Stained Glass Confessional: The Birth Story of Reid Adams AKA "that one time, when I had a baby in my car" (the long version

I am so pleased to announce that Reid Adams Puff joined our family on Tuesday, July 16^th at 3:10am, weighing 8lbs, 11.5oz, and 22 inches long.

Welcome to the world, Reid!

For anyone who wants to hear a really wild story..... here I go with the tale of his birth! Please be warned that this is the long version with all the gory details, and does contain words like 'placenta' and 'mucus plug'. Don't say I didn't warn you.

To really tell Reid’s birth story, I have to backtrack a bit to Miles’ birth. When I was pregnant with Miles, we planned a birth at the new Auburn Birthing Center with the same wonderful and trusted midwife who had attended Norah’s birth. Unfortunately, I developed preeclampsia late in the game (40+3) and had to have a very unwanted induction at a hospital instead. When Miles was born, it was found that his cord was wrapped around his neck not once or twice (which would likely not have caused a single problem), but 4 times. Stephanie (our midwife) chalked up the preeclampsia diagnosis to the insanely wrapped up cord. I was unhappy about risking out of the birthing center and having to have an induction, but still really pleased with the way my care was handled and absolutely happy with the resulting baby.

We weren’t sure if Miles was going to be the last baby, or if we wanted to have a third. Daniel came from a family of 3 children and had always wanted 3 or 4. Before we got married I wasn’t even sure if I wanted more than one. With Miles getting close to a year old, some days I felt sure I was done with the ‘baby stage’ of my life and wanted to be done, and some days I was more than ready to welcome one last little one. If we did have one more, we wanted to do so relatively soon and have a closer age gap than between the first two, but that was about as far as we had gotten, planning wise.

Halloween of 2012 came and went, and I didn’t even realize I had missed my period. I knew there was a small chance that I could be pregnant, but since we had experienced pregnancy losses before having Norah and it had taken longer than average to conceive Miles, I had always figured our fertility wasn’t fabulous and didn’t really think much of it – it was the first time since Miles was born there was any chance at all I could be pregnant, and the chance was very small anyhow. In fact, I kind of forgot there was a chance at all.

But during that week, nursing Miles became very difficult. He frequently became upset while nursing, would pull off and try again, and generally didn’t seem to be happy with the amount of milk he was getting. The next week was the same. I was in the middle of a Paleo challenge going on at our CrossFit box and started to wonder if the diet changes were affecting my milk supply. I knew that oats were good for milk production and that I usually ate a decent amount of oats and had cut them out. I started trying to think of what other possible things could be contributing to a milk decline before I resorted to breaking the challenge to add oats back into my diet, and it occurred to me that I could possibly be pregnant. The next morning at CrossFit I felt dizzy and sick after my workout and thought that maybe I should take a test, just in case – not at all thinking it would be positive (not really even realizing I was already over a week late).

Sure enough, two pink lines immediately popped up. As it turned out, we were going to be a family of 5 after all!

I chose the same midwife who had attended Norah and Miles’ births and was excited to find out that I was eligible to use the birthing center with this birth, provided I did not develop preeclampsia again. Because I was concerned about preeclampsia and my blood pressure (which started to climb shortly before the preeclampsia episode), I spent the whole pregnancy trying anything that would help reduce the risks of both. I ate the right things, drank tons of water, took the right supplements, stayed active (continuing with CrossFit through my 37^th week), listened to meditations, and put extra effort into making sure I was well rested.

Stephanie gave me a due date of 7/19/13 based on the first visit ultrasound, but I felt it might be a bit earlier based on the date of my last period and when I thought I had conceived. I guessed that the baby would arrive between the 10^th and the 15^th of July, telling people I was due ‘mid-July’.

Around 30-32 weeks, my blood pressure began to rise, and I became nervous. It was ‘high normal’ now – not enough to risk me out of the birthing center quite yet. I further upped my already high protein intake, began an additional essential oil supplement, and began to grapple with the possibility of risking out again and having this baby at the hospital instead. My wonderful doula Kristin* helped me to weigh out the things that were really concerning to me and address them. We started to plan ahead for ‘just in case’ by reserving a birthing tub we could take into the hospital if we needed to, thinking about care for Norah and Miles at the hospital instead of the center, and generally just getting to a peaceful place with the idea of another hospital birth. After all, we would be at the best hospital in the area for having a natural birth (14% C-section rate, people!), had already had two very positive births there, and would still have the care of my midwife, no matter where we ended up. Plus the hospital had recently approved waterbirth, so that was an option for me regardless of location.

