Thursday, August 1, 2013

Eisley Mae's Birth Story: Part 1 - & so it begins...

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It was Sunday July 14th & we were 4 days from our due date on the 18th. We had just gone to our last Bradley class that afternoon and I was feeling pretty 'normal'. As normal as you can feel at 39 and half weeks pregnant. After class I mentioned to Andrew that I wanted to use some of our gift cards to buy a little rocker seat for the baby, so we went to Target after class & picked one up along with some Tommee Tippee botles we found on sale. And good thing we picked up that rocker. Talk about last minute, huh?

At our last class, a couple had come in and disucssed how they they has used nipple stimulation to progress her labor so on our way home, Andrew and I discussed trying it to ripen the cervix for labor. We tried it before dinner & a while later I had mild cramping but didn't really think anything of it.  Andrew made us delicious slidders and tater tots (I was obsessed with tater tots the last few weeks of pregnancy) for dinner & we relaxed & bummed around. Before we went to bed, Andrew & I decided to try stimulation one more time. I was actually really exausted and fell asleep around 10:30 while Andrew was doing the stimulation. What can I say? Pregnancy is exhausting & it was WELL past my bedtime.

I woke up less than an hour later at 11:20 with contractions. Part of me knew right away that this was 'IT'. I had Braxton Hicks during my pregnancy, but this was different. They were between 5 and 7 minutes apart and when I went to the bathroom, I was slowly losing my bloody show. The contractions weren't too terrible, but I woke Andrew up and told him I was in labor. Andrew started up the tub for me. I sat in our tub & Andrew poured water on my back to try and help me relax. After a half an hour in the tub, the contractions were getting more intense so I decided to get out. At this point, the contractions were about 4:30 to 5 minutes apart and still were still very bearable.  We decided to go and walk up and down our driveway for about 10 or 15 minutes in order to get the contractions rolling a little faster. When we got back inside, Andrew told me to try and eat & got me and applesauce and some water so that I'd stay hydrated and would have energy as things got rolling. We knew once things got serious I wouldn't want to eat or drink. We went into the bedroom & decided to try and go back to sleep, but I was too uncomfortable and couldn't lay down. Andrew called one of our midwives Kim & told her how close the contractions were (about 4 minutes at this point). I told him to tell her that I wasn't ready to come in because the contractions weren't intense enough. We just wanted to know what to do because they had told us to call when the contractions reached 4-1-1. She told us that since I wasn't ready to wait until they were three minutes apart, lasting a minute for an hour or to call her in two hours, which ever came first.

I labored for about another hour, and  the contractions started getting pretty intense. Andrew sat on the edge of the bed & I had my head in his lap and rocked my hips back and forth to try and relieve pressure. I was feeling a lot of pain in my back but I kept telling myself that the pain would move because I knew what so much back pain meant. I knew that it meant she was probably sunny side up. Suddenly, I started not feeling too well, so Andrew grabbed a garbage can for me. I ended up throwing up and was shaking quite a bit. Suddenly my contractions were about 2 and a half minutes apart and were coming two at a time without a break. They were really intense. Andrew and I both knew this could be just a normal part of labor, but that the symptoms were also related to transition which meant we needed to get going. Andrew called Kim back and she said it sounded like I was ready to have a baby & told us to head on in!


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xoxo
Nic