Being almost a week past my due date, I was really starting to wonder if I would really know a contraction when I felt one...and if my body was EVER going to have one! I woke up at 3 a.m. on July 23rd with what was unmistakably a REAL contraction! Just like my OB said, it was like a braxton-hicks as far as how your belly feels (it gets really hard), but it hurts. Indeed it did, like really intense menstrual cramps that would completely go away after a few minutes. Even at 3 a.m. I knew this wasn't much of labor because they were still very infrequent and I could sleep through most of them. I went ahead and went back to sleep.
Between 3 and 6 a.m. I had about four contractions that were strong enough to wake me up. Then, from 6 a.m. to 6:30, about four more. I was more awake by then though, so I may have been having smaller, less intense contractions all night long, rather than things actually picking up steam.
Jordan woke up and I told him what was going on. I went ahead and got out of bed and used Jordan's "contraction master" app to time my contractions during breakfast. They were about 45 seconds long and 5-6 minutes apart. Not very intense at all, except for a few of them. I made the decision to go ahead and go into work rather than sitting around at home all day counting contractions. I had always figured I was going to have a piddly labor that took days, so I figured going to work was a good idea.
Things stayed pretty consistent at work. A contraction here and there that I tried mostly to ignore. We went out to lunch, I finished up all of the last minute things I had been hoping to get to and kept ignoring my contractions.
At 3pm I had a doctors appointment with one of the other doctors in the practice. My doctor was off Friday and for the weekend, but they wanted me to come in anyways because I was so far past my due date. I went in and told her about the contractions I had been having. She went ahead and checked me and said I was only 1 to 1.5 cm dilated. Not much progress from where I had been on Wednesday. I was a little disappointed, but like I said, I had always planned on having a piddly two day long labor, so I wasn't too upset.
I had a contraction or two while we were seeing the doctor, so she listened to the baby's heart rate through one of them and felt my belly. She said they were still not very intense contractions and that the baby's heart rate looked good. She said it would be ok to continue on with this labor all weekend if necessary, but that things might pick up too.
We went home (stopped for sonic on the way) and made a plan for the evening. We went for a walk to see if we could find a Red Box to rent a movie. No luck, but the main point was to be walking. When we got home, Jordan ordered pizza. He went to pick it up, as well as a few other things while I stayed at home. It seemed like the contractions were getting a little more intense, but still manageable.
We sat down to dinner, and I could really only stomach one piece of pizza. Jordan picked a movie off our netflix queue. I had decided I was going to try to sleep while the movie was on, because I figured we were going to be in for a long night. Apparently I had waited too long. The contractions were difficult enough by this point that I could not sleep through them. I tried to rest between at least, with some success. About half way through the movie (7 p.m.) I told Jordan that this was too much. I couldn't just ignore the contractions anymore, it was time to start working through them. I was pretty uncomfortable by then, not really able to get into a position that felt good. I asked Jordan to go run me a bath.
I got some relief from the bath, but the contractions were strong enough that I was needing to vocalize through them. Jordan sat with me and tried to help me get comfortable. He started timing contractions again. They were about 50 seconds long, coming every 2.5 minutes.
Around 9:15 I told Jordan that it was time to call Julie, our doula. She arrived about 15 minutes later. She came into the bathroom to see how I was doing. After a few contractions she asked if I was up for changing positions. She suggested that we go for a walk. I really couldn't imagine walking with the contractions that I was feeling. My thought was, "are you crazy! I can hardly cope with these contractions sitting here, how am I going to walk!" I remembered that walking earlier had helped a little to take my mind off of it, so I agreed that we could give it a try.
It took FOREVER to get me out of the tub and dressed enough to go walking. It was 10:20 before we could get out the door. I was consistently having to vocalize to get through contractions. In case you wonder what this means, it's like a chant/moan. If you've ever been to a yoga class where they chant "om", it's a little like that, except I couldn't bring myself to be moaning "om's", so I was more just moaning "uhhhhhhh". It occurred to me that if any children in the neighborhood heard me, they might think there was some kind of monster outside. Thank goodness I was beyond caring. Jordan told me later that he had the same thought. Thank goodness he had the sense not to say anything about how embarrassing my vocalizations were.