*This lady drove around for 3 weeks with a rental tub in the back of her van "just in case". Srsly. If you need a good doula, you might want to give her a call.

Another month went by and my blood pressure went up again**. It was now borderline – if it went up any more at all I’d risk out. I started eating protein every hour on the hour and added yet another supplement. Mentally I was taking it day by day thinking about the impending birth, trying not to worry. I felt at peace with knowing I had done everything in my power to reduce any risk factors, and that no matter what happened I could honestly say I had given it my all.

**Things I found out later: my mom and 2 of her 3 siblings all have blood pressure issues, my maternal grandmother has been on blood pressure medication for nearly 40 years, and my maternal grandfather was turned down when he tried to join the Army at age 18 due to high blood pressure. Oh, and my paternal grandfather died of a stroke. In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised my blood vessels didn't just explode at some point.

At my 37 week appointment, a quick listen to the baby with a Doppler revealed an odd sounding heartbeat. I was sent up to the hospital’s OB department for monitoring for 4 hours, where it was determined we were hearing a heartbeat arrhythmia – one more kink in my best laid plans. An ultrasound the following week thankfully revealed that everything was perfect as far as baby’s heart. Stephanie assured me that cases like this almost always resolved at birth, and that even if it didn’t, it would not require emergency care right away. We continued to plan for a birthing center birth, with our ‘just in case’ plan also in place.

One thing that had made Miles’ birth difficult for me was that it was a very fast labor and I had a hard time processing what was happening to me as it happened. He was born in 1hour and 40 minutes from the time of the first real contraction, and feeling transition feelings less than an hour into labor scared me badly. I didn’t understand that the labor was moving quickly and didn’t know how I would cope with such strong contractions for several more hours. I simply didn’t realize that I didn’t have several more hours to go.

This time around I knew that my labor could move quickly again. I was unsure whether the induction had made the labor fast or if it just was what it was. Stephanie said it could go either way, and that I certainly could go fast again. In my second trimester I asked her what to do if we didn’t make it to the center before the baby was born. After all, we lived almost an hour away depending on time of day and traffic. She said that as long as the baby was breathing well and I was ok, we should simply call her and come meet her at the birthing center. She mentioned that we may not want to call 911 unless there was a medical problem, because we could have difficulty getting released to come to the center.

On the 4^th of July, Daniel and the kids and I went to his brother’s house for dinner and then out to watch fireworks with our families. As we were waiting for fireworks to begin, I started feeling very nauseous and sick. I went and sat in the car until the fireworks were over, feeling miserable the entire time. All the way home I had contractions every 10 minutes and felt horrible. When we got home, I started walking from the garage to the house and had to stop and throw up in the back yard 4 times. That really helped with the nausea, but the contractions picked up. Daniel put the kids to bed and I got into the tub, laid on my side, and got something to drink. I figured that if it wasn’t really labor, this would put a stop to the contractions. I laid like that for an hour and a half, having contractions every 5 minutes. I called Kristin, my mom (who would come to watch Miles overnight for us), Sarah (who would help watch Norah at the birthing center) and the OB department at the hospital (how I was supposed to contact Stephanie). I told everyone that I thought this was it, but was going to head to bed for now.

I laid down in bed and promptly fell asleep, not waking up until 5am when Miles woke. Contractions had stopped – it wasn’t the real thing.

From there on I experienced 1-2 hours of contractions every night. Some nights they would be more regular, some nights completely irregular. I started to suspect that perhaps the baby was positioned poorly because I could feel a lot of small movements on one side of my belly and was having the stop and start contractions. I thought maybe he was facing sideways instead of downwards and that was holding him up.

