A birth story

For those of you who like to read about these kinds of things...

Sometime around 3:30 pm I decided that natural childbirth was not for me. At least this time around. That was shortly after arriving at the hospital and learning I was 6 cm dilated, an hour and a half after I lost my lunch and contractions started coming every three minutes. I was not able to breathe through them like I had thought I should be able to.

But labor started more than 12 hours earlier, just one day after my parents had to leave town because my mom didn't have any more leave she could take. Sometime after midnight, I thought I started dreaming that I was having contractions. I thought to myself, 'If I get up in the morning sleep deprived and a week overdue because I was dreaming about having contractions, I am going to be mad.' But I woke up for good from the contractions about 3:45, and they were pretty much all in my back at that point. I spent a few hours wondering whether that day would be the day, because although by the time Justin woke up my contractions were only 7-9 min apart, they weren't particularly strong. I wasn't sure how many hours or days that could go on. So Justin and I took a walk, and then I sat on the couch in front of the computer for a while, and at one point (about 10:00) I didn't have any contractions for half an hour. Then Justin started bugging me asking if I wanted to walk or do this or do that. At which point I informed him that he needed something to do! So he made peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream. :) 

Around noon my contractions started getting closer and stronger, and at 2:00 I got sick from them. Then they started coming every 4 to 2 1/2 minutes, and at that point I knew I was ready to go to the hospital. I felt too uncomfortable to stay home, was having trouble breathing and relaxing through the contractions, and was beginning to question myself on not having an epidural. I wanted to know how dilated I was so that I could make a decision about having an epidural.

We left the house at 3:00, and Justin called labor and delivery to let them know we were coming. Whoever he was talking to asked to talk to me, and although I was between contractions at the time, she talked and asked questions for at least a few minutes. I was in pain again by the time I heard her say "Well if you're in labor we'll keep you and if not we'll send you home." I grunted out an "Uh-huh" and handed the phone back to Justin, but I really wanted to yell, "I'm in labor! Stop talking!"

By the time I got settled into the hospital I was 6 cm dilated. So we felt like I did pretty well with the timing, but I knew I wasn't going to have a baby in the next hour, so I asked for the epidural. And I also got drugs through my IV while I was waiting, but I probably should have skipped that. It didn't make me loopy, but it didn't help with my contractions particularly, just made me more relaxed in between. And I don't remember if it was before or after the drugs, but I got sick again and this time my water broke.

Then I got my epidural, and after that life was good. I never felt another contraction unless the monitor got over 100, and even then I felt only a little tension. I thought I slept for a good portion of the rest of my labor, but Justin says I only took a couple of naps. Either way, I was quite relaxed...and pretty knocked out from the Demerol. Rebekah almost certainly would have arrived at least a couple of hours earlier without the epidural because I never did have the urge to push. We all waited it out until just after 11:00, and 20 minutes later she was born at 11:31 pm--as I said in my last post, exactly the time a friend of mine had dreamt she would be born a few days earlier.

Welcome to the world, Rebekah Jane.