I don't think I have a specific question... maybe I just need to process some things from my first birth.
I had twins the first time around, planned a home birth but didn't make it far enough. My water broke at 32.5 weeks, I was on hospital bedrest 2 weeks, felt terrible each night with back pain (back labor?). I remember being all alone in my hospital room crying for my mom (like in a really primordial way) and begging the staff for Vicodin to relieve the pain. I was exhausted from having two monitors on my belly 24-7 (couldn’t sleep because of the monitors).
I agreed to an induction at 34.5 weeks. Two hours after the pitocin started, I was at 9cm. Which makes me think I had been slowly dilating the whole two weeks in the hospital—I just think I must have started at 6-7cm to get to 9cm so quickly. I was watching my contractions on the monitor but never felt anything in my belly. The pain didn’t build and then recede as I had been prepared for. It slammed into my back like a ton of bricks, suddenly, and stayed at the same level, then gradually eased off way after the monitor said the contraction was over. You know those cramps in your calf that you get during pregnancy? It felt like that, but in my back. Like everything tensed up involuntarily and I couldn’t get my muscles to relax back out.
Anyway, I never got to 10cm and eventually had a c-section. I’ve processed that part of it. But now I’m unexpectedly pregnant with #3 and again planning a home birth. I’m scared that I don’t know what labor is all about and that I won’t be able to handle it. Both my L&D nurse and my MW were so surprised that I was 9cm last time, because they said I was acting like I was at 2cm. I’m terrified that if that pain was only representative of 2cm, I won’t be able to handle 8cm. I feel more anxious about it this time than I did the first time around, when I truly knew nothing.
I also have some worries about the MW I think I’m going to go with this time. I’m not using the same one as last time because I never felt like I clicked with the previous one. (But I didn’t have a lot of choice because she was the only one who would do twins around here.) The MW this time is a recommendation from a friend who’s had three births with her. I don’t even know why I’m worried. She’s been a MW since 1996—do you think that’s enough experience? I haven’t formally interviewed her—how many births under her belt is enough? What do I ask to parse out whether she can handle any emergency? The closest hospital is pretty close—about 10 minutes away—so I guess I shouldn’t be too anxious, but still, the what if’s loom in my head. My OB (at the local most VBAC-friendly hospital) told me they would want me there from the beginning of labor, with an IV in “just in case” of a uterine rupture, and although I know the chances are very, very slim—still it is there in the back of my mind.
If you’ve read this far: thank you. Would welcome any advice or encouragement or BTDT’s…
I had twins the first time around, planned a home birth but didn't make it far enough. My water broke at 32.5 weeks, I was on hospital bedrest 2 weeks, felt terrible each night with back pain (back labor?). I remember being all alone in my hospital room crying for my mom (like in a really primordial way) and begging the staff for Vicodin to relieve the pain. I was exhausted from having two monitors on my belly 24-7 (couldn’t sleep because of the monitors).
I agreed to an induction at 34.5 weeks. Two hours after the pitocin started, I was at 9cm. Which makes me think I had been slowly dilating the whole two weeks in the hospital—I just think I must have started at 6-7cm to get to 9cm so quickly. I was watching my contractions on the monitor but never felt anything in my belly. The pain didn’t build and then recede as I had been prepared for. It slammed into my back like a ton of bricks, suddenly, and stayed at the same level, then gradually eased off way after the monitor said the contraction was over. You know those cramps in your calf that you get during pregnancy? It felt like that, but in my back. Like everything tensed up involuntarily and I couldn’t get my muscles to relax back out.
Anyway, I never got to 10cm and eventually had a c-section. I’ve processed that part of it. But now I’m unexpectedly pregnant with #3 and again planning a home birth. I’m scared that I don’t know what labor is all about and that I won’t be able to handle it. Both my L&D nurse and my MW were so surprised that I was 9cm last time, because they said I was acting like I was at 2cm. I’m terrified that if that pain was only representative of 2cm, I won’t be able to handle 8cm. I feel more anxious about it this time than I did the first time around, when I truly knew nothing.
I also have some worries about the MW I think I’m going to go with this time. I’m not using the same one as last time because I never felt like I clicked with the previous one. (But I didn’t have a lot of choice because she was the only one who would do twins around here.) The MW this time is a recommendation from a friend who’s had three births with her. I don’t even know why I’m worried. She’s been a MW since 1996—do you think that’s enough experience? I haven’t formally interviewed her—how many births under her belt is enough? What do I ask to parse out whether she can handle any emergency? The closest hospital is pretty close—about 10 minutes away—so I guess I shouldn’t be too anxious, but still, the what if’s loom in my head. My OB (at the local most VBAC-friendly hospital) told me they would want me there from the beginning of labor, with an IV in “just in case” of a uterine rupture, and although I know the chances are very, very slim—still it is there in the back of my mind.
If you’ve read this far: thank you. Would welcome any advice or encouragement or BTDT’s…
