Tristan's Birth

Tristan's Birth Story

When we first discovered we were pregnant we decided that we would have our baby at a free standing birth center, but when we were 6 months a long I convinced Tony that we should have our baby at home.

I was due May 26, 2001 although I was hoping to go early, I knew that I would probably go late, even though I had been having contractions that would sometimes get quite regular since the middle of May.

On my due date I had contractions 2-3 mins apart for 2 hours when they
completely stopped. That was Sat the 26th on Tues the 29th I went to my yoga class still hugely pregnant. We all got a good laugh about all of the things that were impossible for me to do. While doing a squat pose I felt the baby's head suddenly get much lower but, I had decided that he wasn't going to be born any time before June 6 which was the next full moon, so I didn't get too excited.

Thurs May 31st I had an appointment with Nancy my midwife at 2:45. I had to pick Tony up from work on the way to my appointment since he didn't have time to come home since Nancy's office is 45 mins away from home and Tony works between home and her office. I had not had any contractions all morning and Dria and I had to leave home at 1:30. At 1:00 Nancy called and suggested that I not come for my appointment because it was storming and she didn't want me to drive in the rain. I told her that I would just as soon come because I couldn't get a hold of Tony to tell him about the change.

Dria and I got out of the house on time, which was quite a surprise, and at 1:35 I had a whopper of a contraction and then every two mins all the way to pick up Tony. We had to wait 20 mins for Tony in the parking lot where he works because he didn't get off work on time. When he finally came out to the car he got in and asked me how I was and I told him to be quiet as I was having a contraction.


I drove the rest of the way to Nancy's office and Tony timed my contractions and they were still coming every 2 mins. When we got to Nancy's they slowed down a lot but were still quite intense and only Dria was allowed to talk through contractions everyone else had to be completely silent. Nancy offered to check me and maybe sweep my membranes. I agreed to the check and to everyone's surprise was at 3-4. I didn't want to have my membranes swept for fear of breaking my waters but agreed because his head was well engaged. Nancy swept my membranes and, surprisingly; it didn't hurt near as much as it had before I had Dria. We waited 10 mins and Nancy checked me again and I was at 4-5. I still wasn't sure I was in labor ,what was I thinking, but Nancy told me I might be staying at the birth center after all and I told Nancy that I wasn't going to have this baby until I got home.

Nancy told us to go home and call her when we got there to let her know what was going on and then she would come. We called my mom from the birth center because she was to be at the birth for Dria and she said she would meet us at home. We couldn't get a hold of Janiece who was to be like a doula for me and decided to call her when we got home. Luckily my sister was at my mom's house that day and would ride with her.

On the way home we had to stop at Hardees because Dria was hungry and I wanted a strawberry shake. We decided to leave Tony's car at work because I wasn't driving anywhere at that point. The contractions were back to 2 mins apart and getting stronger.

We arrived home at 4:30 and I called Nancy while Tony started filling the horse tank that we were going to use for the birth. I asked Nancy if it was too early to get in the tub and she said to go ahead.

At 5:00 I had been in the tub for 15 mins and the contractions were coming one on top of another, they weren't painful just intense and they took all of my concentration and Tony had to be using counter pressure on my back. At this point we were still home alone and had been unable to reach Janiece and her machine wouldn't take messages. We called my mom and she had just left home she had about another 30 mins before she would get there.

Dria wanted to get in the tub with me so I let her but; the water was so deep she kept trying to drown herself by sitting on the bottom of the tub. At this point I lose track of time but suddenly my mom and sister arrived and shortly after Nancy and her nurse Chemaine. My sister, Jolene went to Janiece's house to see what was wrong with her machine. It had been shut off by a power blip because of the storm. Jolene turned it back on and left a message on it saying," Jess is in labor, hurry." A few minutes later Janiece called my house and said she was on her way but it would take her 45 mins to an hour to get there. It was about 6:00.

My mom got Dria out of the tub and took her into the other room as I was starting to vocalize through contractions and Dria was a little scared. Dria kept saying,” Mommy owie?" and my mom didn't know what to tell her.

At about 6:30 I announced that my water broke and I reached down to feel because I thought I felt the baby and I felt part of my cervix. Because of his rapid descent part of my cervix had caught on his head and was pulled down with it, Nancy told me that she had to push it up over his head and I can honestly say that was the most painful and possibly the only painful part of my labor.

I felt like I might need to push but concentrated on letting my body do the work and in the middle of a pushing contraction I joked that I decided that I wasn't going to have the baby I would just stay pregnant forever. We all laughed about how much easier teenagers would be inside of mom.

Shortly after that I had no choice I had to push and his head came out and then with one more push his shoulders and I lifted him to my chest.

I had asked that no one tell me the sex as I wanted to find out for myself but in the excitement someone said that it was a boy. I wasn't upset though because in lifting him to my chest I had felt that he was a boy.

Nancy and Chemaine were a bit worried about the way he was breathing and had me hold his head lower than his body so the fluid could drain out of his nose and mouth so I didn't nurse him right away but, after we got out of the tub and into bed about 10 mins later he latched right on and nursed like a pro.

Tristan Raine was born at 6:54 pm on May 31st 2001.

He weighed 9 lbs 7 1/2 oz and was 22 1/2 in long.