Wednesday morning, I had some signs of pre-labor, lost my mucous plug, had more contractions that hurt a little more. That went on all day. I figured it meant I had at most 3 or 4 days before we had the baby. Sometime in the night, I started having pretty regular contractions, they weren't too painful though and were about every 10 minutes - I was actually sleeping between them!
Thursday morning, contractions still about 9-10 minutes apart and I'm dealing with them just fine. This was VERY different from the last 2 labors, so I wasn't sure what was going on. You hear all the time about women going in to the hospital with "false" labor - I figured this was what I was having. I finally called my sister and Doula, Dawn and told her she might as well come over, in case things progressed quickly. (My last 2 labors were pretty fast - dilating from 0-10 in 2 hours or less.) My friend, Marie, called and when I told her what was going on, she encouraged me to at least call the midwife. Since Marie's had 6 kids, I figured she had reason to encourage me in that direction!
Old Man called the midwife, she said, to just come in to the office to check me. Either while we were on the phone or just as we got off, I had a contraction and then my water started leaking. So, off to the hospital. I HATE going to the hospital in labor - I've cried every single time. As I figured, we got there, I was dilated to a 2 (2-1/2??) and my water was leaking. Which meant I was stuck there. GAG. It was about 1:45 when we arrived. Oh, after my water leaked, my contractions did get about 6 minutes apart.
Once at the hospital, my contractions quickly settled into a pattern of about 3-4 minutes apart, lasting 60-90 seconds. Yet, I still felt this was going to take forever. Again, with my previous 2 labors, my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and lasting 90+ seconds! Well, this labor was longer, but definitely more manageable. Do NOT envy a woman with super short labors. I would take a 5 or 6 hours over 2 any day. Just no longer than that. :-) The contractions never got a huge amount closer, stayed very manageable. When I started feeling like I needed to push I really felt that I was convincing myself it was time when it really wasn't. It didn't feel like I'd had an awful transition, the contractions were bad, but I was chatting with Dawn, the midwife and the nurse in between each one. Basically, it had been hard, but not hard enough yet! I started pushing, things felt like they weren't right, turns out there was still a bag of forewater that needed to break - which it did quickly and out Elizabeth came! My first comment was "wow, she's little!" Everyone else's first comment, "she's already pooping!" :-)
There's more to this story that I will post later. All about having kids at the birth and after - yep, I'm weird. :-)
Oh, and since I finally downloaded pictures from my camera, I'll include one of Elizabeth.
I asked David if he wanted to hold the baby and he said, "I want to hold her feet." So, here he is, holding her feet!
3 comments:
That is hilarious, that he wanted to hold her feet. :o)
She's adorable.
Great story! I love reading birth stories!
Your labor sounds a lot like how mine usually are--not super fast, but not too painful either. My water has never leaked though.
I'm glad you had a good experience. And the picture of him holding her feet is too cute!
I had to look twice, I thought David was your older boy at first! I can't believe how much they are beginning to looking alike.
I'm so glad you had such an "easy" time of it, especially after your last two! I hope this means she'll be an "easy" child ;-)
Post a Comment