During the walk, my contractions started moving into the front of my thighs. It was definitely hard to walk with that, but somehow I managed. We made it about half a mile and decided to turn back. About that same time, I started to feel the contractions in my pelvis. It felt like my hips were breaking apart. Julie said this was a good sign that the baby was moving down.
We were out walking for about half an hour. I sat down on the yoga ball as soon as we got inside. Jordan rubbed my back while Julie rubbed my feet. That helped a little, but mostly I could only feel the fire in my thighs and my back. I mentioned that my back was hurting and Julie started to do hip compressions during my contractions. At that point, the vocalization became crucial because it was the only way I could communicate with Julie that it was time for her to compress my hips again. A few times I didn't vocalize soon enough, and having her start to do the compression in the middle of a contraction was MUCH worse than just trying to deal with it. That made me start vocalizing even before the contraction got to the peak where I really felt the need to vocalize.
Julie suggested changing positions again. Really, I thought I was going to kill her. It was so hard to move my pelvis. Sitting, standing, leaning over...any position change was agony! Somehow I still had the manners not to say so, and went along with the position change. I leaned over the ottoman and rocked while Julie did hip compressions. Around this time, Jordan started running around throwing the last few things into to hospital bag. We were clearly going to be heading to the hospital soon. In the midst of all of his running around, all of a sudden I knew I was going to throw up. Somehow there was enough warning for him to get the trash can and put a plastic bag in it before I threw up my one piece of pizza. Thank goodness the contractions kind of took a rest while I was vomiting. Throwing up kind of made me more alert and I said that I wanted to get in the tub one last time before heading to the hospital. Somewhere in my mind I remembered Stacy, our birth class instructor, saying that it was a really good idea to get into the tub and get as relaxed as possible before getting in the car.
Jordan ran the bath again and I got in the tub again around 11:45. I wanted Jordan to be at the tub-side with me, so he had Julie go make some PB&J for the hospital. I remember thinking around then, that if this wasn't transition, then labor was too hard and I wasn't going to be able to do it. I couldn't bring myself to actually hope it was transition though, because I was afraid that maybe it wasn't really, and that it was going to get even worse before the birth! Then Julie came and sat with me and did hip compressions while Jordan threw together the last few things and called the hospital and the doctor to let them know we were on our way.
At some point during all of this, I reached the peak of a contraction and felt the need to push. This woke me right up out of my contraction stupor. I looked at Julie and I said, "I felt the urge to push at the peak of that one...we need to go!" Almost immediately I started moving to get out of the tub. I was a little panicked at that point that we might not make it. I remembered Stacy saying that things tend to slow down when you get on the road to the hospital, and that helped me stay calm.
I got out of the tub and put Jordan's robe on. There was no way I was getting in my clothes for the trip to the hospital. Somehow Jordan was still gathering things (probably because I kept remembering one more thing that I wanted him to get). I was ready to get in the car, but it wasn't loaded all the way, so I had a few more contractions on the birth ball. They were noticeably less intense without any desire to push. I was mostly relieved, but Julie asked me about it and said that she was concerned that maybe we were heading to the hospital too soon. There was no way I was getting talked out of it at that point though, so we proceeded with loading the car.
Finally everything was ready and we headed to the car. I tried to get in and sit like a normal person, but it was clear that my hips were NOT going to be in that position. I get out to re-position, and started to have a contraction. I was so panicked about having a contraction while standing, but Julie reminded me to relax into Jordan's arms and somehow I got through it. Once that was over, I got in the car with my upper body leaning over the seat, my knees on the floor board and my butt pushed against the dash. This was an excellent position because it let me use the dash as counter-pressure during contractions.
