Birth Story

Here it is, with all the TMI details. Read at your own risk.

On Wednesday, February 17th my nesting mode kicked into high gear. I was on a mission to make sure EVERYTHING was finished. I took Bailey to her last cooking class, then went and did grocery shopping. During her nap, I baked brownies, wrote some thank you notes, and got a few packages ready to mail out (clothing etc I sold online). That night, I went to church with Bailey to work doing childcare for the Wednesday night events. I sat in a chair and relaxed and it was actually a pretty low-key evening. Bailey and I stopped by the church library to get a few new movies. I asked to have them for a month just in case I had the baby early, so I didn’t have to worry about returning them.

On the way home, I started having what felt like an achy lower back and period cramps. That had happened on and off for about a week but just a slight, dull ache. Once I got home I ate a bowl of cereal and took a warm bath and I felt much better. I woke up a few times during the night thinking my back was still achy but it wasn’t even worth taking Tylenol for. Around 5:45 a.m. I woke up having what I thought were mild contractions. Around 6:00 I woke Jonathon up and told him what was going on. At this point the pain was still just crampy.

I got up and washed the dishes that were in the sink and switched the laundry to the dryer. The contractions were consistently about 5-8 minutes apart but starting to be stronger. I called my mom to see if she could get ready in case we needed her to come over. She suggested that I call my doctor’s exchange and ask them what to do. The doctor on call said that since it was my second baby and I was already at least 3 cm I should go ahead and come in to L and D. My mom headed over and I got in the shower. Bailey woke up at some point during this and was excited about Grammy coming.

While I was in the shower my contractions got noticeably stronger. I got out and tried to put on makeup and get ready. About halfway through blow drying my hair they really started hurting and I gave up. I think the contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart. At this point I just told Jonathon we needed to leave. It was about 7:20. Once we got in the car everything went a little crazy. The pain really got bad but I was trying to decide whether or not we should drive through McDonalds and get some breakfast. (Obviously I was not really being rational at this point!) Then I decided to scrap that idea and hurry up and get to the hospital so I could get my epidural. The contractions started coming almost every minute after this and I was panicking a little bit. I was yelling at Jonathon to go around the traffic- of course it had to be morning rush hour- and at one point I thought I should get out and walk instead. He cut a few corners and we made it to the hospital. The last five or ten minutes I could feel a lot of pressure from the baby. I kept saying, “This is not okay. He’s going to come out.” I was panicking.

When we got to the hospital I jumped out of the car to go up to the maternity floor. I told him to park and meet me inside. The woman at the desk was all calm and slow and I was like, “MY BABY IS COMING OUT!” I think she thought I was exaggerating, then I about doubled over against the couch and she got on the phone to call a nurse. I was checked in at 7:55 a.m. and they took me straight back to a delivery room. When we got in the room I told them I needed to pee before getting into bed. When I sat down to pee my water broke but I don’t think I was even aware of it. I was fairly sure I was going to die from the pain. They put a gown on me and helped me into the bed. The house OB checked me and I was 8 cm at this point. I remember having either two or three really strong contractions where I freaked out. The nurse was yelling at me to look in her eyes and breathe with her.

I started asking where the anesthesiologist was. They said they had called her and she was on her way. I was saying, “I can’t do this, I swear I can’t, I need an epidural.” But it also felt like I was ready to push. They told me I had two options, I could either wait and lay still and get the epidural, or I could go ahead and push him out. The nurse said if it was her she would just push because it would help with the pain and it would be over sooner. I asked if it was okay since I was only at 8. They said that I was probably at 10 and they went to check me and they were like, “oh, he’s right there and he has hair!” I believe I pushed once for his head and either once or twice at the shoulders. I could feel him slide out. The actual pushing didn’t really hurt compared to the contractions so I was glad I just went ahead and did it. But that’s the story of how I gave birth without an epidural!

The house OB was the one who delivered Taylor. My OB walked in just a few minutes later. Apparently the anesthesiologist got there while I was pushing, too. They let me hold him right away and he was MAD. He was still really covered in white stuff from being a little early. They cut his cord (Jonathon didn’t care about doing it this time, he said it was kind of weird and not a big deal). She said I had torn a little bit but it was very minimal. I said that I did NOT want stitches after I had done all that without drugs. She said since it stopped bleeding with pressure that I could skip the stitches. Taylor’s APGAR scores were 8 at one minute and 9 at five minutes.