Birth story

Here it is, part of it is my husband's words and some of it from me. Enjoy!!!

Baby Virginia arrived Saturday, October 10th at 11:04am. (just 11 hours after her due date passed, and yes we made the special eggplant parm) She is a beautiful 7 lb. 10oz, 21.5 inch baby girl. Labor started Thursday evening at 6:30pm with contractions lasting about 45 seconds every 1-2 minutes and they continued this way most of the night. 30mins after contractions started I started to see my mucus plug and some bloody show- it was really cool to have all this happen since we'd spent weeks learning about it. We couldn't believe how close the contractions were together this early on and how long they were already lasting. We only had a few hours of contactions that were spaced out farther. We labored all through night until about 8 Friday morning or so when the contractions subsided a bit. DH stayed home from work to be with me and prepare for what the next night had in store. Contractions started picking back up around 11pm or so (although they never stopped) on Friday night forcing us to try to find somewhere to lay down a bit and perhaps rest besides the bed. I could not lie in bed or even sit on almost anything, not even the birth ball, too much pressure. We ended up downstairs and dozed (I think) for a bit until the contractions became strong enough to ward of the possibility of getting any sleep. DH didn't really start timing this set of contractions until my water broke around 7:45 Saturday morning. We'd timed them many times earlier but gave ourselves a break for a bit. Thinking that we didn't have to rush to the hospital, we stayed and labored at the house until just after 10 or so. Contractions were lasting from 1 minute 20secs to 1 minute and 45secs and coming less than 2 mins apart. We timed them and had them this way for about an hour when we decided to try the tub to see if that would relax me a bit to no avail. I could hardly take being in the tub at this point- no position was good. I finally looked up at DH and told him we HAD to go to the hospital. He said he now realizes these were my "transition eyes." I stayed upstairs laboring while DH packed the car and we left to go have our baby. I was still in transition, but was slowly moving to second stage as the overwhelming urge to push began just before I got in our car and continud the whole car ride. I didn't tell DH that I was already feeling like I had to push because I was afraid of the car ride and how crazy he'd drive if he knew that. We had learned that when you have the overwhelming urge to push you're about to have the baby. I was in the backseat draped over the headrests of the backseat. I honestly thought I might have the baby in the car. I litterally had to keep my legs together. We arrived at the hospital around 10:20-10:30 Saturday morning with my contractions becoming overwhelming. The nurse escorted us to our room and told me to strip now and get in the bed so they could check me once she saw me go through a contraction on my own. At first they were like "so, what's going on"........and then she saw me and my contraction. Honestly, DH thought I would be dilated to about 6 centimeters or so and I was really thinking if were weren't close to having a baby that I didn't know if I could continue. (It had been 40some hours and I felt like I needed to push bad) The nurse looked at DH incredulously when he told her that our water broke around 8am or so- they asked so we told them. She checked me and said, "You are having this baby now. You are 9.5 centimeters dilated!" WOW!! Obviously, too late for any drugs which was perfect for our plan. We had no idea that our water would break and 2.5 hours later we'd be having a baby. DH said he was in awe of me going to work in pushing 4 times each contraction to deliver our baby 35 minutes later. The nursing team was great and guided me through the pushing just like our bradley birth teacher taught us. We used 4 pushes each time to keep the baby coming and move things along. It was hard but the breaks in between helped and knowing she was almost here was my saving grace. DH said it was "absolutely incredible!" We also remembered the "slow and controlled pushing" to be sure the shoulders come out one at a time to avoid any serious tearing and it paid off- no tearing. The doctor even said to do slow and contolled pushing at that point! I will have to say that the nurses and our doctor were fantastic! We got one of our favorite doctors for the delivery and he made it fun. He's got a great sense of humor and was funny throughout. :) At one point the baby's head slipped back into me and he jokingly told DH that it looked like the baby wasn't coming today. -He was totally kidding! They both laughed. :) So we were thrilled with the nurses and our doctor. We had 4 nurses in our room due to the quickness of everything happening!!! It was like a movie- filled with excitement all around! They were all so great, supportive and in line with what we'd learned, DH said he began to think that they actually read the Bradley book. So much of their advice correlated with everything we learned and what we were trying to do to have our "ideal" pregnancy and delivery. Everyone has said that Virginia was so alert when born and her apgar scores clearly showed that! We are so happy!

We're learning more and more each day and taking it one day at a time.