Conveniently, my next appointment with the midwives was late that afternoon. When I told her about the bloody show, she said that in her experience, it meant that labor was coming sooner rather than later and that I should be ready.
Noted.
I promptly went into overdrive the next day. I knew we needed groceries, so I biked to the store with our cargo bike and took care of that first thing in the morning. Most of the afternoon was spent in the kitchen preparing a month's worth of granola bars (for freezing), a crock pot full of burrito filling, and a pot of soup. I also walked over to a friend's house to borrow an exercise ball in case it helped during labor. I wanted to bake bread and cookies, too, but my body and the clock both said "no". Alas!
We set up the birth tub that night in case I did go into labor soon. It was missing the tub liner, which caused perfectionist Karen to get a little worried. (What if I needed it THAT NIGHT?) I figured that the midwives would probably bring one if needed, though, so I tried not to worry. (Something I'm really good at...) I don't remember much else from that evening except for being a bit extra cranky, tired, and somewhat crampy. In retrospect, my body was definitely showing prelabor signs. At the time, though, I wasn't sure if labor really would come soon or if I'd be waiting for another week or two. It's tough to be mentally prepared at all times for something like labor!
But it really was sooner rather than later. We went to bed around 10pm, and I slept solidly for three hours before waking up at 1am because Matthew went to the bathroom. I noticed feeling a little extra moist, and I needed to pee, so I dragged myself out of bed and began waddling to the bathroom.
It was a little more than extra moist. As I waddled, I felt liquid gushing down my leg. This surprised me, too, because I knew that most women do not begin labor with their water breaking. However, even in my sleepy state, I knew that there wasn't much other explanation for what was running down my legs. I noted the color (clear!), went pee, and then waddled back to let Matthew know that Smoosh was coming SOON.
After a call to the midwife to let her know what was going on, we began to consider my brother. Coincidentally, his summer visit to Oregon needed to coincide with Smoosh's potential birth weeks. He stays with us for most of the nights during his visits, and he knew that he might be kicked out. I went to kick him out. Dramatically. But we eventually determined that Smoosh probably wouldn't be born in the next few hours, and he could stay until morning, and he ended up leaving early Friday morning.
I didn't sleep the rest of the night. I knew I should rest, so I stayed in bed until 6am. Sleep just wasn't going to happen, though. In addition to needing to process the fact that we were going to meet our baby soon, I was also starting to have mild contractions around every 10 minutes. While they weren't particularly painful, I just lay there waiting for the next one...
After getting up, my contractions starting picking up almost immediately in frequency, duration, and intensity. After they were coming in for an hour at about 4 minutes apart and around 45 seconds long each time, we called the midwife. She said to call again if things picked up further or if they stayed the same for another hour.
In the meantime, I wanted to take some last Smoosh bump photos.
The final Smoosh bump!
Look closely at my face in the mirror, and you'll see that I wasn't emotionally ready to be done with pregnancy. While I know most people are really, really ready for their baby to come OUT, I was starting to feel cheated of my last two weeks of pregnancy. Sure there were some negative pregnancy symptoms, but I knew I was going to miss having a little wiggly one in my belly.
Babies come when they want to come, though!
Contractions kept coming regularly for the next hour, so we called again. The midwife suggested that I lie down and rest a little since I had been on my feet for a couple of hours. She also let us know that she'd send over a nurse in a bit to see how I was doing.
A nurse along with a student of midwifery dropped by late in the morning to see how I was doing. Unfortunately, my uterus has performance anxiety. Having new people around slowed my contractions down again. I could feel them try to start, but they stayed low in my belly and petered out before anything good happened.
After a bit, the nurse offered to check to see how I was progressing. Almost 3 centimeters dilated and almost fully effaced. Good news, but still much work to be done. She called the midwife, and they determined that it would probably be best for me to continue labor in privacy and call when things were really picking up.
The details get blurry in my mind here. I was told that I could go for a walk if I wanted to, so Matthew and I wandered over to a friend's house to pick up a changing pad that she was passing along to me. I had told her I planned to be by that morning, so I was a bit late, but since I was in labor I'm sure I was fully excused! I also remember taking a short nap on the couch while leaning against Matthew. I was eating little snacks throughout the day, and Matthew kept glasses of water and juice at my lips regularly. Part of laboring at home means that there's no IV, so it's important to keep up water and energy levels.
