My labor was full of surprises and I'm really quite thrilled with how it turned out. I was braced for a late baby and a long first labor, and amazingly enough neither turned out to be true. I always swore I would never post anything so personal as a labor story on the internet, but then, I also swore I would never post a belly pic so ... I thought I'd share my story with a little help from Kekoa. You know, for those who care. Everyone else can stop reading.
Part One: In Which I Reach the End of My Rope
My mom flew in on a red-eye on Wednesday, June 20th. She brought some gifts, predicted that the baby would come late because I looked far too comfortable, napped some, and then she took me to my midwives' appointment. Once again, the midwife expressed concerned about my size (my measurements hadn't changed and I hadn't gained any weight since May) and ordered yet another ultrasound. She told me that she wanted it done as soon as possible, so I should schedule it for Friday or Monday.
Well, I was getting rather tired of the whole size thing. It's not like Josh and I are huge people, so a large baby would be strange. Plus, we had an ultrasound to check growth at 33.5 weeks and everything was fine. I really didn't want that ultrasound.
That night when we got home, Josh and I took our nightly walk through the neighborhood. "You know," I said, "until today I was okay with him coming on time or even a little bit late. But now I really, really need this baby to come tonight." But of course, I knew chances of him coming early were incredibly slim - it's normal for first-time moms to go late and I wasn't sure whether his size would affect things. Physically, I felt great. But as I went to bed that night, I was emotionally drained. I felt like just lying down and doing this:
Part Two: In Which I am Very Bad at Estimation
That night, I dreamed that I had a contraction and my water broke. I heard my mom's voice saying, "That's the real thing." When I woke up, my water hadn't broken, my mom wasn't there, and I was having just another Braxton-Hicks contraction, which had been waking me up for weeks. Nothing special about it. It was 12:08. It felt like this: not painful, just surprising.
I had another BH contraction seven minutes later. I wanted to be in labor so badly that I was too hyped up to sleep, so I spent the next two hours going to the bathroom incessantly out of pure restlessness and reading every material I had on labor. Meanwhile, the BH continued.
At 2:00, I started to notice that my back was aching during certain contractions - not enough for me to say that it was painful, but I was vaguely uncomfortable. By 2:30, I started to think that perhaps they were labor contractions, because I felt like this:
I snuggled up to Josh and told him that he may not be going into work that morning, but I wasn't sure. He kissed me, timed one contraction to find they were six minutes apart, and then went back to sleep. An hour later, he came out of bedroom to find me doing the dishes, folding blankets, and packing the hospital bag. "I'm going to take a shower," I said, "and then maybe we should try timing them for more than just one." I estimated that they were still about six minutes apart, for about 30 seconds each. But once in the shower, they started to be more like this:
The midwives' instructions were to call when contractions were five minutes apart for over an hour. In the first half hour of timing them, they were consistently three minutes apart - half the time I thought they were, and double the length. At 4:30, I called my mom and told her I thought we might be going to the hospital soon. At 5:00, I called Paula, the midwife on duty.
"They're 3 minutes apart? Has your water broken?"
"No."
"And it's been five hours?"
"Yes, since midnight"
"Have you had a contraction while I've been talking to you?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm. Well, if you lived ten minutes away I would tell you to stay at home and keep me updated on your progress, but since it's 40 minutes...well, it's up to you."
So we stayed at home. But I started to have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps we should think about leaving soon. My mood was changing. Mom came, and while I was in the bathroom I heard her tell Josh that she predicted a 4:00pm birth. "She's still smiling," she said. Well, I might be smiling on the outside, but on the inside I felt like this:
And then...transition started. One hard contraction hit and I found myself crying - not because of the pain, but because I had just realized that I had an hour-long car ride ahead of me. I had this feeling that my body was nearing the end and we were nowhere near the hospital.
As we left around 7:00, Mom said, "Here, let me take a picture." Inwardly, I knew that this was a sort of test. Mom figured that if I was *really* in active labor, then I would be too serious to smile. But I didn't want an awful picture to remember labor by, so I gave a half smile (no luck...it still turned out to be an awful picture). Even as my lips curved I knew that Mom and Josh were of the opinion that I had hours ahead of me.
I didn't care - we were going to the hospital NOW. And if it turned out they were right, then I was definitely going for that epidural. I could handle the pain for an hour or two, but if you've ever been through transition...well, I think if all of labor was like transition, there would be very few natural births, and most of those would be "didn't-make-it-to-the-hospital-in-time."
Part 3: In Which I am Too Nice for My Own Good
I won't say too much about that hour-long car ride. Kekoa says it much better:
But for all the discomfort, the car ride went quickly. That was the thing about my labor the whole way through, actually - it really didn't seem that long. Time just flew by. We got to the Birthing Inn, and I told the receptionist I was checking in.
