*As always, this is a complete birth story. If you don't want all the gory details, STOP reading*
Preston's pregnancy was hard from pretty much the first moment. Finding out the week of Christmas that we were pregnant again was so fun and exciting, but within two weeks I was puking my guts up every morning. I'd lie in bed, praying not to vomit, wait to hear Milo start crying and then get him out of the crib, then rub back to my room, throw him on the bed, and heave until sometimes I cried over the toilet, praying all the while that Milo wouldn't roll off the bed. Sometimes Sam would stand over me, asking why I was "gagging."
After three acupuncture treatments, the nausea was gone! (Hallelujah, I wish I'd done this with my other pregnancies.) And then my tailbone went out. Around 16 weeks. So walking became incredibly difficult.
The real kicker, however, came at week 28, when I started having real contractions, can't-talk-through-them, early labor contractions. I went in for my weekly appointment and told my midwife, Kathleen, what I was experiencing and - God bless her - she told her apprentice to take me seriously because I "knew what I was doing." I was given a fetal fibronectin test (which tells you if there's a protein that is released within two weeks of giving birth) and sent for a sonogram. The test was negative and the sono showed everything looked normal. But I was officially put on bed rest, two hours of rest and one hour of light activity until 37 weeks.
The following weekend I was light on help and ended up overdoing it. I knew I needed total bed rest. I was having contractions every time I stood up, and often just when I was sitting. I can't tell you how physically difficult this was with a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, and I cannot begin to describe the emotional toll this took on me. You feel like you're failing your older children, and yet you know that the new life depends on your rest. Every week was a milestone. Every week felt like we could breathe that much easier as we got closer and closer to week 37.
So we finally reached 36 weeks and I was able to start relaxing some. We could go to the birthing center if labor started, with the chance of being transferred if the baby had any complications. Week 37 found me getting antsy. When would we get to meet this little booger? I thought that as soon as I went off of bed rest this baby would come! Week 38 found me upset. This baby was supposed to just fall out when I stood up! It was so low in my pelvis, so engaged (at something beyond a 0 station, if you know your labor lingo), that we couldn't figure out how this baby was still in me! How was I not dilating?! But my cervix remained stubborn, doing its job too well now. And we wanted to meet our baby desperately now! We wanted to know: Boy or girl?!
Sometime in the week or two before our due date (Friday, August 28th) the contractions became so strong and consistent that I called Kathleen, sure that we were really in labor. We stopped by the birthing center and still nothing. No real dilation. A centimeter. Nothing to write home about. Definitely not enough to get a baby out.
Sunday, August 23rd rolled around and around 4:30am I woke up with strong cramps. Not contractions, but cramps. Is this it? I waited a bit and nothing happened, so I rolled over (like a beached whale) and slept again. At 7:00, I woke up with contractions ten minutes apart. This was it. The big day. I knew. I texted my mom and dad, at church. They finished up there, picked up donuts, and came over around 11:00. I had been applying Clary Sage oil for the past few days to my reflex points for starting labor and actually had applied several drops several times a day directly on my cervix (DON'T do this without your provider's consent). I now kicked it up, even though the smell made me just about toss my cookies every time. (Extreme side note: Did you know if you're extremely attracted or averse to a particular essential oil the belief is that you need it especially?) David, my Dad and I decided to go for a walk with the boys. I pushed Milo in the stroller. A contraction would hit and I would squat, then we'd walk. We passed two neighbors who both asked, "So when are you going to have that baby?" I smiled and responded, "Today!" Then a contraction hit - both times - and so I squatted and breathed through it. "Oh, you mean you're really in labor?!" The looks on their faces were priceless. We did two laps around our block and got the contractions to 8 minutes apart. We walked back in the house just minutes before a surprise rainstorm that lasted about twenty minutes and cooled everything down after it at least ten degrees. It was glorious. So around 2:00 we went for another walk. More contractions. More squatting. Two laps. 6 minutes apart.
When we got back home I decided to try to nap. I was able to doze a little bit off and on through the contractions for about an hour and a half. When we got up, around 5:00, they were 5 minutes apart. Progress, but so slow. This was my third baby, whom my body had been attempting to evict for ten weeks. Where was the mercy? Where was the eviction? Where was the fairness??
