Disclaimer: This is a BIRTH story. Yes, there will be talk about BIRTHING, blood, amniotic fluid, poop, episiotomies and the like…but I was so curious about all of this before going through it so I want to share! I am also recording this while it is still fresh in my own mind, so that I can always remember this experience for myself. If you are grossed out easily or bothered by someone sharing TMI - DO NOT read this!
Why I chose to have a natural birth:
When I first found out I was pregnant (well… even before that) I knew that I wanted to seriously consider having a natural birth. Why you ask? This sounds crazy… but I WANTED to feel. I wanted to feel my baby come out of me. I didn’t want to be numb, paralyzed from the waist down. I didn’t want to spend hours just lying in a hospital bed. I wanted to be able to walk through contractions and let gravity help me out. I wanted to be an active participant in my own labor. I wanted to be able to listen to my body…to know and feel the instinct to push and not wait until a machine or a nurse told me to push. I didn’t want any sort of drug intervention. I realize that epidurals pose no risk to the baby, but I wanted to ensure that there were no drugs in my body or my baby’s. I wanted God to be in control and nature to take it’s course in a non-medical intervention-y way. (Please note that this is why a natural birth was right for ME. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with not going natural, or that my way is better than your way… but simply that this way was the best way for me.) Natural birth was the plan. I do realize that sometimes our plans go out the window and we have to prepare ourselves in case that happens. I cannot stress how important it is (and how grateful I am) to have a husband who supported my decision and shared these same thoughts with me. I knew that we would both do everything in our power to stick to the plan. That being said... buckle up, get comfortable (this is a long one) and here we go!
Monday, May 19, 2014 (4 days before my due date)
I went to the grocery store to stock up on all of our essentials so we wouldn’t have to worry about it after the baby was here (toilet paper, shampoo, bottled water, some food items that wouldn’t go bad too quickly, etc.). I can remember multiple times during my shopping trip thinking “Okay this is pretty painful” and knowing that because I was so uncomfortable that I wouldn’t be able to do much (or anything really) outside of the house anymore. Looking back, I do think it was possible that I was having mild contractions or at the very least my body was really starting to warm up at this point. I wasn’t feeling very well that evening (DUH I can’t believe I didn’t put the pieces together! We learned at our child birth education class that your body naturally will try to get rid of everything that it doesn’t need to deliver a baby – so intestinal issues are a sign that labor could be imminent and I KNEW this.) Somehow I totally didn’t even think about it… Went to bed that evening completely oblivious to what I would be doing 24 hours from then…
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
3:30 a.m. – I woke up to pee. While I was in the bathroom, I could feel what honestly felt like my bladder contracting once it had emptied. Maybe you know the feeling… when you empty your very full bladder really really fast especially when you are still half asleep how it kind of hurts almost? I didn’t think anything of it and just chalked it up to being not fully awake.
4:30 a.m. – Woke up to pee again (this was not unusual at this point). Same “bladder” discomfort. By now I seriously thought I had a bladder infection. I had a dr. appointment scheduled for the following day (Wednesday) and was thinking about calling the office once it had opened to see if I could get in a day earlier to get everything checked out. Even if it didn’t turn out to be a bladder infection, I still wanted to see if I could get in just to make sure everything was okay.
5:15 a.m. – I can’t remember if I was lying in bed or peeing but I felt the same weird bladder-ish contracting pain. (You have to remember, my uterus was not down there anymore! It was weird to feel pain where my bladder was!)
5:45 a.m. – More weird cramps (I hesitate to call them cramps because it really still felt more like my bladder was freaking out and less like menstrual cramps.) Ryan was awake by this point and I told him that I was “feeling weird”. I explained to him that I thought I might have a bladder infection. He asked me if I thought he should go to work. I said “Yeah you might as well go ahead and go because if you stay this will probably just turn into nothing.” He (luckily) chose not to listen to me and decided to stay home because I was not feeling right.
