Labor Story

Everyone has a tale to tell. This one is mine. It actually begins on the Thursday before Ella arrived.

I went to my midwives appointment and met with Deb. She told me I had homework to get my cervix moving on labor. The homework was to have sex. I think I must have given her a look that every woman who is nine months pregnant has ever given her when she has shared that bit of advice. It was somewhere between 'are you fucking kidding me?' and 'woman, are you totally insane?' She continued un-phased and said "you know, if your husband can't get his mind around that you could also use evening primrose oil and..." I don't think I let her finish. My response was, "I'm quite sure my husband will have no problem getting his mind around that, but I do. Have you seen me? How on earth is that supposed to happen?" "Oh," she replied, "you know, side by side or over the counter." Right.

In any event, I informed Ben of our 'homework' over the phone which garnered quite the response.

The next day I went to my weekly acupuncture appointment and Lisa, the acupuncturist did her part to move labor along by putting needles in certain places and even applying electrostimulation to my low back.

I was all in favor of not spending any time past my due date pregnant, but I really thought I'd have the full week of resting before she came. I was fairly certain this baby would be on time - as in, not late but definitely not early. I'd worked up until Friday and had all these great plans of relaxing and cooking in the week before she was due.

Fast forward to Sunday. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The night before I'd slept better than I had in months and had more energy than I'd felt in a long while. We went to church and then out to lunch. On the way home I proposed that we go apple picking. I then headed on to the grocery store and wandered the aisles, picking up things that I was inspired to cook. I came home and stocked our refrigerator full of yummy things I'd assemble in the coming days and pop into the freezer. Then, later in the afternoon we drove out to Honey Pot Hill Orchards and tromped over hill and dale picking apples, getting cider donuts and choosing two pumpkins to carve for Halloween.

That night at dinner we got into a conversation about the baby's arrival. Silly me. I said, "You know, it would be kind of cool if she came later tonight because then we could tell her someday about what a fun, nice day we spent before she came. We'd always remember apple picking and the funny pictures we took of me holding two pumpkins that were the same size as my belly."

Sarah. Seriously. When will you learn to stop talking casually about things you want? That is how this baby came to be in the first place. In February we had a conversation about how maybe we wouldn't outright try to get pregnant but we wouldn't be so careful and in six months we'd see if we'd gotten pregnant. Sure. Two weeks later I was knocked up.

Anyway, back to Sunday night. I proposed that we get to the homework that I'd craftily avoided all weekend. Needless to say, a half hour after completing the homework, I went to the bathroom and experienced something strange. Either I'd just lost all bladder control or my water had broken. I walked back into the bedroom to state the very same, and yet another sploosh came out of me.

We called into the midwives and they said to come on over to the hospital. Off we went with a mad flurry of packing because Ben hadn't yet put his hospital bag together. It was lovely to have no traffic, but sadly we'd opted to not put gas in the car after apple picking and had to stop for gas or we wouldn't have made it to the hospital. I tried not to leak fluid all over the car...

I was monitored for 20 minutes at the hospital to determine that yes, the baby was totally happy, I was having mild contractions and what was coming out of me was in fact totally normal amniotic fluid. At that point we were given the option of being admitted which would mean me being given pitocin to induce more real labor or I could go home and try to sleep and come back if labor picked up, or within 12 hours to be induced, whichever came first. We went home. I've heard what pitocin labor is like and I wanted nothing of it.

By 3am I was having contractions 10 minutes apart and the Benadryl they'd given to help me sleep had totally worn off. By 7am I was having a little slew of contractions 2 minutes apart, so we both showered fast and got on our way. Of course, this meant getting to the hospital in rush hour traffic which meant much more traffic commentary by Ben. I was, for the record, still leaking fluid out of me.

They checked me in and determined that I was 3 cent. dilated and 80 percent effaced. So, I walked the halls, bounced on the birthing ball and such until labor got a little more intense. Then, I discovered the whirlpool. Oh. My. God. That was perhaps the best thing ever. I climbed in and immediately sent Ben to ask the midwives how long I was allowed to stay in. "Forever," they replied. Or, until she was ready to come out. I bounced through these various options until I was at about 7 centimeters and transitioning. Labor got really hard at that point. Surprisingly, we hadn't done much in the way of hypnobirthing scripts. We did a few and I was able to go through contractions without much pain. But at that point, all bets were off and I don't think there was a script in the world that was going to relax me into a state where I was feeling no pain.

I believe I loudly announced (this was after loudly moaning my way through many contractions) that I didn't care to keep doing this and could I please have an epidural to make it stop.

And thus, I got an epidural, but not until 45 more minutes of hard labor had passed. Ben was sent away while they did it, which was a blessing for him. He had witnessed enough of my state and the throwing up etc. by that point. He didn't need to see me ride out two hard contractions sitting up in a curled position trying to stay absolutely still as the anesthesiologist inserted a catheter into my spine.

Once the drugs flowed life was good again, but I was hungry and now not allowed to eat. We waited, and waited as contractions passed. By 9pm I was fully dilated, but the midwives wanted to wait to see if the baby would drop two more stations in the hopes of shortening my pushing time. We were told to expect 2-3 hours of pushing. At 11pm I began to doubt my strength to push at all as I was so low on food so I asked if we could just try it...

Again, be careful what you say, Sarah. The first push got the baby's head down and 20 minutes later she was crowning. I was advised to let her sit there for a moment to allow my body to adjust, but she had other plans. She actually wiggled her own head out as I did nothing. From there the rest of her just came on down and right out. At 11:24 Ella Katherine was born.

We got to spend about an hour with her just resting on me nursing as we held her and marveled at what we'd just made. She was quiet and alert, taking in the world around her. I have to say I had the best experience with the midwives and would go that route again and deliver at Mount Auburn in a heartbest.

So, that's my tale. Nothing terribly untoward or exciting, but just the story of how Ella came to join us in this world.