This is long! I was going to write an abbreviated version for this, but I'm too lazy!
Because my first labor was so fast (2 1/2 hours), my mw said she could strip my membranes at term and get things in motion so we wouldn’t have to be nervous about making it to the hospital on time. Then it came back that I was GBS +, so that plan got cancelled. At my 37 week appointment, I was 2 cm dilated and 70% effaced. My mw said she thought I probably wouldn’t make it to my EDD. At my 38 week appointment, I was the same. At 39 weeks, my mw said she wasn’t going to check me because we’d see what was going on at 40 weeks and go from there, if I made it that long. Through all of this, I kept having a lot of contractions that were really strong, but never regular, especially at night. I kept thinking I was going to go into labor, but every day I woke up pregnant again. I was so frustrated by all of this!
Dh was going to have to go back to work on Saturday 1/3, and be gone for 24 hours. The night before, I woke up with an intensely painful ctx that lasted for over two minutes and then terribly painful menstrual-type cramping that lasted for almost a half an hour afterwards. I told dh that if I had one more ctx, we should go to the hospital. I didn’t have another ctx at that time, so dh went to work the next morning. I was frustrated and worried, so I called my mw to ask her what her thoughts were about why I was having super strong ctx but no labor. She suggested that maybe the ctx were slowly dilating my cervix, and offered to meet me at the hospital that evening to check me and strip my membranes if it looked like I was “on the verge.”
At the hospital, the mw checked me and said that I was 3 cm and 85% effaced. I was so disappointed, because I thought for sure that all of the intense ctx I’d been having would have done more to change my cervix. I was desperate and sick of being pregnant, so I agreed to have my membranes stripped. We walked around the hospital for two hours with the ctx coming every ten minutes. Then we went back to have the mw check me, and my cervix hadn’t changed at all. I could barely hide my disappointment! The nurse and my midwife got an emergency birth kit together for us just in case things did go fast and we couldn’t make it to the hospital on time. It included cord clamps, a bulb suction, and a peri bottle with chlorhexidine to use as a douche/perineal cleanser for my GBS + status. I felt relieved having this kit and also somehow let down by my body. I’d thought I was like a time bomb ready to go off, and now I was thinking that maybe I was going to have a long, slow labor. This was actually a reassuring thought, in some ways. We got home and I went to bad, still cramping and contracting.
The next day, Sunday, was pretty uneventful. However, at 6 in the evening, I started contracting every ten minutes again, and some of the ctx were very long and painful. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but felt in my heart like this was “real labor.” We timed the ctx until about 10:30, and then decided to just go to bed, because nothing was changing. All night the ctx continued. Most were not painful, so I was able to sleep. Every once in a while, I would wake up and time them for a little while, and then fall back to sleep again. The next morning we sent dd to school and told her we might be picking her up later on our way to the hospital. A few hours later, the ctx completely stopped.
On Monday I started to wonder about the baby’s positioning, and did some research on Spinningbabies.com. I was pretty well convinced that the baby was posterior, so I started doing inversion poses and spending all of my time leaning forward or doing pelvic tilts. I was glad at this point that I wasn’t in labor, because I wanted to try to get the baby to turn first. On Tuesday I went to see the mw. I was 40 + 2, and when she checked me, I was 4 cm and 90% effaced. She offered to strip my membranes on Saturday morning if I didn’t go into labor by then. I wasn’t really keen on that, and was more worried about dh having to do another 24 hour shift on Friday, 1/9. I just couldn’t get over the fact that it was 2 days after my due date and I was still pregnant. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you start getting too excited too early. And to make matters worse, my mw said that if I made it to my 41 week appt, we were going to have to start talking about induction! I asked her about the baby being posterior and about trying to turn the baby. She said that most OP babies turn during labor, and that I needed to concentrate on having the baby, not trying to turn it.
On Wednesday, dh and I were quite desperate for me to have the baby before he had to go back to work. I started off the day by downing about half of a pineapple in a smoothie. Then dh and I DTD, which caused one wimpy little ctx. That afternoon, we started nipple stimulation. The ctx that produced were painful and lasting 3-4 minutes initially, then spacing out and settling down, from 6-10 minutes apart. Every couple of hours we’d do about a minute of stimulation to get things going again. I called my mw to ask her if we should be doing anything differently, and she said that ctx over 2 minutes weren’t good for the baby, so that scared us, and we decided to slow it down a little. By 10:30 that night, there was still no predictable pattern, and the ctx weren’t painful enough to be taken seriously. Discouraged, we decided to just call it quits and try again in the morning.
