When Wolf Gabriel Snyder decided he was ready to be born at just under 38 weeks he meant business and made quite an entrance! Kate and Damean were preparing for new carpet installation and finishing up the nursery on Saturday September 24th when Kate's water broke at 3pm. No one would have imagined by 9:30 pm that baby Wolf had arrived! As I've talked about a lot recently-- fast and furious labors don't equal easy. By 5pm Kate was in very hard labor and progressed from 2-3 cm to 9+ cm in just an hour and she worked for it! The tub provided some relief and Damean was a loving support to his wife encouraging her with positive affirmations like "You were made for this" when the intensity of the surges was making Kate wonder how long she could keep up with the labor. She was an absolute natural at laboring though--and looked glamorous and beautiful the whole time too!
We think baby Wolf was a bit surprised by labor starting too and it appeared that his head entered the pelvis tilted (asynclitic) when the water bag broke unexpectedly that day. We did all our tricks to help the baby's head adjust and Kate began to push. However, the baby's heartbeat showed he wasn't at all happy with pushing. After trying to get him out quicker than we normally would for a first time mom, and continued concern about his heartbeat combined with uncertainty as to if he would be born in 10 minutes or an hour or more, the decision was made to be in a hospital for the birth in case the baby needed extra support to transition to life outside the womb. Kate was calm and focused and an amazingly strong mama through all the craziness and we think one of the bumps on the ride helped get Wolf's head in a better place to be pushed out. He was born just 10 minutes after getting to the hospital and came out healthy and handsome much to the relief of all of us present! He did have quite an impressive conehead coming up on the one side of his head though which both confirmed our suspicion he had come down a bit crooked and prompted his daddy's first question once he saw his son was crying and healthy to be "is that going to stay like that?" (To which I responded "Nope--but that is really the reason we put hats on their heads after the birth!") It is miraculous how those baby heads mold and change to make that journey!
Wolf was born at 9:18pm on Saturday September 24, 2011 and weighed in at 7lb 2oz and 20 inches and was the second and most unexpected of the three babies of the weekend for Motherland Midwifery.
What a beautiful, loving family! Congratulations!