One month - LONG post

So here is what I remember of my birth story. This was actually written on my to-do list, of which I feel lucky if I get 2 things a day finished off of. So here is one of my tasks. Get the birth story down.

This is what 5 weeks of yumminess does to the birth story. It may sound better and easier than it actually was! At 3am on Thursday, July 2 (our 4 year wedding anniversary), I began having mild contractions. They would every 8-10 minutes and were fine to sleep through, I just knew they were not BH contractions because they would being in my back and radiate to the lower front. So I was giddy and hopefully he would arrive that day or the next. I slept on and off and waited to tell J, knowing as soon as I even said contraction, he would flip out and get all excited, thinking Finn would be arriving soon. So I waited until 6:30 when he woke up. I convinced him to go to work as it would likely be a long day of mild contractions and rest....

So J went to work and I made some phone calls to girlfriends who recently had babies and to my doula. All agreed that I was starting early labor. Rest, eat and just enjoy the day were my instructions from all around me. I spent all day cleaning, napping, noshing on food and took the dogs for a walk. Felt great and even noticed the contractions peetered out a little. Bummer. Although I had a pretty upset stomach all day and lost my mucus plug all day as well which I knew were good signs.

J came home at 6 and we were scheduled to go out to a fancy anniversary dinner. He convinced me to cancel it and we would get take out. Yummy Thai take out and a walk around the lake were enough to send labor right back. By 7pm my contactions picked up and were markedly more intense. J fully filled the roll of contraction man, I simply had to say "start" and J was on it. We spent our time in the living room with music, candles and lots of moving/positioning to stay comfortable. At 11pm I called my doula and told her to come over, they were 4 minutes apart and 45 seconds long and I was very close to needing more reinforcements to help me breath/relax through them. She got to the house at midnight.

I should have taken notice that the second she arrived, my labor slowed as this ended up being the way my entire labor went. It took me about an hour to get back into the groove. After some tea and some concentration, I was back into laboring well. We called the doc at 4am and were instructed to go to hospital. Contractions were intensifying but I was still able to talk/laugh and joke with everyone. I was check in, was at 4cm and was told to walk for two hours and come back to the room. Not too bad, enjoyed watching the sunrise from the hallway and focused on hoping I was making progress.

7:30am: new nurse and midwife on duty. Midwife came in and checked me. I have never felt the pain I felt before with that cervix check. I screamed in pain and asked her to stop. She just jabbed further to check and I was beside myself in tears. It was shocking how forceful she was and how painful it was. In my little outburst, she forcibly told me to open my eyes and look at her. She told me the reason why it hurt so much was because my cervix was behind his head. I could not get my shit together after that. The nurse stayed back and apologized and told me if I did not want the midwife to come back to just let her know. I didn't. She was a terrible start to my labor day. My labor slowed so much at that point. I was hardly contracting and was a 4.5cm. So I walked and walked and labored and finally got back into productive contractions.

From 8am until mid-afternoon, my contractions got more painful and intense and much closer together. I would labor best when I was alone in the dark so into the grimy bathroom I went. Because I was not progressing very well, I knew they were beginning to talk about augmenting my labor. I knew another cervix check was coming up soon and we all talked about what our plan was. If I was below 6cm, I would allow them to either start pitocin or break my water and take an epidural. If I were above 6, I would allow them to help my labor progress and I would skip the epidural for now. I was checked and was at 5. I had spent hours with painful, close contractions and I had only gone .5cm. I felt defeated and just pissed off. I actually sat down and demanded pitocin and if it meant a c-section, oh well. I was dilerous and exhausted and my contractions were essentially stopped. Thankfully my husband and doula knew better and knew I was irrationally demanding something I did not want and allowed me time to process and think about everything. We were presented with really only one option. Go home. I was to go home after taking an Ambien to sleep and rest. I was to come back once I was in active labor again. I took the Ambien and left - I was asleep before we even left the parking lot. Within minutes of getting home, my contractions picked up. I was completely out of it and would be woken up by a painful contraction. I was confused and could not figure out what was happening when each one came, failing to relax and breath through them. Instead I faced each contraction with fear, confusion and anger. Awful combination!

Finally at 6pm we decided to head back to the hospital. I continued to wake up either feeling a huge urge to vomit or having a contraction. It felt scary to be home alone so we packed up and took another car ride. Contractions feel 10x worse when sitting in a car! We got back and I immediately was checked, was at almost 7 and immediately asked for an epidural. I was done trying to get to the finish line which frankly seemed very far away still. 7pm- Epidural ladies. Lovely, lovely, lovely. I needed to rest and boy did I. From 7pm-6am, I slept and was checked periodically. J and the doula also took turns napping. It was so nice to progress and rest at the same time! By the time I was ready to push, we all looked like new people, refreshed and ready to welcome the little man that took forever.

6am- Push time! It was hard at first to figure out how to push as I was pretty numb and unable to feel contractions. Once there was more pressure from his noggin, I had no trouble realizing the urge to push! I pushed for 2 and a half hours, which did not feel that long and really ended up being the best part of labor for me. It felt like I had a support team and was able to feel progress.

With some final huge pushes, Finn arrived at 9:02am. He had the most adorable bird squawk and huge feet. Every dream and longing for a child came flooding to me the second he was placed on my chest. J and I realized we now had an adorable, healthy baby boy. I am so unable to describe the joy of that moment and I still look at the delivery pictures and immediately get brought back to that instant.