July 10 was a Wednesday, and every Wednesday I had a sitter who would come in the morning for Norah and Miles while I took care of errands. This particular Wednesday I needed to stop into the grocery store for a few items. While I was there I felt the first contraction in my back rather than just in my belly and wondered if this could be the start of something. I got home, said goodbye to the sitter, fed the kids lunch, and got Miles down for a nap. Finally, 2 hours later, I was able to pay proper attention to the contractions. During those 2 hours I had started to think the contractions seemed regular and I should start timing them. Once I I did start timing them, around 2pm, I found they were coming 3-4 minutes apart – and they HURT. Back labor and all, I was convinced this was it. I was having trouble coping with the pain without being on my hands and knees –the only thing that seemed to help with the back pain. By 3:45 I called Dan and asked him to come home from work, called my mom and asked her to come get my kids, called Stephanie and said we were coming to the center, and called Kristin to have her meet us at the center.

By the time we got to the center, the contractions had all but stopped. Stephanie checked me and found me at 2-3 cm, and I asked Daniel and my mom to take the kids to eat dinner so I could have some privacy and try to ‘get back into myself’ to help labor along. Kristin walked with me awhile, and then I decided to walk alone for an hour or so. The contractions came back about 2-3 minutes apart, but they lacked the intensity they had earlier. When Dan and my mom came back to the center, they brought me something to eat. I went back into the center to eat and the contractions pretty much stopped. I ate, sat on the birth ball, smelled some essential oil (that did not smell so good, but was supposed to help labor along), listened to my labor music, tried nipple stimulation…. Nothing. Around 9 I decided that I just wanted to go home. Stephanie gave me one more check and found me still at 2-3cm, which really confirmed the decision to go home for me.

Here I am at the center with Stephanie. The only real picture of me 'in labor', though it had mostly stopped by then.

The next day was a Thursday and I had an appointment scheduled for the morning. I went in, had an NST (which we were doing weekly now on account of the irregular heartbeats) and saw one of the other midwives in the practice, Kori. Stephanie had 5 moms laboring upstairs at the hospital and was consequently unavailable (obviously). Kori offered to give me a cervical exam and membrane sweep. I told her that I wasn’t particularly miserable or in a particular hurry to have the baby, and that I wasn’t keen on the idea of going into labor when Stephanie had 5 other patients in labor – BUT that I was also nervous about my blood pressure and didn’t want to just sit back and wait to see if it all imploded or not. She advised against the membrane sweep and I agreed. I asked her if she could tell if the baby was positioned poorly. She felt around and said she thought he was probably posterior and gave me some suggestions for helping to move him. I contacted Kristin later that day and told her what Kori had said, and she also had some suggestions for me, and helped me to navigate the spinning babies website. That night I had another hour or so of contractions that fizzled into nothingness.

Friday was the same – contractions that started and stopped. At this point I had been having contractions every night for over a week. I felt very blerg about the whole thing.

Saturday came and I started to see bits of my mucus plug and have cramping – but no contractions. I was frankly starting to get annoyed by the whole ‘Am I In Labor Or Not?’ thing. Still being pregnant wasn’t particularly a problem for me, although I was starting to have trouble caring for the kids by myself all day and wasn’t sure how long it would be before I really needed more help. The on and off labor stuff was really working on me mentally, though. At this point I didn’t care whether I stayed pregnant or not, I just wanted it to either stop for a few days and give me a break or be the real thing.

Sunday arrived and we were supposed to go to Black Pine Animal Preserve (in Albion, about 45 minutes away) with Sarah and her kids and Nicole. I decided to stay close to home since I was now seeing mucus plug, so we didn’t go. Sunday morning I started seeing bloody show along with the mucus – but again, no contractions. I more or less decided to ignore my body for awhile and mentally checked out of the ‘maybe labor’ game. Throughout the day I saw more blood, but had no other labor signs.

I was hoping that I might go into labor on Sunday night, if for no other reason than not having to go through another whole week of being home alone with the kids during the day while being too pregnant to even reach the floor any longer, in 90 degree weather. We had been more or less trapped in the house for the past week, and it was getting old fast. Sunday night came and went, and when I got up to wake Dan for work Monday morning I was having contractions. They came and went for the next 2.5 hours, then just fizzled again. I complained to my friend Jessica that we were stuck inside and she offered to meet me at the mall. I met her there and even bought the kids lunch in the food court because I just couldn’t face the idea of making lunch while trying to manage them both. We walked around for a little while and set the kids loose in the indoor playland, where Miles miraculously managed to stay in the play area without running away to the Build-A-Bear next door, as per usual.

