After saying goodnight to Mom and Dad, where we had all been admiring how strong baby was moving, Tim and I went to bed around 10:45pm. I read for a bit and then had just lain down to go to sleep when I felt a tell tale “whoosh”. It wasn’t very much – didn’t even reach the bed but was just enough to soak the liner I had on and was perfectly clear. I suspected it was my water breaking, but I wasn’t sure since there wasn’t all that much of it so I got up and Googled it. According to what people were saying online, it did indeed sound like my water broke so back I went to wake Tim and let him know we were in for an interesting night.
I was beginning to get light contractions, but nothing too bad so I told Tim to go ahead and go back to sleep and I’d wake him up when something changed. We decided it would be best if I tried to get some sleep as well, but when I lay down, the contractions began to stack on top of each other, giving me 2-3 at a time. No way was I going to be able to sleep, so I got up and went into the living room to watch some TV and walk around a bit.
The contractions continued to come stronger and stronger pretty quickly, though I was still having some single contractions mixed in with the doubled and tripled ones. After an hour or so, around 1:30am, I decided I no longer wanted to be by myself and I needed Tim to get Mom so I could ask her if it was normal that I was having so many stacked contractions. In my wanderings, I had finally found a position that seemed to work for me – sitting on our exercise ball and leaning forward onto the back of a chair, so after I got Tim I returned to my spot to breath through another set of contractions as they hit.
Mom came up in her jimmies and I told her my contractions were stacked and therefore I couldn’t time them but it seemed like I was having more contractions then rest time, and she immediately went downstairs to get dressed. The pants I had on were snug across my stomach and beginning to be very uncomfortable, so I took Tim to lean on as I went to go get on some that were more comfortable. When I came back out, Mom and Dad had started the phone tree. Mom took Tim’s position as my leaning post as Tim tried to get a hold of our midwife, call his mom, and finish the last minute packing for the hospital.
Lindy, Amber, and Cedric showed up shortly thereafter and my contractions were pretty intense somewhere around 4-5 minutes long, peaking 3-5 times per set, were 2-3 minutes in between, and I was beginning to shiver off and on. Our midwife wasn’t getting back to us very quickly, and I think Tim had to have her paged 3 or so times before he finally got a call back. She said that it did, indeed, sound like we needed to get to the hospital (we had already pretty much guessed that :), and that she would be in touch.
Everything was ready to go, so after waiting for a set of contractions to finally come to a close, we made our way out to the car. Thank goodness the contractions spaced out to 1 to 2 at a time instead of the piggy backed ones during the walk to the car and the 20 minute trip into the hospital as sitting in the car was uncomfortable enough as it was.
When we arrived, they sent us straight up into the labor and delivery room in a wheel chair where we met Mimi the nurse who seemed very surprised I wanted to wear my own clothes during labor and delivery and actually tried to point out to us that they “might get dirty”. Heh. We told her that is what we bought it for and so we had no qualms with it getting ruined. She grudgingly, and with attitude, let me change into my labor clothes in the bathroom while she kept Tim out with her to answer some questions. Luckily, she was the only nurse we had any troubles with. It took a little while to change, what with having a contraction or two while I was in there, and by the time I got out, Mom, Dad, Lindy, Amber, and Cedric were arriving from parking the cars and getting signed in.
I shuffled to the bed where I sat on the edge leaning on Tim as they took my vitals and listened to the baby’s heart beat. Mom was overseeing the finding of a birth ball - which apparently Deaconess only has one - and it was in another lady’s room. We got it somehow, though, and I gratefully got off that bed and back onto the ball and into what was now the one and only position in the world which made me “happy” – sitting on the ball leaning slightly forward against Tim’s stomach as he held my arms.
My contractions were still piggy-backing and I was having a minimum of 5 or more in a row with maybe (?) a little over a minute of a break in between the sets. They had me trying to drink a lot of fluid because I was apparently a little dehydrated and they thought that might be one of the reasons my contractions were so intense and long, so drink I did, hoping it would give me a bit of a break, and we all settled in.
We had been there for probably around 45 minutes when Tara, the labor nurse (much better then Mimi), asked if I wanted to be checked. I did and it turned out it was a good thing because I was already at 7 ½- 8cm. What a relief that was!! Our midwife hadn’t been planning on coming in until 5:30am since it was my first pregnancy and we all thought we’d have plenty of time, but they said that they had better call her and let her know how far progressed I was.
