After waiting (sort of) patiently for this girl to come 11 days after her “guess” date, she finally decided she was ready. On Sept 27th around dinner, I began having very mild cramping that lasted into the evening. I was able to go to bed and sleep through many of the cramps.
At 3am on Sept 28th, I woke up to more intense cramps that were fairly consistent. I sat on my birth ball and was breathing through them for about an hour until I needed to wake my husband up for some support. At this time, they were lasting 1-1.5 minutes, and 3-5 minutes apart, but they were still a little inconsistent. I labored for another hour or so on the ball, and then tried to get in the shower while my husband ran a bath for me. The tub was awkward and I couldn’t get comfortable, so that didn’t last long. I ended up being most comfortable curled around some pillows on our bed.
We labored at home, moving from the bed to the bathroom, for about 5 hours…and things were definitely becoming way more intense. Around 8am, we decided it was time to head to the birth center. That 55 minute drive was miserable, and I remember saying if we got there and I was only 4-5 cm dilated I was done and we were going to the hospital.
After we arrived, I had 4 or 5 strong contractions before we even got back to the birth suite. Robin checked me, and I was almost 9cm, with a bulging bag of water, and baby was still pretty high. After laboring for about 45 minutes, Robin wanted to check me again. I was complete, but baby was still high. After a few contractions, my water broke, and baby girl came down a bit.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t tolerating contractions very well, and her heart rate had a few significant decelerations. Robin expressed concern that we needed to get her out soon, or I would need to transfer. So, with my husband and doula for support, and Robin and her assistant monitoring baby and my progress, I began pushing. What seemed like forever and a ton of effort, baby girl began moving down. After pushing her low enough and she began to crown, it was only a few pushes before she was out – just under 30 minutes of pushing. She was stimulated and began to cry, and then was placed on my chest.
I’m so thankful to have a care team that was able to remain calm and coach me through a pretty intense delivery. We were allowed to rest for a while and the assistant midwife completed all of the newborn exams. We were able to go home 7 hours after delivery and rest in our own bed!