We left the mall around 4 when the kids’ shelf life for the mall was more or less expired and my body felt too tired to be out anymore. Miles fell asleep in the car and Norah spent some time drawing/coloring and watching PBS kids. Miles woke up around 5:15, completely unhappy and inconsolable. He sometimes does this after a nap where he just cries for an hour and there is nothing I can do to make it stop. So I sat and held him as best as I could, and I could tell he was frustrated at not being able to get settled into my lap properly because, er, my lap had more or less ceased to exist anymore.

Daniel called at 5:45 to say he was still at work, which meant he would be home late. I asked him to come home NOW because Miles was still crying and I was starting to have contractions again which were painful. Finally he made it home around 6:15. I felt too crappy to make dinner and he fed the kids while I laid in the tub. While I was in the tub, the contractions stopped. When I got back out, they resumed. They were painful and causing my back to hurt as well, but not happening in regular intervals at all. I got out a rice heating pad and kept it on my back, and that helped with the contractions, but I still had to lean over or get on my hands and knees through each one. I talked to Kristin and told her what was happening, that nothing regular was coming, but just in case….. blah blah blah… the usual. Pretend labor, but to be safe she should know. We got the kids to bed late and sat down to watch a show on TV. I made cookie dough and was really bizarrely emotional about getting the cookies baked. I couldn’t keep getting up to check on them because every time I did it caused one of those really bad contractions, but I NEEDED those cookies baked. Daniel baked them all for me but the first batch.

By this point, we were timing the contractions and they were coming every 8 minutes. Nothing to write home about. I continued watching the show, sorted some clothes I was trying to sell, pinned some pieces for the baby’s quilt, and generally kept myself busy. I called Kristin again to tell her how things were going and she suggested that during a few contractions I should lift my belly up as high as I could from underneath and hold it there – that might help the baby turn. I got off the phone and decided to try that through some contractions. I was trying to do that, but also trying to be on my hands and knees, and so it wasn’t working very well.

Around midnight the contractions were still coming 8 minutes apart and I thought that if I went to bed they might go away. We decided to go to bed and laid down for awhile. The contractions continued. Around 12:45 I stood up during a few contractions and tried lifting my belly though them. I felt what felt to me like the baby’s back turning from the side of my belly to the middle of my belly – maybe he was getting into better position! The next two contractions came with no back pain – relief! And then….. I just fell asleep. Things stopped. I woke around 1:30 and had 2 contractions and fell back to sleep again. They weren’t particularly bad ones and I felt like resting. At 2:14 I woke up to a contraction again. Once again, not particularly bad. I got up and went to the bathroom and laid back down.

At 2:30 the mother of all contractions hit – back, belly, EVERYWHERE. I know this sounds so cliché, but with just that one contraction I knew we had to go, and we had to go NOW. But at the same time I felt rather ridiculous calling everyone based on that one contraction when they had more or less stopped for over an hour and were never close together earlier. I decided to wait for one more contraction. Four minutes later I had another one and that convinced me.

I knew I needed to call my mom to come stay here while Miles slept, the hospital to get ahold of Stephanie, Kristin, and Sarah. The idea of calling anyone at all seemed too overwhelming. I wanted Daniel to do it, but he had no clue as to what needed to be done, other than to get us in the car and move it. In the back of my mind it occurred to me that it probably wasn’t a good sign that I didn’t feel like I could handle talking on the phone, but there wasn’t really anything I could do about it, so I just started calling people. First I called mom (at 2:38am) and just said to come now because we were going.

Next I had to call the hospital. I called and got the OB department (2:40am) and asked them to page Stephanie. They were asking me what seemed like inane questions. “How far apart are your contractions?”, and things like that. You know, totally reasonable things to be asking when you are demanding to see a care provider at 2 in the morning. But my brain was like, “What do you mean, how far apart are your contractions??!?! I NEED MY MIDWIFE!!!!!! I AM HAVING A BABY RIGHT NOW!!!!!” Apparently there is a decent filter between my brain and my mouth because I somehow managed to politely get a promise for a call back from Stephanie.

I started gathering up my things while I waited for the call back. Daniel had pretty much packed everything and was getting Norah up and to the bathroom so we could get her in the car. Stephanie called back (2:46am) and started asking those same inane questions. She asked, “So, what’s going on?”

