I thought I’d better take the time to write out what I can remember of Noelle’s Birth Story before I forget anymore details.  Amazing how much of a blur certain things become and when it’s all over how very difficult it is to remember.  Steve or Jessi will have to correct any details I have wrong. 

Jenny our wonderfully composed and uber experienced midwife came to our house on Saturday to try to trigger labor through some heavy duty natural things.  She started me on a very strong Cottonwood Tincture and my body responded nicely by launching into fairly strong contractions 3 to 5 minutes apart.  Several hours later things didn’t seem to be progressing so she decided to sweep my membranes in an attempt to make things move along a little faster.  In the course of that she found that my cervix was not lined up at all.  It was tilted way off at 3 o’clock which made checking for dilation very difficult for her and very painful for me.   She was confident though that as labor progressed and I dilated my cervix would swing around in line before time to push.

I continued with 3 minute contractions through Sunday.  Sunday evening Jenny was starting to get concerned.  With as intense and frequent contractions as I was experiencing my cervix should have dilated nicely but I was stuck somewhere around 3 centimeters or so.  After calling and consulting with a couple of other midwives she she strongly recommended that she break my water in hopes that it would speed things along.  After talking it over Steve and I agreed and she broke my water around 7:30 PM.  Things got a lot more intense after that and I dilated another couple of centimeters and then got “stuck” again.  It didn’t help anything that after two days of labor we were all pretty exhausted.

With concern of having to be transported to the hospital and the knowledge of what would probably happen when we got there in the back of all of our minds Jenny decided to do some aggressive exploring to see if she could find something, anything that would be the cause of our lack of progress.  Turns out my cervix had some pretty major scar tissue that had adhered itself in such a way as to prevent the cervix from dilating anymore than it already had.  Jenny manually “tore” where it was adhered in hopes that it would allow dilation to occur as it should.  That was THE most painful part of the whole labor.    It did work though and an hour or so later I was completely dilated.  We don’t know exactly what caused the scar tissue but speculate it was from the miscarriages.

I did most of my laboring in the large birth pool that was provided by the midwife.  Sometime after she broke my water and things were very intense I couldn’t really tell that the water was helping much anymore so moved to the bed.  It was a BAD idea.  After only a couple of contractions on the bed I realized just how much the water had been helping!  I got back in the tub and stayed there until she was born. 

After “only” 30 minutes of pushing Noelle was born!  I say “only” because it felt like forever to me but Jenny told me the average push time for first time Mom’s is 2 hours.  She was so beautiful and alert from the second I pulled her out of the water.  Steve and I just sat there and cried as we looked at our beautiful baby.  From the moment she was born her eyes were open and she calmly looked around at us while she took her first breath.  She never cried and within 15 minutes of being born was nursing like a pro.  

I ended up with one 2nd degree tear and a couple of skid marks but nothing too bad.  Am sore from head to toe.  I knew labor would be hard work but didn’t realize it was such a full body workout!

We are so thankful to God that things worked out the way that they did.  If I had been in a hospital there is no doubt in any of our minds that I would have ended up with a C section. Most Dr.’s would not have been willing to try what Jenny did to force my cervix to dilate, even if they had taken the time to figure out what the problem was in the first place.  They also would have had me on pitocin after the first several hours of no progress which would in turn have probably led me to beg for an epidural and after hours/days of no progress a C section would have probably sounded best to all of us.  We are just so glad that Jenny was willing to try what she did and most of all that it worked even though it took two and a half days.    

With Noelle being two weeks over due I was afraid she would be really huge.  She weighed in at a nice moderate 7 lbs 7 oz/20 inches long though.  Jenny confirmed that she was indeed two weeks over her due date by whatever means midwives determine such things.  A couple of the things was the size of her head and the length of her fingernails.  She came here needing a manicure!

We love our sweet baby so much and have spent every waking minute just marveling at her.  Steve has her in the living room right now presumably so I can take a nap.  Heh.  I had better go to sleep before he comes in here to check on me. 

Getting held by our wonderful Doula Miss Jessi, all professionally wrapped up by the midwife. 

