Pregnancy is over! My baby is here! I got more than five hours of sleep last night! Hurray!
Here’s a picture of my now two week old precious darling baby girl, Cecily Germaine:
At risk of oversharing, here is the birth story. If you’re not into body function details, maybe skip it. If you love birth stories, have a listen.
Background: With Miryam, I was induced one week overdue. Luke came on his own two days overdue. I had the epidural with both of them. I almost didn’t get the epidural with Luke, because I felt I was managing my labor pain well, but went back to Plan A (epidural) at the thought of delivery, probable tearing and stitching, and Justin reminding me we hadn’t done any prep for doing those things without meds. Shortly after Luke was born, though, I began mentally prepping for an unmedicated birth “next time,” if there were to be a next time.
“Next Time”
It was August. July had passed without so much as one useful contraction. This little babe was a full week overdue on a Sunday. The church ladies’ eyes widened to see me still waddling about. They were mostly sympathetic, “hang in there,” “I’m praying for it to come today,” but at 41 weeks pregnant, even a kindly meant, “What are you still doing here?” is kind of annoying. Yes, I realize I’m huge and overdue and I am the most displeased about it out of all y’all.
On Monday—eight days overdue and two days before scheduled induction—I woke up thinking my water might have broken. I wasn’t sure. My water was artificially broken in the hospital with both my other babies, so I didn’t know how it would look or feel if it happened spontaneously. This wasn’t much, but it was different. We dropped Miryam and Luke off at the designated “we need to go to the hospital but my mom isn’t here yet” friends’ house, and headed to triage.
Unfortunately for me, the test strip came back negative for amniotic fluid, and I was sent home with a cheerful, “See you Wednesday morning!” We picked up the kids, headed to the store to buy Luke bigger pajamas that he’d been needing for a few weeks now, and went back home.
My mom arrived that evening, as planned. I continued to have “different” stuff going on in the baby delivery region. I continued to hope this baby was on his or her way before 6am Wednesday.
On Tuesday morning, here and there, I had a few contractions that were mildly painful. My Braxton-Hicks contractions have never been painful. Maybe this is a good sign!
My mom took us all out to lunch, we came home, got kids into rest time, and I noticed the contractions were more frequent, more noticeable. I worked on getting some laundry done. I was feeling pretty tired, so I told Justin I was going to go try to take a nap myself. Within 15 minutes of lying down, I decided it was time to download a contraction timing app, and see if this was real or false labor based on intensity/duration/frequency patterns.
The first two on the timer were eight minutes apart. Over the next hour, they rapidly sped up to be less than five minutes apart. Obviously I wasn’t napping, so I popped up (as fast as an overdue pregnant lady can pop up) and consulted my hospital bag packing list for the second time in two days. I told Justin we needed to pack up.
“How close are the contractions?”
“Mmmm….less than five minutes.” I didn’t specify that they were more like three minutes apart. Because last time when we didn’t get moving until they were three minutes apart, I was already 8cm by the time we arrived at the hospital, and Justin was the one the nurses yelled at for not getting me there sooner. (As if that was his decision, ha!) Also because they weren’t lasting very long, only 30-60 seconds each, and weren’t very painful yet, so I doubted labor was quite so far advanced yet.
Side note: One would think that by my third labor, I wouldn’t still be trying to go “by the book or it’s probably false.” I know every labor is different. But until I could report contractions “five minutes apart, a minute long each, ongoing for an hour,” I doubted whether we should bother getting ready to go yet. I’m naturally a rule follower. It’s hard for me to trust my instincts over something I read or was told by someone with authority.
Anyway, my mom and the kids had been outside. They came in and were getting water to cool off, and my mom noticed Justin putting his shoes on.
“Where’s Justin going?”
“…we’re going to the hospital. Justin, you didn’t mention to my mom that we were packing up?” I’d just seen him outside talking to her ten minutes ago. Oh well, here we go! It was much easier to not have to load up the kids with us this time.
We headed out the door, Justin driving carefully over bumps and making stops as smoothly as possible. He dropped me at the labor and delivery entrance, and I waddled up the same stairs as yesterday. I picked up the little phone outside the locked doors.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m in labor.”
“Come on in.” *click*
At least I had already filled out the paperwork yesterday. All I had to do was tell them my name today.
Better news in triage this time! I was 4cm at 4:30ish pm. The day before, I’d been the same “barely 2cm” that I had been for the past two weeks at checkups. This is real labor! I was admitted.
