Our Middlest, Our Water Baby: The Birth Story of Our 2nd Daughter

After our first daughter was born we thought carefully about the age spacing we wanted between our children.  We loved the age difference between our niece and nephew, Rachel and Nathan, and so we hoped to have our children two years and 5 months apart.  We ended up doing just that, to the day!  Like all my children, my second chose to be late.  She was due earlier in January but like our oldest who was born on our anniversary, August 23rd, she wanted to share her birthday with another family member.  She was born on January 23rd, 36 years after my brother, her birthday twin.  And as the 23rd was already a special number for our family we were, of course, thrilled!

During my first labor I was told by nurses watching me all day as I was hooked up to a machine that I wasn't in labor.  Everyone was a bit surprised then when my first child was born 20 minutes after I asked to go home and my doctor asked the nurse to check me to see how I was progressing...but that is a story for another day.  Needless to say I wanted to try something different.  My doctor was no longer delivering babies as she had two of her own at home.  I decided to go the midwife route.  I wanted someone that was with me during labor that would tune into me and not look at a machine to determine whether I was in labor or not.  I found out that whether I wanted to or not I was able to do natural childbirth with my first child and barely used any lamaze techniques since "I wasn't in labor" so I opted to deliver our second child at a birthing center staffed by midwives.  The hospital was down the road in case there was an emergency, midwives have been delivering babies naturally forever, I needed a change.  It seemed like the best option for me and for us.

I loved the midwives and the staff.  I saw my doctor up until about midway through my pregnancy and then switched over to seeing the midwives.  They schedule you with a different midwife at each appointment so you get to know them all. We toured the facility, which we loved.  It had a main living room with couches and photo albums of all the babies that had been born there, a small kitchen with dining table for family members waiting or visiting, and 3 birthing rooms that looked like a bed and breakfast suite with a connecting bathroom, large bed and bassinet for the baby.  It would be the next best thing to delivering at home (which I never considered as an option!)

I thought I was having contractions earlier in the day and had my mom come down to stay with Kelsey and then Rod drove me to the Birth Center.   When we arrived we heard another mom groaning and yelling from a different room.  I asked if she was about to give birth.  They said "No, you'll probably deliver before she does!"  Everyone labors differently.   They checked me when I arrived and I was starting to dilate and have contractions pretty consistently.  The midwives quickly picked up on my laboring style.  I am happy to chat and talk between contractions but as soon as I was having a contraction I held up my finger to pause the conversation, rubbed my belly, and then continued the conversation when the contraction was done.   I spent my labor walking around the birthing center, looking at all the sweet babies in the photo albums, chatting with Rod and the midwife and rubbing my belly and walking some more.  I'm a very active laborer.  I like to keep moving.   I couldn't stop rubbing my belly.  In fact at one point they noted that that is a tried and true practice for midwives.  It makes sense since you often rub something when it hurts.  They asked if they could check me and see how far I was dilated.  I asked them not to.  In my previous labor I hadn't even known I was in labor officially so I felt like I would be disappointed if after all this "work" I wasn't progressing.

At one point they examined me and noted how red my belly was getting from rubbing it.  They stayed quietly while I had many of my contractions.   I'm not a big complainer or yeller but they could tell I was working to get through those contractions.  They observed me and supported me.  They had me try laboring in other positions on the bed, on a birthing ball,  but I just wanted to keep moving and rubbing.  Finally they suggested I take a bath, which they referred to as the midwives epidural.   I hadn't planned on it but I decided why not.  While they waited for the bath to get up to temperature they had me stand in the shower with the warm water running over me which just annoyed me because I couldn't walk around so I just started walking in place in the shower.  Eventually the bath was warm enough and I was able to sit down.  At this point I was very uncomfortable and just wanted to get out.  Turns out I was transitioning because soon after I started making "my pushing sound", as Rod refers to it.  He heard me groan and looked at me with large eyes and said "I'm going to get the midwife! It's time!"

When she returned she examined me and realized she could already see the head.  She told us that I had progressed so far that they couldn't move me out of the tub and I was going to have a water birth.  We had read nothing about water births.  I know people plan for water births all the time but we had not.  And yet here we were.   I pushed a few times and Lindsay Grace, our second daughter,  was born under water.  She was born with her sac in tact which is very unusual,  it is referred to as "en caul", meaning still encased in amniotic sac at birth.  In fact when looking up the exact term I found this information which I thought was interesting:

Epidemiology[edit]

Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 80,000 births. This statistic includes caul births, which occur more frequently than authentic en-caul births; therefore authentic en-caul births are rarer than the statistic indicates.^[4] Most "en-caul" births are premature.

History[edit]

According to Aelius Lampridius, the boy-emperor Diadumenian (208–218) was so named because he was born with a diadem formed by a rolled caul.^[5]

In medieval times the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck.^[6] It was considered an omen that the child was destined for greatness. Gathering the caul onto paper was considered an important tradition of childbirth: the midwife would rub a sheet of paper across the baby's head and face, pressing the material of the caul onto the paper. The caul would then be presented to the mother, to be kept as an heirloom. Some Early Modern European traditions linked caul birth to the ability to defend fertility and the harvest against the forces of evil, particularly witches and sorcerers.^[7]

Folklore developed suggesting that possession of a baby's caul would give its bearer good luck and protect that person from death by drowning. Cauls were therefore highly prized by sailors. Medieval women often sold these cauls to sailors for large sums of money; a caul was regarded as a valuable talisman.^[8]

In the Polish language, the idiom w czepku urodzony/a ('born in a bonnet'), and, in Italian, nato/a con la camicia/a ('born with a shirt'), they both mean a person who is always very lucky.

