The Birth Story! Part One: Thursday

Well here we are! I am finally writing my own birth story! 44 hours start to finish is going to make for a long story, so I've decided to post it in a 3 part blog, one post for each glorious day of the event.

So let me first start with some of the details that happened before last Thursday that I'm sure I will want to recall later. At my 36 week appointment, midwife Roswitha swabbed for the Group B Strep test and while she was in there she did my first internal exam. I was 0 cm dilated and 80% effaced. Having read a bookshelf full of pregnancy books, hundreds of birth stories online, and having paid close attention in our 8-week Bradley Method childbirth classes I knew that these numbers meant absolutely nothing. I could be pregnant for another day or another 6 weeks. That being said, when I got home I prepared as if I was going into labor tomorrow. And everyday after that I waited for that first contraction. I had a few random pains in the weeks that followed. I would feel something, make a face, then look up to find Jay watching me very closely. He would look at my growing belly and say "No! Not yet! Stay in there!". He really wanted to have a finished house to bring a newborn home to.

And so it went for 4 more weeks. Jay would work on the house after work and I would bounce on my birth ball and keep him company. I loved that birth ball. It was the best piece of advice we picked up from the Bradley classes (well it was all great advice, but that birth ball idea is hard to beat). And after countless hours bouncing on a rubber ball in a construction area, over screws, and rocks, and the occasional jagged piece of plaster, it finally sprung a leak. RIP yellow birth ball.

Tuesday: September 28th. I have another prenatal appointment. They are weekly at this point. Midwife Vicki offers to do another internal if I would like to see if there has been progress. I had been so hung up on the numbers from 3 weeks earlier I questioned whether or not it was a good idea to know the status of my cervix. But my curiosity got the best of me and I did want to know. So after 3 weeks of bouncing on my birth ball, going for walks, visualizations, and half-hearted attempts at progressing dilation naturally I was a whopping 0 cm dilated and 80% effaced. Fantastic. I was going to be pregnant forever. I stopped at the farmer's market on the way home and bought some primrose oil pills and red raspberry leaf tea to try and get the party started. When I told Jay there had been no change in 3 weeks he couldn't have been happier. "Keep that baby in! I need another week!". I could care less what living arrangement we brought our son home to at this point. The uncertainty of when labor would start was starting to bother me.

Wednesday: September 29th. I take the 3 doses of primrose oil throughout the day, but I skip the red raspberry leaf tea because the instructions say to "steep" something and rather than google what that meant, I just decided to wait. I don't know why I bought that stuff anyway. Since when do I drink tea? This kid isn't going to come a second before he wants to and I have officially given up on trying to "make" or "help" him come any sooner than that.

Thursday: September 30th. I wake up around 9:00AM with my first contraction (hindsight). It's the same feeling I have had an random intervals over the past few weeks. I don't get my hopes up. Rather than stay in bed and watch tv, which had become my routine, I decide I want to go to Wal-Mart this very instant to go buy a new birth ball and a wristwatch with a second hand to time contractions if and when they ever show up. I note more of these sensations as I'm getting ready, but I don't bother to time them because they don't hurt enough and I'm not going to get my hopes up until I'm in pain. I text Jay and let him know to check his phone often today because it could be the start of something, but I'm pretty sure it's false labor. Off to Wal-Mart I go.

The Wal-Mart is in the town over. It's about a half hour drive. The drive there was a breeze and I casually, half-heartedly time these sensations using the radio in the car. Was that 10 minutes or 8? What time did the last one start? Ugh! Forget it! I'll just wait till I get home and use the bump contraction timer online. Once I get to Wal-Mart I remember that I hate this Wal-Mart. They are re-organizing the entire store for no purpose and it takes forever to find the 2 things you came for. Luckily, I find the birth ball fairly quickly. I spend the next hour or so looking at all of the watches scattered in 4 different sections of the store. UGH!! Why are the women's watches so small? I like this watch face, but I just know that strap is going to pull out all the hair on my wrist. I really don't want to waste more than $5 on a stupid crappy wal-mart watch I will only use to time contractions. This is stupid. Why have I spent an hour on this already? I am really uncomfortable. Ugh! So at this point I am irritable. It's not even 11:00AM yet. I buy my birth ball and hit the road. I stop at Wendy's and get lunch, but from the time I order it to the time it's in my car I'm no longer as hungry. (That should have tipped me off right there). The ride home was miserable. I should not have been behind the wheel of a car. These sensations are no longer dull, or mild, or easy to ignore, and I'm pretty sure I'm timing them at 6 minutes apart on my radio.

