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Tuesday, December 19 (3.5 weeks old) I guess it's about time I write Jane's birth story. A few times during my mom's first week here, I thought I might have felt something different than the constant discomfort I had been experiencing. A few times I took note of the time and then waited for another different pain in my gut. It wasn't until we were about to eat on Thanksgiving that a second different sensation came. It was 4:25 PM when the first hit and then 4:35 PM when I thought I felt it again. For the next 12 hours I had irregular, intermittent contractions. We called Nancy about an hour after the first contraction to let her know we thought I was in labor and that contractions were about 10 minutes apart. Sometimes they were 6 minutes apart and sometimes they were 15 minutes apart. Around 8 PM, I think, we decided to take a walk. It had started snowing and was pretty cold outside, but I thought it would help labor get going. We called Nancy again when we got back and she suggested a walk, did that, or a warm bath and a glass of wine. I had been drinking a glass of wine every night to try to put off labor until my mom was here. She said she was going to come over and just wait it out to make sure she didn't somehow miss anything. Nancy got here around 9:30 PM and camped out on the loveseat. A few hours later John said he wanted to get some sleep. He went into the boys' room and Max came out and got in bed with me. I tried to get some rest between contractions, but I was having back labor so lying down didn't feel too great. I think I fell asleep a few times between contractions, but was awake most of the time. At 4:30 AM I decided it was time to get someone else involved. Things seemed to be picking up and I needed John to rub my back. I woke him up and then Nancy. She called another midwife who would be assisting her and then went outside to tell Kristin, a student midwife, that it was time to come in. She had camped out in her truck all night, not wanting to come in thinking she would create stress or something. It's good that they had driven to our house earlier because there seemed to be a good bit of snow on the road. I started toning on my hands and knees. Nancy thought she was posterior and wanted me to try to get her to move. Noel, the other midwife, arrived pretty quickly and the three of them set up all their stuff in my bedroom. I leaned over the bed and John rubbed my back through contractions for the next hour or so. I tried the tub again, but didn't like it and went back to leaning over the bed. Nancy checked me and said I was about 7 and a half centimeters, which was good, because I thought maybe I was being a wimp and really wasn't too far along. Soon I was feeling my body start to push. I stayed on the bed for a while, but didn't like it and moved to the tub. That was much better. I wasn't there long before the pushing became intense and I was having a hard time dealing with the pressure on my butt. She was definitely posterior. I thought my butt was going to turn inside out. The pressure was incredible. I finally told myself that it wasn't that bad and I could handle it. Eventually she moved passed the tough part - instead of pushing to get down into the birth canal, her head finally stayed there. With just a couple of real pushes from me, she came right out into John's hands. |
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