In my L&D room, Justin worked from his computer, and I read a book from the kindle app on my phone (in between contractions, that is). I’d been planning on having this baby without pain intervention ever since right after Luke’s birth 2.5 years ago. I thought I might want to be up and moving around during labor, but it turns out I wanted to sit on the bed most of the time anyway. During contractions, I closed my eyes and focused on relaxing all of my muscles, and not holding my breath. The labor part was quite manageable this way. My nurse, Vivian, commented that she couldn’t see/“feel” the pain on my face, which I took as a compliment.
Labor progressed pretty quickly. By 6:30ish, I was at 7-8cm. By 7:00-something, my pain level was mounting and I asked for a birthing ball to change my position and see if that helped.
It didn’t help the pain, but it did help me realize that labor was done and it was time for delivery. The downward pressure of “time to push” was a lot less bearable than the regular contractions of labor. My body pushed without my consent. It was an unnerving feeling. Kind of felt like a convulsion. Unpleasant, to say the least.
I made Justin go where I couldn’t see his face. He wanted to help me, but there wasn’t anything he could do, and I didn’t want to see his evident distress from watching me in pain.
I laid back down on the bed and told Vivian it was time to push. Ope, and that was my water breaking. Yes, just now. Of course my water hadn’t broken yesterday. I have a history of high levels of amniotic fluid. When my water breaks, it will be an unmistakable gush, not a questionable trickle.
The color indicated meconium, so Vivian called the NICU to get ready just in case of aspiration. She wanted to check me again, which I resisted, because I didn’t need her to verify what my body told me, and because I was in the only position I could imagine being “comfortable” in at the moment: lying on my side where she did not have access to check. She insisted. Okay. I managed to make room.
“Yep, you’re complete. If you can resist, try not to push. The doctor isn’t here yet.”
“I can’t. If my body wants to push I’m pushing.”
I could tell by her face that she’s used to women who choose to give birth in a hospital also choosing to use pain intervention. I wonder if she’s had any babies herself. Non-epidural need-to-push is literally irresistible. (Side note, Vivian was very compassionate and sweet. She was a good nurse, just maybe out of her comfort zone a bit with me and no drugs.)
Another push. I can feel baby entering birth canal.
“Ummm, this baby is coming.”
Somehow Vivian talked me into lying on my back. This was extremely uncomfortable and also interfered with my natural inclination to push, so I took an involuntary break from it, in a lot of pain, baby on the way out. I may have been crying a little at this point; I already can’t remember the details.
I do remember taking some deep breaths and drowning out the chatter around me to remind myself, “You can do this. Your body was made to do this. It’s almost over, the baby is almost here.”
I also remember telling the nurses to stop talking, not in my nicest tone ever.
The doctor arrived as baby was crowning. Justin said her demeanor was relaxed, like she wasn’t taking the nurses seriously who were urging her to get her gloves on now. Then when she looked down and could see the top of a baby’s head, she sobered up and sat down for a catch.
I’m not sure how many minutes were passing. Finally, the doctor told me I just needed to give one or two more good pushes (whether I felt an urge to or not) and the baby would be out. Okay. Muster a little more strength. Take a big breath then hold it. Push. Within two minutes (I’m guessing here) I could feel the baby go through; my body felt empty; I heard a baby crying!
“It’s a girl!”
The “ring of fire” was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. I could feel it, and identify it as such, but it definitely wasn’t the worst part. It seemed far away somehow. My body must have been doing a good job releasing endorphins. I also didn’t feel the tear at all. I didn’t even know if I’d torn this time or not until post placenta when the doctor said, “Looks like you’re going to need some stitches.”
I think getting stitches was actually the worst part for me. Even though they gave me a local anesthetic, it was pokey and pulley and just zero percent my cup of tea, and it felt like it took forever. I wanted to get my baby into my arms!
Pros of no epidural: labor never stalled, I didn’t have to be hooked up to any IV’s, it was kind of fun in a weird way to watch the wave of my contractions on the monitor after feeling them—Justin would be like, “Whoa that was an intense one,” and I’d be like, “Yeah I know” (ha!)—I could stand up as soon as I wanted to afterwards, Cecily latched to nurse easily immediately and had energy to go at it for as long as they let me hold her before needing to check her vitals the second time (no baby lethargy), and I can say I did it.
Cons: my body was SOOO tired, especially the next day; just taking a shower the next morning was exhausting. Pushing and stitching per above. And it had to be for the biggest baby that I went natural. If there is a fourth, I might consent to induction closer to the due date to avoid having a 10 lb baby.
I am thankful she came on her own before induction this time, though! I had been thinking it would be kind of annoying to be induced that late, when I could have been induced earlier if it was going to end up an induction anyway: could have had fewer days of pregnancy. But this worked out! She’s healthy, she’s home, we’re all enamored, and I’m not pregnant anymore. Hurray!