Odin Edward was born this morning at 5:30 am after what I thought was a stalled labor. I only had maybe 3 hours of labor where there was a stop and start to the contractions that could be timed. We are home already from the birth center.
I had bloody show for 48 hours starting Tuesday night. Had my 39 week appt on Wed and due to the bloody show I asked for a vaginal exam. She found I was 100% effaced, which is what she puts more weight on than dilation, and 1 tight cm dilated until he massaged some cervical scar tissue then I was a stretchy 1.5 cm. My felt contractions increased from then on. I upped my RRL tea intake as well as walking.
I've been having difficulty getting DH assistance in DTD so on Thurs night I did 1500 mg EPO vaginally, gel caps pierced, followed by another 1000 mg later that night.
Friday morning about 10am I noticed I was having extra problems holding my urine and it was making me crazy as I was peeing every 10 minutes yet I would still "leak". Then a bit later I started trying to focus on where it was coming from, still felt like pee to me so I went for a walk and made it a block and a half when I got contraction and had 3 very small gushes, decided I needed to head home and figure out if it was my water leaking.
I called my birth center midwives and the asked me to come in and based on the small gushes the figured the would have to use a speculum to see if it was coming from there. Last minute the midwife noticed that she could see it leaking and could swab the outside and not risk infection. Yup it was my water and not me loosing my mind.
They sent me home with instructions for B & B cohosh followed by castor oil later to get thing going. I did 5 doses of the cohosh over 5 hours. CO dose at 8pm and 11pm. I walked my cul de sac several times which helped. I was so tired so I went to bed with a increase in frequency in contractions but not in intensity. I woke at about 1am to feed Myrtle and cleaned out my bowels some. My contractions were less than when I went to bed.
Called the midwife on call to see what else I should do. She told me to go back to bed as we had time and to plan on coming in about 7am to work on my contractions. I've been experimenting with alternate sleeping positions so I piled my pillows up and got into a crouched squat and leaned my upper body over the pillows. I figured in anything it would help open me up, stretch me out and maybe move the baby dow a bit.
After a couple minutes I felt a shift and then I NEEDED to go to the bathroom over and over. My contractions suddenly ha a beginning and end with some regularity. I tried to go back to sleep but was so uncomfortable and started moaning I woke my hubby.
I started timing my contractions and called the midwife back as in 35 min they were every 2-3 minutes lasting 45-65 seconds and I had a hard time talking. She asked if I was ok laboring at home another hour and calling her then to discuss what was next.
I text my friend who was going to help with Myrtle and in 20 min things got way more intense and she asked me if we shouldn't head there right now. She came over to help get everything in the car and I called the midwife a few minutes early to say the I was in lots more pain and we were coming in and would be there in 20-30min.
I had a few doozy contractions in the car and about lost it. We get there and I moan up the stairs and had 2 more just getting to the room which was a short distance. I lean over the bed to deal with a few more contractions while the midwife tries to work around me for BP, doppler for 2 minutes and temp. I am about to crawl the walls at this point and beg to get in the tub, not till after an internal exam to see where we are. Surprise surprise I was 10 cm complete, no lip no nothing. She was totally shocked! Made sense as I was feeling the start of the urge to push.
Right in the tub and I almost started to panic as I was so tense. I did a few light pushes to kinda get a feel for things and to see if I really could do this. I was only in the water for 15-20 minutes and about 6 good pushes he was out. Thankfully I kept enough wits about me to backoff a couple times at the ring of fire and when half his head was out in order to prevent tearing. He had a loop of cord around his neck and a very short cord at that.
Placenta came about 35 minutes later. They drew me a nice herbal bath soak to share with the baby. We were released 4 hours later and home by 10:30 am.
He was 19.5 inches, 6 lbs 3.5 oz. Much smaller than I expected. Photos can be found in this Gallery.
I had bloody show for 48 hours starting Tuesday night. Had my 39 week appt on Wed and due to the bloody show I asked for a vaginal exam. She found I was 100% effaced, which is what she puts more weight on than dilation, and 1 tight cm dilated until he massaged some cervical scar tissue then I was a stretchy 1.5 cm. My felt contractions increased from then on. I upped my RRL tea intake as well as walking.
I've been having difficulty getting DH assistance in DTD so on Thurs night I did 1500 mg EPO vaginally, gel caps pierced, followed by another 1000 mg later that night.
Friday morning about 10am I noticed I was having extra problems holding my urine and it was making me crazy as I was peeing every 10 minutes yet I would still "leak". Then a bit later I started trying to focus on where it was coming from, still felt like pee to me so I went for a walk and made it a block and a half when I got contraction and had 3 very small gushes, decided I needed to head home and figure out if it was my water leaking.
I called my birth center midwives and the asked me to come in and based on the small gushes the figured the would have to use a speculum to see if it was coming from there. Last minute the midwife noticed that she could see it leaking and could swab the outside and not risk infection. Yup it was my water and not me loosing my mind.
They sent me home with instructions for B & B cohosh followed by castor oil later to get thing going. I did 5 doses of the cohosh over 5 hours. CO dose at 8pm and 11pm. I walked my cul de sac several times which helped. I was so tired so I went to bed with a increase in frequency in contractions but not in intensity. I woke at about 1am to feed Myrtle and cleaned out my bowels some. My contractions were less than when I went to bed.
Called the midwife on call to see what else I should do. She told me to go back to bed as we had time and to plan on coming in about 7am to work on my contractions. I've been experimenting with alternate sleeping positions so I piled my pillows up and got into a crouched squat and leaned my upper body over the pillows. I figured in anything it would help open me up, stretch me out and maybe move the baby dow a bit.
After a couple minutes I felt a shift and then I NEEDED to go to the bathroom over and over. My contractions suddenly ha a beginning and end with some regularity. I tried to go back to sleep but was so uncomfortable and started moaning I woke my hubby.
I started timing my contractions and called the midwife back as in 35 min they were every 2-3 minutes lasting 45-65 seconds and I had a hard time talking. She asked if I was ok laboring at home another hour and calling her then to discuss what was next.
I text my friend who was going to help with Myrtle and in 20 min things got way more intense and she asked me if we shouldn't head there right now. She came over to help get everything in the car and I called the midwife a few minutes early to say the I was in lots more pain and we were coming in and would be there in 20-30min.
I had a few doozy contractions in the car and about lost it. We get there and I moan up the stairs and had 2 more just getting to the room which was a short distance. I lean over the bed to deal with a few more contractions while the midwife tries to work around me for BP, doppler for 2 minutes and temp. I am about to crawl the walls at this point and beg to get in the tub, not till after an internal exam to see where we are. Surprise surprise I was 10 cm complete, no lip no nothing. She was totally shocked! Made sense as I was feeling the start of the urge to push.
Right in the tub and I almost started to panic as I was so tense. I did a few light pushes to kinda get a feel for things and to see if I really could do this. I was only in the water for 15-20 minutes and about 6 good pushes he was out. Thankfully I kept enough wits about me to backoff a couple times at the ring of fire and when half his head was out in order to prevent tearing. He had a loop of cord around his neck and a very short cord at that.
Placenta came about 35 minutes later. They drew me a nice herbal bath soak to share with the baby. We were released 4 hours later and home by 10:30 am.
He was 19.5 inches, 6 lbs 3.5 oz. Much smaller than I expected. Photos can be found in this Gallery.
:
