Toren's Birth Story

Toren Hinz Urwin 4/12/10

It had been a really long pregnancy for me; constant hip pain that made sleeping difficult at best, contractions for months that led to nothing and, a bout with kidney stones that led to a night in the hospital. I was so ready to be done and meet our newest bundle. I had gotten to the point of thinking I was going to be pregnant forever over a month before he decided to make his grand entrance.
Finally on Saturday the 10th of April I decided to research natural induction methods. I ate most of a pineapple and ingested some prostaglandins. Sunday night Tony had to work. After he got off work at 1:00 am he called me to let me know he was going to his sister’s house to help her with her computer. I said I didn’t care and I would call him if I went into labor. Not that I thought I would, I was only joking. So I went to bed.
Tony got home and came to bed at about 4:00 am. At a little after 5:00 I had the first contraction. I glanced at the clock and went back to sleep. Then again at 5:30 I was awakened by another contraction I knew that this was it. I woke Tony, he really didn’t want to get up since he’d only been in bed for an hour, and we started filling the horse tank we were using for a birth tub.
As soon as there was enough water I got in. The contractions were crazy strong with no breaks in between. I sent Tony to wake up Dria and Tristan. Then I went into a time warp, at some point Kaia and Nahlia came into the bedroom and the four olders were on our bed. I think we yelled at them to stop bouncing but I’m not sure.
I felt like that cartoon character that gets run over by something and is stuck to the wheel. I was getting run over every time I had a contraction. Normally during labor I can kind of ride out the contractions and joke and laugh in between. This time it was crazy. I told Tony that I had already given birth to 5 kids and that it was his turn, I wasn’t joking this time, I wanted to be done. He said that he would be glad to trade me places. I said that was easy for him to say since there was no way that he could.
At some point I started pushing and Tony said what he always says, “don’t force it, don’t push too soon.” And I told him what I always tell him, “I will do what I need to do.” I found that I really didn’t have enough room to squat like I wanted to. Now I realize that I should have turned the other way in the tank so that I was facing the side but at the time I had no idea what to do so I struggled to find a good position to birth. I ended up in some wonky almost squat position with my left hand on the bottom of the tank to support me. I asked Tony if he wanted to feel the baby’s head since this was his last chance to feel a baby before it was born. He did for the first time in 6 births and agreed that it was pretty awesome. Then when I started pushing I told Tony that I didn’t really feel that I could catch because of the position I was in so Tony got to help catch.
I never did feel my water break. When I was pushing I kept expecting the sac to break and relieve some pressure. The pressure was immense and I felt like he was going to come out my butt rather than my vagina. Of course he didn’t, though, and after pushing for only a short while he was born. Tony helped me get him to my chest and we covered him with a towel for warmth. We looked at the clock and it was 7:10 am. Tavis got to announce the sex and said, “It’s a boy, he has a penis.” Toren sounded quite phlegmy so we sucked out his nose and mouth quite a bit. I held him with his head down for a while and his breathing kept getting better.
After about 20ish minutes I handed Toren to Dria and Tony helped me get into a squat and birth the placenta. The cord was really long; I think it was the longest cord I have ever seen. Toren and I hung out in the tank for a while longer before Nahlia cut the cord and we got out and moved to the bed.
Toren Hinz Urwin was born on April 12, 2010, weighing about 9 ½ lbs, approximately 20 inches long, and his head was 15 inches. So he was one of my bigger babies.
The children are madly in love with him and fight over whose turn it is to hold him. Toren is settling in to our family like he has always been here.