Crew's Birth: A natural birth story.

On Saturday, August 25th Curtis came home early from hunting. I think he felt bad that I was so pregnant and depressed, he hadn't seen anything either and I think that contributed. I was so glad he was home, it always makes life better when he's around. I had some travel size deodorant that I wanted to take over to one of the ladies that I visit teach. (She's totally into preparedness and said she could use them for her 72 hour kits for her family.) So I talked Curtis into going walking with me to start labor and we'd stop by her house to drop those off. We walked for maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes and stopped by her house to chat. I contracted the whole time, as I always did when I walked. We went back home and they went back to coming and going occasionally like they had been for the last couple of months.

Later that night I talked Curtis into going walking again at 8:15 Contractions were coming every two minutes and lasting 30 seconds. We kept walking trying to see if they'd keep coming, by the end of our walk I had to start slowing down during a contraction. When we got home we stopped by our cousin Lonni's house across the street to see what she thought. (I'd never gone into labor on my own before and she's had 5 kids) We sat and visited with them and she told me she'd wait for another hour to see if they keep coming for two hours consistently. After we got done visiting with them we went home and decided to pack our bags just in case. At about ten thirty we decided to head to the hospital to have them check me to see if I was in labor for sure. (I called earlier and they told me I was welcome to come in and they'd check me.) First we stopped at Walmart to get some snacks for ourselves during labor and our hospital stay. My contractions were a little more intense while we were there. I almost felt a little awkward being in labor at Walmart.

We had to drive a half hour to Roosevelt to our hospital and we got checked in at about midnight. The nurse was awesome and so willing to work with me. she took me into a room and checked me and I was at a 2 1/2, I had only been at a 1 at my last doctor's appointment so I was glad that I actually made progress. That was more then I could say for my labor with Sophie. She tested me to see if my water had broke and she said that it had. I was surprised because it was nothing like when my water broke with Sophie, I thought it must have been a slow leak because the baby's head was so low because with Sophie it was a huge gush. It did give me hope though that I knew this was the real thing. She told me she'd have to admit me and I told her I wanted to labor at my friend Carrie's house because I had a bad experience with my nurse with Sophie and I felt like laboring at the hospital so long contributed to me having a medicated labor. She said she'd call Dr. Williams and see what he said. She came back and said that he told her that was fine and just to tell me about the risks of infection (that I already knew about, I do my research) I told her I knew the risks and I was just a few blocks away and I told her if anything crazy happened we'd be right back there. She was very sweet and concerned and told me she hoped she'd see me back before her shift ended at 6:00 am. I told her I hoped the same thing but not to plan on it based on the length of my labor with Sophie.

We got to Carrie's house at about 2:00 am, Curtis and I slept on her couch for a few hours. Her dumb cat woke me up at about 4:00 am I think, I thought it was someone knocking on her window but apparently when her cat jumps up onto the fence it knocks something into the window. I was paranoid thinking we had a crazy outside. After that I couldn't sleep anymore, I was a little worried because it seemed like my contractions were slowing down and I didn't want that to happen. Carrie came out a little later and went walking down her street with me while Curtis caught up on some sleep. She timed my contractions for me, they were still like 2 minutes apart but 45-50 seconds apart. We got back to the house and hung out for a bit, then my contractions started to become more intense, I had to breathe through them at this point. Carrie helped me by putting counter pressure on my back and squeezing my hips inward while I was on all fours. When the contractions got a little bit harder Curtis got up to help me through them. When I would have a contractions I would put my arms around Curtis' neck and hang on him breathing through them. We did this for a while until I decided to get into the shower to see if that would give me comfort. I did this until the water ran cold and then had some pretty strong contractions and I needed to get out. Carrie sat outside the shower to time my contractions. At this point I decided I wanted to go to the hospital, it may have been a little early based on the Bradley method but I knew they had more means of comfort there like the labor ball and unlimited hot water.

