On the evening of Friday, April 24 I started having contractions, which I thought would translate into giving birth on Saturday afternoon, which I thought was odd given that Anna and Will had both started with contractions during the daytime and entered the world in the early dark morning hours. Anyway... Saturday the contractions stopped and I was bummed, though still excited, knowing that we could only be getting closer to the birth.
So Saturday evening it started up again and I employed my Hypnobirthing visualizations to maximize the effect of each contraction/surge. At 12:30 am the contractions were strong enough to wake me up. About 1:00 am I woke Jon up to time them and found they were 4 minutes apart and 1.5 minutes long. So we were farther along than the recommended 5 minutes apart, 1 minute long guideline. Time to call the midwife... Nancy said she'd meet us at the birth center in about 30 minutes. We called Jon's mom to come stay with Anna and Will, got our stuff together, and headed off in the darkness. Fortunately we only live 10 minutes fro the birth center because as we drove the contractions got stronger and I started to get a tingly sensation. I told Jon to hurry. Turning into the birth center, my water broke in the van - I'd had the good sense to sit on a big underpad that caught it and saved the upholstery!
I didn't think I would make it inside the birth center, but Nancy said I had to so I did somehow. Made it back to the first bedroom, lay down on the bed, got my shorts off, and told Nancy and Jon I had to push. Nancy said to try not to push yet since she didn't even have her gloves on yet. So I tried, but Evan was ready for his grand entrance, and Nancy managed to get her gloves on just in time to catch him! Ta da! How exciting!
So much for my vision of trying out the birth tub for relaxation, using the blue room, listening to my Hypnobirthing CD, gazing at my photo of Anna and Will for inspiration... We were there five minutes and had a baby - which was kinda cool and such a relief and really quite comical all at the same time. Evan was born at 2:24 am and we didn't even have a boy's name settled upon, so we had to figure that out. By 7:00 am the nurse told us we could go home when we were ready, which we did after eating bacon, egg and cheese biscuits for breakfast.
Some people have said they couldn't believe I was going to a birth center and midwives, etc, but the funny thing is that I wouldn't have made it to a hospital anyway! And I'm so glad for my choices all along the way through the pregnancy.
1 comment:
What a story! :)
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