Thursday morning at 2:52, I woke up with a massive ctx that lasted for about 2 minutes. At 3:00, I had another, and woke up dh so I could squeeze his hand. After it was over, I asked him to go put my heating pack in the microwave, but to come right back up and not wait for it, in case I needed him. He got back into the bedroom just in time for another one at 3:04. We knew then that it was time to go to the hospital. He called the mw and the doula and told them we were leaving. I got up to go to the bathroom and there was a little bit of pink, but no real “bloody show”. I also used the chlorhexidine douche, knowing there was not time to get the antibiotic at the hospital. I was trying to get dressed and ready to get out the door, but the ctx were so painful, so long-lasting and so close together, that I had a hard time getting it accomplished very quickly. Luckily dh and dd were really on top of things, so we were on our way at 3:33. The roads were packed with snow, and I started to get really nervous when we did a 180 and hit the curb of the street right before getting onto the highway. I just kept praying out loud and reassuring dh that I was fine and that we were ok to take our time. Inside, I was pretty scared, because the ctx seemed to be about 4 minutes apart, lasting about 2 minutes, and were hardly bearable. I was making a lot of noise, but was trying to keep it as close to a moan as possible so I wouldn’t freak out dh or dd. I kept thanking God out loud for letting us arrive safely when we got off at the exit for the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at about ten after 4, and by then, the ctx were 3 minutes apart and I was feeling intense pressure. The paramedic wheeled me straight up to L&D with dd walking beside me while dh parked the car. My mw was already there, and as soon as they wheeled me into my room, she leaned down next to me and put her arms around me and her face next to mine. I was so relieved to be there with her by my side that I started to cry. Then another ctx started, and I was in too much pain to cry anymore. My mw put her hand on my belly and exclaimed that my ctx was really strong. As soon as it was over, she helped me to the bed, where I got on all fours. By then I was asking if dh was there yet, and he was just walking into the room. I can’t explain the relief I felt. I hadn’t realized how scared I was up until that point. Then my mw said, “Julie, I hate to tell you this, but you can’t have that baby with your pants on.” That was a little moment of comic relief, and I managed to get my pants off with dh’s help. The mw checked me and said that I was 8 cm and a bulging bag. By this point I was feeling pushy and starting to bear down slightly with the ctx. I was unable to relax in between, because the pressure was so intense. I also felt extreme pressure in my rectum, and kept saying that I felt like I needed to get to the toilet. However, I knew I wasn’t able to walk at this point, and I also knew that it was probably just the baby’s head that I need to push out. The nurse quickly put a heplock in, and my mw said she’d break my water in the birth tub to relieve some of the pressure I was feeling. I sat up on the edge of the bed and pushed a little with my next ctx, and my bag broke all over the side of the bed and the floor. There was some meconium in it, but my mw said she wasn’t concerned. I don’t know how I made it the few steps over to the birth pool and up over the side, but I did. Somebody told dd to get the camera, which she did, and she stood at one side of the tub and snapped pictures for the rest of the delivery. The water immediately felt so good, but I didn’t have much time to enjoy it, because the urge to push with my next ctx was so strong. I didn’t remember pushing to hurt so much, and was both unable to stop and yet trying not to, at the same time. I loved that no one was yelling at me to push, but just giving me quiet encouragement. My mw and the nurses did tell me, though, that the only way it was going to stop hurting was if I just pushed him out. In my state of mind, I needed to hear that in order to “just do it.” They also kept telling me that they could see his head and that my pushes were very effective in moving him forward. At one point, they told me to look down and see how much of his head was showing. I looked and saw what I perceived to be a small slit with his head showing and said, “That’s it?” I was discouraged by how much more I knew I needed to stretch to get the rest out. Finally I decided to just get the head out, so I waited for a ctx and gave a mighty push. I could feel myself tear, but he was born so fast and he had his hand on his head (so did dd), and my mw said there was no way around it. Then I pushed again and felt him slide out. My mw had to tell me to take my baby, which I did, and had to tell us the sex, because neither dh nor I really had our wits about us! He ended up being occiput anterior by the time he was born, and his apgars were 9 and 9. I tried to nurse the baby in the water, but I think he was a little cold, because he just kept fussing. I delivered the placenta shortly after, and then we got out and into bed so the mw could stitch up my tear. Then the baby took to nursing like a champ, and it was at this point that my doula finally arrived. We were so grateful to have gotten to the hospital on time, and I was so glad that I got to have my waterbirth. But most of all, we’re all so grateful that our baby boy was born safe and healthy!
