The Birth Story

Sunday, March 14th

7 AM: I wake up before having an uncomfortable contraction followed by a squirt of fluid. I run to the bathroom to leak over the toilet and I have a bowel movement. I had taken my timer along with me and was timing a few uncomfortable contractions while sitting there. I continue timing my contractions as I sit half-naked on a towel in the bedroom and notice an hour's worth of contractions 2-3 minutes apart. I tell Steve that I'm in labor, I call the midwife, and we start some last-minute packing of my tooth brush and snacks and so forth.

For each contraction, I seem to prefer either being on my hands and knees or standing and bent over a table or rail. The Lamaze slow breathing was actually helping too.

9 AM: We make it to Prince George's Hospital Center. In the triage, the midwife confirms my labor as she says that I'm only 3 cm dilated and cannot labor in the birthing center until I'm 5 cm dilated. She also confirms that my membranes are ruptured. This was almost obvious as I had been squirting everywhere for two hours. So we head to a standard labor and delivery room for me to labor in until I'm more dilated.

In the labor room, the worst part of this were all of the questions that people were asking me while in labor. Steve was asking me things like "are you alright" and "anything I can do?" My mother-in-law asks the same question: "anything I can do?" The nurses ask me questions for their paperwork: "on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt, what is your pain?" I'm thinking "STOP BOTHERING ME!" as I am in the middle of a million contractions.

11:15 AM: The midwife checks my cervix and says that I'm 9-cm dilated and we start heading to the birth center room. I later realize, because of my shakes, that I was starting the friggin' transition phase of labor while people were bothering me in the labor room.

In the birth center room, the nurses attempt to fill the tub for me. They can't get the water to be clear enough as it's not used often enough. After only a few contractions, I say that I'm ready to push and I am put on my back on the bed. I have no idea whether this is the best position for pushing, but I would agree that it is the best position for resting between the pushes.

For each push, I held my legs back along with Steve holding my left leg and foot and Cindy, Steve's mom, holding my right leg and foot. The midwife says, at each contraction to push hard and like I'm "having a BM" (bowel movement). I am also supposed to put my chin down for each push and I forget to do that. I also forget/don't care about doing the Lamaze breathing for this pushing stage as I quickly pant a few times before the big inhale before the push. On the "exhale," I tend to go "ingggggggg" and do it probably without letting out enough air since I was later told that my face was turning purple and my face's blood vessels popped like they do when I throw up. Perhaps it's expected to be like this. Anyways, the most painful part is when the baby's head is half-way out and it stings so much that I'm afraid to push to get her the rest of the way out. Of course, I force myself to anyways.

12:44 PM: The baby is born on the bed in the birthing center. I hear the nurse give her an A.P.G.A.R. score of 9. I am hardly damaged at all as I hear that I got 4 stitches on my inside though I eventually got pretty swollen. They hook me up to a Pitocin IV to contract my uterus and reduce the bleeding and I try to initiate breast feeding but the baby isn't interested in latching right now.

I can't believe that I was in labor for only 5 hours and 44 minutes before having my first baby and I did it completely natural, without any drugs or intervention, as I had planned. Though, I don't know if we even had enough time to put something in me even if I wanted it. I suppose that I should get a home-birth midwife for the next baby as it would be expected born even faster that the first.