Birth Story Part 1 - Early Labor

Josh co-wrote the brith story. He dictated them to me and I jotted it down. His parts are indicated.
Additionally, fair warning...it's birth!!! Messy and filled with a three letter word called TMI. But don't be a-scared!


Wednesday Morning 6:30am-

Stef: I feel Nathan’s head in my bladder, which I had thought early in that week were contractions and went to the bathroom. When I laid back down, I remember feeling a wave and a cramp. I thought: Hang on! I just peed is this a contraction? Let’s see what happens next. For the next 35 minutes , staring at the clock, I had this reoccurring cramp every 7 minutes. At this point I decided to wake josh. I said, “I think I’m having contractions”

Josh: I thought oh, my god this is it. And I’m not going to work today. I’m going to email my work and tell them I’m not coming in.


7:35am

Stef: I gave our birth doula Jenn a call. I wasn’t close to needing her to come over, but wanted to give her a heads up. I got my MP3 player and started listening to my Birthing Day Affirmations. I was feeling a little apprehensive. The contractions felt like my stomach getting hard and the hardening ending down low into a cramp and tightening a waistband around my lower back and tummy. Josh made me a couple eggs and toast, and I started to time them a bit on contractionmaster.com. They were coming every two to three min apart for like ten minutes. I called my midwife Emily, and she said for us to rest as much as possible. So we went to bed and I listened to my Deepening Track on Hypnobabies which notoriously puts me to sleep every time, this time being no exception. At this point we were anticipating our baby around 7pm Wed.

Josh: The key thing I was thinking about was what everyone was telling us, that you should just rest and that Stefanie should rest as much as possible. And the other thing was that we needed to eat, and protein was necessary, so I made the eggs and toast. So far everything was ideal.


11:00am-2:00pm

Still kinda having a lazy day. Sprinkled with tv, naps and hypnobabies. I’m starting to wonder when the show is going to get on the road. My contractions are about the same as they were all day. I’m also freaked out about the front room being messy. Josh cleans the front room and living room and the kitchen. I come down and feel good about bringing a baby into this clean house. We also put together the hospital bag last minute additions and get Charlie’s dog food packed into his bag. Nathan is still kicking me up a storm. He starts to kick right before a contraction hits. Emily calls us to check in. I ask her if I should go for a walk to get things going. She says that I just should rest because she can see this baby coming at like 3am! She was only off by 14 hours. She instructs me to call her if anything changes. I can’t help but feel she is canceling me out as a false labor girl. So I am determined to get things started. I figure midnight would be better than 3am so we take Charlie for a walk. We get about a half a block before I change my mind a turn back. The contractions aren’t getting any stronger and I’ve heard about women exhausting themselves. We have subway for lunch.



Josh: At this point in my mind we were going to have a baby at 11pm that night. Another thing that our birthing class taught me was that Stefanie would likely want to clean up extensively as we were going into labor and that I should stop her from doing so at all costs. What I should do would be to follow her direction and clean up, much to her delight. As for the walk… It was one of the most beautiful days of the year, sunny high of 60’s, so anytime spent outdoors was welcome.



4:00pm – 9:00pm

We go down for another nap. This was a nice one. Maybe too nice. I wake up and the contractions still aren’t any stronger. They woke me up several times, but mostly I was able to sleep. I get up, and get on the birthing ball and start bouncing. Josh puts on Howl’s Moving Castle. Our doula calls and suggests that we pack it in. We had haiku for dinner. At 9pm we set up a scrabble game in bed. I’m noticing that the contractions are picking up around that time.

Josh: The main thing in my mind was eating and drinking and sleeping as much as possible. I was surprised that things were slowing down. At this point I knew the labor was going longer than expected, but I still thought we’d have a baby at like 4am.

10:00pm – 12:00am
I can no longer concentrate on anything else but the contractions. We put away the game, and I try using some of my hypnobabies techniques. I try using my relaxation cue words: peace and release. I end up chanting/panting those over and over during contractions. We are still trying to “rest” in bed. And this is where officially, the going gets rough. I begin moaning through them, panting. We are timing them. They are coming every 2-3 min lasting a minute long. At this point I really feel like the baby is coming in a matter of hours. But I do remember reading that you don’t push until you are 1min apart between contractions. Most people would have gone to the hospital at this point. But I could barely move or think. I just had to go through these things. I had tunnel vision. I needed the lights to be out. I can’t really remember what josh was up to at this point. I know he was pushing for me to call the doula, but after a full day of nothing happening, I felt like it would be better to let her sleep.

Josh: We def. hit a new phase during our scrabble game in the bed. It’s like what we read about where the contrax aren’t something we can talk through or laugh about. They became intense and had to stop what we were doing when they were happening.

Next up part two - Active Labor