the first one. Of course, I was in labor for a total of probably 24 hours, but it wasn't that bad until the water broke at, of course, 2:30 in the morning. We had also, of course, been up rather late the night before because we knew I was going into labor and we were trying to decide whether to try to push it and get it going or whether to try and get some sleep at the risk of stalling labor. We opted for sleep, but it didn't really work all that well. The baby was born four days after his due date so I guess that's when I go into labor--in the wee hours of the morning four days after the due date, because that's when I went into labor with Jacob too. I bet I would have with Peter if they had just left him alone and not tried to induce him a week early.

It was the most amazing experience having him at home. Everyone left me alone. Nobody told me where to lie and in what position, and now it's time to strap on the monitor, and all you can have to eat or drink is ice chips (not that I actually wanted anything when the time came anyway), and best of all, nobody stuck their dang fingers up my vagina. Sorry to be crude, but it sure gets annoying being checked all the time when you're in the middle of labor, especially when you know that every time they check you after your water breaks your risk of infection increases by 15%. Nobody even touched me unless I wanted them to. Jacob massaged my shoulders a little, brought me cool washcloths to hold on my forehead, and kept the temperature of the water in the birth pool nice and warm. The midwives just watched the progress of labor and every once in a while used a water-proof Doppler to check the baby's heartbeat, which ticked on just like a clock through the whole thing. Everyone was really quiet and calm. Aelwulf handled labor better than either of my others did and I suspect it's because we weren't being harassed the whole time. The midwives didn't even do the final check to make sure I was a 10 because everything progressed so smoothly that by the time I felt like pushing he was already halfway down the birth canal. Pretty sure I was a 10 since he started descending all on his own without me even pushing. Next time I'm going to wait longer to push because it got a lot more painful once I started "helping" and I don't think it was really necessary until right at the very end anyway.

One thing that was different was having my kids there. They're pretty little at 3 and 1/2 and 1 and 1/2 so I wasn't really worried about modesty. Besides, when you're in labor you don't really care much about that anyway. Watching their reactions was quite an experience. I think it was actually very emotionally traumatic for them, but not necessarily in a bad way. It certainly expanded their life experience to see their mom go through something like that. Peter just watched quietly and every once in a while came up to the side of the pool and put his chubby little hand on me, I think just to make sure I was okay. A lot of the time he spent sitting on one of the midwives' laps. Jacob--poor Jacob. He was quiet and watchful. Then when it got toward the end when things get really intense(they were only awake for the last hour and a half or so anyway), it got to be too much for him to see me in that much pain without him understanding why or what was going on. Dad got him a cup of hot chocolate and Jacob stood there holding it, then suddenly he walked one way, turned and walked the other, then stood still again, not knowing what to do or where to go and his eyes filled up with tears. That was really hard on Dad. There he was trying to tend to me and make sure I was as comfortable as possible, but it was clear that our little boys needed that too so he was trying to take care of everybody all at once. Dad swooped him up in his arms and then held him on his lap after that and then Jacob was okay.

So, that was all amazing. Then two days later I, Jacob, and Peter got sick. For me it turned into pneumonia. Dad Jacob had already been sick, but he was pretty much over it by then. It got worse for him when we all got it. I was breastfeeding so I thought the baby would be safe, but five days later, when he was exactly a week old, he got sick. Five days after that his lips and fingernails were turning blue and he ended up in the hospital with oxygen sats in the 70s. He (and presumably the rest of us) had RSV, a respiratory virus I had never heard of growing up but that apparently they get a lot around here in the late winter. It's not that big a deal in older people--actually it was miserable--but in babies it can be deadly. February is the worst month for it.

I'm really glad we went to the hospital because we got oxygen for him and that was obviously what he needed. His color returned to normal and his breathing got a lot better. But that was all he really needed. They also did breathing treatments with an albuterol nebulizer and that seemed to help somewhat. But true to hospital form, they just couldn't leave him alone. They made him have an iv (which took six tries to get) even though with oxygen he could nurse just fine and was eating about every hour and a half so was obviously not dehydrated. They did blood draws and tested for everything under the sun. They tested to see if he was septic, of all things. He had a respiratory virus, not a blood infection for crying out loud. They did prophylactic antibiotics even though he had a virus. The worst thing was they did a spinal tap to see if he had spinal meningitis because his fever had one reading of 100.9, even though that was the only fever he registered the whole time. I asked the doctor to take the temperature again and he said it didn't matter because he had already reached that threshold and protocol is that on a baby that young with a fever over 100.4 you automatically do a spinal tap. As if the fever was going to drop back down to normal if he had had spinal meningitis. Duh. The doctor stuck him three times in the back and didn't get it. Then he called in a nurse anesthetist and she got it, but barely. They had to scrape up his back and collect some of the fluid that leaked out when she withdrew the needle. I wanted to throw up. Of course the sample was contaminated with his skin bacteria, which they expected, but some people were talking about trying to get another sample because of it. They didn't do it. I think I would have raised a royal ruckus if they had tried to stick a needle in his back for a fifth time, especially after sticking him six times to get the iv. We were at the hospital for two days, and while I'm grateful that he is doing well and for the oxygen and the nebulizer, I sure was glad to get out of there and go home at the end of those two days. We did a home birth to avoid all the unnecessary interference only to end up dealing with it two weeks later anyway. Oh, well. Nothing will take away the amazing birth experience.

He is doing much better now. He is still coughing a little bit, but he is very alert and his color is good. We followed up with our usual family doctor a few days after getting out of the hospital and his o2 sats were still in the 90s and his lungs were pretty clear. Thank goodness. Everyone else pretty much got over the illness in the last couple of days so we are just waiting for little Aelwulf to join us. We expected him to show signs of illness a little longer because he got it a little later than we did. He's fine, just a little bit of coughing and sneezing still.

We were going to go to church today, but they called Jacob into work at 6 this morning, and I did not feel up to trying to take all three boys back to church on my own after missing two weeks in a row, since I have no idea how any of them is going to take it. Especially Petey. He's been a trooper but he has been a little extra clingy since little Wulf was born. At 19 months, Petey is still pretty much a baby himself, so I don't blame him. I'm trying to make sure he gets all the love he needs. I'm also trying to keep my head afloat. I have a very high-maintenance household and with three kids under the age of 4 it's been a bit crazy. I can't help but ask myself, what on earth was I thinking? But then I look at them all and I love them so much that I know it's just perfect and everything will work out OK.

(P.S. I didn't post this on Sunday because I wanted to actually include some pictures this time, which took me a little bit of time to finagle.)