The best phrase to sum up my two birth experiences, it would be "If I knew then, what I know now...."I just read Isabel's birth story posted on the blog and all I can say is this is a complete 360 from how her birth went. Here's my nearly perfect birth story as transcribed shortly after his birth.
I'm delighted to share the news that our son was born on May 22, 2011, one week before his due date. I am especially excited to share that I had a VBAC and that this time around, the truly important aspects of our birth went exactly according to plan even though the 10 copies of my birth plan never made it out of the suitcase ;)
It was like I was a first timer since I had been induced on my due date with our daughter in February of 2009, so I didn't really know what to expect going into labor. On Friday, May 20th, I began to get tired and wasn't able to go up and down the slide with my two year old 20 times at the park or even sit comfortably on the floor next to her bed to read stories so I figured the baby must be moving down. A few contractions were felt throughout the day on Friday and Saturday, but the first real contraction hit about 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21st. I had a date night planned with my husband and I only had a few more contractions during our time out. About midnight, the contractions started coming regularly about 15 minutes apart. This went on throughout the night and besides getting very little sleep (only about 1 hour the whole night!), they were manageable. We went about with our normal Sunday activities: walking to the park and playing with our 2 year old daughter, going out to lunch, and swimming lessons. There were points in time when the contractions were so intense that I had to walk away and breathe through them before returning to the family activities, so I was pretty sure I was in early labor. After swimming lessons, which ended at 4:00 p.m, we made a few stops and then I told my hubby we had to head home because the contractions were getting too hard to manage out in public. We went back home and he made dinner for himself and my daughter (I didn't have an appetite at this point, but ate a big lunch). We decided to time the contractions again because they seemed to be getting closer together. They were about 5-7 minutes apart. I took a hot shower and decided when things quickly got more intense that we should call my mom to head over to take care of our daughter so we could head to the hospital.
She arrived about 45 minutes later and we were out the door in about 5 minutes headed on our planned walk to the hospital a mile away. About 7:00 p.m., we took off on our journey to meet our son. It was a beautiful spring night and we enjoyed walking to the hospital. At first, I was having about one contraction per block, then one every half a block, and by the time we got to the hospital campus, they were coming every few sidewalk squares. Our doula met us about halfway through the journey. I was in great spirits. We arrived at the hospital about 40 minutes later. We entered the hospital and the security guard asked us where we were going. We told the Labor and Delivery and they asked if I wanted a wheelchair. We politely declined and then a contraction hit and the security guard got all crazy and said if I was having contractions I needed a wheelchair. I told her I had just walked a mile here and I was fine and forced myself to walk through that contraction the short distance to L&D.
We got taken into triage about 19+ hours after labor began and when they checked me, I was 7 cm, 100% effaced, and baby was at -1 station. The contractions were coming so quickly, I couldn't even lay in the bed for the exam, I just climbed on the bed on hands and knees. They got about a minute of a strip reading with me standing. I was pretty sure my water broke (that or I was peeing on myself) about 30 seconds later. They led me out of triage into a room and I made it about 2 doors down before I was feeling the urge to push. The only one to believe me was the L&D nurse. They got me into the first room we could get to and I began working towards my goal of a vaginal delivery. After about 2.5 hours of pushing, (the doctor told me that it was only about 90 minutes of "effective pushing") our beautiful baby boy was born naturally! I did it!
It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but with the best payoff. I couldn't have done it without the confidence that the natural childbirth class instilled in me or my labor support team of my husband and doula.
Here's a picture of our little guy born May 22, 2011 at 10:41 p.m.
Miles Gregory
7 lbs, 5 oz and 21 1/4 inches
And a shot of Mommy and Daddy with our son
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