I went into the birthing process thinking that I wanted to have a natural birth, but I was not ruling out the idea of pain
relief. I just decided to wait and see how things went.
Oliver was due on January 12, 2007. When my cervix was checked at 36 weeks I was found to be 3 centimeters dilated already.
My doctor jst assumed that I had lost my mucous plug without noticing and that I could go into labour at any moment. I rushed
home and packed my hospital bag and got the house ready for the new baby.
It was three weeks later when I actually lost my mucous plug and I definitely noticed it. I had another appointment the
next day and was told that the baby would be here, "soon."
Two days later after a painful night I woke my husband up and told him that this was it. We were living with my parents
at the time so I went and woke my mother up. We started timing contractions together. We decided to call the hospital once
the contractions were 5 minutes apart. They told us to come on in and get checked but not to expect to stay, since it was
my first baby.
My husband stopped to get a cup of coffee and some breakfast to go on the way to the hospital, we lived about 25 or 30
minutes from the hospital, but since it was rush hour we were stuck in traffic. I have no idea how long it took us to get
there, I hardly remember the ride at all.
After about 10 minutes they put me in a room to check my cervix and my blood pressure, etc. They were shocked to see that
I was 7 centimeters because I was really staying quite calm at that point. They started to put in an IV (mandatory at that
hospital), which seemed to take forever because I had to be completely still and they were having trouble finding a good vein.
They told me that if I wanted an epidural it was now or never. One of my few clear memories of the whole birth is signing
the paper saying that I didn't want the epidural. The nurses all thought I was crazy.
Soon after that they called the doctor in to break waters so I could start pushing. I was feeling a lot of pressure before
he broke my water, but afterwards I felt nothing. I didn't even really feel my contractions anymore. I just felt like going
to sleep.
They told me to go ahead and start pushing. Since I wasn't feeling the urge to push I just kind of pushed whenever. The
baby's heart rate would go down slightly when I had a contraction so I would just listen to the heart rate monitor and push
when it seemed like I might be having a contraction. It was really weird.
It seemed like I pushed forever. I can remember saying several times that I couldn't do it anymore and my mom and the nurses
were very encouraging to me. I can remember the intense burning as the baby's head crowned and then all of the sudden there
he was.
