Saturday, January 7, 2012

After the fact: Birth Story Part 2

There isn't much left to my story, but my last post was getting really long.  I didn't exactly get the peaceful, calm birth I envisioned during my natural birth classes, but I'm glad I did it and I'm proud of myself.  Honestly I didn't set out to have a natural birth because I wanted the experience, I did it in the hopes of having a quicker recovery and a healthier baby.  I have gotten both of those, so it was worth it.

Welcome Maeve!! My birth story; Part 1

We are now a family of four :) Maeve Elizabeth joined us on January 4th, 2012, 4 days past her due date.

I had Braxton Hicks contractions pretty much my whole pregnancy; I started noticing them around 20 weeks.  I was very uncomfortable at the end of my pregnancy, it was a lot worse than when I was pregnant with my son.  I had back pain, sciatic pain that made walking really hard, rib pain, etc.  I was trying so hard to cherish my pregnancy and not wish her out sooner than she was ready, but I was pretty miserable, lol.  At 35 1/2 weeks I took a trip to the hospital for frequent contractions; not painful, just more often than my midwife was happy with. I got a shot to stop the contractions because we needed at least a couple more weeks. I was back in a week later at 36 1/2 weeks for the same thing (more often than before), but since I was so close to full term they skipped the shot, but I was on bed rest for 4 days to get me to 37 weeks.

37 weeks came... and went.  Then we had Christmas, then my New Year's Eve due date came and went, and I was getting anxious.  I was already 4 cm dilated, so it was just a matter of getting the real thing going.  My last few appointments I had my midwife sweep my membranes in the hopes of jump starting labor, but she just wasn't ready to join us.

January 3rd, I started noticing that my contractions were different.  They were coming every 10-15 minutes, which wasn't new because that had been happening for weeks, but they felt different.  A bit more uncomfortable, just "off".  I told my husband that I thought something was starting to happen, but I wasn't going to get too excited.  Later that night (around 1 am on the 4th) I thought that it was definitely happening, but I needed rest, so I made myself sleep.  I didn't want to start labor on zero sleep!!  I had contractions throughout the night, but was able to rest.