How to even begin?
I wanted to have a natural birth with Sophia, but she went well past her due date, and our amniotic fluid was getting low, so I had to fly to Oahu and be induced. It was a huge scary ordeal, and after 17 hours of back labor, I ended up with an epidural...then Sophia was born several hours later, 29 hours after they started the pitocin!
I wanted michael's story to be different.
I went to the midwives on Wednesday, 4 days before I was due. They said they could sweep my membranes, but I was already at 3cm all on my own so I might not even need it, AND I was taking a shitty ass masters class, and I had scheduled to take my final 2 hours after my apt. So I said no thanks, I'll wait an see. By the way, I was totally distracted and got a 68%!!!! Terrible!!! Oh well, Babies before grades.
Wednesday went on, some contractions, Thursday same story, Friday I went back to see the midwives, Jennifer swept my membranes, didn't really hurt, but I had a little cramping for a few hours after and I started to have bloody show... Then... NOTHING! Almost no contractions the rest of the day Friday or Saturday. In fact, Saturday we went to the beach all day.
We came home Saturday night, I was exhausted! Finally got soph showered and in bed and I probably fell asleep around 11. Sometime later, I woke up and my stomach hurt. I felt like I had to poop, and thought it was probably all the hotdogs and chips I had eaten at the beach earlier... I went back to sleep and started having horrible nightmares about work. I had a huge project that they were shelling without me, and they kept messing it up an putting things out of order. I would yell at them and as soon as I turned around, they were doing it again! Around 1:15 am, I woke up, an realized that the yelling cycles in my dream were correlating to my stomach cramps. Slowly, and I mean VERY slowly, after several minutes and several more cramps it dawned on me that they were about 3-5 minutes apart... And it wasn't from the hotdogs at all, it was contractions!
I woke Daniel up made him get a timer, and realized that not only was I having contractions, they were close together, lasting for a long time and they hurt!!!
He called the midwife and her reply was along the lines of "it's 1am... You chose to do this naturally... There's nothing I can do for you, you can come sit in the tub at the hospital or you can sit in the tub at home" so I said ok, I'll stay home and agreed to call and come in once it felt right to me, because she assured me "I would know".
So I labored all through the night. It was terrible. It was back labor. The whole time! My contractions were intense. Like an idiot, I had done nothing to prepare. I read Ina May's Guide to childbirth before I had Sophia, and I had been wanting to read it again, but it didn't have free prime shipping on amazon, so I kept putting off buying it. I had however started reading "joy luck club" so I tried reading that to distract myself...I tried counting ( which made them worse), I tried singing kid songs, saying the alphabet, scratching my leg or foot, changing position, eventually I was so so so exhausted that I tried sleeping. Laying down was pure agony!!! From our stupid 80' tall bed to my pubic symphsis disorder, to my heartburn, to the back labor, I couldn't do it! I spent a good part of the ight sitting in a bench with my head on the foot of the bed, sitting on the floor of the shower with my head against the wall, or kneeling on my yoga mat, propped up by a basket of clean laundry that I hadn't folded yet.
The whole night my contractions remained 3-5 min apart, I kept waiting for them to get closer or for my water to break, but it never happened. I started to have this terrible feeling that I wasn't in labor at all, it was just a stomach flu... Or it was labor but I was going to get to the hospital and only be 4cm.
When the sun finally came up I woke up Daniel, told him what else to throw in the bag and went to the living room to wait. I sat on the couch and immediately fell asleep without realizing it. I woke up 5 min later to a contraction, but I couldn't get up in time so I had to breathe through it sitting down, sunk into our huge couch, which was agony!
I scarfed down a cup of jello with oranges and got in the truck. Daniel called Jennifer the midwife and drove me yo the hospital. Kelly checked us in, which made me feel much better. I went to a room, met my nurses, put on a gown, and got my vitals taken. By this tine I felt like my contractions were slowing down, or at least getting much easier to manage. Jennifer checked and I was already 8cm and basically fully effaced. She said I could push when I felt the need. She went to go fill out paperwork and I talked to Daniel and Kelly for about 45 minutes to distract myself through contractions. Jennifer came back and asked if I wanted to push. I said "I don't know, aren't you supposed to tell me when to push?!?" We went through some "listen to your body, you'll know" bs, and I thought "why not, I'm gonna start pushin this kid out nice and easy"... That obviously didn't work out for me. Lol.
I distracted my self by looking out the widow at this awesome view and telling myself I was doing the right thing for me and the baby.
I started pushing really lightly whenever I had a contraction, he was barely moving and I was wearing myself out. It wa time to get the show on the road. The midwife made me get in the bed and push for real. It was hard and I was tired!!! It really wasn't that horrible, he was moving down, but as he got to my pelvic bone my back hurt like none other and I could literally feel my bones pushing apart as his head went down. So that sucked, but I made it through decent enough. The end was the worst. I thought your pubic bone meant your kid was almost out... It doesn't. I asked how far and he still had like 3-4 inches before his head would be visible. Soooo de motivating!!! AND my contractions were still only every 3-5 min and my stupid water bag was still intact. The midwife said she could feel it bulging, and I said go ahead and break it in hopes that would spped things up or make it less painful... Well, it didn't. It pretty much did nothing.
I pushed a couple of times and felt the worst pain of my life! So I just hung out like this for awhile. Terrified to push anymore, I knew there was no way I was strong enough to get this baby out. I think I was just hoping if I waited long enough he would push himself out or someone would somehow magically pull him out. Everyone was semi annoyed that I had given up and I'm sure they weren't, but it seemed like they were yelling at me to keep pushing. Finally I just gave up entirely and pushed anyway. I didn't care anymore and it hurt so so so so so so bad I just wanted it over. I pushed with contractions and without, I just didn't care. The midwife told me one or two more good 15 second pushes an he would be out. I knew I couldn't. I said/yelled/cried that I couldn't. And I'm not sure that I actually was able to push for a full 15 seconds, but somehow He crowned, the ring of fire is definitely aptly named. I felt him come out, and much to my surprise...it still hurt!!! What the hell!!!?!?! Where was all the adrenaline/hormones I had with soph?!?! There were no tears and rush of instant love, all I could think was omg. This freakin hurts and why the hell does it still hurt?!?! He's out!!! This is supposed to be over!!!
I still held him and loved him, but this time the pain of a 8lb. 4oz. Completely natural childbirth with no food and no sleep by an out of shape lazy person trumped whatever oxytocin my body was or was not making.
And then everything was ok. I held him some more, I nursed him, I got a shower and scarfed down some hospital food. The after pains were bad, but finally the oxytocin was doing its job and nothing mattered as long as that adorable little man was in my arms... Finally.