You know what its like to have menstrual cramps...well that's what it feels like in the beginning. They start and stop sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few minutes. They are around your whole lower belly area and just feel like cramps coming and going. After a while they come more frequently and they feel a bit stronger. My initial contractions lasted more than 24 hours. They were strong enough to be painful so I couldn't rest or sleep because they'd keep me up but they were not close enough together to go in to the hospital yet. This was annoying. I was exhausted, mad, frustrated and I just wanted it to be over with, the painful cramping that is.
After a while of this, they finally told me to come in to the hospital, only to be told when I got there that I wasn't dilated enough, and to go home and come back later. How do you tell a hormonal emotionally a mess woman this?! Needless to say, I was NOT happy about this. My husband was awesome through this whole thing though - we went in at 2am only to be sent home at 6am. He was supportive and kept me sane through this whole thing. So we went home.
When your water breaks, it is NOT like in the movies or on TV. There is no huge puddle on the floor under you. There is a bit of water that comes out yes, but nothing that your underwear or clothes can't absorb before you realize what happened and can get to the bathroom. This was my ticket (back) in to the delivery room. ( I was diagnosed positive with group b strep, an infection that some women carry in their genital area, which is no big deal and many women have it in one pregnancy and not another. Once your water breaks you need to go to the hospital and get treated with antibiotics to make sure the baby doesn't get it.) So like I said, this was my ticket in to the hospital.
I think my husband wanted to speed and get pulled over and tell the officer that I was in labor, because this is the only time they'd let you go for speeding - or so the movies say.... but he really was motivated by my pain and constant whining about it to get to the hospital as speedily and safely as possible. So no he did not speed and did not get pulled over.
The contractions were coming faster and closer together now and I was trying to breathe like they talked about in the class we took (which was a joke, more on that later). Well it is really hard to breathe slow and calm when you're in pain! I was breathing fast and short and well, I was going to hyperventilate at any moment. My husband was awesome, as usual, telling me to breathe slowly, in through the nose and out through the mouth. I wanted to punch him, and thank him all at once. Hormones can do that....
Once admitted I was dilated to 5 cm, so they hooked me up to the monitors and began the epidural. Yes I opted for the epidural. I'm not ashamed, I have nothing to prove to anyone. I wanted the pain to go away. I think my husband wanted me to do it without any drugs just so he could tell people how amazing his wife was, giving birth with no drugs...again I have nothing to prove to anyone, and he wasn't feeling the pain. So this was tricky...they were going to stick a giant needle in my spine and I had to stay absolutely still...um, but I was still having these things called contractions every few minutes. This was probably the hardest part about giving birth honestly. Once the drugs kicked in the birth was no big deal!
So the epidural is in and they tell me to go to sleep for a few hours (it was 11:30pm) and they'd check back in on my at 5am. Um, WHA? Ok, you don't have to tell me twice to take a nap because I'm exhausted... but I thought that this whole birth thing was kinda underway now that my water broke no? Before the midwife steps out, she checks me one last time and says "oh, you're dilated to 10cm, we're ready to have this baby!" Wait, now? I thought you said I could take a nap? Nope, no napping.
So pushing. It's like you're trying to push out a poop. But no one tells you this. No one tells you how to push the baby out, they just say 'push.' Push what? Well I had no idea what I was doing but I guess I was good at it, or at least the nurse kept saying that. So this went on for half an hour and I was well kind of getting bored and anxious to see the new member of my family, so I asked how long this was going to go on like this, and the answer was several hours! Whoa... Luckily for me it only lasted 45 minutes.
This whole experience was really amazing. I was so curious about how the baby was actually going to come out of me that they had a mirror so I could watch our daughter being born. (It sounds weird saying that now, but I'm glad I did it) Just make sure that once the baby is out, you tell them to remove the mirror. You don't need to see all the blood and placenta that comes out after....and besides, you are so preoccupied with your new little bundle of joy that it doesn't matter what happens down there.
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