By mid-afternoon, I was honestly feeling a bit discouraged. My contractions had been staying the same as they were when I woke up that morning. Based on my behavior, I was pretty sure that active labor hadn't started, and I was worried that early labor would just keep going forever.
Oddly enough, I feel like I actually ended up making a conscious decision to let my labor progress. I finally kicked myself in the pants (except I wasn't wearing any...), and I told myself that if I was wandering around worried, I'd never let my body progress. Instead, I closed my eyes, turned within, and willed my contractions to come stronger and more frequent. It wasn't long after deciding to get serious about laboring that I felt myself withdraw into the labor. I stopped talking to Matthew, wandered back into the bedroom, and closed the curtains to darken the room a bit.
After a awhile, I learned that by swaying my hips front to back, I could encourage a good contraction to start. Swaying my hips side to side and breathing deeply in and out helped me cope with the sensation as it occurred. I walked around the bedroom doing my "labor dance" for what was probably at least a few hours. During this time, Matthew recognized the change in my behavior and called for the midwife to come. Of course this had to happen during rush hour on Friday, but the team arrived around 6pm with time to spare.
By the time the midwife arrived, I was tired of doing the dance and wanted to be off my feet. I knelt at the foot of the bed and continued rocking my hips first forward and back to get a contraction going and then side to side to ease the intensity. I was still breathing in and out deeply, and I was imagining biking up a steep hill while someone was reaching in and pulling baby down.After getting settled, my midwife asked if I wanted to check to see how far along I was. I was curious. 8 centimeters and fully effaced! I was in transition without knowing it which surprised me because I expected active labor and the switch to transition to be more painful than it was. I didn't feel like contractions were nearly the challenge that I expected
And there I stayed for the rest of labor. The team checked Smoosh's heartbeat periodically during and between contractions, and everything was looking fine.
Most of the time they let me labor alone with Matthew watching over me and continually bringing me fluids.
It wasn't until near the very end of transition right before pushing that I started to feel unhappy with the whole birthing situation. I was tired, and there finally was enough pain to get to me. I remember crying at one point as I wished for the pushing to just get going so we could be done with it. Fortunately, I knew that feeling like I was done and couldn't go on meant exactly that I was going to be done soon. It made it so that I could plow on. Knowledge is power.
After a good number of these awkward, painful contractions, I finally felt the urge to push. It was amazing the sudden difference in what my body was doing. I felt like I was having the largest, most excruciatingly painful bowel movement of a lifetime. I had watched a bunch of natural childbirths during pregnancy, and I promised myself that I would not under any circumstances be a screamer. Screamers made me cry.
Instead I was a yeller. Which each contraction ramping up and forcing my body to push, my volume level ramped up with equal intensity. Poor Matthew was there at that point holding my hands with nothing else that he could do to make things better. The midwife kept watch of the progress and let me know when important things happened and letting me know when I could reach down and touch baby's hair. The hair was all well and good, but all I really knew is that I wanted the baby out, out, out! After around 45 minutes of pushing (we think?), the head finally fully emerged, and the body quickly followed with all of its lumpiness. Our baby was born at 8:46pm.
After passing baby through my legs and floating him up to the top, the midwife had me sit down on the tub's seat so that baby could be placed directly on my chest. Baby pretty quickly figured out that it was an appropriate time to yell gustily. We admired long fingers and toes. A head full of hair. Alert eyes. Tiny ears. It was all there. Eventually we even got around to noticing that we had given birth to a boy: Evan Oliver.
Somewhere in here I also expelled the placenta. It wasn't quite as dramatic as expelling a human head.
After the cord stopped pulsing, Matthew got to cut it. Soon after that, they helped me out of the tub to the bed so that we could let Evan hang out on me for awhile and try to nurse. It took some effort, but we eventually got some colostrum in him.
He was then weighed at measured and generally checked out. It turns out that we had a healthy 7 pound 3 ounce boy who was 19.5 inches long.
Then it was my turn. When checking for damage, the midwife found that my perineum had not torn (hooray!). However, I had minor tearing on my labia. Shots, stitches, and I was ready to heal. I was then allowed to shower while Matthew continued to hold Evan. My body didn't feel like my own as I was assisted down the hall to the bathroom. Then again, perhaps it wasn't anymore.
Back to the bedroom, where I was handed our sleepy baby. The midwife and team continued cleaning up, making sure we had everything we needed, and in general making sure we were set to go. A few hours after his birth, we were on our own to begin our journey together.
