As you can imagine, I have waited months to add my own baby's birth story to the stores of various experiences with childbirth, so without further ado: Little Bird's Birth Story. (in great detail!)
To really tell the story, we have to start the day before her due date.
On Saturday, March 1st, 2014, I was motivated. I knew Little Bird would be here soon, and we still had a to do list that was a mile long! I somehow found the energy to spend the entire day cleaning and running errands. We even stayed up until midnight working on the house! (It had been a long time since I had been up that late!)
The next morning, on her due date, I woke up a 5am with contractions! I was so excited! I did my best to sleep through them and get a bit more rest. About 7, I decided to time them: 4 minutes apart lasting 30 seconds each. From everything we had read, you were supposed to be ready to go to the hospital at about 3 and 30; it was so close!
As the morning went on, we realized that they weren't changing at all. We decided to go to Mass, but packed the hospital bags in the trunk just in case. After Mass, we got a blessing from one of our favorite priests, grabbed lunch, and headed home. We hung around the house and did a bit more housework to pass the time. At one point I was having contractions lasting 2 minutes only 30 seconds apart! We had never heard of anything like that, so we called the Dr's office. The Dr we talked to said that if I could still handle them (I totally could) we should stay home. We went to the mall for dinner and to power walk a bit, then home for bed.
When we went to bed that night, I was still debating on whether or not to go the work the next day. I didn't want to take my maternity leave until I actually had the baby so I had as much time as possible with her. We got a message that school was delayed the next day, so I knew I would have time in the morning to decide.
On Monday, I woke up feeling the same, still consistant contractions, but totally manageable. I decided to head to school for the day, but ask for the rest of the week off. I spent the day prepping my students for weeks with subs, prepping lessons for teh rest of the week, and mentally preparing myself to give up control of my classroom. At the end of the day, Ryan picked me up and we headed home, no closer to a baby.
At home, I power walked circles around our little condo, much to the cats' amusement. After dinner, around 7, we decided we were going somewhere, either to Wal-Mart (we were desperately out of groceries) or the hospital. I felt the baby getting lower and lower and decided we needed to head to the hospital.
We got there, got all settled into a room, and they decided to check our stats: -1 station, 90% effaced, and 3 cm dilated. Only 3 cm! I felt like we were so much further! They sent us home to labor there awhile. We got all cozy and watched a Harry Potter movie. (Well, Ryan watched, I dealt with contractions.) At the end of the movie, I felt like she we even lower and it definately HAD to be time!
Back at the hospital: 0 station, 100% effaced, and..... 3 cm! No progress on the one that really mattered. (They require 4 cm for admittance.) When the nurse said that, Ryan and I shared a look: it was already freezing and raining outside, it was dangerous enough driving in then (about 11:30pm), what would happen if we went home and needed to come back even later in the night? The nurse seemed to read this look and read our fear. She suggested we hang out at the hospital for a while and try to get that next centimeter.
For the next few hours we hung out and tried to relax through contractions. The nurse really stressed that if we wanted to avoid an epidural (we did), we needed to work on relaxing more through the contractions.
Around 3am, they checked again: 5cm!!! We were offically admitted to the hospital, Ryan ran down to the car for our bags, and we settled down for the long haul. The rest of hte night was sent trying to sleep between dealing with contractioons. I really only got a few seconds of sleep each time.
Around 10, they checked again: 6 cm. 7 hours and only 1 cm! I was getting exhausted and couldn't sleep very well at all! Also, I was having a ton of pain in my lower back. (Back labor, its terrible!) My doctor came to check on me adn got really worried. She didn't think I would make it through the labor the way we wanted if we kept going at that rate, so, based on her recommendation, I got some IV fluids and pain medicine. It didn't even help with the contractions, but took the edge off the back labor enough to get a nap in.
More time passed and I started progressing a bit better after fluids and a nap, but my water just would not break! We started discussing breaking it on purpose to get the last few centimeters to move faster, but decided I needed another quick nap first to make sure I had energy to push. The nurse wanted to check one last time before my nap, and while she was checking my dilation, I contracted and she accidentally broke my water. Oops.
I got my nap in and woke up feeling extreame pressure. I was sure, this was it, time to push! The nurse let my doctor know it would be soon and checked and, nope, only 9 cm. And since I was a first time mom, I wasn't allowed to push until I hit 10. About this time I hit the transitional stage (if you know the stages, you know this is the worst!) and I did not handle it well. I was ready to push and my body was pushing no matter what those nurses said or I did. They called the Dr back and said pretty much, get here now!
The Dr got there within minutes and they finally gave me the go ahead to officailly start pushing. About 15 minutes later, at 3:56pm on March 4th, 2014, I saw my beautiful daughter for the first time. They immediately placed her on my chest and I was so shocked. I did it! and she was perfect! (Ok, a 9-9 on the Apgar scale, but that's pretty darn good, and she's perfect to me!)
Getting all checked out!
Daddy's first time to hold her!
First Family Picture!!!
Look at that perfect face!
I am so happy to be a mom, and I am no longer afraid of labor.
I'm even willing to do it again! (Granted,, I'd be quite happy to wait a
little time for that.) Is it something to be afraid of, no, but I
really think it's natural to be afraid of labor.
My
advice? Believe in yourself and surround yourself with people who
believe in you! I managed to give birth without an epidural (despite
what everyone said would happen), and I can guarentee that that only
happened because of my wonderful, supportive husband who knew what I
wanted and fully belived in me, even when I didn't believe in myself.
Ready to go home! Off to many new adventures!
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