I've been meaning to write this down before I forget all the details, but have been wonderfully busy caring for my precious baby boy! He is so amazing!!! I just can't stop staring at him and kissing his sweet little face; we have truly been blessed beyond belief!!
Okay so here goes....I had been having VERY regular braxton hicks for about two weeks and my stomach almost constantly felt rock hard. I had low back pain and some cramping off and on but no signs that anything was happening. Early Wednesday morning (at 40 weeks and 3 days) I finally lost my "plug." I was so excited because something was finally happening. My excitement died down, however, when I went online and read that some women lose this days or weeks before they give birth! Later that day I started experiencing more painful cramping and low back pain but nothing that had an obvious start and end like I expected a contraction would feel like. I spoke with my sister Angie on the phone and she said that she had the exact same feelings when she was in her birthing time and that she couldn't tell she was in labor. She also said that she had been having braxton hicks for weeks and when she went in she was already dilated 7 cm! This got me excited all over again and I began to think that for sure all those braxton hicks and cramps meant that progress was happening!
That night the pain got much worse. Sleep had become next to impossible because every position I could lay down in made the pain unbearable, but when I stood up it got much better. Around this time I began getting very sick to my stomach and had to vomit several times. I spent a good portion of the night bent over my birthing ball and finally at around 5:30 a.m. I decided to call the midwife on duty. I explained the feelings I was having and told her that I couldn't tell whether or not I was having contractions because the pain felt pretty constant and it was in my lower back. This particular midwife was not my favorite (there are 5 at the birthing center) and she was really not very helpful. It took her an hour to call me back and then she asked if I had been around anyone with the flu? I told her no, and that most women I had spoken with had experienced very similar things when they were in labor. She essentially just told me to wait until my appointment the next day at 11. I thought about going in earlier but decided to just wait it out.
By the time my appointment rolled around the next day I was feeling much worse. On the way to the birthing center I decided to listen to my active labor hypnobabies track because I thought for sure I was going to be several centimeters dilated. Once we got to the birthing center the girl at the front desk took us to birthing room to sit on a birthing ball while we waited for our appointment. I was so grateful not to be sitting in the lobby! Midway through my appointment I began to be able to distinguish between the constant back pain and the contractions. I had to stop talking and breath through them. My midwife (this time one of my favorites) checked me and told me that I was only dilated one centimeter! I was devastated and exhausted. I couldn't eat anything, was sick to my stomach, and had been in hours of pain for nothing! She told me the best thing I could do was to go home and rest. She gave me her cell phone number and told me to text her updates on what was happening with me because she would be on call for the next 24 hours. Feeling very deflated, James and I drove home.
On the drive home my contractions became even worse and I knew there was no way in the world I was going to be able to sleep. Right as we took a right to turn on to our street I started heaving and knew I wouldn't make it...I puked all over my car! :( Bye, bye new car smell! My poor hubby had to clean it up for me! This is a good time to mention that during all of this, James was absolutely AMAZING. He was so calm and supportive and he helped me to use some of the hypnobabies tools to relax my body and breath through my contractions. I seriously would not have been able to do it without him! So, we got home and after a couple hours of agony James suggested that I sit in the bath tub, which was a genius idea. I sat in there for hours and it was the only place that I could really relax through the contractions. I just laid my head down on a towel on the edge of the tub and pictured each contraction like a wave. I tried to go as limp and loose as possible rather than tense up, which is the BEST thing you can do-yet completely counter-intuitive. I waited for the wave to build, peak, and come down, each time telling myself that I only had to experience that particular contraction ONE time. I timed my contractions when I first got home and they were about a minute long and anywhere from 5 to 7 minutes apart. Normally the midwives have you come in when your contractions are 5 minutes apart, last one minute, and continue like this for an hour. A couple hours later I timed them again and they were anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes apart and one minute long. At this point, however, I knew that the time of the contractions didn't mean anything as I was only one centimeter dilated.
I had read about prodromal labor and how women can, due to the position of the baby, be in labor for days without progress. I began to feel extremely hopeless and doubt my ability to have an all natural birth. I just didn't think I had it in me to go on much longer. I had James text our midwife and tell her about my contractions and ask her about the prodromal labor. I also had him mention to her that I wasn't sure how much longer I could last. She told us to come in again around 6 after the birthing center was closed so we could reevaluate and discuss our options.
James and I packed up the car again and headed to the birthing center. My midwife let us in and checked me....two centimeters. I wanted to cry, I could not believe that I had been having such strong, consistent contractions for so many hours without any progress. My midwife did an ultrasound and found out baby was posterior (facing my belly) when he was supposed to be facing my back! She confirmed that I was in fact in prodromal labor. My midwife was amazing and said "we are not going to the hospital," we have options! So the three of us sat down and discussed the game plan.
She decided to give me two liters of IV fluid because I was extremely dehydrated from being unable to keep anything down and unable to eat for two days. She also wanted to do a non-stress test to make sure baby was still doing okay. Finally, she wanted to prescribe me an Ambien. She knew how I feel about prescription medications but she felt that I desperately needed to rest if I was going to be able to birth a baby! She hooked me up to the IV and the non-stress test but couldn't get a good read on baby because he was sleeping. The non-stress test also showed us my contractions and they were coming non-stop and very strongly. The midwife gave me apple juice to see if the sugar would get baby moving and I had to rush to the bathroom and got very sick AGAIN. While trying to clean up the mess I made, I bent my arm with the IV in it and my blood started to go into the IV tube. Once I saw that I felt even more sick and had to call the midwife in to the bathroom. She attempted to start the non-stress test again and I had to get up one more time to rush to the bathroom and get sick, but finally my stomach settled and she was able to hook me back up to the non-stress test and start another bag of IV fluids. This time the baby was much more active and my contractions began to slow down considerably. She had hoped that the IV fluids would stop labor and that I would be able to rest. She gave us the prescription for Ambien and we left around 8 p.m.