6:10 a.m. – Ryan and I are both lying in bed awake. I let out a huge GASP. Ryan turned on the light and said “What’s wrong?!” faster than I had ever seen. “Something just came out of me!!” I said. “I think my water just broke. I need you to go get a towel.” I held the towel on myself diaper style and waddled to the toilet, expecting “water” to start gushing out of me. When I sat down, it was just a tiny trickle (clear luckily. If it’s green that’s bad because it means the baby has already pooped in there which you do not want!) This slow trickle/small tiny gushes continued throughout the entire day. Turns out (which I learned later) that I had a “high tear”… meaning that rather than breaking low where the baby's head is near the cervix, the amniotic sac had torn high up, so the fluid was not able to rush out in huge gushes but rather leak out slowly from up top. Not gonna lie… kind of grateful for that. I managed to keep the carpet, the passenger seat of the car, my clothes and much more clean.
At this point, I was still hesitant to text my mom, sister and doula because I was worried if I told them that everyone would start freaking out and then it would turn out to be a false alarm. However, not too long after my water broke, the (I guess we can call them contractions at this point) contractions started feeling different. It started feeling like I was really constipated and just needed to go to the bathroom. Things were still such a jumbled mess and totally irregular, we decided to go for a walk to see if we could regulate the contractions a bit and figure out what exactly was happening.
6:45 a.m. - Texted my mom, sister and my doula, Michelle.
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| I wanted them to be ready, but not TOO ready! |
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| Super scary early morning picture - so tired! |
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| I somehow managed to squat down for a picture with Hazel - who was not enthused. |
Once we got home from our walk, I took the last belly picture (see here!) showered, got some stuff ready and just hung out between contractions. (Funny how at this point, you still feel fine between contractions!) I would recline in the love seat that we have in our living room (it was too uncomfortable on my butt to sit normally - it's amazing how much you feel contractions in your rectum. It just feels like intense pressure right inside your butt!!) When I would feel a contraction coming on (always felt it in my butt first) Ryan would help me up and I would take a lap around our downstairs while he timed it. I always thought that the time between contractions would go like this: 10 minutes - 10 minutes - 10 minutes - 9 minutes - 9 minutes - 9 minutes and so on... but it was such a mess for so long! And sometimes the contractions would be so light it was hard to tell when the actually started and when they ended... but other times there was a very obvious start and stop. Every now and then a really strong one would come... and then go back to what it was before. SO inconsistent. So when I look back at the app Ryan used to track the contractions it's more like this: 12 minutes - 6 minutes - 8 minutes - 15 minutes - 8 minutes - 9 minutes, and the amount of time they lasted was all over the place too. Eventually the AVERAGE time between contractions got closer together... and I think they somewhat leveled out around 5 or 6 minutes apart and started being a little more predictable. (I highly recommend the app "Full Term" for timing contractions. I'm sure there are plenty of other apps out there for that - but we thought this one was perfect!)
Around 11 or 12ish - We (Ryan) had a few moments of panic when it seemed that my contractions all of the sudden got very close together. We started rushing around getting our stuff together and Ryan insisted that we call the doctor, which proved to be completely pointless. They didn't even ask any questions just said "oh well you should probably start heading this way." GEE THANKS. I really didn't want to get to the hospital too early, (and we both knew that they probably just say that to everyone who calls no matter what...) plus I really wanted to make sure I got a good meal in because once you get to the hospital they don't let you eat or drink anything. Boo! So we knew we had a few more hours before things got serious, and we were still several hours away until rush hour which we were also trying to avoid... so we got in the car and went to Firehouse subs. I got my favorite - Turkey Bacon Ranch... which I later threw up. Multiple times. Yummy. Should have picked something... less.... peppercorn ranch-y.
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| Last meal before Baby Heidi! |
1:30 p.m. (ish) - We finished lunch (which at this point was pretty difficult for me to do - I couldn't sit but was getting tired of standing, plus this huge gut really gets in the way sometimes!) got our stuff together, loaded the car and made our way to the hospital.
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| On the way to the hospital! |
See you soon Little Heidi! See what happened once we got to the hospital in Heidi's Birth Story - Part 2!
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