Regardless, I am back. A year after my marathon fiasco (which turns out, was due to this little nugget!) I am back at square two, I'd say. I walked from about month 5-9 of my pregnancy--running when I felt more comfortable to do so, but the extra weight was a little hard, and my feet swelled like a motherfucker. So, not square one, but square two. Right.
So--I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl, Violet, on August 6th. About a week and a half after her due date. She came like a bullet, too. Apparently average laboring for a first-time mommy is about 15 hours. Violet shot out in roughly 6!
I remember going to bed the night of the 5th, still huge---and then somewhere around 3 in the morning I woke up with some cramping, it wasn't very consistent, and I'd been feeling this for a week here and there anyways, so I tried to go back to bed. 3:30, I was still having them..and that was odd. So, I pulled up my contraction timer while my hubby slept. They started to get consistent and I definitely was wincing and having to concentrate on breathing through them. I woke up my husband, told him I felt like I had to get in the bath. He called the midwife, and they told him it still sounded like I was doing alright and we should labor a little longer at home. I got in a warm bath, my husband threw a towel on the floor with the contraction app, and lay on the floor. We were expecting it to take a lot longer..
I remember specifically watching this in the bathtub:
I remember laughing until I had tears, and then a contraction during the laughing. That wasn't easy!
After feeling too hot, I was like, "They slowed down, maybe it was a false alarm..let's go lie down in bed"
The bath took the edge off, but it wasn't too soon after that the contractions were back. My husband called our parents, and I remember talking to my mom and having to put the phone down during a contraction. I was still in good spirits at that point.
Sometime around 6ish, things took a turn. "Transition" is what labor class called it--but I wasn't sure about it at the time. It's the point where you start to feel like "I can't do this."
My husband had made some pasta for us--thinking again, that this birth was going to be a marathon effort--and I needed to carbo-load. I couldn't eat it--I pushed it away thinking I might throw up. We were watching "The Office" on Netflix--I needed sometime I knew, and for some reason that show was comforting, even though I couldn't concentrate on it.
I remember crumbling a bit, curling up, yelling into the couch. Telling my poor husband, "Fuck it, let's just go to the hospital-I don't think I can do this without drugs after all." Knowing full well that's not what I wanted, which he later admitted to me he was on the brink of just giving in and going to the hospital instead. At that point he called the midwife again, and between what he told her, and what she could hear me yelling/moaning--she said it was time for me to head to the birthing center.
I was scared to go, but I knew I couldn't stay home either. I was hanging on chairs and buckling down, squatting on the way to the car.
Contractions are no joke. My husband reminds me that I said something about feeling like, "A Civil War soldier dying on the battlefield, ripped open with my guts hanging out."
In the car, I just hung onto the seatbelt, turned towards the window just moaning. I don't know why the moaning helped, but it just felt right. What is usually a 20 minute drive, felt like forever, and I just tried to figure out how many contractions I would have until I got there. I figured if I could put into terms like when I do when I run, maybe I could deal with it better, you know...like, just one more mile, and then it's just 5 after that.
We got to the center at about 8:45ish, holding my belly I shuffled inside and took place on a rocking chair and doubled-over. My husband brought everything in, my father-in-law was already there when we got to the center and rubbed my back. I do remember him telling me I was brave. That helped, though I didn't feel very brave. They asked me to get on the bed so they could so how far along I was.
For reference, 10cm is what you have to get to. I was about 1cm for a week or so.
I was expecting like 4-5cm---again, thinking I had a long time to go.
Before she measured me, I had another long, hard contraction--and then suddenly that pushing urge all the moms talked about. You can't even control it--you're body almost forces you to push--it's fucking crazy.
The midwife looked puzzled, I remember, she said..."Did you just get a pushing urge?? Don't forget to breathe!"
"Yeah, that was weird"
She measured me. 8cm. Are you fucking kidding me? How is that possible? It's waaaay too early.
They asked me if I wanted to get in the tub, to which I was said, "Oh my fucking god, yes." To which they said, did you want your bathing suit. To which I said nothing, ripped off my maternity dress and got in that hot tub, butt-naked in front of a few strangers and my in-laws. Labor does that you, people. It's nuts.
The tub helped for sure, but this time the contractions weren't slowing down. I have to say though, even when all this was going down, the staff were all super calm and peaceful.
I started to get more pushing urges, to which my midwife said I could give into a little bit, since 20-30 minutes after they checked the first time, I was already at 9cm. They could feel her head. But, pushing is 2 steps forward, 1 step back, so she was coming, and then receding a little--if that makes sense.
The midwife check again and she said, okay, we can push through the urges now when you're ready.
Already??
It was hard, I did a push or two and started to fear the pain a bit. Then I was like, "Okay, I can not follow-through and continue to be in pain, or I can just do this right fucking now."
So, that's what I did. No drugs, no nitrous, nada. The "Ring of Fire" is no joke. All of a sudden though, with the next push her head was out--and they told me to stop pushing because her cord was wrapped around her neck (more common then you would think--they weren't concerned for her, but more that my placenta would rip if there wasn't enough slack). You have no idea how hard it is to NOT push when your kid's head is hanging out of your god damn vagina. But the midwife got the cord unhooked, and said, "Okay, go."
And, I grabbed the back of my legs and gave it everything.
POP!
At 10:02 my little bean was born.
Simply said, she is completely amazing. The rest of this incredible love I feel is inexplicable. For so long, I thought I would never get married and never have kids--just because I THOUGHT I didn't want them. Until I met my husband and could picture a life together--and now, look at that!
I had complications after the birth (Violet was fine), we won't really get into it to much, suffice to say there was tearing and internal bleeding/hematoma because she shot out so quickly. But, I came out on the other end of a 3 day hospital day alive. I try not to focus on this too much because the birth was so quick and beautiful (now that I've had time to forget the pain).
Now our bean is 12 weeks old, and so I thought--what better time to return to the blog-o-sphere?
 |
| You should write, ma. |
So, I'm back folks :) Onward!
Go Fork Yourselves,
Krissy
