When I finally went into early labor, I was 41 weeks and 1 day. All I could think about in the last couple days of being pregnant wondering when I will go into labor and see the little girl that’s been growing in me for the past 9 plus months. Then at 2:30 in the morning on October 1st, the contractions hit and I was laying there in the dark now wondering why I had been waiting for this day. The contractions were intense and made it so uncomfortable for me to breathe. This is my first pregnancy so little did I know about what intense felt like until later on. Hannah, our midwife, was made aware the contractions started. I was so excited that our baby girl would be here soon and kept trying to get as much sleep as possible before the contractions picked up. However, sleep eluded me…just as soon as I drifted off the next contraction came. The contractions slowed down during the day allowing me maybe 10-20 minutes of sleep a couple times but not much. My love, Dunham, massaged me to help with the deep aching of the bones of pelvis and back which helped for a little bit.
The night of October 1st was rough with the contractions picking up more. I kept trying to move around swaying or “dancing” to the contractions and laying on my left side to help her move down further into my pelvis. It was hard mentally at this point because of the lack of sleep, learning to trust my body to do the work, and feeling powerless to help move things along other than movement and left side lying. I started to feel nauseous and the bathroom became my sanctuary. I felt like my body was emptying me out of everything other than the baby. Never did I imagine all this happening in order to meet our baby.
Hannah texted that evening to check in and encourage me. The positivity was needed to help me get through the long night of no sleep once again…
The morning of October 2nd was here with a slowdown once again. I remembered not to be
discouraged as this slowdown was normal and to appreciate the rest before the evening. I paid attention to the timing of the contractions but I didn’t put all my focus into counting. For me, it added to the stress of when will she arrive rather than letting me focus on riding the waves. Dunham kept track of the time for me since I didn’t want to. Around 5pm, I felt a bit of a shift but I wasn’t sure what it meant yet. I felt a pick up in the strength of contractions but not enough for me to need to lean on Dunham and not speak. I decided to take a shower to pass time and next thing I knew I was in the bathroom clinging to Dunham
and humming through the contraction. Dunham called Hannah to let her know that there was a change.
I started crying after the call as I knew the moment was getting close and it felt overwhelming. Hannah recommended getting into the birth pool to help with the aching of my pelvis. She was guessing our baby girl was struggling with moving her hand off her face to move through the pelvis.
I experienced some sort of time warp after Hannah and my friend Ria arrived. The lack of sleep was hitting me. I was in the pool comfortable, humming to the wave of each contraction while holding onto Dunham. Being able to hold him and touch him during labor alleviated so much pain and helped ground me rather than getting lost in my thoughts about why it’s taking so long. I had to hold onto him because when the contraction ended I somewhat fell asleep. After a while, I started shivering even though the water was warm and then getting hot flashes. The sensation of hot and cold was overwhelming me so I
got out of the water. It then became an alternating dance of the bedroom, shower, and sitting on the toilet to relax my pelvic floor. I felt like I was grasping at straws to keep humming and moaning during the contractions because the discomfort kept increasing on my pelvis bones and thighs from her little hand on her face. I had to keep telling myself these moments won’t last forever even though it had been the past
two days of going through this.
Hannah and Ria helped apply sacral pressure during contractions. The touch felt good and brought me back into the room. Eventually, I felt like I needed to push but it didn’t
necessarily feel like I had to have a bowel movement. I felt her head pressing down and this instinctive urge to push.
Initially, when I started pushing I wasn’t putting my full effort into it since I thought I could push hard enough without making too much noise. I learned not too soon after that I needed to vocalize with everything that I had to push her out. I also needed help with feeling how to push. I was pushing but wasn’t engaging the right muscles to be effective, especially with how depleted I was feeling. Hannah tried to coach me with words but it wasn’t clicking with me. She then offered to put on gloves to apply pressure on my pelvic floor muscles in my vagina which allowed me to feel where I needed to engage.
After then, it was finding the right position to push in. I don’t know what it was but trying to push while laying on my side made me feel awful and anxious. All I wanted was to be in the squatting position. So there I was next to my bed and the crib squatting and pushing. It was such an amazing feeling to feel her head and her hair so close to coming out. It gave me the extra strength to keep pushing slowly to reduce the chance of tearing. A couple breaths and pushes later her head was out. I had a brief pause and then pushed with all my might as I was a bit nervous when I saw a good amount of blood coming out alongside
her head from my vagina. Personally, I didn’t feel a ring of fire but I felt the tightness of the skin stretching and a slight pinch of pain where I got a labia minora tear. I didn’t care though I was too euphoric from seeing her come out into the world. While I was holding her on my chest, Hannah asked if I would be okay with an injection of Pitocin due to the amount of bleeding I was having. One injection in my thigh and the bleeding slowed down soon enough. Later on, we were theorizing that my placenta might have detached early while she was coming out which might have caused the bleeding, but thankfully everything was ok with her quick intervention.
I’m so happy our baby girl was born at 3:23am on October 3rd into my love’s hands crying with her arms outstretched. I truly cannot convey how amazing it was to be at home holding her in peace amongst the quiet bustle of Hannah checking on her and I.
Seeing her eyes looking into mine was and still is the best part of my day.
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