I've mostly been a lurker on this forum, but I wanted to share the birth story of my daughter with all of you, as I have enjoyed reading about everyone else's births.
On Monday, at 39 wks 3 days, I had an appt with my OB, and I had her do a membrane sweep at about 2pm. I was 3cm and about 70-80% effaced at this point.
11:30 pm-I go to the bathroom feeling crampy and have bloody show and a chunk of mucus plug. I start feeling light contractions. DH and I time them about an hour later, and they are pretty consistently 5.5 minutes apart, and about 1.5 minutes long. I try to rest in bed as much as possible, since they aren't too painful yet
Tuesday morning
2:30 am-The contractions are picking up in intensity, so we time them again, and they are about 2.5 minutes apart. We call my mom to come over to be here with DS when we need to leave. She gets here about 3 am and falls asleep on the living room couch. I find it most comfortable to labor standing up, leaning against a wall, or with my hands on the edge of the bed, and rocking/swaying my hips. At some point I get in the shower for a while, and that feels really good, but the hot water eventually runs out, and I'm back to leaning/rocking again.
6am- Things are really getting intense, and the intervals are getting sporadic- sometimes I get contractions only 1.5 minutes apart, sometimes 4 minutes. I make the call to head to the hospital, hoping that I am as far along as I think I am at this point.
6:15-check into the hospital. The Dr I had for DS is there, and he makes the comment : "you must be here for an induction, because you don't look like you're in labor" as the nurse is walking us to a room. I guess I seemed a little too quiet and calm to be too far along in labor. I have a big contraction right as we get to the room and I have trouble answering her question, and the nurse says " before we do anything else I want to check you out and see how far along you are." So she checks, and I'm 8cm already (yay!) and the nurse starts to kick it into high gear. I thought it was really funny when she told me to stay right where I was while she called my Dr., etc. She said " Do not go use the bathroom. IF you think you need to poop, you do NOT need to poop."
The nurses start getting stuff set up, trying to hook me to monitors and set up the IV while I insist on standing next to the bed to work through contractions instead of lying down. I guess I have a pretty intense contraction at some point that I am vocalizing through, and my water breaks (explodes is more like it) all over the floor, and that really sends the nurses in a panic because my Dr isnt there yet.
7ish-Pushing.
7:43 Kate is born. 8 lbs, 14 oz. and 20.5 inches long (DH was only 7 lbs 1 oz)
7:44-Total euphoria! Unmedicated birth gives such a wonderful high
I was really happy with how things went. It was a lot different than DS's birth, where my water broke but labor never started, and I ended up on Pitocin, and eventually an epidural.
DH, DS and I are babymooning right now. DH has another week before he goes back to work. We are leaning how to be a family of 4 now, and enjoying every minute with our new girl, even the sleep deprived ones.
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