On Sunday the 18th we went to church and had the usual questions and comments like, 'You still haven't had that baby!' and 'When are you due?'. I just responded that I guess the baby would arrive in God's timing and that it could be anytime. That afternoon Jeff and I finished doing our stuff for our Small Group Study, then I laid down to take a nap before we had to leave. I woke up just before 6:00 pm and it was about time to leave. Jeff said I needed to hurry up or we'd be late. I wasn't really feeling like I wanted to go, but staying home would just make everyone wonder what was going on, besides we were signed up to bring the snack and I had no real good reason to stay home.
I got up and went to use the restroom and get ready to go. While I was in the restroom my water broke. I thought that was an odd thing, but wasn't really sure about it, so I continued getting ready to go, then Jeff asked me to smash his back and while I did that he felt his back get wet. At that point I was sure my water had broken and I told him I didn't think that we would be going to Small Group, because my water had broken and we were going to try to have a baby instead. I hadn't been feeling any contractions so I wasn't in any hurry to go to the hospital. I know the doctors say if your water breaks you need to go to the hospital right away, but I also knew that most first time pregnancies can take a long time for labor and I didn't want to be there forever. I told Jeff to go ahead and take the snack over to our small group and I would get things ready to go to the hospital for when it was time to leave.
While he was gone I started to feel contractions, but they weren't very close together. When Jeff returned from small group he said they were all surprised to see him just come over with snack. They also sent word to me that they would be praying. Our small group leaders wife was a labor and delivery nurse and she told Jeff that we really should be on our way since my water had broken. When Jeff got home he wanted to take a shower before we left, I said fine and that I wanted to take one when he was done. By the time he had finished I didn't want to take a shower anymore as the contractions were getting stronger and uncomfortable. We left shortly after that for the hospital. We got to the hospital around 8:45 pm and I called my parents as we were pulling into the parking lot to let them know they would have a new grandbaby soon.
After we got checked into the hospital and they checked my I was only dilated to a 2, but since the contractions were getting stronger and closer together we knew it wouldn't be too long before we had a baby. I figured that since I was only dilated to 2 that it would probably be a long time before we had a baby. They hooked me up to the monitoring machines and did whatever they are supposed to do when someone comes in. We had our birth plan handy and gave it to the nurses so they would know that we were wanting a natural birth with no medications, etc. My midwife wasn't on call, but she had put in my chart to have them call her when I was close to having the baby.
Jeff had called his parents and they came over to the hospital to be with us. Several of the wives from our small group also came over for a short time, hoping there would be some action. There wasn't much going on except contractions. They were getting pretty uncomfortable. I had dilated to a 5 and I thought for sure I should have been dilated more. Jeff was a great encourager through the hours in labor. I just liked to have him close by.
After several hours of just concentrating on getting through the contractions they checked me again and I was just barely 8 cm. Right after that I started to have the urge to push. The nurses were yelling at me to not push, I needed to be checked to see if I had reached a 10. How can you not push when your body is doing it naturally? I told them I couldn't stop the pushing. My midwife had arrived and they called her and the midwife who was on call to come into the room. I was ready and not too happy about trying to have to keep from pushing. After 40-45 minutes of pushing, we welcomed our baby into the world at 1:58 AM on Monday, April 19th. It was a boy and we were so excited and I was so glad to be done pushing and done with labor.
On a side note: We weren't impressed with the hospital birth. We didn't like the pressure we felt we were under and the nurses yelling at me. The recovery was really hard as well. When we found out we were expecting baby #2 I looked into other birth options, so we could avoid the hospital if possible.
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Love your birth story! Isn't it so distracting when nurses try to tell your body what to do instead of letting it work on its own?!
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