Minutes after birth greeting Mommy. 

So, baby Noelle was born at 1:01 am. She’s getting something to eat right now. She has yet to be weighed or measured, so Steph will have to give you all the details. I’m sure she’ll get opportunity to post something in the next few days as she will need to be laying down the whole time. So, the specifics I know.

*Girl
*Noelle Faith Tallent
*Born 1:01am

Stephie and Noelle are doing just great. Both of us cried when she came out. We both thought that she was beautiful, even for a newborn, but of course we are biased. No pictures yet, because there is just too much skin running around and not enough clothes. I’ll try to post something tomorrow if Steph doesn’t. Thanks for all of your prayers. There were times when we didn’t think we were going to make it through. Steph had some scar tissue, probably from the miscarriages, that was preventing the dilation of the cervix and keeping it from lining up with the birth canal. Breaking it was extremely painful. I’m sure Steph will appreciate any well wishing.

–steve for steph.

<sigh>  So, still no baby.  That’s frustrating enough.  Although I had semi, sorta, kinda prepared myself mentally to go over my due date…Even perhaps WAY over it’s still been very discouraging.  Our lives are hanging in the balance of when this baby comes, how well I recover physically etc after the birth etc for us trying to finish up the move to TN.

Speaking of TN that has been another source of recent frustration in our lives.  Before we left after moving the first half of our stuff and closing on the house there we set in motion plans for a 3 car garage/shop to be built while we are gone.  The business would be run out of it and a contractor friend of Steve’s was going to build it.  The plans looked great and before leaving Steve took the plans to the town Inspector to have them approved.  The Inspector signed off on them without hesitation.   The inspector even came out and watched them pour the foundation and concrete pad for it without any negative comment.  All of this is great…HOWEVER.  One of the neighbors across the street decided to complain about the building.  Now, I can understand his concern to a certain point.  It’s a nice neighborhood and I probably wouldn’t want a barn or other unsightly out building cobbled together in my view either…(Well, in all honesty I probably wouldn’t care but I can understand why he does.) And he can’t see whats going to be put up or the finished plans and how nice it is going to look when it’s done.  Anyway, this guy dug up some sort of city regulation that any out building has to be built BEHIND the house.  This shop is parallel with our house.  The irony of it is that this particular neighbor built himself a little shed parallel with his house that he showed us when we first met him.  Apparently it’s Ok for him to break city codes, just not the rest of the world.

So construction has been stopped.  Our poor contractor met with the building Inspector and the Mayor of the town today.  They are scheduling a hearing for the end of this month to see if we can get permission for a “variance” to the rule.  At least the building inspector is being really nice about it.  He called and apologized and is taking full responsibility for the whole situation.  Which is very nice although doesn’t fix anything for us.  It’s even more frustrating since Steve specifically asked him about a rumor we had heard of having to build out buildings behind the house and the Inspector said it wasn’t a problem.  Legally as far as we can tell the city is now liable for what construction has been done since our plans were approved twice over by the proper city authority before work ever started. 

I just hate that this is going to put us off on a bad foot as far as future relationships go with our neighbors.  Well, at least with one of them anyway. 

I’m off to go try and be as productive as I can be while trying not to think about how miserably gigantic and overdue I am.  Just finished a course of Black and Blue Cohosh tincture per my midwife’s instructions and supervision.  Although I could tell it was doing *something* it just wasn’t good enough to start labor.  I’ve got to take a break from it today and can start back taking some more tomorrow.  Have a sonogram scheduled for Monday if she hasn’t come by then…Please pray that she does!  It would make this Mommy to be soooo happy if this little baby decided to come within the next day or so. 

So now that I’m feeling officially overdue it is good that I was able to get a checkup from my midwife this afternoon.  Jenny is SO encouraging and even if she doesn’t tell me what I want to hear I always feel better after seeing her.  After a week of classic “Pre labor” symptoms I was pretty desperate to hear that SOMETHING, ANYTHING productive has been happening to get this baby here.  

For those of you who don’t care to read possibly borderline TMI details pertaining to pregnancy and birth you will probably want to skip this next part.

