Joseph Zerin's birth story

It’s hard to not have expectations with a second baby. I expected Joseph to come early. Raeford was eight days early and a whooping 9 lbs 1 oz. Then I saw my due date come and go and my belly expand to where it has never gone before, I thought, “This is different”.

Labor started probably four or five times over the last six weeks. I’d feel regular contractions for more than two hours and get excited. “Yes, I’m done!” … and then they would stop. And then I would have a toddler ready to play in the morning. It was exhausting.

And then I got red raspberry leaf tea. One of my midwives recommended it to help strengthen my uterus for labor. Mr. Graff, loving soul that he is, made two and a half quarts of that vile stuff which I drank at the rate of a quart a day. Blessedly, my twitching contractions stopped.

The problem, besides exhaustion, with twitching contractions is that it felt like my uterus was constantly contracting, just without coordination. In medical literature, it’s called “irritable uterus”. I was certainly irritable.

For two days, I had that nasty red raspberry leaf tea and no contractions. I slept beautifully and felt great about life, even with being more than a week overdue. Then, labor started.

While labor with Raeford was a marathon, Joseph was a high-energy sprint. Labor started when I put Raeford down for his afternoon nap. He wailed for about twenty minutes while I lay on the floor next to his crib ostensibly trying to show him how a nap looked. Right as he fell asleep, I felt my first contraction. It was different than anything else I felt in previous weeks or in labor with Raeford. It started low, grew really intense, surrounded my belly, and then stopped. “This is different.”

And it continued for the rest of the afternoon and evening, every ten to twenty minutes. I called my midwife to let her know. Mr. Graff came home and we all played Scrabble. It’s labor tradition. We got ready for bed. I wrote in my journal and read my scriptures. I happened to be in Ether 12 that night and read, “For the brother of Jared said unto the mountain Zerin, Remove---and it was removed…” (Ether 12:30).

We’d already decided on a name for our baby, Joseph Zerin, as in the mountain that the brother of Jared moved. Mountains are places that are close to God, like temples. They are also tall, strong, and immovable—except when a prophet of the Lord tells them to move---then they pick up and move.

Faith to move mountains. I want that kind of faith. I’m nervous about what experiences it will take to develop that kind of faith. From the beginning of this pregnancy, I felt like something was going to challenge us and our baby. At first, I thought it was twins (which I might lose my marbles with two babies), then we thought he might be breech, and then we worried about being GBS positive. None of these things turned out to be an issue, though. We got an ultrasound to show that he was head down (I knew that, or rather my bum knew it.) And as for being GBS positive, from the time my water broke until he was born was only eight minutes, so it became a non-issue.

I turned out the lights, full of thoughts about the importance of names and grateful for our new baby. About an hour later, labor got intense and I had Mr. Graff call the midwife. Nicole got to our home around 1:30 a.m. She and Nets set up the bedroom with equipment. They had a birth stool that I sat on for awhile. I couldn’t believe how intense contractions felt and remembered again that I would probably ask for pain relief if I were in the hospital. How do women give birth in a hospital?

Another comment on contractions: they actually felt like textbook contractions are suppose to feel. They started, got intense, and then went away entirely. Compared to six weeks of low-level, misfiring twitches, this was bearable.

Somewhere in the midst of labor I asked, “why do babies always come in the middle of the night?” Nets, bless her heart, answered, with a straight face, “So your nomadic tribe would not be on the move.” I laughed until my next contraction.

Then I started transitioning, around 3:30 a.m. I moved over to the bed and the only way to get comfortable was to stretch out—lay on my side holding my arms over my head and reaching through my toes. I remember puking up about a quart of Gatorade last time, but this time I only felt like retching and tasted cinnamon in my mouth. Mercy. I can barely look at Gatorade now.

Nicole suggested I change positions, so I went to the bathroom, but didn’t make it back.

Frances asked me later, “Why the bathroom?”

Well, let me explain. Bathrooms are safe, and labor is scary. I went in to try to relieve my bladder and my water SHOT out. It felt like my plug exploded. I didn’t know it was my water until someone told me later. I moved to hold onto the tub. Bathrooms also have lots of hard, stable surfaces… as an added bonus it was dark—just the night light was on and felt private (even with three other people in there). Nicole urged me to come back to the bedroom (where everything was set up), but nothing doing. I was there and staying.

I couldn’t see the other people in the bathroom because I was facing the other way, but I heard them. I would push, and someone said, “he’s crowning”. Then Mr. Graff started narrating the action, “I see his forehead, a nose… there’s an eyebrow, shoulders, you’re doing good!” I liked the narration because I could focus on the fact that it would soon be done.

Joseph was about halfway out when I panicked. ‘If he gets stuck,’ I thought, ‘I might die.’ Then I pictured myself trying to escape, waddling away with a baby halfway out and figured it might be best to just push. So I did.

He came out with a rush of warm water that filled the floor, felt good on my knees, and smelled familiar and comforting. Mr. Graff caught him. I laid back across the entrance to the bathroom and was handed my baby. He gave a wet cry.

We could hear water in his lungs and Joseph had a hard time clearing it out. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Graff called 911 and an ambulance came to pick him up. Before it could get there, my body pushed my placenta out halfway and I finished it. Mr. Graff helped me up into our bed and he left with Joseph (on our cookie sheet with a heating pad) for the hospital.

All through my pregnancy, I felt like something was going to be challenging. In the end, it turns out that our gentle Joseph has a small jaw, part of the Pierre Robin sequence. His small jaw causes his tongue to fall back and block his airway making breathing and swallowing difficult. He also has a cleft in his soft palate.

While Joseph was lying on my newly deflated belly, I kept thinking this is going to be okay. He’s going to be okay, even though I knew he needed extra help. I kept thinking about my blessings, about the goodness God has shown me. I’m grateful for this little boy.

Now for stats:

He was born at 4:04 a.m., 10 lbs. 5 oz., 21 inches long, with a 14 inch head and a 15 inch chest. Nicole said she thought he was about 9 lbs. after he left for the hospital and that I could have done a 10 lbs. baby. Showed her.

The next one can’t be any bigger. Red raspberry leaf tea all the way. 

And pictures: 

This was when he still had the IV; I'm glad that's gone. The orange wire is his feeding tube. He has a nasal trumpet in the first two pictures, but they found that he could breathe without it and it came out. 

The nurses dress him in clothes from home. It makes it feel more normal. 

I think his eyes are a dark blue, right now. 

He has a special squishy, moldable bed because he spends most of his time on his side or stomach to keep his tongue from falling back easily. The glowing red light here is is oxygen saturation monitor. 

We gave his crib a picture of the D.C. temple.