Since you're wanting a drug free birth, I'll tell you about Avi first (then maybe I'll talk about Peytons, lol):
I'm 8 days overdue, yay. Calm about it though. Completely content to let her remain inside as long as she needed to, just irritated with all of the phone calls from family and friends saying, "Is the baby here yet?!?!?!" Ugh.
The night of the 26th I had a few contractions that were noticibly different than the others I'd been having. For a few weeks I've had hours worth of contractions at a time, which caused no progress or real pain, just annoyance. But this was felt from the bottom of my uterus instead of the top. I decided to just go to bed and get some sleep, and if anything was going to happen it would wake me up. No need to lose rest waiting on what only MIGHT be.
Next morning Dan gets home at 6:30am and gets Shiloh ready and off to school (gott love third shift!) and then goes to bed. I wake up around 8am with Cassidy and Peyton, and at first felt nothing. But soon after those low pains started again.
I got the two girls breakfast and got Cassidy ready for school. I had to get Peyton ready also because, since I was overdue, I was scheduled for a non-stress-test that afternoon. So the morning was pretty typical, just add intermittant pains. (Not terrible pains either.)
We get Cassidy to school, and in the car on the way there I find myself beginning to vocalize a bit. Interesting. We got there, the pains are roughly every 5-10 minutes apart by then, but I'm not concerned. We have the non-stress-test immediately after dropping her off, so we'll see what's going on there.
Well, ta-da, Avi, the stinker, stops doing anything during the non-stress-test. That's the *only time all day I had no contractions. Grrrr. Immediately in the parking lot afterward, they kicked back up. The show off.
So we go home for a while, and I'm still contracting. They're getting a little more painful, but nothing I couldn't just groan through. Around 3pm we went and picked Shiloh up from school (I was just now STARTING to admit I was in labor, lol) and then went home. Around 3:45 I called Melissa, our doula, and asked her to meet us at the house around 5pm. So at 4pm we left to go pick up Cassidy. When we got home, Melissa was showing up.
She began to time my contractions for me, and squeeze my hips during contractions (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS! LOL!). I was leaned over the arm of the couch with my knees ON the couch, in a lazy "doggy style" position, lol. I vocalized really well and it helped.
I sat on the birthing ball, ate chinese food, groaned and made phone calls for a while while we let the pain grow steadily and gently.
At one point I went to the bathroom and noticed I'd lost my mucous plug. I began to cheer in the bathroom! Melissa called in asking if it was my plug, I said yes, and she cheered too! LOL!
We continued to hip-squeeze and vocalize at home until around 7:30pm when I told Melissa I thought it was time to head to the hospital. So Dan packed up the kids and the car (my sister was there with us to help with the kids) and left.
We got there just after 8pm. We had to go through the ER and got asked the usual questions. When the lady asked if my water broke, I pointed to Shiloh and said, "No, she's got it." The nurse didn't break a smile. Guess she had no sense of humor. (Shiloh was holding my water bottle, heh.)
So they wheel me to labor and delivery, stopping every now and again to let me contract, lol. We had called Brenda, our MW, before we left so she could meet us there. They bypassed triage for me and brought me straight to a labor room. Brenda was already there. Bless that woman!
As planned I was only hooked to the monitor for 5 minutes and then let alone to do my thing. I stripped and tried the bath, but hated it. I went in the shower, letting the water hit my lower back while I rocked back and forth, vocalizing (read: HOWLING, lol). At one point the lab came in for bloodwork, and Dan told me. I told them they weren't getting any blood unless they came IN the shower to get it, 'cause I wasn't coming OUT! And they did, LOL!
After a while of that, I felt I had to get out. When I had gotten to the hospital I was 6cm and 100% effaced. When I got out of the shower I was 8cm. This is when it started to get unbearable. Transition. Rah. However once you hit transition, it doesn't get any worse.
At one point I think I asked Brenda to either give me ether, or hit me upside the head with a blunt object, lol. Melissa was a WONDERFUL help in dealing with one contraction at a time and not worrying about the next.
Around 10cm my water broke. YAY! And a few minutes after that I decided to do an experimental push (one of those pushes that every mom does... trying to hold her butt closed while trying to push a kid from her vagina... never works! LOL). Nothing. So after the next contraction I decided to try again, relaxing my entire body as I did. Well, ha! I threw my leg to the side and said, "It's burning!" Brenda told Dan to get ready to catch! Poor Dan thought he had time to wash his hands. Nope! By the time he had the water running her head was out. He rushed over and helped guide the rest of her body out, but Brenda did reach in to take the cord from around her neck (wasn't serious at all).
The actual birh was roughly a minute, and one push. Total labor? Not really sure. Maybe 12-13 hours, but I was staying with my regular routine through so much of it that I didn't really notice.
No tears, no episiotomy, no nothing. Her cord was left intact until it finished pulsing, and I've NEVER seen a baby pink up so quickly! We bucketed the placenta and Dan took it home with him that night. We cuddled for the first hour, skin to skin, nursing gently.
Besides the fact it was a hospital birth, it was everything I've always wanted. I got no meds, no intervention which, at the time, I was thinking I was NUTS... but now I'm so thrilled I could experience it. It was so fulfilling.
Maybe later today I'll write about Peytons.
You will do just great! A drug free birth would be awesome, way to be realistic and just do what you feel you need, too. I had walking epidurals with both kids and not an issue at all. I had had a spinal tap in 2000 and that was a ton worse. Never had a headache or any issues with my epis, and Butterworth is a great place IMO to deliver for mamas that decide a hospital is for them. You're deliverying there right?
