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Edith’s Birth Story Part Two: From 4+ to 7

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So where did we leave off from Edith’s Birth Story Part One..

After finally being taken off the monitor, I met my nurse, Ellen, and saw my midwifes Ellen (there was also another nurse named Lindsay and my middle name is Ellen!) and Tanya as they came on duty. Of all the midwives at Gifford, Ellen was the only midwife we hadn’t met. She had just rejoined back to Gifford after being away for 10 years (she had been at Gifford for 15 years prior to that).  I was surprisingly not concerned with not knowing her and that she would be the one to actually guide my labor and eventually catch my baby.  I instantly felt comfortable with her and confident in her abilities to follow my birth plan as closely as possible.

After having met everyone, we were given the opportunity to order breakfast.  Our nurse (Ellen) gave us a breakfast menu and we ordered toast, fruit, and homefries to get us fueled for the journey ahead. After that my birth team would come and go and checked on me as needed. For the most part, Sarah(our doula), Neil, and I were left alone to work through each contraction. At times one of my midwives would just come and sit in the rocking chair or on the birthing ball and watch as I worked through each contraction, providing guiding words and encouragement as needed.

Our breakfast eventually came and I ate in between contractions as they grew stronger and stronger.  I tried laboring in a few different positions and eventually found the one that worked best for me was standing up with my feet pointed out, lunging side to side while supporting my upper body by leaning over the side of the bed. During each contraction I went back to all of those prenatal yoga classes that I had taken and focused on my breath and breathing into the areas of discomfort.  Whenever I felt myself start to tense up I would flutter my lips (or, as Neil likes to call it, I would make horse lips) to loosen myself up. I just kept going back to what Susan, my prenatal yoga instructor, would say about how this action would loosen the pelvic floor and although I felt silly practicing this fluttering of the lips during yoga it was just what I needed to do during labor.

I labored in this lunging position for around 3 hours with members of my birthing team (Neil, Doula Sarah, Nurse Ellen, Midwife Ellen, and Midwife Tayna) helping me through each contraction. I stuck with the same rocking motion for pretty much the entire time with help of other measures such as Sarah pressing on my lower back or Neil and Sarah wrapping a scarf around my hips and each pulling on one side, which helped to open my hips and relieve some of the pain by placing pressure on my lower back. My nurse and midwives (and of course Neil and Sarah) were there to provide encouraging words and remind me to go back to my breath and that there was always an end in sight even when the contractions didn’t seem like they’d ever stop. Neil was also making jokes and working to make me laugh and smile. If there was one thing that helped me the most during labor, it was not losing my sense of humor.  Laughing helped to distract from the pain of the contractions and made the room feel warm and created a positive space to labor and birth my baby.

Around 9:30am I went to the bathroom and returned to the bed to continue to labor with the rocking lunges and I started to feel a trickle down my leg.  Midwife Ellen, who was sitting in the rocking chair behind me, asked if it could be possible that my bag of waters had broken.  And indeed they had. Midwife Ellen expressed some concern that my waters were somewhat brown. She couldn’t tell if it was a result of old blood or if it was meconium. My midwives suggested that I move into the shower so that I could labor in the warmth and water to help with the pain of the contractions (as an alternative to the birthing tub).  This also made it so that I could wash myself before being checked to help in preventing infection.  Neil changed into his swim trunks and joined me as I leaned over the support bar in the shower and he rubbed my back.  We smiled and laughed and joked some more as I worked through every contraction. Sarah would come in from time to time to help provide encouraging words and support. By this point contractions were coming on top of each other and I started to ask why they (the contractions)  wouldn’t give me a break. But, quickly, I would go back to my breath, my fluttering lips and low moans.

At 10am Midwife Ellen said she would like to check my progress and I was toweled off and made my way to the bed to be checked.

To be continued….

