Edith’s Birth Story: Part 1

It all started on June 8, 2012…

Sunday, after a lazy morning, Neil and I headed over to the Ethan Allen Homestead to walk the nature paths and enjoy the beautiful weather. While we were there I thought that I might be having contractions about 10-20 minutes apart.  I wasn’t sure if they were real contractions or just Braxton Hicks. I also didn’t want to get myself excited just to find out I was having false labor so I just took note of how I was feeling but didn’t think too much about it or say anything to Neil.

We headed home from our walk and I worked on a new recipe for a freelance assignment while Neil went for a run.  We ate and then I worked on blog posts while watching a few episodes of Breakout Kings on Netflix.  Around 8pm I started to feel uncomfortable but was still not positive that what I was feeling were real contractions so I kept working on posts and we watched another episode of Breakout Kings.

At 9pm I decided that maybe these contractions were the real deal so I asked Neil if he wanted to go for a walk with me (I still hadn’t told him that I suspected I might be in labor).  We went for a brisk mile long walk and that’s when I finally decided to tell Neil that I thought I might be having real contractions.  We returned home and watched one more episode of Breakout Kings and I labored on the birthing ball for awhile.  I also apparently started to write a blog post but didn’t make it too far (see below):

I’m honestly awful at this whole tracking contractions thing but around 8pm tonight they started- at first I wasn’t sure but it seems that they have become more consistent and a little bit stronger as the night goes on. I thought I was experiencing some earlier today on our walk through the homestead and I might just be right. We will see!

At 10pm I was super hungry and really wanted a bagel with Tofutti so Neil headed out to the grocery store down the road to pick up Earth Balance and Tofutti for our bagels.  I contacted our doula, Sarah, to let her know what was going on and she said it sounded like I was probably in early labor and to eat, drink and go to bed.  So that is exactly what I did.  I had a bagel with tofutti and bottle of water and went to sleep around 11pm.

I was able to sleep for about an hour but was then woken up by more intense contractions. Neil (who was too excited to really fall asleep) helped me to track the contractions on his iPhone. At midnight my contractions were around 4.5-5 minutes apart.  I labored on hands and knees for awhile and tried the birthing ball again but wasn’t really feeling it.

(At some point here I asked Neil if he had ordered our CSA and when he said he hadn’t I told him that we needed to – so here I am laboring and all I can think about is the fact that we needed to pick our produce for our CSA.)

The intensity of contractions quickly progressed and I continued to labor on hands and knees until 2am. At 2am I decided that I wanted to take a shower and after showering my contractions were around 3.5 minutes apart and getting more intense.  At this point we decided to call Sarah and have her come over to our house, however, minutes after hanging up with her we decided to call the Birthing Center to let them know what was going on and they said since we lived 75 minutes away that we should just head there.  We called Sarah back and told her to head directly to the Birthing Center.  We grabbed a few last minute items, fed the cat and we were on our way, leaving the house around 3am.

We got in the car put on City and Colour and started the 75 minutes drive to the Birthing Center.  During the entire drive I was having contractions  about 3.5 minutes apart.  The drive down however wasn’t as awful as I thought it might have been, I had enough room to move slightly during contractions and the roads were clear due to how early it was.  I even found myself singing along to the music with Neil in between each contraction.  I snacked on a few Clif Shot Blocks and sipped my water the entire ride, knowing that I was going to need to stay hydrated and fueled for the upcoming events.

We arrived at the Birthing Center around 4:30am and I was taken to the monitoring room to get hooked up on the monitor for 30 minutes.  Sarah arrived a few minutes later and we filled her in on how things were going while I was on the monitor and waiting to be checked. After about 25 minutes I was checked and was 4+ centimeters dilated and 80% effaced, which meant I could stay but unfortunately I still had to be on the monitor because they hadn’t yet had the three 15 second heart rate increases from baby. At this point being confined to the bed was the hardest part yet and I was anxious for they to get all they needed from the monitor so I could move around.

Since I was far along enough to stay they decided to move me to a birthing room and continue to monitor from there. It was about 45 minutes later that they finally got they results they needed for me to be taken off the monitor and move around.

To be continued…