Like all my pregnancies, I started experiencing uncomfortable contractions between 17 and 20 weeks. But after one night in the ER at 28 weeks, we learned that I was already dilated to 2cm! I tried to stay as inactive as possible (chasing two toddlers around all day....), but I was almost positive that Abri would come early and remember feeling SO much relief as each week passed and we finally made it to full-term. And then...the weeks started to drag on and my hopes of her coming early started to dwindle. I had been extremely prepared the whole time (given how quickly the other two came). We had back-up plans, back-up plans for our back-up plans, and even packed the car each night just in case we had to make a mad dash to the hospital. Every night, the contractions would be less than 5 minutes apart for hours at a time (much like the other pregnancies), but they wouldn't increase in intensity. A head/chest cold was being passed around our house, and I was quickly losing energy for what I expected to be a fast and intense labor and delivery any day. I tried to stay motivated, but it was getting hard to drag the kids to school and therapy appointments while being so physically and emotionally drained, always on the edge of having to drop everything and speed to the hospital. For the sake of convenience and for my own sanity, in those last couple weeks we tried everything - walking, "labor-stimulating" foods, dancing, hanky-panky (wink), acupressure/foot massage, a cervical stretch to 3+cm/90% effacement by my midwife...the list goes on. I was terribly sick with a cold that I couldn't kick, and I had a feeling that my body was going to be too drained to fight it until my immune system wasn't compromised by the pregnancy anymore. Heck, just the amount of coughing alone should have put me into labor. But day after day....nothing. Meanwhile I was getting sicker and sicker, and just prayed that I'd be able to breath well enough when the time came.
Oxygen is pretty important.
Ya know.
After a restless evening of obsessive nesting and cleaning (you'd think this was a sign, but I had been doing this every night for like 3 weeks - Jake had just about had it with me), around midnight on my due date (11-12-13) I noticed some mild, but decently consistent contractions. Still nothing out of the ordinary for me. A little while later, I woke Jake up to tell him that I thought this might be it, only because I was hoping so much that it was, and they didn't seem to be going away, even though they still were not incredibly consistent or painful. We didn't exactly want to call and wake up Jake's parents to drive all the way over if it wasn't absolutely the real thing, but we also didn't want to wait too long, because last time we finally figured out it was the "real thing," Eden was born just one hour later. Both Jake's parents' house and the hospital were about 15 minutes away (in opposite directions), so we spent the next hour debating what to do and trying to figure out if it was real. We finally decided that even if it wasn't active labor yet, it was probably at least a precursor to the real thing, and given how fast things can go, we decided to chance it and call Jake's parents. When they came over, we told them to just go to bed, and we did the same. I honestly don't remember exactly what time we finally left for the hospital. Probably around 3:30am. I still wasn't even positive I was in labor, but I didn't want to have the baby in the car, so we went.
We had been given orders to call my midwife directly on her cellphone as soon as we thought I was in labor, as well as the ER and the labor and delivery department, given my history of precipitous births. When we showed up, everyone was in rush-mode except me (I was praying that I was actually in labor and hadn't just red-alerted the entire birthing center for nothing). It turns out I was about 4cm (they checked me around 4:30ish am), and I was actually quite proud that I made it there with plenty of time, but still avoided a false alarm. Woohoo! We hung out, did the mandatory 20 minutes of fetal monitoring (something new for me - usually I'm pushing by the time they want to do that), chatted, and my awesome midwife even honored my request to not have an IV line put in (I've never even had IV fluids, but it's sort of hospital policy to put a line in just in case). We discussed the risks and what would happen if I suddenly needed it, which I was fine with, but decided against making me walk around with an annoying intravenous device in my arm. I was pretty exhausted after waking up the previous day at 7am, and not getting any sleep, but seriously. Who can sleep when they're in active labor (without drugs)? Oh, right.
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| Husbands, that's who. |
Yeah. With my history, the fact that it took a looong 40 minutes for me to get from 6 to 7cm basically left us in shock. And bored. We decided to have her break my water, even though I'm generally against intervention, only because all the other times, that was the catalyst for rapid progression, and I was exhausted and very sick (breathing was not fun)...and I figured the longer things took, the less oxygen she'd have access to. Confused about the slow progression even after my water broke, my midwife finally determined that little Abrielle was in a right occiput posterior (ROP) position. Apparently this can lead to 20+ hour, extremely painful labors (but of course I didn't focus on that at the time - I just kept praying that things would pick up and that we wouldn't need intervention).
I kept waiting to feel the "transition" feelings, knowing that I was at least 7cm, but I still felt like I was in early labor. Not only that, but my contractions still weren't even consistent, and if I stayed in one position for too long (or walked, believe it or not), they would dwindle and get less intense/frequent! So, because I happen to have a hypersensitive uterus (weird, right?) I was trying to "give myself" contractions by standing up, sitting down, laying on my right side, standing up, cat-cows, using the ball...etc etc....yeah. Some women are scared of contractions. I was doing everything I could to make them more intense and frequent, all the while chatting with my midwife. It turns out that she has one biological and one adopted child. We chatted about adoption, since that's something Jake and I have always been interested in, and are considering for our fourth. Yep, we chatted about a fourth child while I was in labor with my third. This went on for some time until Jake woke up, and I finally utilized his mad birth partner skillz when my back started to get sore (he learned them in our doula's childbirth prep class back in 2010 and we haven't really needed them yet since things tend to move so fast). For the record, he is a PRO double-hip squeezer, and definitely got his workout in for the night. He earned his keep. This picture was probably taken around 7-8am, and I'm guessing that I was probably about 8cm dilated around then.
Around 8am I started really fatiguing. It was hard to cough (though I always needed to), hard to breath, and I barely had a voice. I also hadn't slept in 24+ hours, so in combination of being so physically sick, I was kind of sleepy and delirous. That's also when it started feeling pretty uncomfortable (still didn't feel like transition, but at least I could feel some intensity), and like I wasn't getting enough oxygen. All you ladies out there - try your darndest to NOT go through natural labor when you can't breath. Little tip. Finally a little after 9am, I felt kind of like pushing and asked my midwife to check me. I was 9.5cm, so she told me to "push to 10," which was the weirdest thing ever, because I didn't "have" to push yet. So far I've only been told *not* to push, so the idea of pushing before I had the urge was just strange. But it worked, and 3 contractions (10 minutes) later at 9:29am, she was here! And she was absolutely PERFECT and GORGEOUS! We were immediately in love!
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| Abrielle Joan just seconds into the world! 7lbs, 6oz and 21.25 inches |
When all was said and done, Abri was born about 9 hours after the first incling of labor, about 5 hours after getting to the hospital (still doubting I was in labor), and about 1.5 hours after things started feeling intense/uncomfortable. Overall, even though I was not feeling well, we needed zero intervention, and the fact that I was able to stay calm and confident in God's control over the situation really helped reduce my discomfort. Looking back and knowing that she was "stuck" in the ROP presentation, which can take a really long time, be extremely painful, and often end in medical intervention or a C-section, I have so much to be thankful for! AND I didn't have my baby in a car!! My first two labors may have been "easy" and "quick," but this time God showed me that He can take us through the "less-than-ideal," and He is still SO faithful to renew our strength and bless us with beautiful outcomes that we couldn't have planned more perfectly!
He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
~Isaiah 40:29-31~
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