My spinning baby, born 4/25

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4/26/11 at 1:09pm

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My EDD was 4/20, and this was baby #3. For a week I was having contractions that weren't leading to labor. Saw my MW on saturday 4/23 for a prenatal visit and she checked me I was 2cm and 70% effaced. On Easter (4/24) I was having contractions every 10 mins that felt like labor contractions but never got closer together. I decided I was tired of contracting every 10 minutes and thought a walk would help them speed up or stop if it wasn't really labor. I went for a walk around 7 that brought them 6 mins apart within an hour. Because this way baby #3 and I had been having cx for a week, I thought this meant a fast labor was coming. At 10 I met my MW at the hospital for her to check me... 4cm. So, I walked around for awhile and she admitted me into the waterbirth room. Labored for a few hours, but things were moving slow. I finally decided to get in the tub around 2:30am because the cx were getting hard to handle out of the water. I had several hours of what felt like transition, and every contraction I would convince myself that I would have the urge to push soon. Finally, at 6am I feel like pushing... so my MW checks me and am 8cm with a tiny bit of cervix left. She offers to stretch me, but I couldn't handle it so she didn't. I was EXHAUSTED and had been up for about 24 hours at this point. Things stalled and around 8 she made me get out of the tub, which I was NOT happy about and get onto the bed. So I labored on the bed for awhile, they put the continuous monitor belt around my waist but I could still move into any position on the bed, mostly I stayed on my hands and knees. I finally got a bit of rest between contractions, but things weren't progressing forward. At this point, babies heartrate was dropping a bit, so they decided oxygen would probably help the two of us. Now I'm laboring out of the tub, with an oxygen mask on which was FAR from what I had imagined.... AND my husband had to leave because somone complained about the fact that our boys were in the waiting room (no children on the floor), so he took them home. But, I was told by my mom that he was downstairs with them because they were restless. Thank goodness I found out the truth later. Because I wasn't progressing, my midwife made me lie on my left side which really intensified things. I started saying that I couldn't do this, and was squeezing my midwifes arm for dear life during every contraction while my doula applied counterpressure to my back. Finally I decided I had enough and told my midwife I was too tired and she had to give me drugs or something, but this was just transition... I even knew in my mind tha I was too far along and would have baby out before I could be transferred to a standard room and given drugs. 2 mins later had an overwhelming urge to push. I pushed on my left side, and while "cheerleading" had really irritated me during my first 2 births (which were 9 hours long and significantly calmer than this one), I totally needed it for this birth. I was so exhausted, I kept trying to stop mid contraction, but my body just kept on pushing. Finally they could see his head, and he was posterior (face up). Then, the strangest thing happened. In the next contraction he completely spun 360 degrees and was face up again, and then came out. He was born at 8:59am Monday morning. He was 7lbs9oz, which was surprising because I was expecting him to be a big baby. I didn't tear at all and am feeling pretty great today. Everything about his labor was not what I had planned (especially the fact that my husband missed it), but everything turned out okay. My midwifes theory for the long labor and final dramatic spin is that he was probably twisted in his umbilical cord (which would explain his lower heartrate).