I would eat a little, drink a little, move around, bounce on my yoga ball, lean over the yoga ball, squat, stand, sway....No progress. So at 8:00(pm) we went for another walk. More squatting, more neighbors, more awesome reactions. After just one lap, the contractions were at 2-3 minutes apart! Time to call Kathleen! Kathleen said she would wrap up some things and head our way. Then I told David to call Natalie, our dear, sweet photographer-friend.
Natalie arrived around 9:00 I think.We were just about to put Sam and Milo to bed. I was laboring alternately sitting on the couch and crouching on the ground, hugging a yoga ball. The contractions were strong now, and I was experiencing the dreaded, typical-for-me-and-my-difficult-babies back labor. Mom and Daddy and David and Natalie talked quietly, while the tv played softly in the background. It was a very relaxed and peaceful way to labor, really. I was surrounded by the people I love all talking quietly to each other, mostly listening, sometimes drifting off to that place only a mother in labor can visit, of concentration and breathing and pain and waiting.
Kathleen arrived around 10:30pm, while I was in the middle of a contraction on the couch. I didn't look up until I was done, and she asked if I could move to the bedroom so she could check me. I happily obliged - or at least, as happily as a woman in labor for fifteen hours can. She laid down a Chucks pad for me to lie on, and waited while another strong contraction hit. David leaned his fists into my low back as firmly as he could, while Kathleen chatted about getting lost on the way to us because Google Maps can't ever find our correct address. I tuned in when she said, "..Sometimes we have to call this 'false labor'. I'm sure you'll have that baby soon, but it may not be just yet."
Now, to be fair, I have "false" or prodromal labor for weeks and weeks. It's not like we hadn't gone through the Is Emily really in labor game over and over and over in the past three years. And I wasn't able to be verbal enough at the time to explain, Oh, no. What I'm feeling is 100% REAL labor.
But soon enough the contraction abated and she checked me and found out for herself. (Around 11:00) "Well you're only at 3cms, but your cervix is like rubber! If you're ok with it, I think I can stretch you to complete." Do whatever you have to.
Ouch.
She then had me sit on the potty to make sure it "stuck" and stayed dilated. We had also discussed the use of antibiotics, since I tested positive for Group B Strep this pregnancy. We had talked extensively with Kathleen, prayed about it, researched it, discussed it with others, and David and I had decided that unless my membranes ruptured early, we would decline antibiotics. Kathleen asked me again what I wanted to do, and I reiterated that no, thank you, we felt more comfortable not using the medicine. Instead we did half of a Hebicleanse with some Thieves oil in it. And then there I sat, alone for several minutes, getting hit by one hard contraction after another, waiting and waiting, feeling like labor would never end, feeling cheated because another baby wouldn't just slide right out of me. After fifteen or twenty minutes, I told Kathleen I was very sorry, and I didn't want to undo anything, but I was just so tired, could I please just lie down now? She assured me that nothing would be undone at this point, and it was perfectly fine to lie down.
The rest becomes a slight blur. The contractions seemed back to back. The back labor was awful. At some point, Panaway oil and heat pads were applied, along with David's fists, and it helped significantly with the pain. Every so often, Kathleen would say softly to me, "It's ok. You're only at 8cms, but if you need to push, you just push. I'm right here. It's ok." It was like a lifeline.
Then, suddenly, and just like Milo, the baby spun on its head, and I felt something snap! inside me, and then a gush. "I think my water just broke!" And then, OH! The next contraction! I don't know if it was the baby hitting a nerve just like Milo had, or if it was its position, or just the pain of the contraction with my waters now broken, but oh my gosh. I started vomiting, violently. Over and over and over I heaved, while wave upon wave of pain hit me. David shoved his fists into my back as I sobbed in pain and frustration, and Kathleen held a bowl to my mouth. I kept vomiting and crying and contracting, till I thought it would never end. Even Kathleen commented that she didn't know how I still had anything left in me to expel. I know she said things softly to me, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what they were.