The Russian phrase родился в рубашке ('born in a shirt') refers to caul birth and figuratively means "born lucky". It is often applied to someone who is oblivious to a pending disaster that is avoided only through luck as if the birth caul persists as supernatural armor, and in this sense commonly appears in titles or descriptions of Russian dashcam videos.

Not all cultural beliefs about cauls are positive. In Romanian folklore, babies born with a caul are said to become vampires upon death.

I was still in shock from having a baby in the tub and didn't see the caul.  The midwife broke her out of her sac and had me get out of the tub and walk to the bedroom with Lindsay still attached by her umbilical cord.  Rod cut the cord and I started to shake and shake.  I'm sure partially because I was wet and cold but also because of the hormone shift of just having our baby.  At some point after I had her the midwife came and thanked me.  She said she needed my labor and delivery.  She needed to see a woman who trusted her body and let the whole process of birthing a baby unfold naturally.  Apparently the most recent birth she had been at had been difficult and the mom was cranky and constantly asking if she was more dilated and if it was time to push.  She loved that I trusted the process and waited until my body told me it was time to push, not a midwife or doctor telling me I was dilated enough to start.

Lindsay was very content that first night.  Her big sister, Grandma, Grandpa and Grandpies and Gammie, and Rob and Jody came to visit.  At some point we called my brother in California to tell him he had a birthday twin.  Since we had her at the birthing center we were able to leave earlier than traditional hospitals.  In fact we left the next morning after less than 8 hours.  We were eager to get her home and to be with her big sister Kelsey.  A bunch of our friends came to meet her and we ended up ordering pizza and they stayed for a long time.  So basically when most moms are still recovering in the hospital from childbirth we were hosting a party in our home.  My mom was there and was very protective of me.  She didn't want me going up and downstairs a lot and she eventually encouraged my friends to head on their way.

At the birthing center the night Lindsay was born.  It even looked like our bed at home.  

If you leave within a certain period of time a visiting nurse with come to check on mom and a Doula will come to check on you.  The Doula could make a meal, play with an older child, hold the baby, basically do anything you felt necessary during this post-partum period.  We had her play a few games with Kelsey, make dinner and hold Lindsay for a bit so we could have some time with our baby turned big sister.  Kelsey was thrilled to be a big sister and was such a good helper with her little sister.

Lindsay loved to rub skin when she was nursing.  She would always stick her hand down my shirt and rub my skin.  She never had a lovey but she loved her pacifier.  She would crawl into anyone's arms, male or female and stick her hand down their shirt and rub.   It was a comfort thing similar to me rubbing my belly during her labor.  When she stopped nursing she stopped with the hand thing as well.  Apparently they went together.  She loves animals and loves her dogs.  Their hair not so much.  She likes things clean and just so and has a bit of a Type A personality.  For example, every Sunday she vacuums and dusts and windexes her room.  Then she strips her bed and does her laundry and washes her sheets and clothes.  After she makes her bed she gets in the shower and brings a fresh pair of clean socks with her to the bathroom.  Only when she is all clean does she crawl into bed being careful to not let her socks touch her clean bed.  She drops them on the floor and lays under her covers with such a satisfied look.  Her world would be spotless and clean and orderly if she could control everything.  She is our "middlest", middle child, middle sister, middle school, middle size, middle room (her older sister has to walk through her room to get to hers and her little sister is right across the hall).  As much as she hates it she loves it!  She wouldn't want to be across the hall on her own, she doesn't sleep well when her sister isn't home, she hates when they pass through her room but secretly she wouldn't want to have it any other way.  When she is alone in the car with us she is the quieter of the three girls.  She is so used to having one or both sisters around that she is not sure what to do when she is an only!  

You would think my baby that was born in water would love the water.  Not so much.  I always wonder if it has something to do with her birth.  She is the one who skim boards on the beach while her sisters, friends or cousins boogie board in the waves.  She is the one who takes cool pictures from the dock or boat while everyone else does cool dives and waterskis!  She likes pools and hot tubs but not oceans or lakes.  She likes to see where she is jumping in and know what is in that water with her.   At 12 she started taking a few more risks.  She jumped in the waterfall near our lake house right after seeing a crayfish in the same river.  Rod and I were shocked.  She would hang out in a tube in the middle of the lake IF she was attached to an adult or older cousin.  She tried waterskiing.  She loves skiing but doesn't love the part of waterskiing where she might at some point be left alone in the middle of the lake.  When she was younger her tube turtled under the water and she was left floating in the middle of the lake.  She was terrified.  I remembered being that kid when our sailboat tipped over in Falmouth Harbor and I was scared to death of sharks.  I jumped in fully dressed to be in the water with her.   At 13 she learned to dive, she started boogie boarding with me next to her and then eventually let me head to the beach and she stayed with her friends.  She is more cautious than her sisters in the water but she is slowly getting over her fears and realizing that the risk is worth it for the amount of fun she has with her sisters and friends!   Just like her birth she is finally jumping in and getting wet!  She is our daughter who likes her feet firmly planted on the ground.  She has always enjoyed dance and had a special spot in her heart for soccer but her true love is skiing.  She is never happier than when she is skiing down the mountain, taking jumps off the bumps on the side of the trail that others don't even notice.    Now to convince her to try out for the ski team in high school next year!!