My brain: “THERE IS A BABY COMING!! WHY THE HELL ELSE WOULD I BE CALLING YOU AT 2 IN THE MORNING?!?!?!?!”

My mouth: “Uh, I had some contractions today. I’m having the baby tonight. I need to come.”

Stephanie: “How far apart are the contractions?”

My brain: “WHAT ARE YOU ASKING ME??!?! DON’T YOU KNOW I AM HAVING A BABY HERE?!?!?”

My mouth: “Uh, I don’t know. Every few minutes. They are bad.”

Stephanie: “Ok, well when are you coming?”

My brain: “WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT???? RIGHT EFFING NOW!!!!!”

My mouth: “Uh, when my mom gets here. I think it’ll take us an hour.”

In retrospect, Stephanie sure gave me the benefit of the doubt there. I’m not sure my responses really warranted much confidence.

I got off the phone with Stephanie and it occurred to me that I still needed to call Kristin, and that I was also going to have another contraction at some point and really didn’t want to do that on the phone. I waited through one contraction and then called (3:02am). I honestly have no idea what I even told Kristin. I dialed and got ahold of her and at some point I started having a contraction and the conversation just went to hell. I had to sit down on the toilet and I couldn’t talk and tried shoving the phone in Daniel’s hand without him even knowing who I was talking to.

I was vocalizing pretty loudly, Miles was starting to cry in the next room, and the next thing I knew – POP! – my water broke. I remember shouting, “There went my water!!” and the next thing I knew I was on the floor and Daniel was trying to get a skirt onto me, which seemed absolutely ridiculous at the time. I said, “What are you doing?” and Daniel said, “You can’t just go with your bare ass hanging out,” and I was like, “Why not? No one’s going to care!” But he got the skirt on anyhow and started helping me down the stairs to the car. (Bad sign #2 = driving down the highway naked from the waist down seems like a completely viable option.)

I was vaguely aware that I didn’t know where Norah or my mother were, but I didn’t ask about them. Instead I just held on to Daniel for dear life and tried to get down the stairs, water leaking everywhere. All the way down the stairs he kept yelling at me, “Stop pushing!” and I, not really even aware that I was pushing, kept yelling back, “I can’t!”. Finally I said, “Stop yelling at me! I can’t help it! I don’t know what I’m doing!” I think it must have taken 30 years to get down those stairs- that’s what it felt like, anyways. (Bad sign #3 = husband says that I'm pushing.)

At the bottom of the stairs Daniel asked me if I even wanted to go. I looked at him like he was insane. Of course we were going to the birthing center. Duh. I was having the baby. At the birthing center. Obviously. Didn’t he know that was the plan? This was my first real indicator that we might not make it to the center. I mean, there had been a few other signs along the way, but this was the first time my brain really acknowledged it. Daniel is not the type to just hang out and watch his wife have the baby on the living room floor. Maybe no one is, but especially not him. Yet this seemed to be exactly what he was proposing. That seemed quite serious to me, but I still was thinking, “maybe we can make it!” and I kept walking/hobbling.

My flip flops were sitting on the landing of the stairs and I grabbed them and Daniel yelled at me, “What are you doing??” In my mind I was like, “Dude, I reached up and grabbed them as I was walking. It took no extra time. Back off.” But I don’t think I said anything. He seemed upset enough without me yelling at him about flip flops. Because, you know, I needed those flip flops. Skirts = optional. Flip flops = mandatory. In laborland, at least.

We continued through the house and out the back door with Daniel supporting most of my weight while I tried to walk/hobble out to the car. We passed my mom on the way from the house to the garage as she had just buckled Norah into our car and was coming back into the house to take care of Miles. She asked Daniel, “Are you going to make it?” and he said yea and just kept walking.

