Okay, prefacing this is a birth story meaning details of BIRTH. So, if you dont want to hear the details, please skip entirely.
Birth Story
I had been having contractions for 3 days and had gone to the doctor three days in a row thinking that this might be it. I went to the OB on Friday the 28th I was 4cm and 80% effaced. But still not time. My spirits were crushed and we went home. I continued having contractions that took my breath away for the rest of the day.
Let me back up and tell you my birth with Caden. It was long but not painful in anyway thanks to the Epidural, it was great and I was a fan. Well, I started to talk to some friends about labor and they were telling me about going Natural, I thought they were crazy, but what they said made sense. All your body wants it to get the baby out, you go from pain at 100 to once the baby was out to a 0. But the Epidural you go from the pain at 0 to slowly reaching 100 and uncomfortable. So, I started researching and found this book and documentary about Natural Delivery and choices that women have. Birth is not a medical procedure but it is a natural occurrence and should be treated that way. Epidural or not the choice of how you give birth should be given to you. It was called “The Business of Being Born” and how the USA is slowly making birth a money driven business. Doctors are inducing for any reason nowadays which a lot of the time leads to un-necessary c-sections. Granted some would have a c-section or not. But if you give the body time do what it is meant to, the outcome is usually different. Let me get off my soap box for a minute. So from there I switched to a Midwife who was great. Let me tell you I saw the same OB for 36 weeks, that’s almost 9 months and she still didn’t know who I was or what I was having until she looked at my chart. The Midwives are more personable and really care about the well being of you and your body, they listen to and I was immediately glad to make the switch just weeks before giving birth.
At night we started to watch a movie and I noticed they were semi frequent so I started to time every 20 minutes-pain. After the movie I decided to take a bath and see if it helped, it did but they weren’t gone. I tried to go to bed but they were becoming more frequent and painful, no sleep for me. Finally after 20 minutes of that I woke up Eric saying “If I have to be up suffering than so do you”. He was grumpy to say the least, we kept timing they kept getting closer. Finally they were 3-6 minutes apart. We called the mid-wife and our awesome babysitter Donna to come over.
We headed to hospital and now see why every person in Labor HATES riding in the car, so incredibly uncomfortable. I love the looks we get from people in the hallways at the hospital me pausing and holding on the wall rail trying to breathe through the pain.
It was about 1:30 and we were admitted and I was a 5. YEAH!! Our Midwife, Courtney, showed up and we waited and breathed through the pain for about an hour. She checked me and I was a 6. YEAH!! I knew I could do it. We changed positions several times, standing, birth ball a.k.a. a Sports Ball. Finally they let me get in the shower and I’ll tell you what if I could have just labored in the shower the entire time it would have been AMAZING. I loved it and help relieve the pain so much. Lying down was the worst, I hated it but she needed to monitored due to me having a fever and higher blood pressure as I labored. After two more hours she checks me and I’m a 7 and defeated she says she has to give me some Pitocin-which freaked me out because I know it makes contractions, stronger, harder, and closer together so I said give me some I.V. meds. I think they gave me Demerol/Stadol(not sure), not sure and don’t really care, instantly relaxed UNTIL contraction. So the medicine was good when I wasn’t contracting I was sleeping. I know I kept asking for an epidural. My awesome husband would tell me to breathe and I would tell him breathing was stupid. So lets just say I was out of it a little bit. I told Eric “Did you cash the check for LDS Babycenter?” and he responded “What?” and I said, “Did you request my Epidural yet?” So I knew and I didn’t. It’s hard to explain. My mind was more relaxed but my body could still feel everything.
Side-note I almost bit Eric’s finger and shoulder. I was in pain and that is my defense.
So 5:15 I felt “the pressure” and I said I’m going to push and start to do so, they weren’t ready and I guess my midwife stiff armed the baby to hold her in while she finished putting on her gloves and getting changed. They told me to wait, yeah you can’t hold in a 7lb+ baby when she and you are ready to get her out. Two pushes later and she came out. And it was AWESOME! I was still fuzzy and tired from the medicine and in retrospect had I known I only had 45 minutes more I probably would have not gotten it because it kind of made me sleepy for awhile.
Let me tell you the recovery from having Caden to having Macey is night and day. I was up and walking around in no time, I wasn’t hurting, it didn’t hurt to go to the bathroom. I honestly felt better that day than I had in the last several weeks of pregnancy. I walk normal and feel normal it is great. All the pain was worth how I feel now. Many people have mentioned how alert Macey is and let me tell you she came out crying and didn’t stop for a long time, she came out with quite the appetite too.
It was a crazy experience that went super quick. Eric was my rock he stood there letting me squeeze his hand, he rubbed my back almost the entire time and held my hand while in the shower, my rock people and without him I’d never do it again. It was painful but I enjoyed it and obviously love the outcome of it.
