I guess I spoke too soon

As you all know by now, the bun came out of the oven! However I mentioned feeling on Halloween was justified, I really wasn't feeling right. After I finished working, I told M that we had to leave the house because I couldn't sit around feeling like I was - kinda crampy and uncomfortable. I wanted to get my mind off of it and as we needed a smaller place for the bun to sleep, we headed down to Bab1es R u$ (that last s as the dollar sign being particularly fitting!). We bought the thing we were looking for and the lady at the register asked when I was due. I laughed and said, due Friday but might be having him tonight. (See, I still was thinking boy even though the last few days I thought girl was a possibility). We laughed and went on our merry way. I didn't really think I was having him that night. We headed over to Red Robin and had a dinner consisting of mainly junk - chili cheese fries, onion rings and we split a burger. If I'd known I'd be seeing those things later, I probably would've picked some more appetizing colors or something!

We headed home after food - it was probably about 9pm - and I was starting to kind of keep track of the feelings I was having. I thought they might be contractions. It felt like particularly bad menstrual cramps and having not had those since I was 15 or so, it didn't feel good. They started out about every 15 minutes and pretty soon, I was standing up and trying to "breathe through them" because they weren't feeling particularly good. I called the doula about 11:30 (by the way, she didn't pick up right away...argh) and she finally answered after I called a second time. I told her what was going on, the contractions were about 10-11 minutes apart at this point, which means basically I *could've* been in labor or not. We had to wait and see. She told me to get some rest, sleep if I could and drink tons of liquids. Pretty soon, every contraction had me running to the bathroom, thinking I was going to throw up. I didn't at that point. I just knew I needed to.

M and I tried to go to sleep. He had no problem zonking out but every 10 minutes was awakened by me getting up, or getting on all fours to breathe through the contraction. I was making a lot of noise because my yoga breathing was all I could remember to do! I was sure our nextdoor neighbors could hear. Pretty soon, we just gave up sleeping and came back to the living room, listening to music, drinking a cup of tea, trying again to time the contractions. They were at 5 minutes apart for what seemed like quite a while - still, I didn't know if I was in full labor and didn't want to wake my doula for nothing, so we just kept working through them. It was about 2:30 in the morning when I had a contraction that made me lose my dinner. Having been drunk before I knew all about throwing up - god it felt good! lol M was convinced I needed to call the doula so we did. She didn't pick up right away so he called the hospital. They said he could bring me in and we could see how far I was - he felt better about that because he thought I was getting dehydrated. So by the time the doula called, we were packed and heading to the hospital. She was going to meet us there.

We arrived after an uneventful time in the car. It was 3:30am and we laughed about all the times/routes we'd practiced getting there during rush hour. We needn't have worried, there wasn't a spot of traffic out at that time! We arrived and they made me lay on my back - the worst position by the way - to put a couple monitors on my uterus and the baby. It's the law they do this when you come in, for twenty minutes. It was a brutal 20 minutes. Everyone was doing fine, sure enough I was having contractions...

The midwife on call arrived and it was one of our favorites. She checked me out and told me I was 5cm dialated! I had managed to get most of the way at home (which was a goal) and without my doula (not necessarily what I'd hired her for!). I was still not close though - usually it takes 1 hour per cm to dilate - so was forced to lay on my back for what seemed like forever. They decided to move me from the monitoring room to the place I would give birth and stay in afterward. I got the gown on and they found me a birthing ball to sit on. The contractions were intense and uncomfortable. I was still making a LOT of noise to get through them. Because my water hadn't broken, I wasn't allowed to push yet. That was probably the hardest part of it all - not allowed to do something I really needed to do to feel better. I was using all these other breathing techniques I'd never thought I would because they were so silly when we were learning them. But I had to keep from pushing and that's what they did for me.

I guess at one point, I was sitting on the ball and my legs were shaking so hard. I couldn't stop them. I didn't know at the time that this meant I was in transition, the point before you start pushing the baby out. All I knew was that I didn't think I could go much longer. I could feel myself wanting the drugs. lol At one point, they suggested I get on the bed again. I was lying on my left side with M at my face and my doula close by. I don't remember too many details but when my midwife checked me again, I was 10cm dilated. We were surprised at how fast things were moving. It was only 5:30am. It wasn't long before my water broke. God, what a gorgeous feeling!!! Relief for that moment anyway. Now was the work.

I had completely planned on laboring standing up or something else to use gravity to pull the baby out but here I was on my side, really the only position I could be comfortable on. Finally I was allowed to push. My gosh, the sounds that came out of me now! I remember pushing, I remember everyone saying they could see the baby's head, I remember M leaning over and looking at it, I even remember me touching her head. I remember the midwife telling me to change the pushing noises to push down rather than out (I can't explain it better than that) - instead of pushing out with my grunts, the focus needed to be down and out. It seemed to do the trick. Emer came out in about 20 minutes of pushing. The relief was incredible!

The midwife laid her on my chest as I'd asked and we set our eyes on our daughter (by the way, M got to announce it to me) for the first time. I was just amazed and thinking of it now makes me tear up a bit. I had to have a few stitches because she came out pretty fast but I didn't even notice the rest of the labor. We did get a good look at the placenta about an hour later, and I have to say how incredible it is to see something that kept your child alive for 10 months.

Don't worry, we didn't bring it home with us, nor are we cooking it. That's just too gross.