birth story.

Charley D Kliewer

8 pounds 10 ounces

21 inches

1:07 pm

April 24, 2014

Wednesday morning, April 23rd

early in the morning i went & slept in Bentley's bed because he had crawled into ours & I was feeling too squished. I remember at 9 am having a contraction that lasted about a minute, but then didn't have another one until about 20 minutes later. they were fairly intense, but always about 15-20 minutes apart. shawn stayed home from work. it was cool & rainy & he made a big breakfast of eggs & bacon & toast & oatmeal. i can't really remember what we did the whole day, i know i took it easy, i was scared to go on a long walk or something in case i would tire myself out before labor would really start. since it was wednesday, shawn & bentley went to eat dinner at church before puggles. shawn brought me back the meal & a small pepsi from buckys. the contractions had stayed about the same intensity, lower back pain & some burning, but never were closer than 15 minutes apart. my mom & siblings brought bentley back to us after puggles & i went to bed maybe about 10 pm or so because i was feeling sleepy & didn't know how sleep would go. i didn't sleep much, the contractions were now about 12-15 minutes apart & laying down made my back so tight. for a while, shawn would press on my lower back & that would help relieve pressure, but eventually i got up & walked around. I spent the rest of the night bouncing on the exercise ball, walking around the house, sitting in the recliner, & i even took a few hot showers. ( side note: the power was out for a few hours, just like when I was in labor with Bentley!) the contractions were slowly, very slowly, getting closer together, but by 5 am the closest they were, were about 5 minutes apart. and that wasn't consistent, sometimes it would jump back up to about a 7 or 8 minute spread. my mom & caroline came over about 9 am. i don't know when we left on our walk, but soon after they arrived my mom took us on a tour of the entire town! it was cold & damp. we saw a ton of blue items; robins egg, bottle cap, baby sock, gatorade bottle. i didn't time contractions very well during the walk, but they were much closer together.  we came back home & all i wanted to do was sit down. mom said no, we are going back out so i said ok, fine, but i want to go to the bathroom first. i had a contraction while in the bathroom & when i stood up my water broke everywhere! this would have been about 11 am, maybe a few minutes after. my mom said that it was a good sign, and boy was she right! by 11:45 we were ready to leave for the birth center! contractions had basically gone from 3 minutes, to 2 minutes, & were on top of each other in that time span. when we got in the car i had a contraction right away, but then they slowed down during the drive & i was praying the whole way that this labor was real & happening (one of the few times you are actually praying for intense contractions). the drive took less than 20 minutes & when we got to the birth center i had another contraction right away that i could only stand through (in the parking lot). after it stopped, we walked in & got into our room & they took my blood pressure, etc while i continued to have contractions. the midwife came in & checked me to see how far i was dilated,  8/9! she was even surprised because i was still so calm. i was so relieved to be able to get into the tub. i remember the water felt so warm & relaxing, even my fingers felt relaxed. i was worried it might slow things down, but didn't care. i was just going to enjoy it for a while. but good news! the labor continued, & i felt pushy right away. i had them turn down the lights because i felt like they were blaring in my eyes. the midwife, my mom, & shawn were the perfect team for me. the midwife would give me a few instructions--breath for the baby, go with the pushes. my mom--relax! shawn--well he was in charge of the important cold wash cloth, drinks of water in between pushes (he thought i wasn't aware of how much i was drinking, but i was THIRSTY!), & letting me squeeze his hand, which really is a major pain reliever. we calculate the real pushing was about 30 minutes. i could feel so much, if that makes sense. i felt unsure of what more i could do in order to push the baby out. it was like i could feel the pressure of the baby from inside. but pretty soon shawn was really cheering me on & the midwife said a last key phrase "embrace the burn" & soon enough she reached in the water & pulled that baby right onto my chest! it was amazing! i had tears of disbelief that it had happened so soon! we thought we could tell it was a boy right away, & like with Bentley, I didn't really care, but we checked again after a minute so that shawn could go out into the waiting room & bring Caroline & Bentley back into see the baby! (Caroline said she knew the baby was born based on Shawns cheering) They came in & Bentley was quiet but excited & when we said this is your brother, Charley he said "Charley is a much better name than Michael" (which had been the name he wanted us to use). he came over & saw his new brother while we were still in the tub while Caroline took pictures to be able to send to my sisters who weren't there. While we were recovering it was a pretty emotional time...for Bentley! anytime Charley cried, Bentleys eyes would well up with tears. But then when he was happy, he was wildly bouncing off the walls. He left after a while with my mom & Caroline & when they walked out he said "isn't it so great God just gave a baby to us? He knew we didn't want to pay for one so he gave us one!"


I think that about sums it up! we arrived at the birth center a few minutes after noon, he was born at 1:07 pm & we left for home at 5 pm! We stopped & went through the Runza drive thru before coming home & after that it was so great to just rest in my own bed!

thank you to andrea for rushing over to take pictures! i remember saying it felt so relieving to have someone to just be able to take pictures of all that was going on, so i could look back & remember it all.

it ONLY took me four weeks to get this all together. whew! so i apologize for how poorly its written, it was pieced together. life with 2 has been an adjustment. and we are fine if that means just sitting around in our pj's all day. it's when we add in...well anything else where things get a little tricky. but Charley is such a good baby! and Bentley such a good big brother, so we will get better at doing things & going places.