"Has your water broken?"
"No."
"Okay, have a seat."
Inwardly, I was thinking, "Have a seat??? You want me to have a seat???" She disappeared for what seemed like forever. FINALLY she came and took me to Triage to be checked. I told my mom that I would send Josh back for her once we got settled in a room.
We got to Triage.
"Has your water broken?"
"No"
"Okay, have a seat and we'll see if someone's available to check you."
Are you serious?? Do you WANT me to have the baby in the hallway??? But I took a seat and fortunately, the wait wasn't too long.
Paula called to let me know she was going off call and wouldn't be available by cell phone. "How are you doing?" she asked. "I'm doing fine," I said. Which was true - I was at the hospital, and that's really all I cared about at this point. "You sound fine," she said. "Courtney's on call now, so after you've been checked the hospital will call her. Good luck!"
"Thank you very much," I said.
The Triage nurse - her name was Natalie, Josh tells me - finally got around to checking me. She instantly pulled out her phone. "Call Courtney at the midwives now. I've got her patient here and she's an 8." She turned to me. "Can you walk? We need to get you to L&D. Let me know if you need to push."
The Birthing Inn has beautiful labor rooms, with tubs and squat bars and lots of space. We had brought an exercise ball and a back massager and my favorite peaceful music for the labor process. I didn't get a chance to use any of it. They starting shoving paperwork in my face (I am ashamed to say I didn't even read half the papers that I signed). My memory of this time is a little surreal and slightly disembodied.
Natalie asked me how my pain was on a scale from 1 - 10, and quite irrationally, the XKCD comic from my last post popped into my head. *sigh* Another test, I thought. I decided when I read about William Tyndale that burning alive would be the most painful way to die. And although childbirth hurts, let's not be melodramatic. If I say something middle-of-the-road, she won't take me seriously. But this is not like being burned alive. "Um, I guess a seven?" She nodded and continued monitoring my contractions.
Only Natalie and Josh were in the room when I said I needed to push. She put in a call to upstairs: "I need you on standby. We have a patient of the midwives down here needing to push and I don't know if Courtney will make it in time." The next contraction hit, and she hit the callback button. "On second thought, we need you here now."
She told me not to push. Which is like telling a person, "Here, stand in the middle of these train tracks and when the train comes, stop it." I tried, I really did, for her sake. But my body and I generally try to work together.
Dr. H arrived, but because I wasn't her patient, they continued telling me not to push. Whatever. And then everything happened at once. Courtney rushed in the door, and about two minutes later my membranes ruptured and there was meconium in the fluid. Then they were rushing to get peds in the room in case the meconium was in his lungs, and there was a sudden flurry of people, and then Courtney finally, finally looked at me and said, "Your body knows what to do. Just go with it."
And two contractions later, he was born. It was 8:41 - less than an hour after arriving at the hospital, less than forty minutes after Courtney was called in, and just 15-20 minutes after she reached L&D. I've never been so happy to see someone in my life.
The flurry of people all started chattering. Natalie was apologizing to Courtney: "I really didn't think she would be an eight so I was just taking my time!" One pediatrician commented, "Wish I had caught that on videotape" (at which my thought was "Ummm, ew."). Kekoa quietly submitted to the cleaning and dressing, and the other ped cooed at him that he must take after his mom. "Next time, you should leave for the hospital sooner," one nurse told me. Gee, ya think? Courtney wrapped up things and then stood up. "I have to go admit you to the hospital now," she said. The nurses all laughed. I sent Josh to go get my mom, who had been left in the waiting room while we "got settled in a room." Kekoa and I both just felt like this at that point:
So that was my labor. In one sense, it was nothing at all what I had expected. I have no idea what pain management techniques I'll want to use for my next labor, because I didn't really have a chance to try anything but breathing. I was hoping for a natural childbirth, but I wasn't closed to the idea of an epidural - but in the end, it wasn't really my choice. There was no time for an epidural even if I wanted one.
But on the other hand, it was way better than anything I expected. I felt mostly relaxed the whole way through, which helps labor progress. And I had heard often that labor often makes you act in ways you wouldn't normally - a time when quiet women scream, sweet women curse, and loving wives snap at their husbands. But I never once felt like the pain transcended my personality, and I was in control of what I said and did. That, I think, was the biggest relief and relaxant of all.
Since coming home, we've been trying to do as much of this as we can...
...though some of us are more successful than others. My mom has been a great help in helping me squeeze in those naps, so I feel pretty good and almost back to my normal self. I went for a walk yesterday and was exhausted in just a few minutes, but all in good time.
Yes, I would say life is good.