I get home and get on the bump (message board for pregnant women/moms) and try and get myself good and distracted. I'm completely convinced this is still false labor, if for no other reason than I hadn't progressed at all at my last prenatal appointment, 2 days ago. Again, that goes against all logic seeing as how the numbers mean nothing, but that was my illogical thought process. And besides, these don't hurt. They are uncomfortable, but I should be in some serious pain before it's showtime. I pull up the bump contraction timer and start clicking away. Start. Stop. Lasted 45 seconds. Start. Stop. 6 minutes apart. Start. Stop. I do this for an hour or more waiting to see a pattern form. Jay comes home early to work on the house and sees the screen. "Uh oh.", he says. I tell him I'm not worried about it and I really think it's false labor. He asks what the midwives said. I tell him I haven't called them yet. He reminds me we are supposed to call at 8 minutes apart because we live so far away. Ugh! I don't want to call, they might make me come in (hour drive each way) to get checked out and then get sent home when they agree that it is false. I just put it together that I do not like being in the car right now. Nope, no sir. Not going anywhere until I know it's the real deal. To make him feel better I call the birth center to tell them that I was in false labor.

After a little bit of phone tag, Jean, the owner of the birth center, gives me a call back. We talk for awhile and I describe what I'm feeling. They are like low menstrual cramps that start above my pubic bone and radiate out to my sides. She hears me have a few contractions over the phone and announces I am in fact in early labor! She asks me to take a shower and see if they slow down or subside in intensity. If we lived closer she would invite us to come get checked out for progress, it was up to us if we wanted to make the drive. Other than that, give them a call if something changes (contractions get stronger/quicker together, bloody show, mucous plug comes out, water breaks, etc).

Jay is staining our floors when I go out and tell him what Jean said. We are both pretty shocked that this might actually be the start of the big day. I stop timing to go and take a shower, which does nothing to change the contractions. So these are contractions. I was waiting for something much more painful. I spend the next few hours waiting for something to change. But like clockwork, every 6 minutes- cramp/contraction would roll in and hang out for 45-60 seconds. The minutes in between contractions were so normal I would almost forget what the previous contraction felt like.

Jay and I discussed the possibility of going into the city and getting a hotel to be closer in case labor really kicks in in the middle of the night. We call Jean back and let her know that's what we're going to do and she offers for us to stop by and get checked whenever we want. So with our plans made we just hang out. Our hospital bag has been packed for weeks. Jay inflated my new birth ball when he got home. There was nothing to do but wait for something to change. We watch the Thursday NBC line up and by 10:00PM decide it's time to drive into Austin and find a hotel. Better to labor in the car now than in the morning when they could be much stronger and closer together.

It's not until we are sitting in the hotel parking lot that we decide to call the birth center and see if we can get checked. I mean, I had been having contractions for 13 hours. They weren't as strong as I thought they should be to do something to my cervix, but maybe we had progressed enough to be admitted to the birth center and save some money on an unnecessary hotel stay. We find out there is a women in labor at the birth center and a midwife is available to check us out whenever we want. Once we get there Jean helps me out of the car and ushers us back to an exam room. 1cm dilated, 95% effaced. Jean encouraged that to about 1.5cm dilated. Still early in the game, folks. Go get that hotel room and come back for a check in the morning. It was 12 to midnight, looks like we won't be having a September baby.

As we pull into a nearby hotel parking lot I am having a contraction that is hard to talk through but manage to get out "first floor!" to Jay. I don't want to waste time dilly-dallying with ancient hotel elevators when it becomes go-time. Well, he couldn't get first floor, but he got a room with a tub and that's really all I cared about. In the hotel room I lay out my puppy house breaking pads on the bed and the floor for when my water breaks and sends us shooting into active labor. As I wait for that to happen, I take comfort in a nice warm bath. Ah, that felt good. Now time for bed. The contractions keep me from sleeping for more than 10 minutes in the bed. Okay, maybe another bath will help. This time I bring my crossword puzzle book. When the water turned cold, I added more warm water. In the tub my contractions were 10 minutes apart but super easy to deal with. As soon as I dried off and got into bed the next contraction would be a gut buster that I'd have to focus on and breathe through it. Not cool. So I eventually took my pillow into the bathtub, folded it in half over the edge and slept sitting up in the tub for as long as I could. I lost all sense of time. Apparently it was morning because it was bright outside and Jay was talking about the hotel breakfast buffet.