We got out to the car and Daniel walked me around to the passenger side.. I climbed in facing the back of the seat, so that my knees were on the seat and I could hold on to the back of the seat. Norah was buckled into the seat directly behind me, so we were essentially face to face. Daniel went around the car to get into the driver’s seat and while he was doing that, for some reason I felt compelled to reach down and make sure I couldn’t feel the baby already – you know, since we were about to drive for the next 45 minutes. I felt the baby’s head about ½ inch in and realized that we weren’t going anywhere. I said, “His head is coming out!” and sure enough, there came his head. Dan had just gotten the driver’s door open, looked at me and said, “His head is out!”. I said, “I know, that’s what I just said!” He ran back around from the driver’s side to the passenger’s side while I was trying to reach behind me and figure out how to get ahold of the baby. My skirt was blocking my way from the front. I was reaching around behind me and could feel the baby’s head and tell there was no cord wrapped around the neck, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the shoulders to turn to come out. Turns out I didn’t need to do anything – the next thing I knew he was all the way out. Dan had made it to the passenger side just moments before and caught him and handed him to me.

I had a split second of being afraid to look – what if he wasn’t breathing properly or something? – and then I was holding him up and he was screaming. The cord was coming up around behind me and around the back of my leg, and it wasn’t long enough for me to really get the baby into my arms well from that position, so I was kind of just sitting there on my knees, holding the baby out to the side, as close to me as I could get him. I looked at Norah and told her the baby was here. She was just looking at me, wide eyed, totally alert and paying attention, but not at all bothered. I told her she could unbuckle and come see the baby, so she did.

Meanwhile somehow Daniel had gotten through to my mom that we were having a baby in the car and she was shouting “Call 911!” I shouted, “Don’t call 911! Call Stephanie!” but I don’t think she heard me, as she was running out of the garage trying to find a phone. Daniel got back into the car and got my phone and we called Stephanie on her cell phone. I don’t really remember much of that conversation. She asked if the baby was breathing ok and told us to get a towel and dry him off. I remember that she said we needed to put the baby into a carseat and drive up to the center and I asked her how I was going to get the baby into a carseat – he was still attached to me! She wanted Daniel to tie off the cord MacGyver style with a shoelace, and the look on his face told me he was not okay with this.

Daniel had managed to get me better situated with the baby by this point, so I was sitting in the passenger seat facing forward with the baby wrapped up in a towel when the ambulance and first responders showed up. We still had Stephanie on the phone and had her on speakerphone. I remember being really aware of where the phone was because I didn’t want to lose her because I was worried the paramedics might try to take me to a hospital and I wanted them to talk to her and understand that we had a legitimate health care professional who we were trying to get to.

I found out later that my mother gave the dispatcher the wrong address –an address that actually doesn’t exist – and so there were other first response vehicles out on the street trying to find us, but my mom managed to flag down the ambulance so that’s who made it to the garage first. Because the passenger seat was up against the wall of the garage only one person at a time could get to me, and no one could really haul me out of the car very well. I think this was rather fortunate, as they were wheeling up a stretcher and I really didn’t want to get on it. The stretcher couldn’t get to me anyways. *whew!* One lady paramedic primarily attended me and no one else could really reach me. I remember being really confused as to why everyone was so worked up – people have babies at home all the time, right? We hadn’t been trying to have a baby at home, but it didn’t strike me as particularly problematic or scary to do so. Definitely a bummer to not get to use the tub or be at the nice birthing center, but nothing to freak out about.

The paramedic told me they had to clamp the cord immediately – it was imperative! I felt myself making my confused face and thought, “Uh, Lotus birth, anyone? Some people leave that thing on for daaaaaayyyys,” but what I said was, “Seriously?” and she said they had to cut it so they could take me to the nearest hospital. At which point began the argument about not going to the nearest hospital. I said I didn’t want to go to the nearest hospital, I wanted to go to Auburn where my midwife was practicing. They said I had to go to St. Joe hospital, about 2 miles from my home. I said no. They said yes. I said no. And so on. Daniel was yelling at them that they could go ahead and leave his property RIGHT NOW, that we didn’t need them there and they weren’t listening to me.

Someone diffused the situation without resolving it and I let it go for a bit. I apparently told them at some point that it was ok for them to clamp the cord because it had stopped pulsing. I don’t remember that, but Stephanie heard it on the speakerphone. So they clamped and cut the cord and took my blood pressure. Meanwhile Stephanie was telling one of the other paramedics that she was a CNM with privileges at DeKalb Health, I was her patient, I needed to come see her for follow up care, etc, etc.

