My husband and I had only been married for 4 months when we found out that I was 5 weeks pregnant. So needless to say, we were a little stunned when the first and second pregnancy test both shined those two vivid pink lines.
I was due August 17th but the whole time I kept telling myself and telling my body that I was going to go early. I felt it in my bones. So I was pleasantly surprised (maybe pleasantly isn’t the right word, I was more just psyched that I was right) when my contractions started 6 days before my due date!
They started at about 3 am on Tuesday morning. At first it just felt like I was having cramping, like from my period but I thought that was weird. That whole day before while at work I was having cramping but it was a million degrees that day so i just brushed it off as just braxton hicks. At around 5 they started coming on quite a bit stronger and I gave up trying to sleep so got up to walk around and try work with them a bit. I remember having awful diarrhea for an hour or so around 7 and I complained to Adam that I wish it would just go away. I called my sister and told her that I thought I was in labor and she was asking me about how far apart they were and how i was doing with them.
Once I was done with my twenty thousand trips to the bathroom I immediately remember feeling so hungry and nothing would fill me up! I could not stop eating between contractions. They were about 7-10 minutes apart at this point and I was still trying to sleep on the couch in between them and stuffing my face. I had been trying to reach my other sister Esther, who was planning on being with me during the birth and I was finally able to get a hold of her at around 7:30am. She was driving down to Boston from Montreal as soon as my labor started so she could be there when the baby was born.
My contractions by now were pretty hot and heavy. I couldn’t quite talk through them anymore which made me think that it was going to be pretty quick and that I would have this baby today. (Tuesday) Who knew I could be so foolish in thinking that?? I called the midwife on call at the birth center where I was planning on giving birth at around 11 am and she talked me through a contraction. I told her that I wanted to eat everything in site and she warned me that I should be careful because I just might see all of it later….dang.
Around 2pm my sister arrived from Montreal just in time as Adam was becoming exhausted. I had been going back and forth from the couch, to the bed, to the birth ball and each only minimally helping. Shortly before she arrived some of my contractions had become so intense that I had started puking during them. This continued on for the next few (and by few I mean 15) hours or so! Contraction, puke, contraction, puke! It was good times. In fact I remember looking at the clock at 2 or 3 pm and then the next time I did, it was around 10pm. We had called the midwife again a few times and she would ask me if my water broke (no) and if I had lost my bloody show(no). Darn it. She then told me that after...how long has it been?…19 hours… that I might only be 1 centimeter dilated. My contractions were 2-3 minutes apart at this time and I had been in the tub running water over my belly and then back to the birth ball or bed. At this point all I could do was just get through one contraction at a time. I just kept telling myself that. At 2 minutes apart we timed them steadily, in hopes that they would continue for an hour and we could call the midwife and be confident that I was ready to go in. At 4 am after...(count it)….26 hours at home we called the widwife and I decided I really needed to get checked, for my own sanity. Hours before this Adam had lost hope and started thinking we just needed to go to the hospital (not part of the plan) because he didn’t think I’d have an ounce of energy by the time I needed to actually push this baby out.
Minutes before we plan to head out to the birth center, my mother in law arrives. She had driven all day and night just to come and be with us. I wasn’t really in the mood for a cheery greeting so shortly after saying hello and having at least one more contraction we head to the birth center. We arrived around 4:30am and right away the midwife helped me on the table and gave me an internal. I was at a 4. A 4!! All this work and only a 4! Maybe it wasn’t all that bad though. I had heard before that when you get to 5 things really start picking up so it didn’t seem too bad knowing that I just needed to get 1 more centimeter for things to get started. After a few minor (or major…I may have been on all fours on the floor) contractions in the birth center waiting area (which was completely empty) we headed upstairs to the room.
The birth center tries to make it just like you’re at home. They have a nice queen size bed along with a fireplace and lots of windows and an en-suite bathroom with a jacuzzi sized tub for water births. It was perfect and this was the room that my niece was born in just less than a year before.
Once we got up there the midwife gave me an IV because I was completely dehydrated from all the throwing up. She also gave me a shot of benedryl in my butt, no less to make sure I wasn’t having any false contractions. I better darn well not be having false contractions after 26 hours of them! She moved directly into my bad books after saying that.
Adam and I were able to get a little bit of sleep after that….i think it was actually only a few minutes in between the contractions but that seemed like a lot at the time. The throwing up stopped when I left my house so as weird as it sounds I wasn’t as opposed to the contractions minus the puke.
Hours before this I had started having some back labor which for me meant that every time a contraction came I felt like I needed to poop. It was awful. I kept saying to Esther and Adam that I could handle the contractions a whole lot better if I didn’t feel the need to push/poop each time. After I had one of those horrific contractions I told the midwife that I thought my water might have broken. Either that or I had just peed my pants. Unfortunately the latter was the true one there. I got up to take my shorts off and scooted over to the toilet to prepare for another push contraction. During that one I looked down and there it was; my bloody show! That meant that I must be further along. She checked me and sure enough I was at a 5! Finally!!!
