Wonder Womban versus the Tornado (my birth story)

Friday June 6, 2008 at around noon I started with some contractions. They were painful and crawled up my belly, but this had been going on for weeks so I didn’t really pay any attention to them. As the night progressed, they kept coming instead of going like they usually did. At 6 they went away completely. Oh well I thought and just went on with my night. I wasn’t feeling too great and had some lower back pain, but just attributed that to the pregnancy. At around 11 I told Mitch I wanted to go to bed and he came up from working in the basement and stayed in the front room with the kids for their weekend “camp out”. I went into bed and hung out by myself relaxing and reading a book. At around 11:20 the baby was just wrestling something in there and it really, really hurt! At one point she moved to a position that made it so I could hardly move; so I laid there for about 5 minutes massaging her into a different position. When she moved I was thinking to myself that I just needed to sleep. So I laid down at about 11:45 and went to sleep.
At around 12:10 a.m. I felt a POP! and a big gush. I laid there for a second trying to figure out what was going on and realized OH CRAP! that is my water breaking! So I called out for Mitch and told him. He came running in and grabbed a towel for me so that I could head to the restroom to change. While I was in there I called my dad and mom to let them know that this was happening tonight. At this point Mitch called Liz, our doula, and asked her to come over because we didn’t know what to expect at this point. I wasn’t really contracting and Mitch and I were joking around about the “attitude” of the baby saying things like “I’m 40 weeks now, and ready to come out.” and things like that. At that point, Liz arrived and that is when I started having contractions. They weren’t too bad and I could still talk and do things through them. Koby and Heather arrived a little bit later and that is when the contractions started to progress a bit more. What really surprised me is that they didn’t hurt all up my belly; they just hurt in my back and my lower pelvis. The only position I really found comfortable was hanging over the birth ball and having either Mitch or Liz press down really hard on my sacrum with something warm. I asked Mitch to give me a blessing and he wanted to wait until Koby was there, so they both came into the room and gave me a blessing. It was very nice and I actually just had a mild contraction during that.
About 1:45 my contractions were very, very painful and I was starting to vocalize with them. It was getting a bit harder to concentrate and make myself relax. I started to shake really bad at this point too. Liz had told Mitch that we would be able to tell when I was in transition because I would get really grumpy. We tried a different position during a contraction and I didn’t like it. So I tried crumpling to the floor, but Mitch wouldn’t let me go. He wanted to help me down gently and I finally yelled at him to just let me go! Mitch said that Liz smiled and nodded to him. I had hit it. It was about 2:20 I said we need to head to the hospital, it’s getting really intense. As I was walking to the door I had the sudden urge to throw up and ran to the bathroom. I thought I was done but again, as I was walking to the door, I did and my poor husband caught it and grabbed a towel for me (the beautiful things we see from our spouses LOL). We got in the car and that was a whole other level of pain right there. Since I couldn’t get into comfortable positions and was stuck sitting upright I think that may have progressed things a bit. Man, it hurt. I was moaning really loudly and just writhing in pain. Mitch kept things calm by telling me that I was doing really well and that he was so proud of me and how strong I was. He would then rub my leg and comfort me when I wasn’t in the middle of them. I would say the contractions were coming about 2 minutes apart at this point. He also told me that Liz had told him that I was progressing really fast. It didn’t occur to me until that point that she was worried that I would deliver in the car. Hence her last statement to us (that I didn’t pay attention to really because I was in pain of “if you feel a lot of pressure and the baby is coming, lay on your left side that will slow it down until we hit the hospital). Once we go to the hospital they were coming every minute. It was intense. After what seemed like a long walk/ride (I was in a wheelchair) we hit the L&D floor. They got me in a room right away and started my Hep lock (it took a few tries as I kept having contractions and couldn’t hold still). During this time I was pleading with Mitch for something, who knows. I finally hit the stage of not being able to do it anymore. They checked me and I was a 7. Mitch and Liz kept telling me, after I said I wanted an epidural, that we would talk about it once my contraction was over. I finally looked at the nurses and told them to call the anesthesiologists, I was done. I was having some more very painful contractions and was crawling all over the bed pleading, moaning, crying..You name it. Finally, to help me feel better, they said they were going to prep me for the epidural. So I laid on my side and when I did that my contraction was so painful that they wanted to check me again to “see if it was too late” (not something you want to hear during labor) and I was 7.5 cm dilated. I laid back on my side and it was a COMPLETELY different contraction. Something was coming. I flipped back over on my back and was screaming “something is coming! Something is coming!” So the nurse checked me again and goes Oh! It’s your baby! I will give two different perspectives here Mitch’s and then mine.
Mitch: The nurse checked you and said you were 7.5 cm dilated. It wasn’t 30 seconds later that you were saying something is coming and you flipped over and I saw the top of the baby’s head. I looked up at you and back down and there was her head and her shoulders and then the whole body. It happened in 15 seconds.
Mine: There was absolutely no way I could stop her from coming. That urge to push was SO strong that I had no control over it. I just kept pushing and pushing. It was amazing. Not that I thought it was amazing at that time because it hurt and I was screaming (yes, screaming) at this point. But I watched the nurse gently grab Aja’s head and she just had to ease her out of my body. She then set her on my chest and I was saying over and over that I did it! I was so proud that I did it, and look how beautiful you are!
My doctor walked in 5 minute later. It was an amazing experience. I’m glad that I had her naturally. I’m so thankful that Mitch and Liz were there. They were awesome help and did an amazing job.