All this was going on around me and I started worrying about the placenta. I wasn’t sure how much time had gone by or how long it was ok for it to still stay in there. I felt like it had detatched and gave a little push, and out it came. Let me tell you, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you have just given birth and everyone is arguing around you but not really paying attention to you, pushing out your placenta will definitely bring the spotlight back to you. The lady paramedic turned to the guy next to her and asked for a bag for it and I said, “No, wait! I want to keep it!” She said she was going to put it in a bag, and I could keep it once it was in the bag. I didn’t see a problem with just picking it up and putting it in the bag, but no one else was having that and they kind of made a big show of setting up the bag just right to catch it off the edge of the seat of the car. Whatever. It was in the bag and no one was taking it.

The paramedics kept asking me who I thought was going to drive me to Auburn and I kept looking at them with my confused face and saying, “He is (pointing at Daniel). He was trying to drive me there in the first place.” Obviously I wasn’t going to drive, as I was in the passenger’s seat. I had never planned to drive in the first place. Oh, and I had just given birth. Apparently they eventually realized I was dead set on going to Auburn and decided to call St. Joe hospital and talk to a Dr. there for a recommendation instead of continuing to fight with us themselves. He recommended that we transfer to his hospital, but I still refused, so they brought me two waivers to sign for refusal of care, one for me and one for baby.

I really kind of wonder what they thought of all of that. By the time it was all over with I was realizing that all these first responders got called to a ‘lady having a baby in a car scenario’ and the most interesting thing most of them got to see was my broken garage door. Then said lady acted like having babies in random places was totally ok, refused to go to the hospital, and took her bagged up placenta with her. All in a night’s work, I suppose.

Once the first responders realized we weren’t going with them and that both the baby and I were in good shape, they set me up with some clean towels and blankets and very kindly sent me on my way. Daniel took the baby into the house to dress him and then brought him back out and installed the carseat. Norah got back into the car (at some point she had migrated into the house and was reading books with my mom) and we headed up to the birthing center.

Somewhere in there I managed to text Kristin that we had the baby in the car, and when we got ready to leave I called her to let her know everything was ok and we were headed to the center. I called Sarah and told her what had happened and that we were going to the center, but I didn’t think we needed her to come help with Norah since the labor was all over.

Getting his first check at the birthing center

A perfect heartbeat!

Our drive to the center was uneventful and I remember thinking that this sure beat driving while in transition. When we got there everyone was waiting for us. Stephanie checked on baby’s heart and there was no arrhythmia at all! His heart sounded perfect. I got a quick check and there was one tiny tear that didn’t require any stitches. We did the fun ‘push on the uterus to get any leftover yucky stuff out’ thing, and then I got cleaned up in the shower and got into the nice warm tub with the baby to lounge and nurse.

In the tub I finally got to check him all over, count his little fingers and toes, and get a nice, good look at him. He looked to me almost just like Miles had at birth, only with more hair! Kristin got me a drink and snack and took some pictures and generally helped out. The nurse at the center very kindly scrubbed out the front seat of our car with peroxide and took all of our towels, blankets, and my dirty clothes and put them into the wash for us. I thought my skirt was probably beyond saving, but it came totally clean!

Stephanie weighed and measured the baby and he was 8lbs, 11.5oz, and 22 inches long. A big guy! But long and lean like his brother so that he didn’t really look all that big.

Checking out my little guy..... and he's perfect!

Norah ran around the center finding all the tasty snacks and treats she could. It was basically a giant snack-fest / special treat / staying up late heaven for her. She was so excited to be involved and will tell anyone who will listen how ‘our baby got born in the car’.

We stayed and rested at the center, sleeping for awhile. My mom brought Miles up around 9 that morning and he got to meet the baby for the first time.

Meeting baby brother for the first time

We celebrated all being together with sparkling grape juice and champagne and enjoyed the fresh baked bread that was ready for us in the center’s bread machine. Around 11:30 we packed up and went home, now a family of 5.

And that is Baby Reid's birth story. Thanks for reading! Here are a few more photos, for your viewing pleasure...

Sunrise from the center on Reid's Birth Day morning

Daddy and Baby Reid

Not looking too shabby for just giving birth!

Proud big sister

I love this picture. It's like they're having a discussion.... "So, sis, what are
we supposed to do with this?" "I dunno, little brother, what do you think?"