James' Birth Story

I had been having contractions for a couple of weeks for a few hours each evening, but they always went away during the night. We went to my favorite Italian place, Capri's, with Gus' parents for dinner the night of March 15, and I thought the contractions felt a little different and a little steadier.  I didn't want to get my hopes up (though it couldn't have been too much longer since I was already four days past my due date), so I went to bed that night half-expecting them to go away.

I woke up a little before 4, and though the contractions were not much stronger and were still about 8-10 minutes apart, I couldn't sleep because I knew this was definitely the real thing.  Of course, Nathan sensed the excitement and woke up around 5:30 and wouldn't go back to bed, so we called my parents to come get him.  After he left around 7, I did something I never thought I would want to do in labor: we watched a movie.  Office Space.  My contractions were still not very serious, still about 8 minutes apart or so, so it was nice to laugh and relax instead of  obsessively timing contractions  (which is what I did during my first labor).

Around 10, we went to Publix to get some snacks, and we walked a lap at the soccer complex near our house.  My contractions went from 8 minutes apart to six minutes apart, and I experimented with laboring in different positions.  I tried the shower, which was awesome in that I could only slightly feel the peak of my contraction, but I didn't feel like I could totally relax there.  So I mostly followed a good friend's suggestion to labor on the toilet, and I could tell a huge difference in my mental state and progress when I did that.

Around 12:30 or 1, I was concerned that my contractions were still 6 minutes apart and about 1 minute long, so I tried a few things to speed up labor like eating pineapple and kiwi, doing squats, etc.  At 1:15, the contractions suddenly went to 3 minutes apart, 45 seconds long.  Though I had been working  on "opening" all morning, these contractions took more focus at making sure that I maintained control.  Still on the toilet, I would lean forward onto Gus and make sure that my hands and mouth were relaxed during the contractions.  Around 2, I got chills, which I remembered getting during transition with Nathan, so after a few more contractions, Gus called our midwife/friend/neighbor Elizabeth to see what she thought.  She came over a few minutes later to set up her stuff and check the baby's heart tones, but it didn't seem like she thought I was going to have the baby really soon.

Sometime after she got there, my hips started feeling like they were on fire.  I moved to a kneeling position beside the bed, and Gus pressed on my hips during a contraction.  I moved to the bed to lie in the running position during the next contraction to see if that helped, and it was the most painful moment of the birth because I completely lost control of my body.  I gripped the sheets as hard as I could and gritted my teeth and even had Gus try to lift me off the bed during the contraction.  I moved back to the toilet where I was able to relax again, and had another contraction really quickly.  I had three hard contractions very close together, but I used several relaxation techniques suggested in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth that helped me not lose control.

During the third hard contraction, Elizabeth came in to check the baby's heart tones, and I thought to myself, "I CANNOT do this much longer."  Elizabeth left the bathroom, and it seemed like almost immediately I had another contraction, this time a pushing one.  I never felt an urge to push with my first birth (I was 10 cm and everyone was panicking about how long it was taking), so the feeling caught me totally off-guard.  I called for Elizabeth and told her I thought I needed to push, and she was back in the bathroom in a flash with her gloves on.  I didn't really believe that I was done with the first stage of labor because it was so short and (relatively) easy.  I told her I thought I could make it to the bed for the next contraction, so Gus helped me to the bed where I assumed the all-fours position for pushing.  The baby's head was right there, and during the next contraction, my water broke and his head came out.  It took two more contractions before he was completely out.  Gus was holding a pillow under my head, which I was screaming into, not out of pain, but out of the enormous effort I was putting forth to get the baby out.  He was born at 3:09 p.m., less than 12 hours after I knew I was in for real labor and less than two hours after I really started working.  Exhausted and in complete disbelief that it was already over, I sat back on the bed and held my baby.  I didn't even think to ask/look if he was a boy or girl for a couple minutes.

James laid in my arms, eyes wide open, and looked back and forth between me and Gus as we talked.  He was so peaceful and alert.  After a few minutes, he started breastfeeding easily, and I delivered the placenta after several more contractions.  Around this time, the midwife's two apprentices arrived, and they cleaned me up just a little bit and then left us alone with the baby.  It was so incredible to relax and bond with our baby undisturbed for an hour or more before they came back to do the newborn exam.  He weighed 8 lb. 1 oz., and I still am completely amazed that I gave birth to a baby that big.

My whole birth experience was awesome, and I can't imagine how it could have been any better.  I learned a lot from my first birth, and all my mental and physical preparation and hours on my hands and knees turning the baby from posterior certainly paid off.  I don't really necessarily like when people use the term "pain-free" to describe their natural labors because I think it probably sounds lame and braggy or even untrue to people who didn't have natural labors, but I would definitely not describe my birth as painful.  It was intense, hard work that was totally worth it to have a peaceful, complication-free, healthy delivery at home.