When I had very first gotten pregnant I remember being really nervous and almost in dread of two things. The first was that my water would break in a public place and the second was the big D Day. I remember telling a coworker that I wanted as many drugs as they could pump into me because I didn’t want to feel any pain. Then about halfway through my pregnancy I had to switch doctors because my regular gyno who I had seen up to that point no longer was delivering babies, so she gave me a couple referrals. There were a couple doctors and a group of midwives. I was thinking what most people think about midwives which are that they are only for home births or water births and I did not want to do either of those. So I talked to some friends and found out that certified nurse midwives have just as much schooling and in a lot of cases more experience, than OB’s. So I did a little research online and I watched “The Business of Being Born” (which I highly recommend to any and all pregnant women) and so I set my first appointment with the midwives. I say midwives because there was a team of about 4 or 5 of them and every appointment you got to meet a new one that way you were comfortable with whomever you delivered with. I loved them; they were so supportive, knowledgeable and patient with my endless lists of questions. As my pregnancy went on I leaned more and more toward going the natural route. Everybody said I couldn’t do it or would laugh or snicker when I said I didn’t want any drugs. I could hear their thoughts “This naïve little girl has no idea what it feels like! She’ll be begging for meds in no time!”But I was determined. I read the Hypnobabies book; I did not do the program however. This book is great; it starts off with a history of labor and delivery and how women that didn’t know it was supposed to hurt just popped their baby’s right out. It also gives a great pep talk about how God made our bodies to do this; again I would recommend this to woman regardless of whether or not you are planning on going all natural. I decided to not get an epidural because I did not want to labor lying down, nor did I want a catheter. I would have gone crazy having to just lay there. I am also not a fan of needles and so the thought of one going into my back terrified me way more than dealing with the pain of not having one. Ok on to the good stuff.
My original due date was November 1, 2009. For some reason when I started seeing the midwives my due date got switched to the 4th and I never did find out why. I was still working and every day I came in that week my coworkers would make jokes about how they’re losing money on me because they had taken bets on which day I would go into labor. On November 5th I went to work just like normal and felt completely fine. At about 10:30 AM I started to feel a little weird but I just kept on working. Levi and me had plans to go out to the Glockenspiel in Mt Angel for dinner and he called about 11:30 AM to say that we should go to lunch (I had been working 8 hrs but this week I decided to take it a little easier and get off at 1) instead since it was cheaper. I told him we probably wouldn’t be doing either so not to worry about it. I had gone to the bathroom a couple times that morning and thought that maybe my water had broken and then by 12:30 I decided I should head home but not before stopping and depositing my check of course. ;) I called Levi and let him know that I was leaving work and that he should to since he’s a half hour away. He stopped on the way home to help a lady from work move her couch (really Levi, really!?) and got home around 1:30. I was trying really hard to time my contractions but I couldn’t figure it out or maybe they were just all over the place. We decided that now would be a good time to pack and then Levi called into the midwives to see whether they thought we should go in or not. They said it would be a good idea since I thought my water had broken and it was probably not so we would most likely just be going right home.
We left for the Salem Hospital at about 3 pm just dreading it since we thought they would send us home. By 3:30 I was laying on a bed in a maternity triage room. The nurse hooked me up to the monitors and a little later swabbed to see if my water had broken. We had to listen to this lady complain about how she was really mad that she was going into early labor while they were supposed to be hunting. And the guy kept farting, seriously! We hadn’t seen the nurse in a very long time and my contractions were getting pretty intense. I started crying because I was so frustrated about listening to the dumb lady and her tooty husband, being on a horribly uncomfortable bed and not having anyone check on us in a long time. Finally the nurse comes back, says my water didn’t break, and that the babies heart rate looks great. She decided to check my cervix before throwing us out and to everyone’s surprise I was already 5-6 cm dilated. I was sooooo ecstatic that I wasn’t going to be leaving without a sweet baby girl in my arms! At about 5 pm we were transferred to a birthing room.
