Each of my birthing experiences have been so different.
Nicole's was traumatic, although at the time I refused to label it that way.
Austin's was peaceful and straightforward.
Autumn's was quite fast, and intense from start to finish.
Lydia's birth started out peaceful... and then turned into an action-packed sequence straight out of a movie. It was quite the ride!
Let's dive in, shall we?
Lydia's Birth Story
I felt my due date was a few days too early, so when June 19th came and went without any baby arrival, I wasn't too surprised. I told anyone who asked that I personally thought my due date was the 23rd or 24th.
I had a midwife appointment on the 22nd, where I had Tina (who also delivered Autumn) do a quick membrane sweep. I was already 3 cm (nearly 4 cm) dilated, so I felt hopeful that labor would start soon.
Sure enough, "early labor" started on the afternoon of the 23rd. I noticed that I was having more contractions than usual all afternoon, so I started timing them as I prepared dinner. They were still coming at random intervals. Some contractions were 9 minutes apart, some were 4 minutes apart. They didn't hurt and didn't get more regular, but they did persist the remainder of the afternoon and evening, and they wouldn't go away regardless of what I did. At the time, I was kind of in denial that I was actually in labor because the contractions weren't coming at regular intervals and they didn't hurt, but I WAS in the early phase of labor, friends. Oh yes I was.
Thankfully, I at least had the common sense to put my sister-in-law Elizabeth on alert, since she was the one who would be watching our kids and lives 20 minutes away. I told her that I wasn't in active labor yet, but that could change any time, so be alert and we would call if anything changed during the night.
I waited as long as I could to see if things would change, then finally told myself that it would be a good idea to get some sleep. I went to bed at around 12:30 and quickly drifted off.
I woke up at 3 AM and found myself in the middle of a contraction. It felt a bit more "productive" than the contractions I had been having before going to bed. After feeling a couple more contractions, I finally grabbed my phone at 3:30 and started timing them. By 4 AM I was confident that I was finally in active labor and rolled out of bed. The contractions were more regular (although still not as regular as I expected) and seemed to have a bit of a "kick" to them.
Expecting that I still had a few hours of at-home labor ahead of me, and not wanting to wake anyone up until I needed to, I headed downstairs and settled down on my exercise ball. Now that I was upright instead of lying down, the contractions started coming every 5 minutes. It was so peaceful, just bouncing on that exercise ball in the dark and listening to a gentle summer rain shower outside, which was soon replaced by the twittering of birds waking up for the day. I just bounced and breathed and imagined the nice, straightforward, beautiful birthing experience that lay ahead of me, and how I would get to meet Lydia soon.
But then, far sooner than I expected, things started getting a little more intense.
I had only been out of bed laboring for 45 minutes, when I had a contraction that was only 2 minutes apart from the previous one. And it hurt. My brain finally admitted that I shouldn't wait any longer. It was 4:45 as I scurried back upstairs, poked Doug awake, and announced I was in labor. He popped right out of bed and called his sister. I figured I had time for a quick shower, so I began waddling around the room to gather what I needed. Doug headed downstairs so he could shower too. I tried to hurry, but my progress was halted every time I had a contraction, since I had to stop what I was doing and breathe through it. As I was in the shower, things picked up even more! I kept my phone within reach so I could continue timing contractions, and was alarmed to see that my contractions were all about 2 minutes apart on average now. (2 minutes from the start of one contraction to the start of the next.) I had to brace my arms against the shower wall and shift my weight back and forth between my feet while deep breathing to manage the pain. I was progressing much faster than I had expected to. I had spent nearly 6 hours in active labor at home when I was pregnant with Austin before needing to head to the hospital, and then spent 2 more hours in labor at the hospital. I had been expecting a similar time frame this time around! By the time I managed to get out of the shower, I had only been in (conscious) active labor for 2 1/2 hours, but I knew we needed to head to the hospital ASAP.
I got out of the shower and tried to hurry as best I could with my large belly and increasingly painful contractions. I still had some toiletries to gather and pack into my hospital bag! Doug, meanwhile, had showered and eaten a quick breakfast, and Elizabeth had arrived. Doug came up to the room to find me sitting on the edge of the bed with my hands gripping the handles of the closet door, swaying back and forth with the door to support me while doing some serious deep breathing. He nervously asked if we should leave now, and I said we would once I finished packing. Easier said than done, though, since I only had 1 minute between contractions to waddle around grabbing things before I found myself back on the bed to manage the next contraction. I probably should have had Doug help me pack, and had him call the hospital to alert them, buuuuuut I didn't. Oops. I was just in denial that I was progressing this fast.
I finally made it down to the kitchen with a packed bag, and after two more contractions in the kitchen, we headed out to the car. It was 6 AM at this point. The drive to the little community hospital takes 10 minutes if you hit all green lights, and we just so happened to HAVE OUR TURN SKIPPED as we were sitting at a red light waiting to turn left onto State Street. We had to sit through another round of traffic before we got our green turn arrow. While sitting at that red light, I had a contraction that alarmed me. I've given birth several times now, and I know what it feels like to enter the "transition phase" of labor... and THAT felt like a transition phase contraction.
Now sensing that time was of the essence (and with me now having to make a loud, low HHHMMMMMM sound to get through the contractions) we made it to the hospital. I waddled across the parking lot in the early summer morning light, with the smell of fresh rain in my nose. I had to hunch over halfway to the doors to breath through a contraction, and finally made it inside. I strode up to the check-in window and announced to the startled nurses that I was in labor, AND was already transitioning. They were smack-dab in the middle of a shift change, and seemed to respond far too slowly for my liking... but when they saw the next contraction hit me, and witnessed my swaying (and my HHHHMMMMMMM sound) they immediately sprang into action.