 

 

Edith’s Birth Story: Part 1

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It all started on June 8, 2012…

Sunday, after a lazy morning, Neil and I headed over to the Ethan Allen Homestead to walk the nature paths and enjoy the beautiful weather. While we were there I thought that I might be having contractions about 10-20 minutes apart.  I wasn’t sure if they were real contractions or just Braxton Hicks. I also didn’t want to get myself excited just to find out I was having false labor so I just took note of how I was feeling but didn’t think too much about it or say anything to Neil.

We headed home from our walk and I worked on a new recipe for a freelance assignment while Neil went for a run.  We ate and then I worked on blog posts while watching a few episodes of Breakout Kings on Netflix.  Around 8pm I started to feel uncomfortable but was still not positive that what I was feeling were real contractions so I kept working on posts and we watched another episode of Breakout Kings.

At 9pm I decided that maybe these contractions were the real deal so I asked Neil if he wanted to go for a walk with me (I still hadn’t told him that I suspected I might be in labor).  We went for a brisk mile long walk and that’s when I finally decided to tell Neil that I thought I might be having real contractions.  We returned home and watched one more episode of Breakout Kings and I labored on the birthing ball for awhile.  I also apparently started to write a blog post but didn’t make it too far (see below):

I’m honestly awful at this whole tracking contractions thing but around 8pm tonight they started- at first I wasn’t sure but it seems that they have become more consistent and a little bit stronger as the night goes on. I thought I was experiencing some earlier today on our walk through the homestead and I might just be right. We will see!

At 10pm I was super hungry and really wanted a bagel with Tofutti so Neil headed out to the grocery store down the road to pick up Earth Balance and Tofutti for our bagels.  I contacted our doula, Sarah, to let her know what was going on and she said it sounded like I was probably in early labor and to eat, drink and go to bed.  So that is exactly what I did.  I had a bagel with tofutti and bottle of water and went to sleep around 11pm.

I was able to sleep for about an hour but was then woken up by more intense contractions. Neil (who was too excited to really fall asleep) helped me to track the contractions on his iPhone. At midnight my contractions were around 4.5-5 minutes apart.  I labored on hands and knees for awhile and tried the birthing ball again but wasn’t really feeling it.

(At some point here I asked Neil if he had ordered our CSA and when he said he hadn’t I told him that we needed to – so here I am laboring and all I can think about is the fact that we needed to pick our produce for our CSA.)

The intensity of contractions quickly progressed and I continued to labor on hands and knees until 2am. At 2am I decided that I wanted to take a shower and after showering my contractions were around 3.5 minutes apart and getting more intense.  At this point we decided to call Sarah and have her come over to our house, however, minutes after hanging up with her we decided to call the Birthing Center to let them know what was going on and they said since we lived 75 minutes away that we should just head there.  We called Sarah back and told her to head directly to the Birthing Center.  We grabbed a few last minute items, fed the cat and we were on our way, leaving the house around 3am.

We got in the car put on City and Colour and started the 75 minutes drive to the Birthing Center.  During the entire drive I was having contractions  about 3.5 minutes apart.  The drive down however wasn’t as awful as I thought it might have been, I had enough room to move slightly during contractions and the roads were clear due to how early it was.  I even found myself singing along to the music with Neil in between each contraction.  I snacked on a few Clif Shot Blocks and sipped my water the entire ride, knowing that I was going to need to stay hydrated and fueled for the upcoming events.

We arrived at the Birthing Center around 4:30am and I was taken to the monitoring room to get hooked up on the monitor for 30 minutes.  Sarah arrived a few minutes later and we filled her in on how things were going while I was on the monitor and waiting to be checked. After about 25 minutes I was checked and was 4+ centimeters dilated and 80% effaced, which meant I could stay but unfortunately I still had to be on the monitor because they hadn’t yet had the three 15 second heart rate increases from baby. At this point being confined to the bed was the hardest part yet and I was anxious for they to get all they needed from the monitor so I could move around.

Since I was far along enough to stay they decided to move me to a birthing room and continue to monitor from there. It was about 45 minutes later that they finally got they results they needed for me to be taken off the monitor and move around.

To be continued…