*Warning: all of the birth details are in this blog. If you don't want all of the details, don't read this.**
Let me preface all of this by saying, for those who don't know about our little miracle, that one year ago David and I were told that we would not be able to get pregnant on our own. It had been a year and a half since my surgery which diagnosed me with Endometriosis, I had just switched OB/GYN's, and my new doctor shocked me with the news that my Endo was stage 4 - something my previous OB/GYN and surgeon had neglected to tell me. We were told that it was "too dangerous" for me to go off of my birth control because the hormones were needed to try to keep the Endo at bay. We were also concerned that David might have some issues, and so we were advised to go first to a specialist for David and then for me to see an infertility specialist before we even considered "trying."
We did go see the doctor for David in October, who, after an initial test and exam, wanted to perform a $450 test to see if there were any issues.
Around the end of the month, "coincidentally", in our new homegroup, the ladies laid hands on me and prayed for my body - not that we would be able to have a baby, but simply that "every cell in [my] body would be aligned with the perfect will of God."
David and I talked and prayed about it for two months and eventually felt a peace about trying to conceive on our own (for free) for one month. At the end of it we would re-evaluate and go from there. At the end of November/beginning of December we weren't pregnant but my Endo actually felt okay, so we decided to try one more month and then consider our options. On January 21st, we found out we were pregnant.
Things started Monday, September 24th, at our weekly appointment. Our midwife, Kathleen, had promised on Friday that she would strip my membranes (separate the bag of waters from the cervix to start the hormones that begin labor) if things hadn't started by then. They hadn't, so we proceeded with more promises that it would be "any time" and the news that Sam had turned his head so that he was posterior and now in a position that was not ideal for birth.
That evening I had a small amount of bloody show but contractions were still sporadic. Tuesday, the contractions were still all over the place - five minutes apart for an hour and a half, then they'd slow or stop for an hour or two...rinse and repeat. So that afternoon David and I went to the mall and walked for a couple hours, walking up and down every escalator we passed (and stopping in every bathroom to pee), until I couldn't walk through the contractions anymore, which had gone from five minutes apart for two hours to four minutes apart. We went home and Kathleen told me to take a hot bath, drink a little wine and go to sleep around 7pm. The contractions stayed regular and strong enough that I was only able to sleep for about two hours through the whole night. So the next afternoon (Wednesday), Kathleen had us come in to the birthing center to check my progress. Since Monday I had only dilated from 1cm to 2cms. We were told to go home, stay off my feet and "try not to make things happen."
You want to see frustrated? Try telling a 39-weeks-and-5-days pregnant woman to not try to make labor happen. We went home and I spent the rest of day trying to only sit on the couch or lie in bed, overwhelmed by the contractions and thoughts that labor was never going to really happen. Unfortunately, at this point people who were not familiar with my entire pregnancy started trying to give me advice, the most popular of which was "first babies are almost always late!" This might merely frustrate most pregnant women at that point, but for someone who had been having false labor for three months, this made me want to punch those women in the face. (I'm sorry, I know you meant well, but that's how I felt...feel.)
So I spent the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday relaxing as much as possible. But around 3pm on Thursday (the day before my due date), my contractions started up again at 6 minutes apart and stronger than before. They lasted like this until we left for our homegroup that evening at 7:00, where they slowed slightly. Around 10:00, however, after we were home they had regulated again to 5 minutes apart. By midnight they had been 4 minutes apart for an hour and a half. I called Kathleen, who again told me to take a bath and drink some wine and call her in about two hours. At 1:30am, the contractions were 3 minutes apart and much stronger, so Kathleen said she was on her way to come check me. We also called our doula and friend Crissi at that point to tell her we thought things were really, really happening this time. (Though at this point I had no small amount of trepidation that this was still going to be false labor, even though I felt like this was the real deal this time. It just felt different.) I turned on my worship music playlist on my iPod and David started cleaning the apartment, preparing for people to come over.
Unfortunately, because of the position little Mister was in, I was having intense back labor at this point. With each contraction I started to feel more and more nausea from the pain. Crissi arrived around 2am just as I had finished throwing up for the first time, hunched over the toilet and having a contraction. I'm pretty sure I've never looked hotter. God love her, when I was able to move to the bedroom again she pushed her fists into my lower back while I sat on my yoga ball. This would end up being the only thing that would relieve the pain slightly. Kathleen, who arrived about three minutes after Crissi, had me labor for about thirty minutes on the ball and then checked my progress. I was between 2 and 3cms, and Kathleen forced me to a complete 3. (This made the bloody show really begin. Kathleen told me later that she thinks that all of the previous blood I had seen had just been from my cervix and/or uterus' trauma from my previous surgery.) I asked Kathleen, "This is really it, right?" I was so afraid after all the other false labor that she would give me bad news this time, too. She replied, however, something along the lines of "That baby is coming, one way or another!" And I labored. I labored for a while on the ball and then Kathleen had me move to the bathtub, hoping that the water would help me relax and progress. After about an hour in the tub I think I was moved back to the bed where she checked me again. I hadn't progressed beyond 3cms. At around 5:30am, Kathleen decided to head home to try to nap, I think told Crissi to do the same, and told me to drink some more wine and try to sleep. She told us before leaving that she would call to check on us in the morning, but she didn't think things would really get going until around 2pm at the rate I was going. They laid hands on me and prayed that Sam would turn his head soon and that my labor "would progress quickly" and then left.
