So, let’s see…
In some ways I’m hesitant to post this because it isn’t the calm birthing experience that I so hoped for but rather a story of long hard labor that I thought was going to lick me more than once. In the end though, the experience made me feel pretty damn victorious so I think I’ll just go ahead and share.
My labor started with a couple days of pretty intense but intermittent cramps on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday, it was a constant and I was starting to wonder even though I hadn’t had any real evidence of losing my plug. My mood jumped to a totally excited level around 3pm when my bloody show started and my cramps were still going strong. I decided to make one last errand trip just in case and get myself some essentials. Somehow that ended up being ice cream for the apple cobbler I had every intention of eating for dessert.
By the time my husband got home around 6pm the cramps had turned into definite contractions and I had run away to the bath tub to relax my body a little. Over the next few hours there was a lot of back and forth between our midwife until we finally decided that I couldn’t deal with waiting at home anymore and we left for the center around 11pm.
Unfortunately, I was already experiencing pretty intense back labor by that point and was really discouraged (and momentarily panic stricken) to find out that I was 100% effaced but only 3cm dilated. I spent the rest of the night trying to find comfort anywhere I could all over the center. The tub, the bathroom, the birth ball, the birthing chair, leaning on every surface and person available… My husband was beyond incredible through the whole thing. He literally held me up through 99.9% of it and was holding my hands through contractions when I wasn’t using him as support. He told me later that watching me muscle my way through it, he found himself crying a few times and had to hide it from me so I wouldn’t get upset. I had gone into labor with such images of strength and very little fear but in the middle of it I was seriously wavering. I was exhausted and frustrated because I was sure that the underlying contractions I was feeling were ones that I could have successfully used all the pain relief techniques I had studied during my pregnancy on but the intense back labor (that did not stop between contractions for at least 20 straight hours) had caught me totally off guard and the only time I could find any relief was in those first few seconds every time I got into the birth pool. So I kept getting in and out so I could experience those moments over and over again.
Because my cervix was being incredibly stubborn, sometime in the early morning hours my midwives suggested that we break my waters and hope that would get things moving faster. It actually gave me little bit of much needed relief. That pressure release gave me at least an hour of contractions I could actually breathe through and work with and time between contractions that wasn’t so painful as well. It was awesome. It was around this time, I think, that they figured out that Ruben was presenting with his head cocked like the RCA dog, which was part of the reason everything was moving so slowly.
It was 1pm when I was finally fully dilated but because I was having a lot of trouble pushing on the birth chair and for some reason squatting, which had been my position of choice for much of labor, actually made my cervix close up, my midwives decided they wanted me on my back to push. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, Again, it wasn’t the feeling of pushing or the ring of fire that was painful. Those were feeling sthat I know I could have worked with but the intense pain in my back was close to unbearable. A friend of mine said that during her 8 hours of pushing if someone had offered her a cesarean with a butter knife she would have taken it. I don’t think anything could describe how I felt more.
I wanted to quit so many times. I never voiced it to them but I kept hoping my midwives would insist on a transfer so I could get some relief while at the same time dreading the idea of having to ride in a car anywhere. I pushed that 9lb 10oz baby out for almost 2hrs and when he came it was the most incredible relief I have ever experienced in my life. Once the midwives had worked his broad little shoulders out my husband had the honor of pulling him the rest of the way and putting him on my chest. They covered him up and started working on the placenta and my bleeding while I just laid back with this little animal crying on my chest reveling in the absence of back pain. We waited ten or fifteen minutes before we checked to see if we had a Ruben or a Clementine on our hands and we just were and it was incredible and I couldn’t believe I had done it and didn’t even know how big he was at that point. It wasn’t until a couple hours later that they came and did the newborn exam and we found out. Maybe knowing that we had been through too much already Ruben was a champion nurser from the get go. He is beautiful.
I feel so indebted to Val and Rose and to James for supporting me through it all and for helping me come out of such a difficult and overwhelming experience feeling so damn triumphant.