Ok.  For those of you still reading either out of semi morbid curiosity (the males) or genuine interest (females) here’s the scoop.  I am completely effaced (Yay!)  and the baby is very, very low.  Station  0  to 1+.  Jenny said that most babies don’t get that low unless actual active labor has already started.  So that means my body has been doing something productive with all the pre labor crap!  Also nice to get some rock solid validation for the sensation that I’ve been walking around with a cannon ball lodged in my pelvis resulting in really achy hips the past few days.   The end verdict is my body has done pretty much every bit of ground work it can in preparation for active labor it’s now just a matter of waiting for the “real” thing to start.   I’m still measuring small (37 weeks which is a week smaller than I measured last week) but Jenny said that is because the baby has dropped so low that the measurements really can’t be accurate at this point.  Noelle was extremely responsive as usual.  She kicked and batted as her heartbeat was checked and then rubbed her head up and down against Jenny’s fingers through the cervix as she did the internal exam.

Am really looking forward to getting this baby here!   Any day now.

No, not Noelle. Yet.  Hopefully very soon though.

My dear friend Jessi is flying out here to help us out in the coming days with the impending birth and recovery.  Her flight gets in tomorrow afternoon.  I am just a LEEEEEETLE bit excited. 

We met with a Real Estate Agent about putting our current house here in NM on the Market a couple of days ago.  I about hugged her neck when she said “You know, I think it’ll be so much easier on you if we don’t start showing the house until after you move to TN.  That way you don’t have to worry about keeping the house clean and show ready with a brand new baby.  With the market the way it is right now putting off showing it an extra couple of weeks isn’t going to hurt anything, besides an empty house shows better than one that is lived in.”  God Bless her.  HUGE stress and burden lifted off of my mind.  Couldn’t figure out how in the world I was going to manage a brand new baby, packing the rest of our stuff and keeping the house pristine all at the same time.

We are under a super tight deadline working on the Spring catalog for Beeyoutiful.  A guaranteed super stressful next few weeks as we juggle between label design for new products, product development, new articles, and the bazillion misc details that must be attended to for a good publication.  As if we didn’t have quite enough stress with baby and finishing up a move.    I think God keeps us stretched just beyond what we are able to do and handle in and of ourselves so that we are constantly thrown back upon His grace and strength by sheer necessity.  Which is a beautiful (although occasionally frustrating to this prideful individual) thing to live through and experience time and time again.

I am so hyped up about Jessi coming I hope I can sleep tonight!  Maybe a hot bath and a soothing cup of hot Red Raspberry tea will help.  I’m off to find out!

We’ve spent the past few days settling back into something of a routine in NM.  Basically trying to catch up on sleep and decompress from the accumulation of stress and the weeks of work before the trip to TN.  Amazing to me how the business and our personal lives are undergoing a complete overhaul at exactly the same time.  Puts new meaning to the old saying “When it rains it pours.”  Can’t really think of a single area in our lives on any level that have not been through the wringer in some way or another over the past couple of months.

My major goal in life right now is attempting to be patient waiting for Noelle to decide to get here.   All the misc. aches, pains and discomforts of pregnancy seem to have multiplied themselves and decided torture me all at the same time.  Pretty typical for the last days of pregnancy I’m sure but uncomfortable nevertheless.  Poor Steve is having to put up with a very whiny, cranky wife. 

My midwife did the official home visit this week.  Brought an emergency birth kit with her for “just in case” with a list of directions on what to do if by some weird chance something should happen before she’s able to get here.  She thinks Steve is the calmest and most prepared Dad to be she’s ever worked with.  He has been just amazing in being willing to be educated and making sure we have all our bases covered in preparation for a home birth.   I love how pro active and on top of things he has been.  I’m measuring about four weeks small right now but the midwife said that Noelle feels like she is going to be right at the 7 to 8 lb mark so that was reassuring. 

Steve asked me the other day “Is time just flying by for you?  The past six weeks have seemed like a blur.  Can’t believe how fast it’s gone by.  Hard to believe we are going to have a baby any day now.”
My response? “A day is as a thousand years.  The past six weeks have been dragging on for forever.”   Such is the difference between the male and female in the last days of pregnancy. 

