Baby Raelin is here, and her entrance into this world could not have been more different than my birth experience with Rory. The only thing that was the same was the beginning: my water breaking while in bed. From there with Rory was a 38 hour ordeal involving slow progress, pitocin, epidural, and 2+ hours of pushing. Here’s how it went this time.
At 5:30 am I was already lying awake in bed because I had been up to pee not too long before. I had two contractions that felt kind of “different” and then a sort of shifting feeling in the ute, and then the feeling of water entering the chamber, if you will. I barrel-rolled out of bed and grabbed the towel I had nearby, and Ralf woke up to find me squatting next to the bed. I was all “WATER! BROKE!” and he was all “FIRE ZE MISSILES!” and sprang out of bed. I went to the bathroom while Ralf showered, and I considered showering but once the contractions started I got over that idea pretty fast. I went to kneel next to the bed and had the world’s longest contraction (or what felt like it, anyway). I had a few more contractions there while listening to my Hypnobabies birthing day affirmations. After that I texted my mom (who would be watching Rory) and sister, and called Anna, my doula, to tell her it was on!
We went downstairs and I ate a bowl of cereal while standing at the kitchen counter. When a contraction came I would lean over the counter and breathe, then resume cereal eating, as I knew I’d need some energy for what was ahead. I was feeling a lot of back labor again, which made me nervous because it was so bad with Rory. My doula arrived and suggested leaning over the birth ball and swaying my hips to try to ease the back labor. I stayed like that for most of the time I labored at home. It occurred to me that the contractions were coming pretty close, but I wasn’t too interested in timing them.
According to my phone, 7:53 am is when I called the doctor’s line to report being in labor. She called me back at 7:58 and told me to come in. Knowing I wanted to labor at home as much as possible, I was reluctant to go in right away, but my doula had said my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. She suggested I go use the bathroom, and as soon as I got in there I threw up my breakfast. I was in complete denial that I was in transition already, but came out and got ready to leave for the hospital.
Since we left at around 8:15, we caught the tail end of rush hour traffic and decided to take the back roads. Traffic was still pretty backed up at the lights which slowed us down a bit. I was listening to Hypnobabies fear release and trying to relax through some strong contractions, which is not easy when sitting upright in a bumpy moving vehicle. I was moaning (well, it was more of a mooing) deeply through the contractions. When we finally got to the hospital, which Ralf says took less than 30 minutes, I declined a wheelchair and we walked up to Labor & Delivery (I did NOT want to sit through more contractions!)
Once there, Ralf had to give information to the registration people (despite my pre-registering, whatever good that did). I leaned over a table in the waiting room and had a couple contractions while waiting for him. From there they put me in a triage room, but while waiting for a nurse to come, they said my doctor was sending me straight to a room because she knew I was going for natural delivery and didn’t want to be triaged. Good thing, because the contractions I had while waiting in there started feeling different, with a lot of pressure and I was starting to bear down involuntarily.
They took me to my room, where several nurses were scrambling to get things set up. My doctor was supposed to be on her way. I climbed up on the bed and they wanted to strap the monitors on me, but I don’t think I was being very cooperative because all I wanted to do was lie down on my side and squeeze the crap out of Ralf’s hand while they yelled at me not to push. They stripped off my shorts and checked me and declared I was 9 cm with just a lip of cervix left, all the while telling me not to push. Do you know how UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE it is to not push when your body is doing it automatically? Yeah.
Finally my doctor showed up and declared that I could now push. The nurses wanted to put me on my back, but my doctor said I could stay on my side to push if I wanted. I remember saying I didn’t know what I wanted to do and didn’t have the mental capacity to decide, so I went onto my back. I know all the facts about how bad a position that is to push in, but at that time I didn’t care. I would push as hard as I could when a contraction came, and then close my eyes and relax in between. It was so intense that I didn’t want to start pushing again when a contraction came, just keep resting. But I told myself the sooner I just did the work, the sooner it would be over! The pressure was insane, like pooping out a bowling ball, and all of a sudden I felt the “ring of fire” and everyone was all excited and saying the head was out. Whaaaat? Already? Then I was told to push out the shoulders, and out she came. I immediately looked down to see if we had a boy or girl, and OF COURSE it was a girl! It’s the feeling I had all along, and it added to the streak of girls my family has produced in the past few years.
So, my overall feelings about this birth are 1) Holy crap, I did it, 2) I cannot believe how fast it all happened, and 3) No really, was that not FAST?! She was born at 9:53 am, maybe an hour after we got to the hospital, and just under 4.5 hours after my water broke. I am so excited that I accomplished the natural birth I wanted (with the support of Ralf and my awesome doula!) and that we have our new little girl here with us!