So David and I tried to settle in for what would become the hardest few hours of my life.
Let me preface all of this by saying, for those who don't know about our little miracle, that one year ago David and I were told that we would not be able to get pregnant on our own. It had been a year and a half since my surgery which diagnosed me with Endometriosis, I had just switched OB/GYN's, and my new doctor shocked me with the news that my Endo was stage 4 - something my previous OB/GYN and surgeon had neglected to tell me. We were told that it was "too dangerous" for me to go off of my birth control because the hormones were needed to try to keep the Endo at bay. We were also concerned that David might have some issues, and so we were advised to go first to a specialist for David and then for me to see an infertility specialist before we even considered "trying."
We did go see the doctor for David in October, who, after an initial test and exam, wanted to perform a $450 test to see if there were any issues.
Around the end of the month, "coincidentally", in our new homegroup, the ladies laid hands on me and prayed for my body - not that we would be able to have a baby, but simply that "every cell in [my] body would be aligned with the perfect will of God."
David and I talked and prayed about it for two months and eventually felt a peace about trying to conceive on our own (for free) for one month. At the end of it we would re-evaluate and go from there. At the end of November/beginning of December we weren't pregnant but my Endo actually felt okay, so we decided to try one more month and then consider our options. On January 21st, we found out we were pregnant.
Things started Monday, September 24th, at our weekly appointment. Our midwife, Kathleen, had promised on Friday that she would strip my membranes (separate the bag of waters from the cervix to start the hormones that begin labor) if things hadn't started by then. They hadn't, so we proceeded with more promises that it would be "any time" and the news that Sam had turned his head so that he was posterior and now in a position that was not ideal for birth.
That evening I had a small amount of bloody show but contractions were still sporadic. Tuesday, the contractions were still all over the place - five minutes apart for an hour and a half, then they'd slow or stop for an hour or two...rinse and repeat. So that afternoon David and I went to the mall and walked for a couple hours, walking up and down every escalator we passed (and stopping in every bathroom to pee), until I couldn't walk through the contractions anymore, which had gone from five minutes apart for two hours to four minutes apart. We went home and Kathleen told me to take a hot bath, drink a little wine and go to sleep around 7pm. The contractions stayed regular and strong enough that I was only able to sleep for about two hours through the whole night. So the next afternoon (Wednesday), Kathleen had us come in to the birthing center to check my progress. Since Monday I had only dilated from 1cm to 2cms. We were told to go home, stay off my feet and "try not to make things happen."
You want to see frustrated? Try telling a 39-weeks-and-5-days pregnant woman to not try to make labor happen. We went home and I spent the rest of day trying to only sit on the couch or lie in bed, overwhelmed by the contractions and thoughts that labor was never going to really happen. Unfortunately, at this point people who were not familiar with my entire pregnancy started trying to give me advice, the most popular of which was "first babies are almost always late!" This might merely frustrate most pregnant women at that point, but for someone who had been having false labor for three months, this made me want to punch those women in the face. (I'm sorry, I know you meant well, but that's how I felt...feel.)
So I spent the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday relaxing as much as possible. But around 3pm on Thursday (the day before my due date), my contractions started up again at 6 minutes apart and stronger than before. They lasted like this until we left for our homegroup that evening at 7:00, where they slowed slightly. Around 10:00, however, after we were home they had regulated again to 5 minutes apart. By midnight they had been 4 minutes apart for an hour and a half. I called Kathleen, who again told me to take a bath and drink some wine and call her in about two hours. At 1:30am, the contractions were 3 minutes apart and much stronger, so Kathleen said she was on her way to come check me. We also called our doula and friend Crissi at that point to tell her we thought things were really, really happening this time. (Though at this point I had no small amount of trepidation that this was still going to be false labor, even though I felt like this was the real deal this time. It just felt different.) I turned on my worship music playlist on my iPod and David started cleaning the apartment, preparing for people to come over.
Unfortunately, because of the position little Mister was in, I was having intense back labor at this point. With each contraction I started to feel more and more nausea from the pain. Crissi arrived around 2am just as I had finished throwing up for the first time, hunched over the toilet and having a contraction. I'm pretty sure I've never looked hotter. God love her, when I was able to move to the bedroom again she pushed her fists into my lower back while I sat on my yoga ball. This would end up being the only thing that would relieve the pain slightly. Kathleen, who arrived about three minutes after Crissi, had me labor for about thirty minutes on the ball and then checked my progress. I was between 2 and 3cms, and Kathleen forced me to a complete 3. (This made the bloody show really begin. Kathleen told me later that she thinks that all of the previous blood I had seen had just been from my cervix and/or uterus' trauma from my previous surgery.) I asked Kathleen, "This is really it, right?" I was so afraid after all the other false labor that she would give me bad news this time, too. She replied, however, something along the lines of "That baby is coming, one way or another!" And I labored. I labored for a while on the ball and then Kathleen had me move to the bathtub, hoping that the water would help me relax and progress. After about an hour in the tub I think I was moved back to the bed where she checked me again. I hadn't progressed beyond 3cms. At around 5:30am, Kathleen decided to head home to try to nap, I think told Crissi to do the same, and told me to drink some more wine and try to sleep. She told us before leaving that she would call to check on us in the morning, but she didn't think things would really get going until around 2pm at the rate I was going. They laid hands on me and prayed that Sam would turn his head soon and that my labor "would progress quickly" and then left.
So David and I tried to settle in for what would become the hardest few hours of my life.
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