In honor of Phillip being a month old and having had his baby blessing last week, I figured it was high time I wrote his birth story. So here it is, in all it's glory. If reading about giant bodies coming out of tiny holes (and everything that goes along with it) isn't your thing, then you probably ought to skip this post.
January 27-
I stayed awake after Felipe left for work, which I've regretted ever since. If only I had known that was my last day EVER to sleep in! Oh well. I just spent the day doing things that I wanted done before the baby was born and right before 3 pm I was loading books onto the bookshelf when I felt some fluid come out. And you know, that's really not that abnormal when you're pregnant (which is fun...) but this felt different to me. I went to the bathroom and decided to change my underwear when I started seriously leaking, enough to make a few little bloody puddles on the floor. My brain told me that my water had probably broken, but I couldn't get my body to do anything about it. I just stood there, half naked, staring at the puddles on the bathroom floor and thinking 'huh, guess my water broke or something. Guess I'm really going to have a baby. Weird." I never really expected my water to break before labor. I had read that it's actually not really common for a pregnant woman's water to break at the beginning of labor so I just assumed I'd be the same. I don't know if it's not common because that's how women's bodies are or if the statistics are just skewed because of all the women who are induced or have scheduled c-sections because obviously their water wouldn't break spontaneously. But regardless, I was surprised it had happened to me. I decided to call Felipe and let him know what was going on. We were both so clueless! I feel like looking back and realizing we were clueless is going to be a common theme for parenting. He asked if he should come home but I felt like it was pointless since I wasn't having contractions yet and didn't know how long before actual labor would kick in. We decided I should call our doula Carrie and see what she thought and then go from there. I wanted to talk to my sister first but she didn't answer so I called Carrie and told her what was going on. She said it sounded like my water had broken and that I had a high break so liquid would keep coming out when the baby or I would move and she suggested I try and get some sleep and call her back when things started picking up. I understood that it was good advice to sleep but really?! The day had finally come! Sleep was impossible. So I put on one of those fancy Depends so I wouldn't get fluid all over my house and chatted on the phone with my sister until Felipe got home from work. I decided not to call the midwives because I didn't want to get on their radar and start the countdown from my water breaking to when I would' die a horrible death from an infection if I didn't check into the hospital' drama. I didn't want to be pressured into anything and I definitely didn't want to be at the hospital if I hadn't started contractions because I didn't want to be induced or have labor augmented if it could be avoided.
Felipe and I just did our thing all evening and imagined what it would be like to hold our baby and then also watched Frozen. That movie will always make me think of the night before labor. We went to bed around midnight and while Felipe was able to fall asleep I just laid there. Then at 12:40 am January 28-BAM-my first contraction. It was intense enough that I couldn't stay in bed. I was partly excited that things were finally happening but mostly I was just thinking that that was kind of painful and not my favorite thing. After just a few contractions they were intense enough that I woke up Felipe. We walked around the house for a bit then I took a hot bath while Felipe timed contractions and played pump up music for me. Pretty much the whole time I was in labor the contractions were only about 2 minutes apart and super intense. I was surprised about that because I was expecting more of a build up, but your body just does what your body does.
I called Carrie around 3 am and she came over to help with laboring. By the time she got here I couldn't do anything during a contraction but just focus on getting through it. When a contraction was coming Felipe would come hug me from the front and I'd lean on him and Carrie would come from behind and put counter pressure on my hips, then we'd all go back to chatting until the next one would hit. At this point I was still getting instant relief at the end of each contraction, which was nice. Later on it just felt like I was having one giant contraction that was going on for hours. So that was fun. My contractions were intense enough when Carrie got here that she said her guess was that I was already in transition. I loved hearing that! I thought yeah! Piece of cake! I can totally do this! Fast forward to when we've checked into the hospital and they tell me I'm still only a four. Yup. Instant demand for an epidural.
The short car ride from our house to American Fork hospital was a beast. I only had two contractions in the car but any inhibitions I had previously had were out the window. I hadn't made it to the hospital yet and I was already all about screaming and grunting and moaning. I learned how primal giving birth really is. Every birth is different, but in my case once I just turned things over to my body and trusted it to get me through this, my mind was able to take a backseat. It was really all instinct. And I was able to retreat into myself and just let my body go. Before labor I had really worried about staying modest and was worried that I would be too inhibited to make the sounds and go through the motions that I knew would help my body open up and give birth. But nope! During labor, all those inhibitions left, too. I could have walked around the hospital naked without caring, as long as it got that darn baby out. I was almost naked for most of labor, in and out of the tub, swaying, laying on the bed. Everybody got a beautiful view of my rear end and I really didn't care. I also spent every contraction moaning or mooing like a cow. It. Just. Happens. By the time I gave birth my voice was shot. Part of my mind wondered if my hospital neighbors could hear me and that same part wondered if maybe I ought to be embarrassed but it was quickly hushed by the next contraction.
Checking into the hospital was a pain. A literal pain. I really wanted to have a home birth or at least give birth at a birthing center but we ended up planning on AF hospital. We had gone the weekend before to pre register so I wouldn't have to do that during labor, and the whole time I was just so disappointed that I would be giving birth there. It seemed so clinical and impersonal and sterile. I felt like the white walls and shiny floors were just yelling at me that something was wrong with me and that my body couldn't give birth and I had to be admitted with all the sick and dying people in order to properly give birth. I trusted my body to do this and I wanted the world to trust it, too. (Caveat: I'm not trying to say any way of giving birth is better than another. I just knew what I wanted and how I felt. By all means, give birth whatever way you want!) Checking in the night of D-day I still had papers to sign and questions to answer before they took me to a room. I had hoped to avoid this by pre registering but oh well. My contractions were really close together so I was able to answer one question or sign one paper before we'd all have to wait for the next contraction to pass. I just wanted to give birth and be done with that place and the meanies were making me sign things and answer questions that I absolutely remember nothing about. Eventually that was done and I changed into a gown for them to check me. Honestly, being checked was one of my least favorite things about it all. So painful! Then when they learned that my water had already broken the nurse said they hadn't had to check me and should have been able to just check me into a room. Grr. I also got a little gruff for not calling the midwives when my water broke, but oh well. I was about to push a baby out of me. I could handle some gruff.
It's taken me a week to get this first half written (I had to edit my first line accordingly) so I'm just going to publish this part now so it can get out there. Hopefully part 2 will be forthcoming!
Getting checked is awful, I agree.
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