I’m sore, I have many stitches, I’m exhausted, I’m healing, I’m giddy, I’m a mama
Wow, that was long
so, here's my boy
or here if the facebook ones fail
In some ways I’m hesitant to post this because it isn’t the calm birthing experience that I so hoped for but rather a story of long hard labor that I thought was going to lick me more than once. In the end though, the experience made me feel pretty damn victorious so I think I’ll just go ahead and share.
My labor started with a couple days of pretty intense but intermittent cramps on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday, it was a constant and I was starting to wonder even though I hadn’t had any real evidence of losing my plug. My mood jumped to a totally excited level around 3pm when my bloody show started and my cramps were still going strong. I decided to make one last errand trip just in case and get myself some essentials. Somehow that ended up being ice cream for the apple cobbler I had every intention of eating for dessert.
By the time my husband got home around 6pm the cramps had turned into definite contractions and I had run away to the bath tub to relax my body a little. Over the next few hours there was a lot of back and forth between our midwife until we finally decided that I couldn’t deal with waiting at home anymore and we left for the center around 11pm.
Unfortunately, I was already experiencing pretty intense back labor by that point and was really discouraged (and momentarily panic stricken) to find out that I was 100% effaced but only 3cm dilated. I spent the rest of the night trying to find comfort anywhere I could all over the center. The tub, the bathroom, the birth ball, the birthing chair, leaning on every surface and person available… My husband was beyond incredible through the whole thing. He literally held me up through 99.9% of it and was holding my hands through contractions when I wasn’t using him as support. He told me later that watching me muscle my way through it, he found himself crying a few times and had to hide it from me so I wouldn’t get upset. I had gone into labor with such images of strength and very little fear but in the middle of it I was seriously wavering. I was exhausted and frustrated because I was sure that the underlying contractions I was feeling were ones that I could have successfully used all the pain relief techniques I had studied during my pregnancy on but the intense back labor (that did not stop between contractions for at least 20 straight hours) had caught me totally off guard and the only time I could find any relief was in those first few seconds every time I got into the birth pool. So I kept getting in and out so I could experience those moments over and over again.
Because my cervix was being incredibly stubborn, sometime in the early morning hours my midwives suggested that we break my waters and hope that would get things moving faster. It actually gave me little bit of much needed relief. That pressure release gave me at least an hour of contractions I could actually breathe through and work with and time between contractions that wasn’t so painful as well. It was awesome. It was around this time, I think, that they figured out that Ruben was presenting with his head cocked like the RCA dog, which was part of the reason everything was moving so slowly.
It was 1pm when I was finally fully dilated but because I was having a lot of trouble pushing on the birth chair and for some reason squatting, which had been my position of choice for much of labor, actually made my cervix close up, my midwives decided they wanted me on my back to push. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, Again, it wasn’t the feeling of pushing or the ring of fire that was painful. Those were feeling sthat I know I could have worked with but the intense pain in my back was close to unbearable. A friend of mine said that during her 8 hours of pushing if someone had offered her a cesarean with a butter knife she would have taken it. I don’t think anything could describe how I felt more.
I wanted to quit so many times. I never voiced it to them but I kept hoping my midwives would insist on a transfer so I could get some relief while at the same time dreading the idea of having to ride in a car anywhere. I pushed that 9lb 10oz baby out for almost 2hrs and when he came it was the most incredible relief I have ever experienced in my life. Once the midwives had worked his broad little shoulders out my husband had the honor of pulling him the rest of the way and putting him on my chest. They covered him up and started working on the placenta and my bleeding while I just laid back with this little animal crying on my chest reveling in the absence of back pain. We waited ten or fifteen minutes before we checked to see if we had a Ruben or a Clementine on our hands and we just were and it was incredible and I couldn’t believe I had done it and didn’t even know how big he was at that point. It wasn’t until a couple hours later that they came and did the newborn exam and we found out. Maybe knowing that we had been through too much already Ruben was a champion nurser from the get go. He is beautiful.
I feel so indebted to Val and Rose and to James for supporting me through it all and for helping me come out of such a difficult and overwhelming experience feeling so damn triumphant.
I’m sore, I have many stitches, I’m exhausted, I’m healing, I’m giddy, I’m a mama
Wow, that was long
so, here's my boy
or here if the facebook ones fail