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http://flickr.com/photos/28305482@N07/?saved=1
Because my first labor was so fast (2 1/2 hours), my mw said she could strip my membranes at term and get things in motion so we wouldn’t have to be nervous about making it to the hospital on time. Then it came back that I was GBS +, so that plan got cancelled. At my 37 week appointment, I was 2 cm dilated and 70% effaced. My mw said she thought I probably wouldn’t make it to my EDD. At my 38 week appointment, I was the same. At 39 weeks, my mw said she wasn’t going to check me because we’d see what was going on at 40 weeks and go from there, if I made it that long. Through all of this, I kept having a lot of contractions that were really strong, but never regular, especially at night. I kept thinking I was going to go into labor, but every day I woke up pregnant again. I was so frustrated by all of this!
Dh was going to have to go back to work on Saturday 1/3, and be gone for 24 hours. The night before, I woke up with an intensely painful ctx that lasted for over two minutes and then terribly painful menstrual-type cramping that lasted for almost a half an hour afterwards. I told dh that if I had one more ctx, we should go to the hospital. I didn’t have another ctx at that time, so dh went to work the next morning. I was frustrated and worried, so I called my mw to ask her what her thoughts were about why I was having super strong ctx but no labor. She suggested that maybe the ctx were slowly dilating my cervix, and offered to meet me at the hospital that evening to check me and strip my membranes if it looked like I was “on the verge.”
At the hospital, the mw checked me and said that I was 3 cm and 85% effaced. I was so disappointed, because I thought for sure that all of the intense ctx I’d been having would have done more to change my cervix. I was desperate and sick of being pregnant, so I agreed to have my membranes stripped. We walked around the hospital for two hours with the ctx coming every ten minutes. Then we went back to have the mw check me, and my cervix hadn’t changed at all. I could barely hide my disappointment! The nurse and my midwife got an emergency birth kit together for us just in case things did go fast and we couldn’t make it to the hospital on time. It included cord clamps, a bulb suction, and a peri bottle with chlorhexidine to use as a douche/perineal cleanser for my GBS + status. I felt relieved having this kit and also somehow let down by my body. I’d thought I was like a time bomb ready to go off, and now I was thinking that maybe I was going to have a long, slow labor. This was actually a reassuring thought, in some ways. We got home and I went to bad, still cramping and contracting.
The next day, Sunday, was pretty uneventful. However, at 6 in the evening, I started contracting every ten minutes again, and some of the ctx were very long and painful. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but felt in my heart like this was “real labor.” We timed the ctx until about 10:30, and then decided to just go to bed, because nothing was changing. All night the ctx continued. Most were not painful, so I was able to sleep. Every once in a while, I would wake up and time them for a little while, and then fall back to sleep again. The next morning we sent dd to school and told her we might be picking her up later on our way to the hospital. A few hours later, the ctx completely stopped.
On Monday I started to wonder about the baby’s positioning, and did some research on Spinningbabies.com. I was pretty well convinced that the baby was posterior, so I started doing inversion poses and spending all of my time leaning forward or doing pelvic tilts. I was glad at this point that I wasn’t in labor, because I wanted to try to get the baby to turn first. On Tuesday I went to see the mw. I was 40 + 2, and when she checked me, I was 4 cm and 90% effaced. She offered to strip my membranes on Saturday morning if I didn’t go into labor by then. I wasn’t really keen on that, and was more worried about dh having to do another 24 hour shift on Friday, 1/9. I just couldn’t get over the fact that it was 2 days after my due date and I was still pregnant. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you start getting too excited too early. And to make matters worse, my mw said that if I made it to my 41 week appt, we were going to have to start talking about induction! I asked her about the baby being posterior and about trying to turn the baby. She said that most OP babies turn during labor, and that I needed to concentrate on having the baby, not trying to turn it.
On Wednesday, dh and I were quite desperate for me to have the baby before he had to go back to work. I started off the day by downing about half of a pineapple in a smoothie. Then dh and I DTD, which caused one wimpy little ctx. That afternoon, we started nipple stimulation. The ctx that produced were painful and lasting 3-4 minutes initially, then spacing out and settling down, from 6-10 minutes apart. Every couple of hours we’d do about a minute of stimulation to get things going again. I called my mw to ask her if we should be doing anything differently, and she said that ctx over 2 minutes weren’t good for the baby, so that scared us, and we decided to slow it down a little. By 10:30 that night, there was still no predictable pattern, and the ctx weren’t painful enough to be taken seriously. Discouraged, we decided to just call it quits and try again in the morning.
