Well, here we are. An incredible, and incredibly intense birth, postpartum depression and infections, tounge ties, painful nursing, laser surgery at 2 weeks old, starting runs, applying for school, offer falling through on first house 5 days before birth......it's been a whirlwind!
For today, we'll start with the labour and birth, up to getting to the birth center.
My little man, now 5 weeks old!! Please excuse the exhaustion, we are still working on
"doing our nights"
So, labour. Huh. Where do I start. What would I want to hear about, if I were a reader? Well, personally, probably everything because I just like to hear people's stories. but I'll try to just put in the big details and some of the funny bits I can remember through the labour haze.
First off, I have decided the term "false labour" or "pre labour" is utter and complete bullshit. I'm throwing the card on that one. Those terms make it sound like it's just a teensy bit of discomfort that can be laughed off, like a tiny sneeze. And maybe for some women, it is. For me however, I coined it with the term "work up". That's a term from my Navy days to describe the tedious and arduous tasks of readying the crew and ship for deployment by making gradually longer trips out to sea. Those trips become very boring, monotonous, and painful, messing with your mind and just wishing simultaneously that it would all end and that you could also just get out on deployment to get this thing going. That, my friends, is truly what "pre labour" should be called. So anyway, my "work ups" were starting to get pretty bad. I would have a night where I had contractions every 5-7 minutes for a few hours which would keep me up, then they would just stop completely for a few days. Then I might have just a couple, and then nothing. And then another bout of the hours long ones during the night. I was completely exhausted, and slept most of the day. I forced myself to go for at least 3 miles every evening, was still climbing the mountain (with Dustin, just in case something happened), was taking evening primrose oil orally and vaginally (that was entertaining in it's own right), having uncomfortable sex, eating the hell out of spicy beans and rice, and gritting my teeth in pain while Dustin pressed on acupressure points in my legs and feet to help things along. I was only 37-38 weeks when we were doing all this, but my "work ups" were so bad and I was so exhausted, I knew I needed to help this along before I was completely worn out and then had to go through labour on top of it. (NOTE: it is not recommended usually to start trying to induce labour until after 40 weeks. However, I had the go ahead from my midwives since I was in so much discomfort and was exhausted)
So, Saturday June 28th was a nice one. Not too hot, and Dustin unexpectedly decided to not work overtime that night so we decided to go for a hike up the mountain. I was grumpy and in pain, and was hoping that getting on the mountain might perk me up some. Dustin has the quality about him where if he feels it's too quiet or if I'm not in a great mood, he just talks about random stuff I have no interest in, just to fill in the silence. On the way to the trail, it finally got to me and I just snapped at him through my teeth, "I am in pain, I have a head in my vagina, and I've had diarrhea for 3 weeks straight, JUST STOP IT!!!!!" He fell back a good 20 feet and stayed there for almost a half hour before deciding that my inner wolf was not going to bite him. Poor dude. I love him.
The rest of the day seemed off, but was normal. We painted some furniture, cooked some food, watched some tv. I kept feeling jittery but exhausted and took a nap while he mowed the lawn. While waking up from my nap I had a vision of fireworks surrounding my labour, and assumed it meant that I would be in labour around the 4th of July, the next weekend. I could not be more wrong.
That evening, we were watching a movie, and all of a sudden we started hearing fireworks, which was odd since it was too early for anyone to be doing them. Looking out the window we saw a huge fireworks display going on a few miles away, and like the little kids we are, smashed our faces up to the window with giddy smiles to see them. "A free show!" I exclaimed, feeling truly happy for the first time that day. After awhile, my ADD kicked in and I was tired of watching them. Also, I was just zonked and ready for bed, even though it was quite early for me. I don't even remember if I said goodnight to Dustin, and just headed for the comfort of our memory foam top and soft sheets. I was out before the first episode of "American Dad" was over.
