Shane's Birth Story I

Finally, Shane's birth story for me, for you, and for posterity:

After my appointment on Wednesday, January 16, where the midwife swept my membranes, I had mild cramping for the rest of the day.  That night (from Wednesday the 16th into Thursday the 17th) I started to have contractions around 10 PM.  Around 2 AM I realized that I was probably in the beginning stages of labor based on the pain level.  I was having the contractions anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes apart but with no real pattern.

At 4:30 AM Rock woke up to go to work but I told him that I had been contracting all night, so he got super excited and called his mom to have to her drive up to be here and called into work to tell them that we were about to have a baby.

I ended up getting up at 5 AM because I couldn't go back to sleep and then all of a sudden the contractions started to die down.  They were every 45-60 minutes now and they weren't as strong as they had been over the night.  I was a little bummed because I thought that meant I wasn't really in labor and that I would have to have the induction the next day.

Because I was determined to not be induced, I wanted to try EVERYTHING I could to keep the contractions going, so I went out for about three walks throughout the day totaling about 5+ miles, I bounced on my exercise ball, ate spicy foods, took evening primrose oil...I did anything I could think of that I thought may help labor.  My mother-in-law got here around 12 and my contractions had picked up a little bit but not much.  But that all changed around 1 to 2 PM when the contractions came back and started to get stronger.

By 4 PM I had my "show" and had lost my mucus plug (sorry if that's TMI...if it is, you may not want to read further...) and was starting to realize I was getting closer and closer to having a baby.

We made and ate dinner around 5 PM and I had to stop about every 10-15 minutes to breath through my contractions.  At the end of dinner, I got down on the floor with my exercise ball and started to use it to help me through my contractions.

We watched a movie and the contractions were getting stronger each time, but again, they had no real pattern in timing.

At the end of the movie, I couldn't talk through my contractions and had to bend over and support myself on my knees if I was standing when one started.  Rock suggested that we go to the hospital, but I didn't want to go too early because I didn't want to get sent home like we were when I was pregnant with Abby.  But two contractions later and one that left me on all fours in the laundry room provoked me to acquiesce to Rock's suggestion.  Unbeknownst to me, he had already packed up the car with our stuff and was just waiting for me to say it was go time.

We got the hospital around 8 PM and went to Labor and Delivery (L&D).  I was controlling the pain of the contractions by breathing deeply, rocking back and forth, and relaxing my muscles.  I say this because when we went in, I don't think the L&D nurses thought I was really in labor.  They slowly got me set up in a room and put me on the monitors to see how my contractions were proceeding as I waited for a midwife to come check me.

When the midwife came in and checked me we were shocked to find out I was 5 cm dilated!  She said I was almost completely effaced too but that Shane was still really high in my pelvis.  She wanted to admit me right then but I told her I wanted to walk around to try to get him to drop.  She thought that was a great idea, so she gave me "walking privileges" and said she'd let the nurses know I'd be walking around and that I'd be back in an hour or so to check into a room.

I called my doula, Sarah, to let her know to come to the hospital and Rock and I headed off to walk the main floor of the hospital.

Sarah arrived and walked with Rock and I until around 10:30/10:45ish PM when Sarah suggested we go upstairs, get a room to put our stuff in, and then we could continue walking if I wanted to.

When we got up to L&D, I had a contraction that was so strong that I had to run from the check-in desk to the nearest room so that I could vomit in the toilet.  Sarah was so awesome and came in and just rubbed my back and reassured me that I was doing great and that this was all a normal part of labor.

I think the nurses realized then that I was really in "real" labor but that I was just handling it well because after that we had a nurse in right away that came and put in my Hep-Lock (waiting between contractions to do so like an angel) and helped me get ready to go into my L&D room by getting me into a gown and my stylish gray non-slip socks.

---End Part I---