Thursday morning at 2:52, I woke up with a massive ctx that lasted for about 2 minutes. At 3:00, I had another, and woke up dh so I could squeeze his hand. After it was over, I asked him to go put my heating pack in the microwave, but to come right back up and not wait for it, in case I needed him. He got back into the bedroom just in time for another one at 3:04. We knew then that it was time to go to the hospital. He called the mw and the doula and told them we were leaving. I got up to go to the bathroom and there was a little bit of pink, but no real “bloody show”. I also used the chlorhexidine douche, knowing there was not time to get the antibiotic at the hospital. I was trying to get dressed and ready to get out the door, but the ctx were so painful, so long-lasting and so close together, that I had a hard time getting it accomplished very quickly. Luckily dh and dd were really on top of things, so we were on our way at 3:33. The roads were packed with snow, and I started to get really nervous when we did a 180 and hit the curb of the street right before getting onto the highway. I just kept praying out loud and reassuring dh that I was fine and that we were ok to take our time. Inside, I was pretty scared, because the ctx seemed to be about 4 minutes apart, lasting about 2 minutes, and were hardly bearable. I was making a lot of noise, but was trying to keep it as close to a moan as possible so I wouldn’t freak out dh or dd. I kept thanking God out loud for letting us arrive safely when we got off at the exit for the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at about ten after 4, and by then, the ctx were 3 minutes apart and I was feeling intense pressure. The paramedic wheeled me straight up to L&D with dd walking beside me while dh parked the car. My mw was already there, and as soon as they wheeled me into my room, she leaned down next to me and put her arms around me and her face next to mine. I was so relieved to be there with her by my side that I started to cry. Then another ctx started, and I was in too much pain to cry anymore. My mw put her hand on my belly and exclaimed that my ctx was really strong. As soon as it was over, she helped me to the bed, where I got on all fours. By then I was asking if dh was there yet, and he was just walking into the room. I can’t explain the relief I felt. I hadn’t realized how scared I was up until that point. Then my mw said, “Julie, I hate to tell you this, but you can’t have that baby with your pants on.” That was a little moment of comic relief, and I managed to get my pants off with dh’s help. The mw checked me and said that I was 8 cm and a bulging bag. By this point I was feeling pushy and starting to bear down slightly with the ctx. I was unable to relax in between, because the pressure was so intense. I also felt extreme pressure in my rectum, and kept saying that I felt like I needed to get to the toilet. However, I knew I wasn’t able to walk at this point, and I also knew that it was probably just the baby’s head that I need to push out. The nurse quickly put a heplock in, and my mw said she’d break my water in the birth tub to relieve some of the pressure I was feeling. I sat up on the edge of the bed and pushed a little with my next ctx, and my bag broke all over the side of the bed and the floor. There was some meconium in it, but my mw said she wasn’t concerned. I don’t know how I made it the few steps over to the birth pool and up over the side, but I did. Somebody told dd to get the camera, which she did, and she stood at one side of the tub and snapped pictures for the rest of the delivery. The water immediately felt so good, but I didn’t have much time to enjoy it, because the urge to push with my next ctx was so strong. I didn’t remember pushing to hurt so much, and was both unable to stop and yet trying not to, at the same time. I loved that no one was yelling at me to push, but just giving me quiet encouragement. My mw and the nurses did tell me, though, that the only way it was going to stop hurting was if I just pushed him out. In my state of mind, I needed to hear that in order to “just do it.” They also kept telling me that they could see his head and that my pushes were very effective in moving him forward. At one point, they told me to look down and see how much of his head was showing. I looked and saw what I perceived to be a small slit with his head showing and said, “That’s it?” I was discouraged by how much more I knew I needed to stretch to get the rest out. Finally I decided to just get the head out, so I waited for a ctx and gave a mighty push. I could feel myself tear, but he was born so fast and he had his hand on his head (so did dd), and my mw said there was no way around it. Then I pushed again and felt him slide out. My mw had to tell me to take my baby, which I did, and had to tell us the sex, because neither dh nor I really had our wits about us! He ended up being occiput anterior by the time he was born, and his apgars were 9 and 9. I tried to nurse the baby in the water, but I think he was a little cold, because he just kept fussing. I delivered the placenta shortly after, and then we got out and into bed so the mw could stitch up my tear. Then the baby took to nursing like a champ, and it was at this point that my doula finally arrived. We were so grateful to have gotten to the hospital on time, and I was so glad that I got to have my waterbirth. But most of all, we’re all so grateful that our baby boy was born safe and healthy!
:::::::http://flickr.com/photos/28305482@N07/?saved=1
Evan is so cute