A few weeks ago I mentioned something about no stretch marks???  With only three weeks left to the pregnancy I was happily congratulating myself for having escaped pregnancy without any stretch marks when WHAM.  Seemingly out of no where and over night I was assaulted by the evil things.  No one told me you could get stretch marks at the VERY end! I have a serious bone to pick with all these pregnancy experts that write all these books that supposedly educate you about all the ins and outs of pregnancy.  Am becoming more and more convinced that they leave more out than they manage to cover. 

Little Noelle is officially out of room and seems to resent it.  No more room to get any good kicks in any more.  She has to make do with energetic wiggles. I’ve tried telling her that if she would just decide to join us out here she can kick all she wants.

We arrived back in NM safe and sound last night.  For some reason it seemed like the trip coming back was a lot shorter than the drive out there.  It was a much easier trip on me physically than the last one for sure.  Very happy about that!

While we were gone Steve’s Mom came over to keep an eye on things, check the mail, keep up with packages as they arrived and things like that.  I was absolutely blown away when I walked through the door last night.  It looks like she spent most of the week cleaning this house in preparation for us putting it on the market.  On the way home I was dreading all the work that I needed to do in order to get this house ready to put on the market and knowing I only have two weeks till the baby is supposed to arrive didn’t help much either.  She rented a carpet cleaner and shampooed the carpet in the whole house, organized the chaos I had left in the kitchen (from packing half of it up to take to TN),  deep cleaned the bathrooms top to bottom and a dozen other misc things as well.  I just about cried.  It was SUCH a nice thing for her to do and meant so much to me. 

I am officially nominating her for Mother in Law of the year if there is such an award.  She even placed fresh flowers and Easter candy out to welcome us home.  The Candy was a particularly welcome touch since my inner child had been feeling faintly deprived at having to travel all day long on Easter Sunday without a single shred of traditional Easter Candy.   Yes, yes, I also missed the other traditional Easter things but the candy was paramount. Yes, if anyone needed further evidence there it is.  I am still pregnant.

Well, I don’t really feel like doing anything but I must go grocery shopping to re stock our food supplies before the guys starve to death.  Also need to unpack all the misc stuff we brought back with us. 

I am officially excited about Noelle’s arrival.  Delayed? Yes. But I really didn’t want to have her in TN or on Interstate 40.    She can officially come any day, any hour or any minute now and I will be simply delighted.

Feels so good to be back in the South again.  It’s like running into an old friend after not seeing them for a very long time and sitting down for a nice chat with a hot cup of tea.   It’s been very amusing for me to witness some of the things that make up the unique culture of the South through Steve’s eyes.  Growing up with most of them I take it for granted or don’t even notice.   He however is feeling like a fish very much out of water.  Poor guy. I can sympathize.  I felt the same way when I moved to NM.  A whole different world.

One of the humorous things Steve has been introduced to is the phrase “Bless your heart.”  Some of the most unkind/judgmental/gossipy things in the world can be said with impunity as long as you bless the recipients heart at the end.  A couple of examples…

“Well that poor man is just an idiot, bless his heart.”
“I don’t think she realizes she dresses like a slut although with the way she talks maybe she means to bless her heart.”

It is mostly women who employ this phrase but there is the occasional man who can pull off a proper blessing of an individuals heart.   It’s a conversational art form for sure.  A heart blessing expert can pull off absolutely verbally ripping someone apart but with the proper ending of the whole spiel sound like they are giving a benediction.

One of the other interesting shocks for him has been how “socially” oriented the communities are out here.  I had warned him about small southern towns almost telepathic gossip/news networks but I think he really thought I was exaggerating.  Yesterday a kindly older fellow asked Steve “Is that your truck?  I told Glenda that someone in town must’ve just bought them a new Raider…Either that or it was the new people that just moved in.”  Steve is absolutely flabbergasted that anybody could possibly keep up with the vehicles, much less the individuals that drive them in a town of this size.  I just giggled.  It’s only the tip of the iceburg.  I’m willing to bet there are people in this town that already know my exact due date and are wagging their heads over the fact that we are doing all this so close to the end.