We got on the road and I asked Jordan to let me know where we were periodically, so that I would know how much longer was left. During the ride, I said to Jordan, "what if we get there and I'm only a five or worse, only a three." He says, "then we'll keep working through them and we'll get there. You are working hard, the number is not the most important thing." I felt the urge to push through a couple more contractions in the car. This was reassuring in that it made me think we HAD to be close to a 10, but then I remembered what the doctor had said about my bag of waters being "tight". She had said that when it broke, it was going to be a flood. I realized that my water was probably going to break all over the floor board of the car and I found myself trying to hold everything in through each contraction.
We finally got to the hospital at 1 a.m. and made our way to the nurses station. I was still vocalizing through my contractions. We got to the desk and the nurse asked me something right as I felt a contraction coming on. I asked her if she could talk to my husband and I leaned my face against the wall while Julie did hip compressions. The nurse finished talking to Jordan and they led me over to be weighed. This struck me as the most absurd thing we could possibly be doing. Really, I just wanted to get to the room and proceed with having this baby, did it matter how much I weighed?!
Finally they took us back to the room and the nurse started asking me all of the admission questions. I'm thinking, "get me in the bed and check me already!" In the midst of all of these questions, I leaned over the bed to have another contraction and I felt the urge to push again. This changed my vocalization from a steady "uhhh" to more of a grunting. The nurse noticed and she said (a little panicky) "honey, do you feel the urge to push." I groaned back with some exasperation, "yes!" I was relieved that finally they seemed to sense the urgency I was already feeling. They had me get right into bed (which was excruciating) so they could check me.
9.5!!!!
Halle-frickin-luyah!!!
The nurse said something about a small cervical lip and that my bag of waters bulging against my cervix. They told me I needed to try not to push. Let me just say that trying not to push is like trying not to vomit. I gave it my all, but really....? In the next contraction, there was no helping it, I grunted and pushed as little as I could manage. All of a sudden, my water broke. No kidding, it shot 5 feet across the room like someone had aimed a hose there! The nurse standing in front of me just barely managed to jump out of the way.
After that, the pressure was so much less, and I got some relief. Enough that I started to become a little more alert. The contractions seemed further apart too. I realized the doctor still wasn't there and I heard the nurse say she was about 10 minutes away. I asked them if it was ok to push with the next contraction. They said to go for it. I looked at Jordan and told him to call our parents. (He let Julie take care of that)
Pushing
I had kind of expected the contractions to be less painful during the pushing. They weren't really. There was, at least, more time between contractions to rest and gather my strength. I didn't feel particularly weak, but I realized that I couldn't remember how we had been told to push in our birth class. I used the extra time to think about it. I asked for a squatting bar, but by the time the nurse had gotten the bar, I had pushed through one contraction and realized that it wasn't going to be necessary to squat, the classic position was going to work fine.
I had them arrange the stirrups for me so that I didn't really have to hold up the weight of my legs, I remembered to breath three times before getting to the pushing. This was really helpful because by the end of the third breath, my body was really ready for the pushing and just took over. I think it would have been hard to push before that.
At some point the doctor showed up. Just in the nick of time too. In total, I had four actual pushing contractions (the doctor missed one of them). I only got two pushes in for the first three, and then three pushes for the last one when she crowned and her head came out. She came out head first, with the right arm next to her face. Because her arm was out with her head, they didn't wait for my next contraction before asking me to push. At that point, it didn't really matter that I didn't feel the urge to push anymore, I was ready to have that baby out of me. One more good push and she was born!
There is nothing like the feeling of having her put in my arms for the first time. I was so surprised that she was born all of a sudden. So surprised and amazed to see her finally and to have her in my arms! Somehow the surprise and amazement kept me from crying at that point. When I think about it now though, I cry every time. Julie managed to get a picture of that moment, and the look on my face in that picture reminds me of exactly how I felt. Sorry for the goo, but that look on my face...that's what it was all about!
Adelyn Claire was born at 2 a.m. on July 24th. She weighed 8lb 10oz. and was 20.75 inches long. I am continually amazed that I had anything to do with the making of her!
