Thursday at 10am, the Certified Nurse Midwife came to my house and broke my water. No going back. If I wasn't in labor by the next morning it was off to the hospital with pitocin. **BLECH**!
We tried about 5 different things to put me into labor all day...no dice. Finally, at 3pm I consented to 3 doses (an hour apart) of caster oil. I have significant digestive pains regularly -- and they're worse when I'm pregnant. Putting myself in that pain with the idea of contractions on top of them...sounded absolutely gruesome -- but not as gruesome as a hospital pit-drip birth (I had one of those with Dd#1...it was a very bad experience).
I took my 3rd dose at 5:45 and the midwife went to dinner (with my permission and promise to call if things got rolling fast). My first contraction started at 6:10. The midwife called at 6:15 to ask how I was doing and see if she should cancel her food order. No, stay, we've got a while. I spent the next hour on the potty in serious pain. (It wasn't worse pain than I had imagined, but definately just as bad as I'd feared.) My contractions were coming fast, but were short and I really thought we had lots of hours of this when she called at 7:30 to say she was on her way and check on me. As soon as I hung up the phone I got into some seriously painful contractions. At this time I was laying on my bed begging her to hurry (in my head). Dd#1 layed next to me and held my hand and Dd#2 quietly came in and out. Dave and Julie helped me where they could and I just tried to get through each one. I was waiting to get into the birthing tub until things got pretty bad because the best relief comes in the 1st hour you're in the tub and I didn't want to waste that relief on easier contractions.
The midwife got there possibly 15 minutes later and everyone worked like mad to get the temperature right in the tub we rented for pain relief (and I was sure ready for some relief). I had my eyes closed and could just hear what was going on. They got me in the tub and although the contractions were pretty horrible, I could relax between them in the water. I eventually had a hard time holding myself up in the water between contractions, so Dave got in with me to help me. The midwife wasn't checking me, only the baby's heartbeat (I yelled at her each time she touched my stomach -- she said she was used to it). I remember Dave asking her how she would know when it was time to push. She said "Jenn will know." At 8:45 I felt my body pushing HARD and thought to myself "it isn't time, yet," but I couldn't help it. 2 more contractions and hard pushes later our wonderful (he was quite less than beautiful) baby was born.
The labor was 2 1/2 hours. I don't recover as well from fast labors and a week later am still waiting to feel up to walking across the house, let alone wanting to leave the house. I'm usually raring to go out by day 3 after labor...but not this time (or with Dd#2 whose labor was 2 hrs 9 min.)
This was the most painful (non-pit-drip) labor I've ever had -- and the most wonderful birth experience I've ever had. He was SERIOUSLY blechy looking when he was born -- vernix everywhere, bruised so much he was blue from coming out too fast (I probably wasn't completely dialiated with that first push and pushed him past, anyway.) Then he tured beat
red as the umbilical cord has to stop pulsating before they clamp it so he starts with lots more blood volume. The red and blue together -- made him purple. That was my rainbow baby's home birth. They took pictures (I couldn't BELIEVE they did that!) and they are SERIOUSLY disgusting. So I'll just show you one.
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