One nurse took me straight back to the check-in room while Doug stayed at the desk to get my ID and insurance cards scanned, and another nurse called my midwife. Yep, I hadn't even notified her. My nurse put a hospital gown on the bed for me and left the room to let me change. Do you know how hard it is to change clothes during the transition phase of labor?!? Very hard. Not only were the contractions practically coming one right after another at this point, but I was starting to feel pressure. I was literally dancing from foot to foot as I switched into the hospital gown, and I couldn't even manage to get it fastened. Somewhere in my mind, I registered how ridiculous I must look in this gown that was hanging halfway off of me, dancing from foot to foot around this little hospital room while making loud HHHMMMMMMM noises, with my face covered in sweat. Lovely.
The nurses and Doug came into the room in time to witness the end of my labor dance. The nurse had me stand on a scale real quick. A contraction hit me on the scale, so I turned right around, climbed up onto the hospital bed on all 4's, and now my HHHMMMMMMs were punctuated by me repeating, "I want to push!" The poor nurses were very alarmed now. "Not yet!" they told me. "We need to see if you're dilated enough! Your midwife is on the way! Not yet, not yet!"
I managed to lower myself onto my back so they could check my cervix. 8 cm dilated. "You can't push just yet, hon. If you push before you're completely dilated, it'll make your cervix swell." I was well aware of the dangers of pushing too early, but that knowledge didn't make me want to push any less. I resisted, though. Ugh, it was hard. I somehow had the presence of mind to take my glasses off and instruct Doug to retrieve the case from my bag and stow them safely away.
The poor nurses were still trying to follow protocol. One nurse approached me and said they needed to start an IV. I told her to hang on, then HHHHMMMM'd my way through another contraction. As the contraction died away, I said, "Okay, let's hurry with that IV..." and the nurse told me they weren't going to bother with the IV after all. They'd just keep fingers crossed that I wouldn't end up needing anything intravenously.
I'm glad I didn't have to get the IV! That was nice!
The next couple minutes were spent breathing through insanely intense contractions as my body finished dilating. Since I was semi-reclined on my back, I had Doug push against my lower legs just under my knees to give counter pressure that I could lean into. At 6:28, as a contraction hit and Doug began to push against my legs, my water broke. And when I say my water broke, I mean it exploded. I opened my eyes just in time to witness a gush of fluid shooting across the room like a fire hydrant, soaking Doug's pants in the process. The poor guy tried to jump out of the way, but there was no escaping that splash zone. If I hadn't been about to push a baby through my birth canal, I probably would have been laughing so hard.
Only a contraction or two after my water breaking, I was fully dilated. The nurses told me to follow my instincts, while also checking with each other about my midwife's status. After 10 minutes of pushing (and I was trying not to push too hard, to allow more time for Tina to make it), we got the report that she was just a block away. "Tell her to HURRY!" called the nurse who was standing in for Tina.
What felt like moments later, Tina arrived, dressed in her scrubs and ready to go. It was 6:45. A couple contractions later, I started to feel that unmistakable pressure and burning as the contraction ended. The baby was going to crown. As I relaxed between contractions, Doug said to me, "I can see her head!" to which I calmly responded, "I can feel her head..." which made everyone chuckle. Then, as the next contraction started, I said, "Let's get that head out!" and, after a couple powerful pushes and some insane pressure and burning, her head was out. Another tiny push for the shoulder... and then Lydia made her official entrance to the world at 6:52. Yep, just 7 minutes after my midwife arrived. We really cut it close! I think the only reason Tina made it in time was because Lydia was a BIG baby, and I couldn't just shove her out real quick like I did with Autumn (who was only 7 lbs 7 oz).
In fact, Lydia was my largest baby at 9 lbs 3 oz. At her 5 day check-up, her head circumference measured over the 98th percentile. Yikes, huge baby. That, combined with the fact that she was born facing to the right instead of facing my spine, probably contributed to how intense this labor felt, and how quickly it progressed once I got out of bed (gravity + heavy baby = effective dilation process). She cried furiously as I held her for the first time, then after the cord was clamped and cut, the nurses went to weigh her and take vitals while Tina delivered the placenta. Then I had to get a 2nd degree tear stitched up, but I kept passing clots, so Tina had to go up and check to see if anything was left in my uterus. There was a strand of membrane that she needed to get out, which hurt like crazy, but the bleeding finally died down once the membrane was out. Ouch ouch ouch.
Once I was stitched up, my nurse helped me into a wheelchair and I was taken to room 116, which is the room I WOULD have delivered in if I had arrived at the hospital sooner and they'd had time to check me in properly. It made me a little sad, because that's the room that I delivered Austin and Autumn in. It would have been nice to deliver Lydia in there as well, but that's what I get for not taking my labor progress as seriously as I should have. At least I got to spend my recovery time in there, with the same beautiful view of Mount Timpanogos that I had grown familiar with from my previous births.
Hot, fresh pancakes and bacon were waiting for me by my hospital bed, and Lydia was furious about having her nursing session interrupted for the room switch, so I fed her while eating my pancakes... and thus, the last chapter of my maternity years came to a close. So bittersweet. So very, very bittersweet.
I won't miss most of the aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, but... there's also something incredible about it.
Glad I have the stories to look back on, at least.
You can read Nicole's birth story here
Austin's here
and Autumn's here
A few more pictures:
Crazy, how different she's looking after only a couple weeks!
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