Birth Story - Part 2

See part 1 here

At that point they knew nothing was going to happen soon, so they brought my rocking chair into the bedroom for me to sit in and try to sleep, and everyone hunkered down for the night. I slept for an hour or two, just breathing through contractions before they picked back up again and I wasn't able to sit in my chair through them. I labored on my own for a few hours so that everyone else could sleep, finally getting in the shower around 3:30am. Then I woke T.J. for some more help. He went and got Charlotte and Laura, and I was "around 6cm". I think at that point Charlotte was adding on to what she told me to keep me from being discouraged. It didn't work. Labor was so painful, and I was so tired and sad, I truly didn't know how I could continue with things moving so slowly.

There was a lot of discussion as to whether the baby was properly aligned in the pelvis and what we could do to fix that. Charlotte and Laura had me lie on my right side to try and realign the baby in the pelvis. Charlotte also called her assistant, Melanie, at that point.

The side-lying position was really painful and difficult to breathe through. I'd also been feeling the urge to push, so Laura had me add in the "Eee" sound to help me cope with that. I was excited to see what happened after a couple hours of that, as I'd read about people flying through transition and just pushing the baby out. Not me - though I was 7cm! It took two hours, but heck, I was making progress! The sun was coming up, too, making it seem like things were possible again. It was about 7am - 32 hours into labor.

Now we all thought things were really going. There was a flurry of activity - T.J., Charlotte and Melanie were working furiously to fill the birth pool. Apparently it's 150 gallons (I think we filled it 120 worth), and our water tank is 30 gallons. Huh. So they would drain the tank, then have to wait an hour or so for it to heat up again. They started boiling water to add to the pool, which really amused me as "boiling water" is such an old fashioned birth thing. While they were boiling water, Laura and I were working on labor, doing pelvic tilts (good grief that HURT) to try and keep things going. And they were for a while, but then things slowed down again. And by slow, I don't mean they stopped or became weak - they were just more like 5-7min apart instead of 3-4. I still got pushy sometimes, but was mostly able to control them.


I suppose it was around 10:30 or 11am that Laura suggested another walk. I dreaded them, as they always made the contractions come stronger and longer, but I trusted Laura would do what's best for me - so we went. She was extra hard on me this time, insisting that I do squats and lunges instead of just allowing the contractions to work over me while I tried to relax. I was so exhausted by that point that point that I was quite whiny and I'm sure Laura was reconsidering this home birth as much as I was. I whined about having to do squats - I was 50lbs overweight darn it, and my knees hurt! I whined about having to do lunges, I whined when she wanted me to use the stairs to labor on the way to the apartment (lunging during contractions). Then I had 3 HUGE contractions and I wasn't whining anymore, I was crying, for the 3rd time during my labor. I really cannot express the despair and hopelessness I felt on the stairs. In fact, every time we have come home from an outing this week I nearly cry while going up them. I literally cry now just thinking about them. It was about 12pm - 37 hours into labor.