Toby Vuister Potts graced us with his presence early morning on my birthday, January 17th. The more we recount the birth story the more we laugh about it. About the second or third time we really started to recount the happenings, I realized it played back in my head like and I Love Lucy episode. I keep thinking that if she were to have had a baby on the show, they could've taken this birth story and used it as a script.
I had been having contractions on and off since a few days before Christmas. I even had a few times where I was sure it was it, only for the contractions to stop an hour or two later. So my midwife was regularly getting texts from me saying "getting more contractions today. They are 5 minutes apart... I'll keep you posted!" Only to follow with me saying about 30-60 minutes later that they stopped. So it was becoming routine for me to have long bouts. I kept thinking that either I was going to have a really short labor or he was just going to stay in for a long time. I even thought that I wouldn't believe I was really in labor until I had strong contractions for at least an hour and was thinking that if it did happen fast, maybe I'd wait too long and the midwives wouldn't make it. (Little did I know) My biggest fear though was that happening while Nick was at work and being all alone for the birth.
The night before my birthday, Nick informed me he took the day off so I could sleep in and we could have a fun day. He had arranged for our sister in law, A, to take Harvey and that he'd leave the rest of the day's plans as a surprise. So knowing this, we didn't really clean up after dinner since Nick was planning to clean the next morning while I slept in. And we stayed up a little later than usual too. Toby had other plans.
4:35am, I woke up to a really strong contraction, but didn't think anything of it since that had happened many times the past few weeks. I went to the bathroom and between the time I went to the bathroom and got back in bed, I had already had two more contractions. I tried to go back to sleep but alas, more contractions. I decided I should start timing them after they got pretty painful and realized they were already 1 minute long and 3 minutes apart. I still wasn't convinced yet. By 5, they were becoming quite strong and down to 2 minutes apart. As I was breathing through contractions, I threw my one hour rule out the window and texted the midwife letting her know I was finally in labor labor as these were getting more painful and already two minutes apart. By the time I finished the text amidst contractions, it was almost 5:10 and I was already in the low moaning part of labor and thought I can't be in transition yet, can I? As I was doing a low laboring woman noise, it woke Nick up and I informed him these were indeed real contractions and they were strong already and close together. He was in a daze at first and decided to go clean the kitchen up a bit since the midwives were on their way (though that was short lived as I asked him to come back and help me through the contractions.) I felt like I was in transition, but was in a bit of denial. I decided to try to switch into the clothes I planned to labor in in the tub, but as I was in the closet, it became clear to me that was not going to happen and that the midwives were not going to make it. I felt the contractions pushing him farther down and knew I had to make it to the bed. Every time I did the low moaning with the contraction I could feel him lowering and lowering. I think I could've even pushed him out then, but since I didn't know how dilated I really was I fought the pushing urges. I started telling Nick to get the bed ready and grab some towels, etc, but he wasn't sure whether to try to calm me down or believe me when I started getting panicky about getting things ready because Toby was going to fall out of me soon! (surely I wasn't in transition already and he wasn't coming YET)
The contractions were so close together that it felt like they were one on top of the other. I would guess they were 30 seconds apart by the end. I would tell nick to do something and then as soon as I'd finish, another contraction would start so I'd say "no no no, just stay here and help me." Amidst me trying NOT to do the low moaning (in attempt to keep him in while we finished prepping), I told him to hurry and get my pants and underwear off because he was getting farther down and I was not going to birth our baby into my pants. He asked if he should go grab scissors since I had old undies on and it'd be easier to get them off. I said sure, but quickly retracted that when I couldn't remember where scissors were and the next contraction was really forceful. I could feel him lowering into the birth canal. During that second to last contraction, we managed to pull my pants and underwear off. Literally as fast as nick turned around to put my underwear into the laundry and turned back to face me, my water exploded (nick says it was like a sci fi movie!) and he could see the tippy top of Toby's head. He finally had reason to believe me now and remarked that maybe he should call Joy (the midwife) to ask her what he should do. I told him there wasn't time as the contraction was pushing him out for me and I couldn't help it, but I did not know he had already dialed. I told him to hurry and put the phone down so he could catch Toby and he tossed the phone at the edge of the bed and turned around to grab him. (The voicemail Joy got was pretty much the exact timing that Toby was arriving, so it's all recorded - though I don't think any mom really wants to hear what she sounds like while giving birth) Toby came out without any help from me and took a second to get acclimated. Those first few seconds, he was a little purple. You can even hear me say on the voicemail (which we have saved now too) "oh my gosh, he's purple!" Nick started rubbing his chest and he started crying and pinked right up. I hurried to glance at the clock so we could have a time to put down later on and saw 5:45am. Less than an hour and a half! I pushed for Harvey's birth for an hour and a half alone. I really couldn't believe it went so fast. The next thing you hear on the voicemail is Nick saying "welcome to earth son!" And then there's sounds of us mumbling and about a minute later I saw and informed Nick that the phone was connected to Joy on voicemail so he said "well Joy... He's here!". We pretty much laughed after that about how fast it happened and how Nick wasn't sure to believe me at how far I was and just our conversation those last few minutes of me trying to convince Nick that Toby really was right there! And then basically we were saying "okay, now what?" Because we had our baby sitting there in front of us. We had nothing sterile to cut the cord with, and at first it seemed like there wasn't much cord, so he sat by my legs kicking me in the crotch for a bit while Nick grabbed some towels to cover him up and turned up our heat from the lower nighttime temp. We pretty much just sat there talking to each other and Toby in awe of what just happened and laughing that Nick actually delivered the baby.
Around 6, Harvey woke up. Luckily he woke up happy and so we let him play in his crib a bit until we knew the midwives were closer. Before Nick went to get Harvey, we got Toby up on my belly so he could stay a bit warmer while we waited. Harvey came in with nick and saw Toby and said "miam??" (His cousin here in Arkansas is named Liam - he likes to call any other kid Miam until he learned their names). We said "no, it's baby Toby!" He then said "baby!" And wanted to give him a kiss. And he's called him Toby or baby ever since. He loves giving him kisses too.
After that is all the boring stuff. Harvey was whisked away with aunt A and cousin Liam (before A came in to say hello and meet Toby). The midwives got there, got their cord cutting tools all sanitized, delivered the placenta, cleaned up the aftermath, and prepared an herb bath for me and Toby (which smelled awful, but felt great!). They checked to make sure everything was okay for me and then left by 10:30ish. We just kind of relaxed the rest of the day at home. It was really nice. Adreanne brought the boys back over in the evening along with some dinner and a cake for a little birthday evening. It was a great day and I was blessed with a fast, easy and safe delivery and a perfect little baby boy for a present!
