The weekend Kael was born seemed just like any other weekend I had experienced throughout my entire pregnancy. I was past due, and of course was extremely ready to meet my baby boy, but didn’t feel any different. Kevin was off all weekend, and Friday April 1st was the first night that I noticed something had changed. I was tired a lot during the pregnancy, but for some reason that night I was just exhausted. Kevin and I were laying on the couch watching movies, and I fell asleep around 7:30 pm. I crawled into bed soon after. If only I had known that would be the last night I would ever sleep so soundly.
I woke up Saturday April 2nd around 7:30 am. Kevin and I made a nice breakfast, but I just wasn’t feeling “right”. As soon as we finished eating, around 9 am, I told Kevin I wanted to crawl back into bed. I was having really bad lower back pain and some cramping, and the only comfortable position I could find was laying in bed curled into a ball. As the time progressed, the cramps became more intense. At this point I was getting pretty uncomfortable and started to think that this could possibly be the beginning of labor. Kevin and I Googled what cramps/back pain could mean, but nothing was very helpful. I dozed in and out of sleep, while Kevin kept me company by playing games on the iPad. Eventually we both became hungry again, and decided to go fix lunch. Once we finished eating, we decided to watch Letters to Juliet. Throughout the movie, the cramping became more intense and that was when I realized I had been having REAL contractions all morning, and that this could be it! We started timing them, and they were about 7 minutes apart. By the end of the movie, they were more intense and coming every 4 minutes.
Since we were planning on a natural birth, we didn’t rush to the hospital. The contractions were definitely uncomfortable, but were manageable. I kept thinking, “this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be”. Around 2 pm we decided that we would do some cleaning, take showers, and then head to the hospital just to see where I was at. We didn’t rush, and both of us were actually pretty calm. We left the house spotless, and ready to welcome a new baby (something that I had been obsessing about for months). I was able to take a relaxing shower, and was actually shocked at how insignificant certain things became. I always thought that I would make sure that my legs were shaved, and my hair and makeup looked nice (knowing that there would be pictures takes). Instead, I enjoyed the relaxation, and soaked in the thought of getting to finally meet my son. It wasn’t about me anymore.
We left the house around 3:30-4pm. We drove into town, and actually stopped to eat at Subway. I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat if I was admitted, and I wanted to make sure I ate dinner before I had to endure the marathon of labor. I had to breathe through the contractions, but they still were manageable, and I felt more excited and anxious than anything. Once we finished eating, we headed to the hospital, and a huge wave of emotion came over me- this was it! I knew as a first timer, my labor would be long, and I was expecting to meet my son in about 12-14 hours. We arrived at the hospital at 5 pm.
Once we were admitted, I was taken to triage. I was hooked up to the monitors, where the nurse was able to see that I was having obvious contractions every 4 minutes. She monitored me and Kael for about 20 minutes, then finally did an internal exam. At my previous doctor’s visit (March 29th) I was 1 cm and 20% effaced- I was now 3 cm and 75% effaced. The nurse let us know that they would want us to stay, and she began to get our room ready. She looked over our birth plan and followed it exactly. She took me off the monitors, and asked if I wanted to go walk the halls, and we did. We walked up and down, up and down, up and down. The hospital in Kodiak is very small (only 4 birthing rooms!), so we walked up and down the same two hallways over and over again. We finally decided to take a little break, and went into our room. We sat and played a game of Skip-Bo, which I won! I was thankful it ended when it did since the contractions were starting to pick up a little more at that point.
Time began to blur. As the night progressed, so did the contractions. I was determined to have a natural birth, so I used hot showers and the birthing ball to help reduce as much pain as possible. Kevin slept on and off most of the night, which was frustrating for me. I needed his help…his support. I was wishing more than ever we would have invested in a doula. Until roughly 3 am, I held it together. At this point, I was tired. The contractions were coming fast and strong. I would have 3 back to back, and then a 3 minute break. Breathing through them helped, but I was already exhausted. I finally asked the nurse for something. I was given an IV with a low dose of pain medication to help take the edge off of the pain… it didn’t work. I tried sleeping, but every contraction continued to wake me up. At this point I was really beginning to lose it. I was tired, and kept thinking that this was the easy part… I still had to push! The nurse came in again around 5 am and I asked her to check my progress. I was at 6 cm, which meant I was only progressing 1 cm every FOUR hours! That was when I caved. After 21 hours of labor, 12 of which were in the hospital, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I got my epidural at 6 am. It was a battle in my head- I felt like a failure since I wasn’t able to pull it together for the natural birth I wanted, but at the same time the pain was unbelievable.
Things changed so quickly once I received my epidural. The epidural provided instant relief, but I never went completely numb. I was able to move my toes and feel my legs (although they felt heavy) the entire time. Soon after receiving the epidural, the doctor came in and broke my water. They also started me on pitocin to help speed things along. The pitocin only lasted about 5 minutes, because Kael’s heart rate dropped almost immediately. Once things calmed down, I was finally able to sleep for about 3 hours, and felt so refreshed. Kevin and I were able to actually carry on a conversation again. By noon I was fully dilated. Kael was still high up, so they wanted me to “labor down”, meaning just kind of sit around and let the contractions do the work of bringing him down. After an hour, they checked again, and he was still high, so they kept telling me to just wait. At this point, the epidural had worn off. I could once again feel the contractions, and the heaviness I had felt in my legs was gone. The pain was unbearable. I wanted to cry, but tears wouldn’t come out. By 1:30 pm I couldn’t wait anymore… I HAD to start pushing. The pain was bad…really bad! The nurse helped me try out different positions to help relieve some of the pressure, and help bring down Kael. The only position that didn’t make me want to scream was using the squatting bar. After pulling myself up into a squatting position for 45 minutes my arms felt like they were going to give out. They had me start putting my feet up on the squatting bar, and that seemed to work just as well.
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