The next few hours just happened. Nothing out of the ordinary, just contractions, contractions, contractions.
By 9 am, after it seemed like I had been in labor an eternity we were getting close, I could tell. The midwives had switched off at 7 so I had a new one. She was much nicer and actually believed me when I told her I was in labor…unlike miss. Benedryl. She checked me and I was at an 8.5. This was it, I was close. She sat me down and started discussing the choices that we had to make in the next hour or so about whether I wanted her to break my water or try to wait it out. I think all I managed to get out was that I didn’t know what the right thing to do was and that she should just tell me. As soon as I said that it broke. Now we’re not talking about some little hole in a balloon kind of leak. We’re talking, someone jumped on the balloon from great heights just to see that thing spray. It burst, and it hit the wall and it sprayed the sweet nurse who was sitting in front of me, coaxing me through each and every one of my contractions, so bad that she had to go and take a shower. She said to me that she was thankful her mouth was closed. Yes, I am now that story that is told around the birth center. All joking aside there was one problem though. My water broke, thank goodness. But my fluid was filled with meconium. Basically when it broke it wasn’t just water that sprayed out, it was baby poop! And LOTS of it! My feet were hanging off the edge of the bed and they were slopping in it.
My sister Esther who had stayed home when we left a few hours before had just made her way up the stairs into the room and was alarmed by the massive mess on the floor.
At that same time they were wheeling in a wheelchair to take me over to the hospital. I was on such a high after my water broke because it finally had broken that I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that meconium is dangerous for a baby and that there was now some concern. I didn’t have any time to feel sad that now I was going to end up having a hospital birth even though it was not at all what I had originally planned.
Being that the hospital and the birth center share the same property, it took less than 3 minutes to get me from the mess that I’d made to the room where this baby would be born. There were only a few altercations that happened in the process that may have included kicking someone out of the elevator so that I could have a very loud contraction on the way up to my room.
So we reach the room and after putting the fetal monitors on, the midwife at the hospital, Joyce, checks me. She tells me I’m at a 9 and a half. The only problem was that there was a little lip of cervix over the baby’s head still. Once that was over then I would be free to push. As she explained that process to me, my face went white. After a few yelps and howls she was done, the lip was over and it was finally time. It was just after 11 and after trying out many different positions and making sure the baby’s heart rate was still normal (it was) I found a comfortable (it’s all relative) position. I was lying on the bed and Joyce told me that I should really try holding my legs up while bringing them closer to me so that I could help give myself some leverage and also increase the chances of her moving down quicker. Joyce asked me if I wanted a mirror to see her coming out and I said that I did. It’s such an amazing thing seeing the child you and your husband created coming out of your body. There was no way that I was going to miss that. I remember with each push she would come down a little further and when you started to be able to see her wrinkly little head I kept asking if she had hair. I was so thankful that when I pushed and she came down she actually stayed down which I hear is rather uncommon. I was able to reach my hand down and feel her as she crowned and the sensation I felt when she slid out of me was indescribable. The second she came out they placed her immediately on my stomach. Our sweet Isabel Marie was born at 12:29 pm with a strong set of lungs that were NOT filled with meconium. We got to have such beautiful skin to skin bonding time for about 45 minutes and she started rooting right away and latched on shortly after. I remember thinking how tiny she was but yet how BIG she was to come out of me and yes she did have hair!
While she was on me I delivered the placenta, which seemed like a dream in comparison and then she started to stitch me up. I asked Joyce how bad it was and she told me that I basically had an episiotomy.
Our beautiful baby girl came out weighing 8 pounds 2 ounces! Let's just say that at that size, i was glad she was 5 days early.
I was so thankful that I got to have the same experience that I was longing for but just in a hospital. It seemed like my dreams were being crushed as I was being wheeled to the hospital but everything turned out perfect. We knew that for her safety it was best and I still was able to have the wonderful midwives helping me deliver our beautiful baby girl naturally. My choice to give birth naturally was derived basically from my sister’s bad experiences with their first children. I knew that I wanted to have a wonderful birthing experience the first time and to be able to feel the process and know that I did it, on my own. I wouldn’t trade that feeling in for anything. As soon as Isabel was born I felt powerful. I felt like I could conquer the world and could handle anything that life threw at me after that. I just pray that my next baby comes quicker than 34 hours of labor!
What a beautiful story. And don't worry about TMI...birth is such a wonderful, natural process; not even pooing on the table can degrade it. I wrote my story here: http://www.otherpiecesofme.com/2009/08/birth-story-of-our-son-07-08-09.html. My friend, Mandy, has just started a new blog everybodybirths.com as a pool of birthstories for women to have access to and read. You should consider submitting yours.
ReplyDelete