Josh:We had a midnight snack. Some leftovers some water, some toast and fruit.
1:00am -3am
Josh sneaks off to call our doula Jenn. The only manageable position is on my knees lying over the birthing ball. Between contractions I would just go limp. I really wanted Josh to time them. It helped me focus knowing how long they were. Plus at this point some were really intense and some were just plain monsters. I had josh write a star next to those.
Josh: This was the toughest time. I think throughout the day I was confused about the contractions, because they clearly started earlier in the day when things were more relaxed they were 8-10 minutes apart, but then they were 4, and here they were 2-3 minutes apart, and I thought this was a direct correlation for the birth happening in a matter of hours. That was one thought I was mistaken about. But then also, I didn’t want to introduce the doula in to the house too soon, for her sake and also I thought it would be more of annoyance to have her here without anything for her to do. But, we clearly hit the point where we could use her help and to help stef get through these things. I basically called the doula and told her to come in when she could, and apologized it was the middle of the night. She said that was fine and she would take it slow and shower first. This was probably the darkest time of the labor. Stef was having trouble dealing with the contractions. She cried at one point, and I knew she could make it through , but I was confused about the timeline mostly. I was confused about the path that this was going to take and that was where I needed help from the doula. I lacked perspective on where this was going.
3:00am -5:00am
The doula arrives. I don’t register her presence. I can’t even manage the strength to look up at her or say hi. She comes over and holds my hand and rubs my back and shoulders. I instantly feel a sense of calming presence. She suggests me and Josh get into bed together and work through them having him comfort me. Looking back this was the darkest point of my labor. The intensity and the length and the not knowing when it will end. It was dark outside. There was nothing to do but just get through them, hour after hour.
Josh: As we approached 3am I was annoyed that the doula was not here yet. I went ahead and called the midwife (the answering service) and when I spoke to Emily, it actually coincided with the knock on the door from the doula, so I gave a quick update on where we were on the midwife and she wanted to talk to the doula so she could get the doula’s perspective. So after we got off the phone, the doula helped by talking to Stefanie and the doula suggested we try to rest still and we didn’t get any rest, but we dealt with the next two hours of contractions in bed. Really the doula’s input at this point didn’t do much but reassure us to keep doing what we’re doing vs run off to the hospital which is what I thought was the next step. She perceived us still okay to labor at home which was the major role that we asked her to provide.
5:00am -5:30
I tell josh that I think it is time to go to the hospital. I wasn’t sure what was driving this thought. They say you will know when to go. It’s not like the pain would stop there, it was more like, I can’t keep this up HERE. “Here” being in this stupid bedroom being pummeled with contractions for the last 7 hours. I needed something to change I think. Jenn comes upstairs (she had been resting on the couch). I’m feeling frustrated. Where’s the baby already?! I have a scheduled appointment with our other midwife Becky at 8am. Jenn suggests that instead of going to the hospital I could go to my appointment and get my cervix checked there. I see 3 horrible hours ahead of me. In my mind, this seems like impossible nonsense. WTF?! Three hours is an eternity, I can’t think that far ahead. And I don’t want to even contemplate three more hours of these contractions. Jenn decided that a nice warm shower would be the trick. It takes me forever to walk down the hall, I keep doubling over with contractions. Josh puts the birthing ball in the tub and I sit on it and let the water run on my back. Jenn brings up grapes and ice cold Gatorade. This was the morale boost that I needed. The birds were starting to sing. I had something sweet to eat. It was nice to get out of the bedroom. Even if the hot water ran out in 20 minutes.
Josh: Well I had known that the doula was resting on the couch, which was good because you know, I would feel weird if she was just hanging out with nothing to do when she might as well sleep. I felt bad like I called her too soon because I thought we were going to the hospital, but after she arrived she saw the situation was okay to be at home. I had thought that she would be meeting us at the hospital, my timeline was still way way off. At 5am, I went down to tell her that stef wanted to go to the hospital and that maybe she should come up. So she spoke to stef and we talked through some ideas and we decided to take it one step at a time and we said for stef to get into the shower. That worked out well, it was right on time, it was a turning point because the new day was starting and the night was ending.
Thursday Morning (12 hours before the birth)
5:30am- 8:20am
Stef: Sun’s coming up the birds are singing and I work through my contractions on my hands and knees downstairs. Josh puts on Futurama (my fav tv show), and I actually laugh at one point. Our doula puts a heat pack on my back to help with the back labor. I’m all but convinced this baby is prosterior (sunny side up in which the face is up and not down where the smallest part of the head is presented first), why else would this be taking so long? We decide to head over to the appointment with the midwife. The drive over was as horrible as expected, so in a way it wasn’t so bad. We were moving forward! In the back of my head I am really worried I will only be 2-3 centimeters. I need it to be 4 to be in active labor. All day yesterday and all last night I hadn’t had any bloody show. So I’m skeptical. I call my mom and sister for familiar voices and support.
Josh: I wanted to keep food in both of our bellies, so I was cutting up fresh fruit and Stef was drinking Gatorade and doing different positions. On the tv we tried a couple different shows, we tried “Life” and then put on futurama and at one point Stef just wanted the tv off. Before we knew it, it was time to go to the appointment. We had all of our bags packed, took our extra pillows and it seemed like a lot of stuff went into the car.
8:20- 10:15am
Stef:Success! I get checked and I am 4-5 cm, and stretchy! 80 percent effaced with a bulging bag of water. Everyone cheers (everyone being doula, midwife (becky), midwife’s assistant and josh)!! The baby looks good on the Doppler during the contrax. Becky turns to me and gives me a pep talk. She says that this is what I’ve worked for, this is something I can do! Because of the bag of water bulging out, she says that she can’t tell if baby is prosterior but that is out of our control, and I need to focus on what I can control. She was an army nurse for years, and I seriously felt like I was in boot camp for a moment. Another morale boost! We are off to the hospital with a tub room secured. As I leave I hear Becky tell our doula not to let me in the tub right away. That is our ace in the hole when the going gets tough. I call my mom and sister to let them know I am on the way to the hospital. We actually have to wait an hour for the room to be cleaned and we check into room #10 at 10:15
Josh: Everything went great at the appointment, we got seen right away, and there was great news at the check. For the first time, we had some clear information about how progress was going. Stef would pause during the appointment as contractions would come and everyone would talk her through it. And then the convo would go on as before. When we left there we knew we would get a tub room because someone was leaving it and we could take our time going to the hospital and so we stopped at McDonalds and met the doula in the lobby and ate and chatted. It was a great morning, sunny and warm and after our breakfast we headed upstairs to check into the room. A nurse took our information, which weren’t too bad but it did take 15 minutes or so and after that we thought we were going to go into the room but it still wasn’t ready, so we had to go into the waiting area for another 45 minutes. At first it was annoying but within a few minutes we settled into a corner with the birthball with the three of us in our own world helping stef through the contractions in the lobby.
In the hospital lobby
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