As soon as we got in the car my contractions started up again and were coming every 2 to 3 minutes. After we ran to CVS to get the prescription filled we came home and after doing some inversions to try to get baby to turn, I got back into the tub. After a couple hours I got out and James set up a table with pillows so that I could try to lean over it and rest. I took the Ambien around 11:30 and James got in the shower. While James was showering my contractions seemed to be stacked right on top of each other and I was absolutely miserable. I knew there was no way I would be able to sleep and felt myself beginning to panic. I barely had a minute in between each contraction and it was getting harder and harder to relax my body. I felt myself beginning to tense up and was unable to stop myself. I ran to the bathroom to sit on the toilet because I was feeling so much pressure and suddenly there was a LOUD pop and my water burst ( it was so loud James heard it from the bedroom!) Immediately my body began involuntarily pushing and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I started screaming to James "I'm pushing, I'm pushing" and he called the midwife. She told him to put me on the phone and asked me to feel inside and see if I could feel the baby's head. I did and his head was
right there!
I was screaming uncontrollably at this point, both because of the unbelievable pressure and my fear of giving birth on my bathroom floor! The midwife told us to drive to the birthing center (a 35 minute drive) so we grabbed our stuff and rushed out the door. Poor James had to deal with my crazy, animal-like screaming all the way to the birthing center. Any small sense of calmness I had during the 24 hours of labor leading up to this point was gone and I was completely overwhelmed with panic. My body kept pushing the entire way there and I was trying everything I could to stop it, which made the pain so much worse. We finally got to the birthing center and we were the first ones there (my midwife had an even longer drive than us!) I opened the door of the car because I was burning up and continued screaming. James gently tried to get me to close the door because there were homes pretty close to the birthing center, bur as you might imagine, I could not care less about someone hearing me scream at that point. Finally a birth assistant arrived and opened the back door to the birthing center and a couple minutes later the second birth assistant arrived and came over to the car to see "if I was the mom." I said "yes!" and told her to fill up the tub. I followed her into the birthing center and rushed into the birthing room to sit on the toilet again. I had heard from several mamas that the only place they wanted to labor was the toilet and I found this to be very true for me too! The birth assistant came over to me to look and see how close baby was and was surprised to see him right there!
Finally, the tub was full and I was able to get in, which felt AMAZING. It totally changed my demeanor and I calmed down and was able to relax my body once again. My panic subsided because I felt like now I could finally give into the pushes. My midwife arrived and coached me through the pushes. She had me take deep breaths, hold them and then try not to make any noise and save my energy to push. In hypnobabies they discourage this kind of "purple pushing" and instead promote mother led pushing, but I was very grateful to have someone telling me what to do and I wanted him out as soon as possible! I started by leaning back in the tub, moved to my knees, and then moved back to leaning. I'm not entirely sure, but I would guess I pushed for around a half an hour or about 7 sets of pushes. About halfway through, I was utterly exhausted and wanted to give up but they told me to feel my baby's head, and feeling that he was part way out gave me the energy to finish.
This part was not very fun....they aren't kidding when they call it the 'ring of fire'! Finally, my midwife said reach down and catch your baby and I reached down and lifted him onto my upper belly. He came into the world at 2:23 a.m. and he was so calm! He didn't cry, he just curled up against my body. It was such an unbelievably incredible experience. I held him there and looked down and tried to get a better look at his face and his boy parts (just to make sure!). The midwife roused him to get him to cry while he was still in my arms. I held him and stared at him in awe until his umbilical cord stopped pulsing and then James cut his cord. I handed little Micah to James so that I could get out of the tub and the midwife and birth assistants helped me to the bed (they continually had to remind me to slow down, I couldn't believe how good I felt after just giving birth!). I laid down on the bed and my midwife stitched me up-I had 3 first degree tears, and James handed me Micah so that I could do skin-to-skin time and bond with him while I was being stitched up. We laid there for a couple hours and James and I bonded and fell more and more in love with him. Eventually the birth assistant and midwife came in and helped me to nurse him before doing the usual newborn examination (weight, height, vitamin k shot, etc).
It was such a great experience. We never felt rushed, we always felt that our decisions and wishes were respected, and I felt so safe and empowered. About four hours after I gave birth we headed home! This part is all a blur to me and I can't really distinguish days and hours but I know we came home and slept for a bit and then I had to call the pediatrician and make an appointment for THAT DAY. It was a Friday and you have to see the ped within two days so we had to go at 1:00 p.m. back to the same area where our birth center is located! The nurses were in utter disbelief that I had just given birth hours earlier and kept asking me over and over to verify it was true. I was actually moving around pretty easily and had a false energy given to me by the adrenaline rush of it all. It wasn't until the next day that it all hit me and I was overcome with exhaustion, achy muscles, and extreme soreness. But overall my recovery has been pretty smooth! Here are some pictures of our precious lil' bubs!
