The Birth of Salem Haddon

Salem Haddon Posobiec
Born:  October 27th 2010
He has the same birthday as his mama!
We also share the same birth weight 7lbs 14oz!
20 1/4 inches long
Isn’t he sweet!
For quite a few weeks I had those braxton hicks contractions.   It’s always a good sign when they start.  It means that the body is preparing for baby to come!  YAY!
Trystan came on his due date, Reide was 16 days early, Essiah was right on, Seth was 21 days early, Ciles was 7 days before his due date and Hadassah was early too.  So I planned for this little guy to come early but figured that he would be late.  After all I was due to have a “late” one at some point right?  Right!
At my 40 week appt the midwives assured me that I wouldn’t go much longer, likely that night even.  Good call Patrice!
As soon as they left my contractions started picking up.  (I had lost my mucus plug completely that morning.)  I figured that this little one was just waiting to be told  that he could come, such an obedient child already.  We went for a little drive and then came home to watch a video and have some popcorn.
Here is a picture of my little ones cuddling.  That’s me sitting in the rocking chair…having some strong contractions.  Sethie was reading to Dessie while she watched the video.
By the time this video was done I was so thankful!  I asked Rob to put them to bed NOW.
I knew I was getting close because the contractions were getting pretty intense.
We put the children to bed and then settled in bed ourselves.  I kept having more and more contractions but because my water hadn’t broke yet I figured I still had a while before baby would come.
At 9:30pm (ish) Rob asked me if I wanted him to call the midwives.  NO, my water hasn’t broke yet, I told him.  I told him that I was tired and just wanted to get some sleep.  So we turned the light off, I think he rubbed my back for a while and then fell asleep.  They were coming at 15-25 minutes apart.  I was able to sleep between contractions.  At 11pm I woke Rob up with a contraction.  I told him that I thought we should probably fill up the pool and then wait until we had more hot water and then finish heating it up.  At this point I thought it was probably a long shot to fill it up because my water hadn’t broke yet but at least I could get in and relax.  Rob could always drain it in the morning if nothing happened, right?  I was feeling bad for making more work for him.
He sprang into action and went to put the canner on the stove to heat up more water in case we needed it before the water heater did its job (yes we warmed water for our birth, just like in the old days!  hehe).
We made the bed.  Clean sheet, plastic sheet and then a bigger sheet to make it easy if we needed to use the bed instead of the  pool.
We got the pool about half full and then ran out of hot water.  We figured this would happen.  We laid down again but I couldn’t sleep the contractions were 15-17 minutes apart.  I wasn’t able to sleep through them anymore so I went and rocked and listened to Brian Doerksen’s song “Today” over and over.  It’s a soothing song for me because it reminds me of what family should be.
Here are the lyrics:
Today I choose to follow You
Today I choose to give my ‘yes’ to You
Today I choose to hear your voice and live
Today I choose to follow You
As for me and my house we will serve You
today
Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father
Eternal King, Lord of Hosts, willingly we follow (today)
Today I choose to follow You
Today I choose to give my ‘yes’ to You
Today I choose to hear your voice and live
Today I choose to follow You
(It’s on youtube.  Please listen and watch the version with his special needs son and his family singing along)
I could hear Rob moving around on the bed with the plastic sheet, he wasn’t sleeping very sound .  I did hear some snoring though.
Just before 2am I woke Rob up and told him that I thought we should call Amanda, my primary midwife.  I told her that I was having contractions about 12-15 minutes apart.  She said normally they wait until they are closer.  I wanted to get in the pool because I knew that it would either keep things moving or stale them all together.  She told me to go ahead and get in the pool and see what that did.  Rob called her back to tell her to come not long after.  He was busy visiting on the phone with her…”She’s doing pretty good, yes they are getting more intense…blah blah blah”.  At that point I was feeling like I needed to push.  I told him, “tell her to come now”.  He visited a few seconds longer and I had another one.  I said “TELL HER TO COME NOW”.  Then I heard her say to him, “I’m coming NOW”  (hehe)
All 3 midwives arrived within minutes of eachother.  Amanda was the first arriving at 2:42am, Patrice was right on her heals walking in the door.  After they got some things set up Patrice headed downstairs where I heard her talking.  At the time I wasn’t sure if she was talking to one of the children or to Dorothy.  It was Dorothy.
At 3am my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and very intense.
Amanda was sitting in the hallway directly acrossed from me.  She looked up at me and I must have had “that” look.  I said I have to push.  She quietly called down the stairs “Ladies”.  3:01 my water broke, FINALLY, right there in the pool.  It was so cool.  I’ve never experienced my water breaking while actually in labor.  It always happens and then an hour or two later contractions pick up.  When it happened it looked almost like a jelly fish swimming away from me.  It was a huge relief when it broke.  There was so much pressure before it happened.  I thought the baby would be born in the caul for sure.  When I had that contraction and my water broke Salem crowned and then I felt his head slide back a bit.
One of the things that Amanda, Patrice and I had talked about was counter pressure to prevent tearing.  I did not want to tear.  So Amanda was applying counter pressure (which I will NEVER do again), while all three midwives were telling me to breathe.  I couldn’t stand the sound of them talking to me so I said “SSsshhhhh”!  One of them was actually blowing and that was more helpful than them actually talking to me about it.
During my next contraction he crowned fully and then I pushed his head out.  YAY!  Then at 3:04am I had another contraction and pushed our little Salem Haddon out.  I opened my eyes to see him laying with his back up.  Amanda handed him to me the same time I was reaching for him.  I pulled him right up and started to rub him to stimulate him but he was already breathing great.  I snuggled with him under a towel for a little bit.  I heard one of the children get up (3:15am).  When I looked, it was Essiah so I called her in.  She was beaming!  She was the first one to see her new baby BROTHER.
At 3:20am I birthed the placenta, everything was as it should be.  Trystan and Reide came in 1 minute later!  They were also excited.  I think Trystan said that he woke Reide up.
On the Apgar he was 9 and 9.  Whoot!  Good healthy boy.  He didn’t even need suctioning.
I got out of the tub at 3:40am and hung out in bed.  Salem nursed at 4am and snuggled right up to mama.  The room quickly filled up with children eager to see their new brother!  They loved him right from the start, even Sethie, who was sure that having another brother would not be a good idea because “they are so much trouble”.
The midwives packed up at 5:25 and headed home, only to be called to another quick birth!
Here is our sweet little blessing Salem Haddon.
Anyway we are enjoying our little Salem Haddon.
For those of you that do not know, Salem means Peace Maker.
We have a lot of chaos in our extended family and his name spoke of the peace that the Lord has for our family.  Haddon comes from a godly preacher and author that made it his business to be about the business of Christ!  Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  Google his sermons.  You will not regret it.
Here he is snuggling with mama!