OK so she's 5 months old now.. 
but I'm having fun on MDC and wanted to post this here!
Here's my story.
I was so ready to lose the huge belly, and 2 days over-due!
I started labor at 1am and it was very mild. My past two labors' early phases lasted a long time - like 1 or 2 days. So I figured this will probably be the same. I still had trouble sleeping though because of excitement. The next morning, I decided to go to the store with my mother and grandmother for a distraction. I swayed my way through the contractions while I was there. There were some pretty big contractions! It was hard not to freeze up and panic, but once I forced myself to sway my hips, the pain was greatly reduced. And to think I was doing this in public! Well, nobody noticed anyway!
When I got back home, I was disappointed to find that labor was slowing down, and the contractions were becoming farther apart. By around 2-3:00pm, labor pretty much stopped! I might have been having 1-2 contractions per hour. I had been planning my second homebirth and second VBAC. I hung around all day wondering what was going to happen. The midwife came over for a few minutes to check me. I knew that I would probably be induced had I been going to the hospital for stalled labor/failure to progress or whatever they call it, especially since I was already 4 cm, 100% effaced, and water already broke. Of course, it is kind of iffy to induce a previous c-section person, so they might have just wheeled me right in for another c-section.
At 9:30 pm, my husband went to bed for a nap while I hung out in the spa/tub. I was discouraged because contractions were a half-hour apart, if that. They were powerful when they happened, but they sure didn't happen very often! Often enough, of course, that I couldn't sleep. I really thought I was never going to deliver this baby!
In vain, I tried nipple stimulation. But that only brought on a contraction when I did it, and I didn't want to have to keep doing it.
Things actually started to kick up around 10:30, finally. I still didn't want to get my hopes up, but while I was timing them I noticed that they were rapidly getting closer together. Like 8 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes. I thought it was a fluke. But I was getting excited! They were getting harder.
I woke Matt up at 11:20pm because I felt like things were getting difficult and I needed some help getting through them. He got up and walked over to the couch, where he started to drift off again. I started getting mad at him and crying because he was sleeping while I was in labor! I should have known, the crying was a giveaway that the baby was coming soon! He came to my side and not a minute later, I was crying again because I didn't think I could do this anymore... and I was sure there were hours left in my labor. It was 11:30 at that time, and I told him to call the midwives, my mother, and my friend, who were all planning on coming. I couldn't take it - I started standing up out of the water, getting back down into the water, holding my husband, and crying! He tried to calm me down. He called everyone. I got the shakes, and said, "Wait, this means something. I'm shaking. That means the baby is coming very soon." Don't you know I felt like pushing. Of course I didn't trust myself, and thought that if I pushed, I'd swell my cervix which was surely still not open enough (so I thought). Well, I didn't care. I pushed anyway. Matt couldn't believe it... he only got up a few minutes earlier! I screamed at him to get in the tub and let me know if I pushed the baby through the cervix. He reached and said he could feel the baby's head!
At 11:40, before anyone could make it, Ella was born! It was great! So I'm so proud to say that we had an unassisted vbac home-waterbirth! My husband delivered her and is so excited to have gotten that opportunity
Thanks for letting me share!!! It was the best, coolest experience I've ever had.
And Ella is my little meatball!
Tia
but I'm having fun on MDC and wanted to post this here!Here's my story.
I was so ready to lose the huge belly, and 2 days over-due!
I started labor at 1am and it was very mild. My past two labors' early phases lasted a long time - like 1 or 2 days. So I figured this will probably be the same. I still had trouble sleeping though because of excitement. The next morning, I decided to go to the store with my mother and grandmother for a distraction. I swayed my way through the contractions while I was there. There were some pretty big contractions! It was hard not to freeze up and panic, but once I forced myself to sway my hips, the pain was greatly reduced. And to think I was doing this in public! Well, nobody noticed anyway!
When I got back home, I was disappointed to find that labor was slowing down, and the contractions were becoming farther apart. By around 2-3:00pm, labor pretty much stopped! I might have been having 1-2 contractions per hour. I had been planning my second homebirth and second VBAC. I hung around all day wondering what was going to happen. The midwife came over for a few minutes to check me. I knew that I would probably be induced had I been going to the hospital for stalled labor/failure to progress or whatever they call it, especially since I was already 4 cm, 100% effaced, and water already broke. Of course, it is kind of iffy to induce a previous c-section person, so they might have just wheeled me right in for another c-section.
At 9:30 pm, my husband went to bed for a nap while I hung out in the spa/tub. I was discouraged because contractions were a half-hour apart, if that. They were powerful when they happened, but they sure didn't happen very often! Often enough, of course, that I couldn't sleep. I really thought I was never going to deliver this baby!
In vain, I tried nipple stimulation. But that only brought on a contraction when I did it, and I didn't want to have to keep doing it.
Things actually started to kick up around 10:30, finally. I still didn't want to get my hopes up, but while I was timing them I noticed that they were rapidly getting closer together. Like 8 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes. I thought it was a fluke. But I was getting excited! They were getting harder.
I woke Matt up at 11:20pm because I felt like things were getting difficult and I needed some help getting through them. He got up and walked over to the couch, where he started to drift off again. I started getting mad at him and crying because he was sleeping while I was in labor! I should have known, the crying was a giveaway that the baby was coming soon! He came to my side and not a minute later, I was crying again because I didn't think I could do this anymore... and I was sure there were hours left in my labor. It was 11:30 at that time, and I told him to call the midwives, my mother, and my friend, who were all planning on coming. I couldn't take it - I started standing up out of the water, getting back down into the water, holding my husband, and crying! He tried to calm me down. He called everyone. I got the shakes, and said, "Wait, this means something. I'm shaking. That means the baby is coming very soon." Don't you know I felt like pushing. Of course I didn't trust myself, and thought that if I pushed, I'd swell my cervix which was surely still not open enough (so I thought). Well, I didn't care. I pushed anyway. Matt couldn't believe it... he only got up a few minutes earlier! I screamed at him to get in the tub and let me know if I pushed the baby through the cervix. He reached and said he could feel the baby's head!
At 11:40, before anyone could make it, Ella was born! It was great! So I'm so proud to say that we had an unassisted vbac home-waterbirth! My husband delivered her and is so excited to have gotten that opportunity
Thanks for letting me share!!! It was the best, coolest experience I've ever had.
And Ella is my little meatball!Tia
What a wonderful story! Congratulations on a beautiful birth.
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