In the mean time we decided to try a bath to see if it would help space out the contractions to a more normal level. While they were pouring the bath, after the check, I threw up what must have been everything I had eaten and drank that whole day. Suddenly a new tone entered the nurse’s voice as she said they had better get our midwife on the phone. :)
The tub was finally ready and it was GREAT. My contractions spaced out a little and I even had a couple single contractions before it they went back to their piggy-backed sets. I highly recommend a bath to anyone who is in heavy labor – it really helped me gather my strength and was one of the few times I opened my eyes to look around for more then a second that whole night. Our midwife, Catherine, arrived while I was laboring in the tub and she was really great – suggesting different positions to try, none of which worked for me though…I liked my position by that time. :) - and pressing pressure points to help me relax through the contractions which were beginning to pick up in intensity again.
It got to the point where the bath no longer seemed to be making a difference in my contractions so Catherine and Tim began encouraging me to get out since we were now just waiting for the urge to push to start and the bath was probably slowing it down. I really didn’t want to get out at this point partly because it did feel so much better in the tub and partly because I didn’t want to stand up, dry off and put my clothes back on while having contractions, but then I figured that we were there, after all, to have a baby. So when I had enough of a break in the contractions, and with Mom and Tim’s help, I got up and out. I had just enough time to dry off somewhat and put my clothes back on when another set hit and I rushed to sit down on the nearest seat - the toilet - to resume my leaning position.
There I stayed for an hour (?) or so, working through intense piggy-backing back to back contractions that only let up a few times for a . Mom and Tim took turns as my leaning post and I began to have the very odd “creepy crawly” feelings all over my chest and arms during contractions, which, out of everything, was what pushed my control the most. It made me just want to get up and either run away or fight something. Thank goodness for the Bradley training we had done though, because every time I would begin to tense up it became so much worse and I just tried to stay in that utterly relaxed state of burying my head against Tim’s stomach and going loose.
Things seemed to be taking their time so Catherine eventually went to check on another patient, Mom stepped out of the bathroom for a minute, and it was just me and Tim left in the bathroom when I began to feel like I was beginning to want to push. Tim tapped on the door to get someone’s attention but no one heard him as I suddenly really had to push. Poor guy. I was struggling against the urge and had his shirt in a death grip. He pounded on that door as hard as he could to draw their attention and luckily Mom and the nurse came running. It was pretty much the most intense time of my life as I struggled not to push, trying to following the nurse’s directions, but my body pushed non-the-less. I just held onto Tim and tried to breathe through it. Finally Catherine came in and she was so calm and relaxed about it – even though here I was still sitting on the toilet and beginning to feel burning “down there” - and she said something that helped me figure out how to deal with it. She said “let your body push, just don’t join in yet Honey.” It was like “Ding!” A light went on and it suddenly made sense what I was supposed to do and I could do it.
Catherine was really very laid back about getting me to the bed, and waited patiently until I was ready to move. They set up a squat bar that I used to prop my feet up against as Catherine checked me one last time to make sure I was indeed ready to push. I was and so got the go ahead to push along with the next contraction.
It was the most amazing thing. Just as he was beginning to crown, Catherine offered me to touch his soft furry little head and it was so nice to know that he was RIGHT there. I was surprised at how much I could really feel everything. I knew just how far out he was, I could feel when he made progress and just how much. I really focused on pushing steadily and then relaxing in between, breathing through the burning, so that I could stretch and not tear. Finally, suddenly, there his head was! I looked down and was in shock. I knew I was having a baby, but to actually see his little face made me suddenly disbelieve I could really do it. The thought flashed through my head that “there is no way you can get this out of you.” Very illogical, really, since I had already gotten his head out! :)
After his head was born, Catherine noticed that the cord was wrapped around his neck and that he was turning blue so she said, “Okay Holly, we have a cord. We need to push him out right now.” I was like, “Okay, here we go.” And I pushed…And I tore…but he came out beautifully and as Catherine quickly unwrapped the cord she said, “Here Holly, take your baby.” And I was able to help catch him as he slid out and into our hands.
It was incredible.
I pulled him up onto my tummy and as I did I saw he was boy and had the privilege of announcing it to the room. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. It was both the most real and surreal moment.
We had a good long time for bonding as I delivered the placenta and they began to stitch me up, then Tim went with Cian to be weighed and measured. I’m not sure how many stitches I ended up getting – the midwife didn’t keep count, but I tore side to side from having to push out his shoulders so quickly due to the cord.
An odd, and scary thing, was that as they examined the placenta they realized that not only was it incredibly small, but the umbilical cord was attached on the side instead of the middle. It is really a miracle that Cian was not only a healthy weight and size but full term. Catherine said that he is one lucky baby. God must have plans for the little guy.
After being stitched, prodded, cleaned and smashed, they moved us down into the recovery room
It was a really fantastic experience. Though the labor was nothing like I had expected, everything else went to plan and our wishes were respected and done. We are so pleased with how everything turned out and especially with our little boy.