Somewhere in the midst of that, I felt the urge to push, and began bearing down. David later told me he didn't even know I was that close to the end until Kathleen said she could see the head. In about ten pushes, at 12:13am, he was out, all hot and bumpy and wet, and all boy! 8lbs 4ozs, 21" long - exactly the same as Sammy + an ounce! And what I had heard was true: Waiting to find out the gender, in that moment, "even though" it was another boy, was very exciting. And it was a very sweet and peaceful moment, with just David, Kathleen, my parents and Natalie there. Beautiful.
I sat back, exhausted, shaking, and declared him "August Robert Franklin", with a side-eye to David. Confused? Well, as most probably don't remember now, we had decided on the baby's first and middle names for a girl, but we could not agree on a middle name for a boy. David really liked August for the first name, and I conceded (even though I thought a baby named August, born in August was pretty hokey), but we could not agree on a middle name! He really wanted Jude and I really wanted Robert, after my Daddy and several other important family members. The only thing we had agreed upon was that if the baby somehow came on August 14th, he would be named Preston Robert. David's best friend Preston Gleason had been killed in an accident on August 14th, 2007, and I loved the idea of the serendipity of it all. But the 14th came and went, and no baby. So when the baby finally came, I decided I'll just say his name, and then that's that!August Robert. But about as we both sat there, looking at him, some 20 minutes passed, and David said, "Do you like Preston Robert better?" And soAugust Preston Robert he is.
It was about 14 hours of prodromal labor and 1 hour of crazy hard, fast, labor. It turned out our decision to decline the antibiotics for GBS was a good one, since they would not have had time to be effective really anyway. Instead, Kathleen had us not bathe him and keep the vernix on for at least 24 hours. (If you'd like to read more about that, you can here.)
And while I had waffled back and forth on waking the bigger boys to watch the birth, I'm thankful that we didn't, since it was a little...much. Instead, they got to wake up and it was so much better than Christmas. The love that opened in Sam's eyes that morning was exquisite. And just like that, Those Fantastic Franklins became a family of five.
Preston's pregnancy was hard from pretty much the first moment. Finding out the week of Christmas that we were pregnant again was so fun and exciting, but within two weeks I was puking my guts up every morning. I'd lie in bed, praying not to vomit, wait to hear Milo start crying and then get him out of the crib, then rub back to my room, throw him on the bed, and heave until sometimes I cried over the toilet, praying all the while that Milo wouldn't roll off the bed. Sometimes Sam would stand over me, asking why I was "gagging."
After three acupuncture treatments, the nausea was gone! (Hallelujah, I wish I'd done this with my other pregnancies.) And then my tailbone went out. Around 16 weeks. So walking became incredibly difficult.
The real kicker, however, came at week 28, when I started having real contractions, can't-talk-through-them, early labor contractions. I went in for my weekly appointment and told my midwife, Kathleen, what I was experiencing and - God bless her - she told her apprentice to take me seriously because I "knew what I was doing." I was given a fetal fibronectin test (which tells you if there's a protein that is released within two weeks of giving birth) and sent for a sonogram. The test was negative and the sono showed everything looked normal. But I was officially put on bed rest, two hours of rest and one hour of light activity until 37 weeks.
The following weekend I was light on help and ended up overdoing it. I knew I needed total bed rest. I was having contractions every time I stood up, and often just when I was sitting. I can't tell you how physically difficult this was with a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, and I cannot begin to describe the emotional toll this took on me. You feel like you're failing your older children, and yet you know that the new life depends on your rest. Every week was a milestone. Every week felt like we could breathe that much easier as we got closer and closer to week 37.
So we finally reached 36 weeks and I was able to start relaxing some. We could go to the birthing center if labor started, with the chance of being transferred if the baby had any complications. Week 37 found me getting antsy. When would we get to meet this little booger? I thought that as soon as I went off of bed rest this baby would come! Week 38 found me upset. This baby was supposed to just fall out when I stood up! It was so low in my pelvis, so engaged (at something beyond a 0 station, if you know your labor lingo), that we couldn't figure out how this baby was still in me! How was I not dilating?! But my cervix remained stubborn, doing its job too well now. And we wanted to meet our baby desperately now! We wanted to know: Boy or girl?!
