Logan was born April 1st (his due date) at 6:59 am, weighing 8 lbs, 4 oz and measuring 19 1/2" long
Quick summary - Skipped early labor and went straight to active labor, 10 hours long, med free, went from 1 cm dilated and fully effaced to 10 cm and ready to push in 2 hours, and Logan was born after 10 minutes of pushing.
Two weeks prior - I had been losing chunks of mucus plug, and my BH were getting stronger and more frequent.
3 days prior - I lost two big chunks of mucus plug, I started feeling like the BH's never stopped, and I had an increasing menstrual crampy feeling and crotch pain. I felt like labor could start at any moment, but nothing ever progressed.
March 31st - I'll never know if these contributed to labor beginning, but I went for a massage that included pressure points and a chiropractor adjustment (read somewhere that it helps baby move further down the birth canal). I went for my 40 week OB appointment, and the doctor told me that Logan needed to move down further. I was disheartened, but my sister pointed out that a baby can drop and be born within hours. Was she ever right!!
9 pm - Active labor contractions began. At first, I felt them just in my belly, but as time went on, they wrapped around to my back. I kept reading and rereading my pregnancy book and the handouts I had because I couldn't figure out why, if I was supposed to start with early labor and that was what it was, my contractions already felt like how active labor contractions were described - a charley horse in your uterus. Timing them was a joke - they were too long and too close together. It was all so confusing and frustrating, so I gave up trying to figure out what was going on or timing, and just focused on working with my body.
I insisted that J go to bed, so I labored by myself for 6 hours. I did a lot of visualization, imagining my body opening like a flower (read that somewhere, as corny as it sounds it helped!) and picturing Logan's face, trying to remember that he was the reward for this. I took a few hot showers and focused on breathing.
3 am - I felt like the pain was making it too hard to concentrate on my own anymore. I woke J up to help, and he didn't really understand how serious the situation was, because he told me to come to bed and he would rub my back
At that point, I decided that I needed to know what was going on, so I told him that we were going to the hospital. While he got ready to go, I finished packing our hospital bag.
3:15 am - On the way to the hospital, we started timing my contractions again, and realized that they were 3 minutes apart and 1 minute long. When we arrived, I was placed in an assessment room, and they told me that I had to be monitored for 20 minutes. It hurt so bad to lie still.
Finally I was checked, and the nurse told me that I was fully effaced, but only 1 cm dilated. She said that the effacement needed to happen first, so it was a good thing, but hearing 1 cm for contractions so close together was disappointing. She told me that I needed to be 3 cm in order to be admitted. I had two options - walk the halls for an hour, or go home with pain meds. We chose to walk the halls. Thank goodness we did, because if we had chosen to go home, we probably wouldn't have made it back to L&D in time.
5:20 am - The nurse checked me again, and I was 3 cm dilated, so they started the process of admitting me. My OB came to see me, and told me that I would probably need an hour for each cm from here, and then 2 hours for pushing. I could have killed him.
There were no rooms available, so once again, we played the waiting game. As time crawled on, it felt like the contractions were piling on top of each other, and I was in so much pain that I would lose control with each one. Every time I did, it made things worse.
6:30 am - We were finally moved into my room. We had been there for about 5 minutes when I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to push, and an instinctive knowledge that if I did, I would get relief from the pain of the contractions. It terrified me, because I had read about your body knowing when to push, but I was also afraid that I would start pushing too soon and tear. I paged a nurse, and she said I needed to be checked. Before I could get in bed, another contraction hit, and not pushing during it was SO hard.
A nurse checked me, and announced that I was 10 cm
Things happened fast after that - they told me not to push because we had to wait for my doctor, and I managed to hold out through one contraction, but after that, I was done. My water hadn't broken, and the nurse told me that my doctor would probably have to do it. But with the next contraction, there was a pop.....my OB never made it, and Logan was delivered by nurses after 10 minutes of pushing. I had no tearing.
There definitely is a ring of fire! But as soon as Logan was born, I didn't even think about the pain anymore. J and I were bawling our heads off. He had to be taken away to be suctioned, because when babies come out fast, they don't get the mucus squeezed out of them the way babies do when they are born slower, and he also had meconium is his fluid. Waiting to hold him was so hard.
Everyone at the hospital who heard my birth story told me that with the second baby, I had better get to the hospital as soon as I feel the first twinge
I think my biggest obstacle to achieving my med free birth was that I had a really hard time not thinking negatively. But looking back, I am amazed by what I achieved, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
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Logan Gregory
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