Friday, April 20:
This was our first past due appointment; our midwife had just arrived back from her vacation and our focus was now on having this baby ASAP. I knew the conversation was going to be about inducing, no one wants you going more than 42 weeks and we were approaching it fast. Induction was such and ugly word to my ears. As I wanted a natural birth, drug free, induction meant there was going to be drugs to make me go into labor. But there was no choice, an induction would be scheduled. She offered to do it right then, but I wanted to give myself a little more time to try to go into it naturally. We set it for Tuesday, April 24, trying to give ourselves time also to heal before introducing her to my siblings who were coming up that weekend.
I was 3 cm dilated still but most of the way effaced and her head was ready to be born. The last thing Bonnie did was to do a membrane sweep. She said that she had some patients that didn't even make it out to there cars after that procedure before their water broke, but others weren't affected at all. Can't say it was the most pleasant experience, but I was willing to try it hoping for a more natural beginning to labor. We hung around Alpena waiting for anything to happen (which it didn't) and eventually went home.
Saturday, April 21:
3:00 AM I had the normal bathroom run. First I noticed some bloody show, which worried me a bit because I didn't know if I should be. I came back to the bed but found myself increasingly uncomfortable and unable to sleep. By 3:30 I decided to relocate to the living room still feeling odd and very uncomfortable. Around 4:00 I had the first of many distinct contractions. It came in the form of sharp back pain and it took until 10:00 for me to figure out what it feels like for them to start. And by then they had slowed down enough that I made it through that day without too many problems, sleeping when I could, eating some knowing I'd need the strength.
The coping methods I used were deep breaths, pressure from fists (remember it was back labor), changing positions when necessary, and a system of timer watching. The timer watching went something like this: when I started the timer at the beginning of the contraction I would start deep breathing; when it got to the top of my pain threshold I would look at the timer and it was always at about 30 seconds and I knew that it would only get less painful from there on. I knew beforehand that it would be painful (and I thought it'd be more painful than it ended up being) so I prepared myself to deal with it then rest between them. I did find, because my labor was in my back first and in my hips and legs second that the labor ball did nothing for me. Also, I hurt my knee the week before delivery and couldn't get on all fours, so I was limited to sitting, standing, or lying on my side.
I tried to sleep in bed that night, but by 3:00 I decided once again to relocate.
Sunday, April 22:
Sometime in the morning the contractions moved from my back into my hips and legs (which I found significantly more painful, but still tolerable) and they became about 6 minutes apart. By 6:30 I told Chad that he should get up and around and we should head to the hospital. At 8:30 we walked in through the ER entrance (main entrance was closed) and checked in. I opted to walk to the OB instead of being wheeled, the goal was still to use gravity as much as I could. Got dressed and all settled in the delivery room and the nurse hooked me up to the monitor. After a little while she went to talk to Bonnie (who was with another delivery patient of hers who had been there all night) and found that they thought she would deliver soon so Bonnie was going to hang there for a while. The nurse came back and checked my progress since Bonnie wasn't going to be coming for a bit. She had a surprise, first she didn't realize that I was as effaced as I was and then she was having problems finding the edge of the cervix because I was so effaced and the head was so far down. The final thought was that I was about 8 or 9 cm dilated, fully effaced, and the head was in position.
Now my water hadn't broken yet and I wasn't feeling the urge to push, so we were still okay for a little bit, but Bonnie came in anyway. Come to find out the other patient had slowed way down and the thought changed to me probably delivering first. I was asked if I wanted to have them break my water to try to get it moving faster. I chose to wait and see if I could get it to break organically by walking around. To no avail...finally sat back down. We decided to get it moving so I wouldn't get too tired out. They broke my water and soon after I was feeling the urge to push. I started pushing and it seemed like forever before Bonnie said "I see long dark hair!" Also, when she said that I could not believe that my child would have dark hair, because I was born white blond. I pushed for about 2 and 1/2 hours and between pushes I dozed (just as I had during the whole labor) pulling laughs from Bonnie, the nurse, and Chad. Until the last 15 to 20 minutes of pushing I would describe the pain as unpleasant but able to be dealt with with no thought of drugs. And the last 15 to 20 minutes was only that long, and it was over.
I don't regret my drug-free birth at all, but that last 15 minutes was/is not easy to forget.
When they put my screaming child on my chest I could not believe that she had been inside me. She was complete, I had had a complete human inside me! While I was still pregnant a blogger that I followed gave birth and I read about her journey. She was surprised that she didn't have a wave of love sweep over her for her child right after birth; she had to start out choosing love. I can totally relate, but my views on love prepared me for that too. Love is a feeling, but even when the feeling isn't there love is a choice. It's a choice I know I have to continue to make in my marriage, and I knew it was one that I would need to choose as a mother. Didn't know I would have to choose it before it would come naturally, but I did and now I couldn't imagine not loving her.
That's Alexi's birth story. A journey I'm not likely to forget soon. (And forgive me if I have grammatical errors or if something doesn't make sense...I'm too lazy to reread this right now, I was doing good to get it all written)