0130, or 1:30 am for you non-military types. Ouch. Ouch, owwww owowowowowowwwww......breathe breathe breathe....ok that's gone. Wait.......ok, go back to sleep. I hear Dustin come in the room to go to bed. Owwwwww owowowowowowwwwwohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........damn this one is lasting awhile...God make it end quickly, please, I need some sleep, I'm so tired. Ok, it's over. I open my eyes to see Dustin paused, halfway into bed. "Was that one?" "Yeah, but I think it's ov...." I didn't get to finish my sentence because another one hit, leaving me moaning and rocking back and forth on my side until it was over. Dustin went to go turn on the coffee pot while I tried to convince him that it was probably just another bout of do-nothing contractions. While in the middle of that sentence another one hit. Good guy that he is, D already had the contraction timer going and informed me that those were 2 minutes apart. I decided that getting in the bath would be a good way to slow them down and see if they really were the real deal.
30 minutes later D is on the phone with our doula, Sue, who is listening to me have contractions and trying to convince me that this is probably real and that I should probably stop trying to convince myself that it was another round of work ups. I conceded that it would be nice to have her here, since the contractions were every 3-4 minutes apart, and very painful (back labour had commenced, since as I would find out later, Little Man decided to flip back to posterior last minute that day apparently). In between contractions, I filled D in on what to pack in my bag and make sure we had everything in Broden's bag which I had prepared two days earlier just on the off chance something happened soon. As each contraction progressed, my moaning got louder, the back pain increased, and soon even being on all fours was so painful I didn't want to deal with it anymore. I started wondering when the hell Sue was going to get there, I really needed to see her face, just know that she was there, and to let D have a few minutes to get his stuff together and have a cup of coffee (He told me later that he was so relieved to see her when she arrived, he really needed that cup of coffee apparently lol). As I'm labouring still in the tub, Sue asks if it feels better when she presses on my back during contractions, I grunt and nod. She tells me she can see him pressing up next to my spine during each contraction. Great. Back labour is confirmed. Fml. Time passes, contractions increase. Phone calls are made to the midwives who tell me to labour at home as long as I like. I just don't want to have to make the hour long drive at that point because the pain is so intense. Then Sue is asking me if my water broke. "I don't know, I'm in the tub..............I thought you were splashing the water around." "No honey, that wasn't me." "oh.......well maybe my water broke then" "Yes, I think it did, do you want to call the midwives?" "I don't want to bother them again." Sue, trying not to laugh: "Honey, I think you need to give up on the idea that this isn't happening, your water just broke, you need to accept the fact that you are having this baby, and judging by the length and intensity, having it sometime this morning"
Fuck, I'm not ready for this, I'm not ready to finish being pregnant, I was just getting used to it, just came to terms a couple months ago with everything. Now it's all being thrown into the air and the reality of it all comes crashing down around me, as though the breaking of the waters also released any denial I still had that I wasn't having a baby, really grounding me to the Earth and saying "Ok, time to move to the next step in your journey."
With legs shaking, I get out and have to have Sue's assistance in getting dressed, all the while apologizing for being naked (i'm not sure why I do this, but several times throughout labour I apologize profusely to everyone for having to see me naked). D gets our dog ready to go to his parent's house, and I practically crawl to Sue's car, worried that I'm waking the entire neighborhood with my moaning that is now becoming a roar each time, with me praying to God to end each one quickly, to be merciful and take the pain, saying prayers I didn't even know I knew, and apparently even throwing in some Jewish words that I didn't know I knew either.
The drive seems interminable and eternal. I'm in the back seat, sprawled out with one leg up over the seat and the other down on the floor mats. I get a brief period where I feel relief and doze for a few minutes (Sue later will tell me that she was worried when I got quiet since she knew that meant I was coming to transition and she was NOT going to be delivering on the side of the road lol). Finally, finally we pull into the midwives parking lot. I feel both a sense of dread and relief, and am more glad than ever that we hired Sue, and wish I had half an ounce of sense available to me so I could tell her that. Instead, I have two more contractions in the 30 feet from the car to the front door.
The first words I say as soon as we step through the entrance are: Please let me get in the bath!!
To be continued, in part two, coming next week!
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