Birth Story - Part 1

Labor began Friday evening, with painful contractions around 11pm. I'd had some irregular contractions since 5pm, and started timing them at 9pm, but they were weak. I slept through them until around 1am, when it became more and more uncomfortable to just lie down through them. So I began timing them around 1am. At 3:45 I woke T.J. because I wanted some help with them, and to see if I could "talk through them" - one of the signs of active labor is that you can't. I could talk through them, but they were quite painful and coming every 3-5 minutes for 45-60 seconds. I called Charlotte around 5am because she'd asked me to let her know when they were about 7 minutes apart, and obviously I was well past that. We were confused that I was still doing OK with the pain management, so she agreed to come and see what was going on.

She arrived around 6:30am and checked me - I was 1.5cm dilated, but the cervix was really posterior. She advised that I lie down with my leg pulled up high to get the cervix to pull forward. This was very painful, but I labored like that for about three hours, after which Charlotte checked me again - only 3cm dilated. I felt really deflated. I'd coped with the pain by using the yoga sounds I'd learned during my prenatal yoga class, and T.J. helped by applying pressure to my back and just being there for me. I was 12 hours into labor.

We decided to call Laura (our doula) around noon, and asked her to come in a couple of hours. T.J. and I went for a walk around the lake in order to help contractions along, and Charlotte left for a while as nothing was happening. The contractions had slowed a bit now, and I took a small nap between when Charlotte left and Laura arrived, being able to just breathe deeply through the contractions.


Laura, T.J. and I chatted for a while and went for another walk to get things going again. I had some really powerful contractions while we did that, and felt renewed and excited that something was happening. We took another short nap (waking to sound through the contractions of course), and then went for another walk around the lake. Charlotte came back and everyone ate lasagna, while I drank Gatorade and ate trail mix and fruit. Around 9:30pm Charlotte checked me again, and I was still at 3 or 4 cm - 22 hours into labor.