The ride to the hospital was very uncomfortable just as I had imagined, (this is why I wanted to labor at Carrie's house who lived a few blocks from the hospital rather than my house a half hour away.) Contractions were almost unbearable driving, every bump we hit felt like it was going to kill me. We got to the hospital and I had a contraction right outside the car, we went to check in and I had a contraction at the registration desk, went to the bathroom on the way to L & D and had a contraction in the bathroom (I thought I might die there too. These weren't the worst contractions but sitting or bending during a contraction was almost unbearable.) Then I had a contraction at the door waiting for them to unlock it and finally another one as we walked through the door of our room. We got to the hospital at about 6:30 right after the shift change. My new nurse came in and told me she was going to give me an I.V. and I told her I didn't want one. She didn't like that very much but I had already talked to my doctor about this and knew I didn't have to have one. She went out and came back in and said Dr. Williams said I didn't have to be hooked up but I had to have the I.V. block in my hand in case there was an emergency so they could hook me up right away. I told her I didn't have to have it and I would sign whatever waiver she wanted me to sign but I didn't want it. I knew she was lying about me needing it anyway because I had gone over this with my doctor from the beginning so it irritated me that she tried to tell me that. A few minutes later my doctor came in and told me it was perfectly fine and just told me the risks so I was aware but told me I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to. haha. I didn't just do this to make it difficult for the nurses, I just knew I had to concentrate on relaxation and I knew an I.V. was unnecessary and would only be an irritation and a distraction from that. Later my nurse came back and told me she didn't want that to be a source of contention for us and I told her I felt the same way and we were good after that. It concerned me because I felt like I was headed for the same problems with her as I had with my nurse with Sophie but that was really our only disagreement, and she was wonderful after that.

The nurse checked me and I was at a 4! I was so excited because that was way more progress than I made in my labor with Sophie, I kept getting pleasantly surprised and was never discouraged because I was expecting it to be worse the entire time. At this point the nurse felt a bulge and told me that in fact my water hadn't broke and it must have been a small leak in my amniotic fluid that set off the test before. I was kind of glad to hear this because my contractions with Sophie were much more painful with my water broken. We decided to walk around and go to the front of the building by the fish tanks and keep up and walking in order to help things along. During contractions I continued to lean on Curtis and sway my hips. We eventually made it back to my room and decided to sit on the birthing ball. That was really uncomfortable, but I think the initial moment of sitting down helped the baby move down. We tried a technique that my cousin Lonni text us with me squeezing wash cloths and Curtis putting counter pressure on my knees. We did this through two contractions and I wasn't having any more of that. Up until this point contractions weren't too terrible, just the occasional trying something new and failing that made it much more uncomfortable. Finally we decided to try the relaxation method from the Bradley book. This helped a ton! I got in the laying position they suggested and breathed through the contractions and I was doing well. When the contractions bumped up in intensity Curtis would talk me through contractions reminding me to relax my face and pointing our parts of my body that he noticed were tense and that I needed to focus on relaxing, and Carrie would tell me when my contraction was about to end or when the next one was about 30 seconds out so I could begin to prepare relaxing when it came on, that was so helpful. In between contractions we would joke around, Carrie generally made fun of me, but it always made me laugh. This was a huge reason I asked to have her there, I knew she was task oriented and would make sure we stayed on track and I knew she would keep the mood light. It was a nice change from last time. The nurse came in and checked me and I was at a 7. I was really surprised with how consistent my progress was.

