Birth story

For those who are interested--here it is . . .

On Wednesday night around 9pm, I was helping my mother-in-law with a PowerPoint presentation and noticed that the Braxton-Hicks I often have were coming more regularly and were a little bit more uncomfortable than usual. So I started timing them. They were 5 minutes apart but not very intense at all--I could concentrate on what I was doing and talk through them. The same thing had happened a week ago and my midwife had said to drink a lot of water and jump in the tub. So I did that this time too.

In the tub, the contractions lessened in intensity, but they kept coming. They were every 2-4 minutes now. But I could barely feel them. Kathryn said they need to be at that interval and intense in order for labor to be considered started. She didn't want to admit me if I wasn't in active labor and risk having to put me on pitocin. She did say that if they picked up in intensity to not wait longer than a half an hour to come in though.

I called my parents and we decided that they would pick Zoë up and she would spend the night there as a "practice run"--none of us thought I was in labor at that point (except maybe my mom). Josh wasn't even going to give them the bag I had packed her (though I convinced him to). Josh and I stayed up cleaning the house (getting ready for an appraisal the next day) and talking. I was still having contractions on and off but they didn't seem as regular and were barely noticeable, though they did feel a little different--more back pain and the tightening was lower in my abdomen. Around 12:30 we decided to go to bed. Right as I got up, I had a contraction that sent me to my knees and I thought "well, that one was more intense."

We got into bed, I had one more contraction that was more intense than the last and told Josh to pack all the last minute stuff. My plan was to wait through a half an hour of these contractions and then go. But after one (or two) more really intense ones and a major case of the chills, I said "call everyone!" (meaning my doula, Vanessa, and Kathryn) and "we need to go now." As Josh was transferring stuff to the car, I couldn't believe how much pain I was in all of the sudden. I told him I didn't think I could do this again--I hadn't remembered how much it hurt and I was probably going to get an epidural, etc. Classic transition signpost but I did not expect to be in transition 5 contractions into what actually felt like the beginning of labor!

I'd been doing a fair amount of Hypnobabies practice (the little hypnosis I did curing Zoë's labor really helped me relax), and I put a track on, but things were happening so quickly that I couldn't get on top of them. In the car I literally tried to escape from one contraction. I tried to get off my back (the worst position!) onto hands and knees--that didn't work and I was just writhing around. At that point, I told myself I just needed to give into the pain and make myself relax. I imagined a roller coaster, which really helped for some reason, and then used the "peace" cue (which I had barely practiced) during the rest of my contractions, just letting the pain wash over me and relaxing as much as possible. I felt much more under control for the rest of the drive. I think it was just hard being dropped straight into contractions like that.

When we got to the hospital, I walked in while Josh parked. I had 2 contractions before getting to the desk, where they immediately took me into a room, checked me, and declared me an 8. An 8! I was shocked. They didn't have time to read my birth plan, but said "are you planning on doing this unmedicated?" I said "yes" (and didn't doubt it this time). This was 1:30am. Everything after that is pretty much a blur.

All I wanted was to be on hands and knees, but they had to do the test strip of Nico's heartbeat for 20 minutes. I sat in the rocking chair, and Josh and Vanessa did at least one hip press, which helps so much. I was able to relax quite well and when they checked me again, I was almost complete. Kathryn still wasn't there, but pretty soon I was overcome with the urge to push. Like my body was all of the sudden not my own. I never felt anything like that with Zoë. After I had pushed once or twice, Kathryn arrived and about 3 minutes later, at 2:10, I was pulling Nico up onto my chest! Having not torn and pushed for so little time, I felt fantastic afterwards and was helping the nurses make my bed, etc. In my relief at how relatively easy this labor was, I even said "I could do that once a week!" And it's good I had prepared for a natural birth because it turns out I wouldn't have had time for an epidural anyway.

The whole thing happened so fast that it felt utterly surreal to have a baby all of the sudden. And magical of course. Everything's been so much easier this time around--he eats great, etc. I love being mommy to two!