I was so happy, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was just a couple hours away from meeting my baby! Levi had left all of our stuff in the car so he had to run down to grab the camera and something to eat while he had a chance. They opened up an IV site just in case there were any emergencies but I was not hooked up to anything. They allowed me to drink some broth and eat jello, I didn’t care anything was fine, I was so hungry but yet I would not have been able to eat anything substantial. I right away got in the Jacuzzi tub and immediately felt so much better. It wasn’t until that moment that I understood why women give birth in water, it felt so good. I felt so light and the contractions weren’t as uncomfortable. I remember Levi making some comment about floaties in the water; that guy can make me laugh even during labor! So at 7:45 pm Lenny (the only midwife I hadn’t met, go figure!) walks in to check on me and says I’m 8 cm and 0 station and to just keep doing whatever I was doing because it was working great. She said all the nurses just couldn’t believe how fast I was coming along for a first-time pregnancy and how happy I was. I bounced on an exercise ball for a while and then decided to get back in the tub as my contractions were getting more painful. Every hour or so they would have to hook me up to the monitors just to make sure both of our heart rates were good. I’m going to have to have a talk with the mister before our next baby because he would watch the monitor (it shows the waves of contractions) and say things like “Oh geez, this is a super bad one!”or “Oh that one must have hurt bad!”
We had originally decided that it would just be Levi and me when the baby was born but Levi texted everyone earlier in the evening. My mom (the others had to wait in the lobby) arrived at some point and I was glad she was there; I needed all the encouragement I could get. Although I did have to ask her to spit out her cinnamon gum because it was making me super nauseous. At 9:10 pm Lenny came back in to check on me and I was 9 cm and still smiling. My water hadn’t broken yet so we decided that she should go ahead and pop it. Wow, that was a weird feeling! I will never mistake my water breaking again. By 9:35 pm I was full dilated and at 9:40 I started pushing. This is where my smile faded and I was just ready to get this baby out of me. They kept saying that they could see a head covered in lots of dark hair and that it would go back in a little bit in between pushing. I remember that that irritated me. It was hard at first to get the whole pushing thing down but I finally got into the rhythm. I remember thinking right when the next contraction was starting that I needed just a couple more minutes and maybe if I didn’t tell everyone that I was starting a contraction that I could just skip pushing this time. But then I would remember that they all knew when my contractions were since I was hooked up to the monitors. I kept expecting to feel “the ring of fire” but I never did. I did feel a lot of pressure and pain with the contractions though.
Claire Elizabeth Fergus was born at 10:27 pm. They threw this little purple, gooey, slimy creature on my chest and I immediately fell in love. I had never laid eyes on someone so beautiful. She had a full head of dark hair and the most beautiful skin. She weighed in at 8 lbs 8.5 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. She received a 9 on the apgar scale and couldn’t have been any healthier. As soon as she popped out, my smile was back and I couldn’t stop smiling even if I had tried. I don’t even remember delivering the placenta. I had torn pretty badly and it took about 30-45 minutes to get all sewn up. I kept expecting it to hurt but I didn’t feel anything down there (endorphins are awesome painkillers!); I guess I was a little too preoccupied. The next day and a half in the hospital was a blur of visitors, good food, and checkups. I can honestly say that next to my wedding day this was the best day of my life.
I guess I wasn’t prepared for the aftermath of a baby. Everyone said you would bleed but I had no idea how much it would be. That part of the whole experience shocked me the most and how sore I was down there for weeks, I had no idea it would be that bad. I would go through 5 more natural births if it meant not having to deal with the aftermath.
I was so glad that I chose to not have painkillers. It was so nice to be able to just get up and walk to the bathroom afterwards, feel coherent and awake and be able to just soak all of these wonderful feelings in. I can understand why women do homebirths but I am just too paranoid of something going wrong. I know that the odds are pretty low if you are low risk but I am a huge worry wart and I’m sure I would just not be able to relax at home. I’m sure a majority of women that have babies in the hospital do have either epidurals or pain killers so it was kind of weird, the nurses treated me like a bit of a novelty. I only felt pressured once but after making my wishes known (hello, did you not see my birth plan!?) nobody questioned me again. I don’t want to have my babies any other way!