At this point contractions were getting pretty intense to the point where if Curtis and Carrie got talking too much it was irritating because I needed complete silence in order to control my relaxation. We worked through them one by one and the became like 75 seconds long and 90 seconds apart. I jumped in the shower when I felt like relaxing wasn't giving me anymore comfort and I realized that that wouldn't work either. I used the handheld shower head on my belly and that seemed to help a tiny bit but I started to panic and hollered for Curtis to help me and he came and put pressure on my back, when he did, since I was trying to spray my belly I accidentally sprayed him. haha. I felt so bad and kept apologizing and he kept telling me not to worry about it. After 2-3 contractions in the shower I realized it wasn't really helping and it was just making it more difficult for Curtis to help me so I got out. Curtis helped me dry off and get dressed and I walked back into my room and started to have another contraction so I ran to the sink to lean on it and it turned on. (it was automatic) It scared the crap out of me and I swore, then I realized what happened and leaned back down to finish working through the contraction, it kept turning on and off, it was making me so upset that Carrie couldn't contain herself and she started to laugh and I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it was. I felt like I had to poop so I went in and sat on the toilet but felt like I couldn't, Curtis leaned out and told Carrie that we were getting close, he kept track of all the signs and was very observant. I had a contraction on the toilet that was unbearable and everyone starting freaking out because of my reaction thinking I was having the baby on the toilet and the nurse yelled in, "don't push, we don't want to have a baby in the toilet", I came out and the nurse said let me check you and I told her, I don't think it's time, I'm not feeling an urge to push so she said ok and left. I had about 3 more contractions before I could get laid down in bed again one of which I was leaning on Curtis and felt like I was going to throw up and they grabbed a bucket for me, and I thought I was heaving, turns out it was my first pushing contraction and I didn't understand what it was. It was the EXACT sensation of throwing up as far as your whole body tensing up without you having any control over it except instead of trying to push stuff out of your mouth, it's trying to push your baby out. It was this point when I started to tell them that I needed something for the pain. The nurse came back in and I asked her to check me when she did, she hadn't finished before she said oops, and I said what? She said I accidentally broke your water and as soon as she pulled her hand out there was water gushing everywhere, and she never told me what I was dilated to. I kept telling them I needed something and the nurse asked if it was the pain talking and I said yes. She just laughed at me, I didn't realize that was the wrong answer... I thought she was being a jerk because at this point I thought I might die, I had another pushing contraction. The pushing contractions were what scared me, they were so intense that I had absolutely no control over my body and I was not expecting that sensation at all. This whole time I thought I was acting like I was possessed because the intensity was so strong in my head, Curtis said I did so good and that it was not near as dramatic in real life as I thought it was. I seriously thought I was convulsing and terrifying everyone around me, that's how little control I had over my body, it really does just take over and do it's thing at the end. Looking back it really wasn't that bad, it just wasn't what I expected so it scared me. (All of this time from when she accidentally broke my water til the time the baby was born was maybe only 10 minutes but it takes much longer to explain because of all the chaos in my head.) I told Curtis I needed help, it was impossible to relax to help with the pain and I was starting to let my breathing get away from me and I was starting to hyperventilate. Curtis was so awesome and noticed what I needed right away and started breathing deep and slow trying to coach me to breath with him and I really needed that. While I was asking for help Carrie kept telling me you're almost there, they're setting up for delivery right now. Curtis said I was pushing as the doctor was getting dressed. The doctor went to check me and the baby's head was right there. The doctor told me there was meconium, this made me afraid for the baby because I know it can be serious. They told me to hold my legs back and I told them I couldn't I was so overwhelmed. With Carrie and Curtis each holding my hands I had 3 pushing contractions and Crew was out! He was born at 12:05 pm, 16 hours after my first contractions were regular. They put him immediately on my belly and he was blue, he cried right away and it was a sad little cry. Curtis kept saying that he was so dang cute and had a little tear in his eye, I love that. Carrie kept saying you are way more of a stud than me, haha. I made Curtis give me five for what I accomplished.

Crew was having a little bit of a hard time breathing from the meconium so they took him to a little crib next to me and pounded on his back trying to get him to breathe better and they suctioned his stomach out and put him on oxygen. He pinked up really fast and they gave him to me to hold. He was so cute right away. I kept saying how small he was and everyone else in the room said that he looked big to them. They weighed him at 7 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches long, most of the nurses thought he'd be over 8 pounds. They asked if it was ok to take him into the nursery and put him on some oxygen and watch him for a bit just to make sure everything was ok, I told them that was fine and they took him. After that the nurse came in to massage my uterus to try and get it started to go back into size, those contractions were painful. After she got done doing that every 15 minutes and then every 30 I got up and got showered. The nurses seemed to be surprised that I was up and at it so soon, but I felt so much better not being pregnant anymore.

Curtis and I both agree that Crew's birth was a much better experience than Sophie's even without the epidural. A huge part of that was my doctor and nurses, I had the best doctor ever! He is the most understanding gentle man I have ever met in my life and he doesn't have a complex thinking that he knows everything. My nurse was great and went along with my plans even when I didn't really want to anymore haha, if I would have known that the worst part was as short as it was I probably wouldn't have been as concerned. They try so hard to make things as nice as possible for their patients and that made a huge difference for me. I wasn't completely convinced when I went into labor that I still wanted to even try to have a natural birth but I had great coaches, I'm so glad Carrie was there to help relieve some pain and keep some humor in the room she was so attentive and asked great questions in order to find out what I needed and that was so helpful, and I could never have done it without Curtis. He read the Bradley method book with me and watched for cues of where my labor was and encouraged me to keep going and helped keep me comfortable. I'm so grateful to him for that. We're so glad to have this little guy around, he is such a sweetheart. Sophie is the best big sister ever and she'll sneak kisses on his forehead and hug him and tell him she loves him when she thinks we aren't watching, it's too cute.