As we’ve driven around trying to get our bearings and purchase various items for the house Steve has kept a running tally of how many Mexican food places there are within 45 minutes driving distance of our house.  I believe last count was 5 which is very comforting to the poor man, bless his heart.  Their standards for true mexican food are probably very much below his but at least if he gets a craving there are several places to run to. 

We got paint today and started cutting in the biggest bedroom/bathroom.  Have realized yet again that I did truly marry a perfectionist and his brother is even worse.  John and I just look at each other and try not to burst out laughing as they fret, moan, whine and complain over the difficulty of getting every line just perfect around the trim.  At this rate we are really going to have to buckle down in order to get all the painting finished before we head back to NM.  Hopefully once the detailed work is past we’ll be able to clip along at a much faster rate.  The end result will be MUCH better due to their efforts I’m sure.  They banished me from trim work with comments like “This isn’t a race…Take it slow” and “Ack!  Oh my.  That just won’t do…Here let me fix that…” That area is looking really good already.  At least one paint color selected successfully!   We’ll know about the other colors tomorrow.  At this point I’ll be pleased if just one this one works really well.

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!!! 

Can’t tell you what a relief it is to have all that stress and uncertainty behind us.  We found out after arriving here in TN that if we had not come in person, but had chosen to stay and try to Close on it while in NM long distance things probably would have fallen through due to various factors that hadn’t been communicated to us before.

None of it matters now though.  It’s all behind us…THANKFULLY!

I am really really tired and hardly any help at all.  Although our truck is a wonderful vehicle to drive cross country in it still ended up being a lot harder on my body than I thought it would be.  I got very little sleep from the pain for about three days…Was starting to turn into witch woman!  Thank God for wonderful rest.  Last night I slept well for the first time in what felt like ages.  Amazing what a better mood that put me in today.     My  Man has been so  kind and patient in the face of my irritability.  I think he may have been more relieved that I finally got sleep than I was!

 The guys have been wonderful.  Working hard to get the “new” shipping area set up yesterday and then today working even harder with a very slow internet connection to process and ship orders.

We keep finding unexpected quirks about the house.  Took them a long time to figure out how to get the gas working.  Didn’t get hot water until sometime this afternoon.  Found a couple of leaks that are “easy” fixes thankfully.  Am kind of feeling like the Home Inspection we paid for was a bit of a rip off since the house was winterized they didn’t check ANY of the plumbing or water related parts of the house.  All in all though we are simply delighted with it.

We rented a wet vac and Steve spent a good part of his day shampooing carpets.   I’m supposedly picking out paint for three bedrooms/bathrooms.  Think I finally got that narrowed down and now just need to get the measurements and pick up the paint from Lowe’s tonight.  This whole being responsible for picking out paint colors for this house really has me freaked out.  I keep reminding myself that it’s just paint and if I end up doing something hideous it can be fixed.

I am amazed at how beautiful this property is.  We saw it in winter when everything was still very blah and no green.  Spring has burst forth now and I was so pleased to see multiple dogwoods in full bloom around the place.  Probably the most impressive thing for me has been how GREEN everything is! After the monotonous browns of NM everything seems to be just bursting with life here. 

Speaking of bursting that is about how I feel.  Huge doesn’t even come close to describing it.  Walking Blimp.  Waddling Blimp is more like it.  I’m wishing for a crane every time I have to stand up.  My ankles and feet are swollen for the first time this entire pregnancy and the only good part of that is that I’m very thankful they didn’t swell before now!  Haven’t figured out what is causing the swelling…Could be a combination of things since I’m not eating right, haven’t been drinking enough, probably doing too much and not getting a whole lot of rest even when I’m trying to rest.  Am really praying/hoping this baby comes when she is supposed to and not a minute later because I have a feeling the next three weeks are only going to get more miserable feeling physically.  I’m so close to the end though! And as everybody keeps reminding me in the end it’ll be worth it all once she finally gets here.