Here is what I wrote about Eric's birth in my journal when he was about a week old (I finally got around to typing it up!):
Eric’s Birth
I had a prenatal appointment on Wednesday, August 30th (2006), 2 days before my September 1st due date. I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. The baby was at a -1 station. The midwife swept my membranes. After that, I had contractions pretty much every night for the next week- nothing painful, but about 10 minutes apart for a couple of hours each night. My next prenatal appointment was Tuesday, September 5th. I was 3cm dilated and about 70% effaced. The midwife swept my membranes again and told me to keep using evening primrose oil.
After my appointment, we came home and went for a walk in the afternoon. I felt crampy all day. I had the usual 10 minute apart contractions that night and they continued off and on throughout the next morning. Michael left for school and work. Christina came and took me to get a pedicure that afternoon. We had the pedicurist massage my pressure points really well, and by the end of the pedicure my contractions had picked up a little. We came home and took the kids for a walk again. My contractions were still about 10-15 minutes apart, but not really painful.
We ate dinner, and then around 7 or so they turned into real contractions. I put Matty to bed and then decided to try and get some rest too. I went to bed and tried to sleep, but couldn’t help opening my eyes to time contractions. They were between 8 and 10 minutes apart. I went back downstairs around 10pm and watched TV with my mom for a while and waited for Michael to get home from work. We decided to all try and get some sleep after he got home. Mom and Michael went to sleep around midnight, but I took a bath for a while first. I got out of the tub around 1am and lay in bed for a while, but it got too uncomfortable. So I paced our room for a while. The contractions were still about 7 or 8 minutes apart. I found that if I knelt on pillows and leaned onto our bed they got a lot stronger and were more like 5 minutes apart, so I did that for a while.
I kept telling myself “wait another ½ hour before calling the birth center”. I called around 3am. The midwife on call asked me a bunch of questions and asked how long it had been since I’d had any liquids. I told her it had been a while, so she said to go drink something and call her back in half an hour. I went downstairs and got a glass of apple juice and sipped it between contractions. I called the birth center again around 3:30 and the midwife asked what I thought and what I wanted to do. I told her I was anxious to get the car ride over with. So she said to come on in. I woke Michael up and had him call his mom so she could come over and stay with Matty until he woke up, and then she would take him over to their house. I also had him call Christina and she met us at the birth center.
We packed up the car, and then Michael, my mom and I left for the birth center around 4:15am. I heated up my rice pack and put it on my back while we drove. I had about 10 contractions during the 45 minute drive. When we got there, we brought our stuff in and got set up in the “blue room”. The midwife took my BP, pulse, temp and then checked me. I was 4cm. We decided to go outside and walk around for a while. It was so nice out- about 70 degrees and the moon was up (and full). We walked around and every time I had a contraction I would stop and put my arms around Michael’s neck and he would apply counter pressure to my back. I wasn’t really having back labor (at least not like I had with Matty), but my back ached between contractions. We came back in around 6:30am and then around 7, we decided to go get some breakfast. We went through a drive-thru and got chicken biscuits. I could only eat about half of mine, but Michael had no problem finishing it.
We went back in our room and I lay down for a while. Michael fell asleep and I let him sleep for about 1 ½ hours while I went between lying down, sitting on the birth ball, and leaning over the counter. Around 8:30 or so, the midwife came in and checked me and said I was not quite at 5cm, but was more effaced. I was a little discouraged. Soon after that, the contractions kicked it up a notch and it became a lot more difficult to breath through them. I had to just totally concentrate on my breath the whole time. I had Michael call and check on Matty, and he was doing fine. Things stayed pretty much the same until around 11am, another midwife came in. I had a really good contraction just as she walked in and after seeing that, she asked if she could check me. I must have been right about the contractions picking up, because I was 7 to 8cm dilated. I was so pleasantly surprised. The midwife asked if I wanted to get in the tub and I said I would love to. So she got it filled up and I got in. She told me to just try to keep switching which side I was laying on after each contraction. Michael sat by the side of the tub and kept putting counter pressure on my back and whispering to me with each contraction. I was trying to make sure I kept drinking lots of juice to stay hydrated, but that meant that I had to pee a ton. I probably got up out of the tub every ½ hour or so to pee, and the contractions were so much harder out of the tub. I would try and sit on the toilet through a couple of contractions, hoping the pressure would make my water break, but it never did. I felt like I was moaning really loud during contractions, but everyone said my noises were actually pretty quiet.
I stayed in the tub and the contractions continued to intensify. Around 2:30 or so they were to the point that I didn’t think I could handle much more. I had read about different relaxation techniques and stuff, but when I came down to it, what worked for me was just concentrating on my breathing and the sounds I was making. The nurse on duty by then (the 4th one I had gone through that day) kept reminding me to make my moans low, so thinking about that and opening up made me really able to focus better than imagining myself somewhere else or anything like that could have. So just as I was to the point where I didn’t think I could keep control anymore, the midwife came in and asked to check me. She had been telling me to let her know if I felt the urge to push at all, which I hadn’t to that point. I had been feeling just an incredible amount of pressure with the last contractions I had been having- especially when I would get out of the tub to go to the bathroom.
She checked me and while she was checking me it really made me feel like I needed to push. She also felt around to see how big the baby was. She said I was almost 10cm, but had an anterior lip. She also said it felt like the baby was a little on the large side and she would feel more comfortable catching him if I was out of the tub. She said if I got out of the tub and onto the bed, she could break my water and I could probably start pushing right after that because she could stretch the lip over the baby’s head. At that point I was SO ready to get the baby out and Christina said that I looked up at the midwife and said “let’s do it!”
I got out of the tub, but every time I moved I had another contraction. It took me a while to get to the bed. She broke my water and it was completely clear. The midwife said to pull my legs up, take a deep breath and push. I did and he started moving with that first push, which was encouraging. I had Michael get up behind me so that I was sitting in between his legs and he gave me sips of water between contractions. Pushing was such an odd sensation. I felt so much pressure and pushing did help with that feeling. The weirdest ting was if I stopped pushing before the contraction was over I would have to push again- I couldn’t stop it. But then when he was crowing it was like I had to push but didn’t want to because it burned so badly. I grunted a lot with each push- it actually helped a lot (although I had a sore throat the next day because of it). He didn’t move down as much if I stayed quiet while I pushed. The nurse was holding a mirror so I could see the top of Eric’s head. I looked at it, but then closed my eyes as I strained and pushed. Suddenly I felt kind of a pop and opened my eyes really quick and there his head was! The midwife suctioned his mouth and nose and then it felt really strange as he turned so I could push his shoulders out. I kept my eyes open as I pushed the rest of his body out and then reached down and helped catch him as he came out. When he finally emerged (at 3:27pm), it was the best feeling ever- such relief! I couldn’t believe it.
I pulled Eric up onto my bare chest and they put a towel over us and rubbed him to clean him off and help warm him up. His cord stopped pulsing pretty quickly and then Michael cut it. We looked Eric over while the midwife caught the placenta. I had a small tear. Michael and I held Eric while I got a shot of local anesthetic and a couple of stitches. Then I tried nursing Eric- he was a natural. He latched right on the first try and nursed for about 20 minutes. My mom and Christina asked what I wanted to eat. I told them I wanted a Gyro, so they went and got Michael and I some lunch at a Greek place down the road.
The midwife took Eric to weigh and examine him while I got up to go to the bathroom and take a shower. He was 8 lbs. 3 oz. and perfect! We left to come home at 7:00 that night- 3 ½ hours after he was born. We got home in time to put Matty to bed. He had a fun day at Grandma’s and came home to a new baby brother.