Sometime in the week or two before our due date (Friday, August 28th) the contractions became so strong and consistent that I called Kathleen, sure that we were really in labor. We stopped by the birthing center and still nothing. No real dilation. A centimeter. Nothing to write home about. Definitely not enough to get a baby out.
Sunday, August 23rd rolled around and around 4:30am I woke up with strong cramps. Not contractions, but cramps. Is this it? I waited a bit and nothing happened, so I rolled over (like a beached whale) and slept again. At 7:00, I woke up with contractions ten minutes apart. This was it. The big day. I knew. I texted my mom and dad, at church. They finished up there, picked up donuts, and came over around 11:00. I had been applying Clary Sage oil for the past few days to my reflex points for starting labor and actually had applied several drops several times a day directly on my cervix (DON'T do this without your provider's consent). I now kicked it up, even though the smell made me just about toss my cookies every time. (Extreme side note: Did you know if you're extremely attracted or averse to a particular essential oil the belief is that you need it especially?) David, my Dad and I decided to go for a walk with the boys. I pushed Milo in the stroller. A contraction would hit and I would squat, then we'd walk. We passed two neighbors who both asked, "So when are you going to have that baby?" I smiled and responded, "Today!" Then a contraction hit - both times - and so I squatted and breathed through it. "Oh, you mean you're really in labor?!" The looks on their faces were priceless. We did two laps around our block and got the contractions to 8 minutes apart. We walked back in the house just minutes before a surprise rainstorm that lasted about twenty minutes and cooled everything down after it at least ten degrees. It was glorious. So around 2:00 we went for another walk. More contractions. More squatting. Two laps. 6 minutes apart.
When we got back home I decided to try to nap. I was able to doze a little bit off and on through the contractions for about an hour and a half. When we got up, around 5:00, they were 5 minutes apart. Progress, but so slow. This was my third baby, whom my body had been attempting to evict for ten weeks. Where was the mercy? Where was the eviction? Where was the fairness??
I would eat a little, drink a little, move around, bounce on my yoga ball, lean over the yoga ball, squat, stand, sway....No progress. So at 8:00(pm) we went for another walk. More squatting, more neighbors, more awesome reactions. After just one lap, the contractions were at 2-3 minutes apart! Time to call Kathleen! Kathleen said she would wrap up some things and head our way. Then I told David to call Natalie, our dear, sweet photographer-friend.
Natalie arrived around 9:00 I think.We were just about to put Sam and Milo to bed. I was laboring alternately sitting on the couch and crouching on the ground, hugging a yoga ball. The contractions were strong now, and I was experiencing the dreaded, typical-for-me-and-my-difficult-babies back labor. Mom and Daddy and David and Natalie talked quietly, while the tv played softly in the background. It was a very relaxed and peaceful way to labor, really. I was surrounded by the people I love all talking quietly to each other, mostly listening, sometimes drifting off to that place only a mother in labor can visit, of concentration and breathing and pain and waiting.
Kathleen arrived around 10:30pm, while I was in the middle of a contraction on the couch. I didn't look up until I was done, and she asked if I could move to the bedroom so she could check me. I happily obliged - or at least, as happily as a woman in labor for fifteen hours can. She laid down a Chucks pad for me to lie on, and waited while another strong contraction hit. David leaned his fists into my low back as firmly as he could, while Kathleen chatted about getting lost on the way to us because Google Maps can't ever find our correct address. I tuned in when she said, "..Sometimes we have to call this 'false labor'. I'm sure you'll have that baby soon, but it may not be just yet."
Now, to be fair, I have "false" or prodromal labor for weeks and weeks. It's not like we hadn't gone through the Is Emily really in labor game over and over and over in the past three years. And I wasn't able to be verbal enough at the time to explain, Oh, no. What I'm feeling is 100% REAL labor.
But soon enough the contraction abated and she checked me and found out for herself. (Around 11:00) "Well you're only at 3cms, but your cervix is like rubber! If you're ok with it, I think I can stretch you to complete." Do whatever you have to.
Ouch.
She then had me sit on the potty to make sure it "stuck" and stayed dilated. We had also discussed the use of antibiotics, since I tested positive for Group B Strep this pregnancy. We had talked extensively with Kathleen, prayed about it, researched it, discussed it with others, and David and I had decided that unless my membranes ruptured early, we would decline antibiotics. Kathleen asked me again what I wanted to do, and I reiterated that no, thank you, we felt more comfortable not using the medicine. Instead we did half of a Hebicleanse with some Thieves oil in it. And then there I sat, alone for several minutes, getting hit by one hard contraction after another, waiting and waiting, feeling like labor would never end, feeling cheated because another baby wouldn't just slide right out of me. After fifteen or twenty minutes, I told Kathleen I was very sorry, and I didn't want to undo anything, but I was just so tired, could I please just lie down now? She assured me that nothing would be undone at this point, and it was perfectly fine to lie down.
The rest becomes a slight blur. The contractions seemed back to back. The back labor was awful. At some point, Panaway oil and heat pads were applied, along with David's fists, and it helped significantly with the pain. Every so often, Kathleen would say softly to me, "It's ok. You're only at 8cms, but if you need to push, you just push. I'm right here. It's ok." It was like a lifeline.
Then, suddenly, and just like Milo, the baby spun on its head, and I felt something snap! inside me, and then a gush. "I think my water just broke!" And then, OH! The next contraction! I don't know if it was the baby hitting a nerve just like Milo had, or if it was its position, or just the pain of the contraction with my waters now broken, but oh my gosh. I started vomiting, violently. Over and over and over I heaved, while wave upon wave of pain hit me. David shoved his fists into my back as I sobbed in pain and frustration, and Kathleen held a bowl to my mouth. I kept vomiting and crying and contracting, till I thought it would never end. Even Kathleen commented that she didn't know how I still had anything left in me to expel. I know she said things softly to me, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what they were.
Somewhere in the midst of that, I felt the urge to push, and began bearing down. David later told me he didn't even know I was that close to the end until Kathleen said she could see the head. In about ten pushes, at 12:13am, he was out, all hot and bumpy and wet, and all boy! 8lbs 4ozs, 21" long - exactly the same as Sammy + an ounce! And what I had heard was true: Waiting to find out the gender, in that moment, "even though" it was another boy, was very exciting. And it was a very sweet and peaceful moment, with just David, Kathleen, my parents and Natalie there. Beautiful.
I sat back, exhausted, shaking, and declared him "August Robert Franklin", with a side-eye to David. Confused? Well, as most probably don't remember now, we had decided on the baby's first and middle names for a girl, but we could not agree on a middle name for a boy. David really liked August for the first name, and I conceded (even though I thought a baby named August, born in August was pretty hokey), but we could not agree on a middle name! He really wanted Jude and I really wanted Robert, after my Daddy and several other important family members. The only thing we had agreed upon was that if the baby somehow came on August 14th, he would be named Preston Robert. David's best friend Preston Gleason had been killed in an accident on August 14th, 2007, and I loved the idea of the serendipity of it all. But the 14th came and went, and no baby. So when the baby finally came, I decided I'll just say his name, and then that's that!August Robert. But about as we both sat there, looking at him, some 20 minutes passed, and David said, "Do you like Preston Robert better?" And so
It was about 14 hours of prodromal labor and 1 hour of crazy hard, fast, labor. It turned out our decision to decline the antibiotics for GBS was a good one, since they would not have had time to be effective really anyway. Instead, Kathleen had us not bathe him and keep the vernix on for at least 24 hours. (If you'd like to read more about that, you can here.)
And while I had waffled back and forth on waking the bigger boys to watch the birth, I'm thankful that we didn't, since it was a little...much. Instead, they got to wake up and it was so much better than Christmas. The love that opened in Sam's eyes that morning was exquisite. And just like that, Those Fantastic Franklins became a family of five.
8lbs 4ozs! No wonder I could hardly walk!
Anointing his head with frankincense oil
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