Contractions began at 2am on the 26th. Mildly uncomfortable at first, but quickly increasing in intensity. I got up and sat in a hot bath to alleviate the muscle pain. About 45 minutes later I went to sit on the exercise ball in the living room for a while and woke Beosig about 3:30 to have him begin timing length and frequency of the contractions. Here is his account of what happened:
Kim woke me up at 3 AM today to tell me that she had been in early labor
for an hour, and needed my help getting around. We walked around the
house, laid in bed, tried various positions, and kept each other company
until about 6 AM. That's when we called our Desirre (our doula), and told
her what was going on. She said to go back to bed, and try to get some
rest because we were both going to need it. We laid in bed, and really
didn't get much in the way of rest.
8 AM hit, and the contractions got closer and closer. We called Desirre, and
asked her to come over. She got on the road, and headed our way. While
she was on the way, I took care of all of the animals. When she got
there, she started taking care of things. I was finishing up with the
animals when Kim threw up, but Desirre came to the rescue to clean the
mess. I managed to get a clean shirt on Kim, and about that time Desirre
looked at me and asked me if I had eaten. This was about 9:45 AM, and I
had not eaten even though I had been up for over 6 hours.
She told me to go into town to get some hot food, and I also had to get
some gas, Monster energy drinks, and some cash from the ATM. I did all of
this, and got home about 10:45. As soon as I walked in, Desirre told me
that we were going to the hospital soon. I asked how soon. She said, "now
kind of soon." I asked her if we could leave in 10 minutes. It would take
me at least that long to get my stuff together for the trip.
Fifteen minutes later we were out the door. I still hadn't had a chance
to eat my food, tell anyone what was going on, or anything like that. The
drive to the hospital was uneventful as far as the typical TV show drama
goes. I managed to contact my mom, Kim's dad, Kim's doctor, and a few
other folks on the drive to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital a few minutes after 11:30 to find out that
Kim was fully dilated and ready to go. We got up to a room quickly, and
labor and pushing started almost right away. It was a blur of four hours.
Lots of grunting, groaning, pushing, holding of breath, cheerleading,
massaging, positioning, and monitoring.
Nathan finally came out at 3:44. Things were great, except for the cord
around the neck. The doctor jumped on the problem before I even realized
that it was a problem. Everything worked out, and the doctor's calm and
confident demeanor put me at ease. This allowed me to put Kim at ease,
and things were good.
Next came all sorts of action, and I really wasn't sure what I was
supposed to do next. Desirre nudged me and told me to stick with Nathan,
and she would stick with Kim. I did just that. Nathan was being fussy
because he had swallowed (but not inhaled) some meconium, and they had
to suction it out of his stomach. He didn't like the tubes, suction, and
other handling, but so long as I was there talking to him, he would stay
mostly quiet. I wish I could have recorded what I said because I honestly
don't remember. I just know that I was a proud papa to be looking down on
my son.
Things calmed down after that, and we got to get a little rest before
I started making phone calls to friends, family, etc. The phone calls
were all pretty much the same as this email: vitals, short story, current
status of everyone, and goodbyes so I could make the next call.
Some additional notes from my point of view:
As it turns out I discovered that I am a moaner during labor. It made things very easy to get through and helped Beosig to know when a contraction was starting and tapering off so he knew when to apply pressure and when to ease up without my having to guide him. I also discovered that water is definately the way to go - it made getting through contractions soooo much easier even though I really didn't spend more than a couple hours in the tub total.
When Desirre had me get into the bath to labor for a while my heart began to race. I'd had that happen a week or so prior and while it is a scary experience I simply laid down on my left side at that time and it resumed regular heart rate. This time it kept up. Desirre expressed a small amount of concern over this but did not indicate it was something to be overly worried about so I just kept focusing on getting through the contractions that washed over me.
I found out later that I was in transition at that time, but it really felt no different from the rest of the labor to that point. During our classes we were told repeatedly that transition was the hardest but shortest part of labor. After that experience I have to disagree. For me the hardest part was actually pushing Nathan out. Multiple people tried to explain what muscles to use and what it would feel like, but having it explained to you and doing it are two different things. Thanks to our awesome nurse's and Desirre's queues I was able to figure out which muscles to use to make the most effective progress.
Due to the heart racing (called SVT or Super Ventricular Tachicardia) I was scheduled for an EKG and Echocardiogram and a visit with a cardiologist afterwards. I also had to succumb to internal fetal monitoring which failed miserably as my racing heart overrode any signals from that process as well as the external fetal monitor. Doppler indicated Nathan was fine and it was just my heart with the issue.
About 3 hours into pushing the SVT resolved and suddenly my heart rate dropped back down to normal (118-120 BPM as opposed to 180-220 BPM). I found out later that about the time this happened a friend of Beosig's mom had emailed a prayer for us to her which she later forwarded on to us. I'm not a particularly die-hard religious nut, but the timestamp on the email was more than coincidentally about the same time my heart rate evened out and slowed down. Beosig also told me he was rubbing and fiddling with the charm I carried for 9 months in my pocket that was supposed to protect mother and unborn child. Desirre also said she was praying for us about the same time.
About 2 hours into pushing my contractions became noticably weaker and less frequent and a small dose of pitocin was administered. My contractions picked up considerably and became stronger and closer together shortly afterwards, but I personally attribute most of that to my body kicking back into gear and not so much to the pitocin itself since the dose was so low.
Our birthing class instructor, Jill, had told us to write our birth story and read it every day. I did so religiously for the last month. It amazes me how close some of the things were in it. For instance I said my labor would be 12 hours and it was 14 - not far off from the number at all. I said he would be born at 3pm and he came at 3:44pm. I had the date wrong, but I was probably being overly optimistic about that date anyway, so no big deal.
During my stay at the hospital, the nurses at the birth center at Memorial North couldn't stop commenting on him and how lively and pink he was and how he had no issues latching on to feed. Every time the door was left open a crack I could hear them out there making the same comments over and over. Epidural this and pitocin that and c-section the other thing. It made me beam with pride. All I could think was that's my son they're talking about.
The nurse who discharged us the next day walked with us to the front door of the hospital and said to me she had never had a patient who walked out after 4 hours of pushing.
Overall I have to say I'm extremely satisfied with how things went and if we did it again I'd jump right back on the natural delivery bandwagon. It was definately the hardest but most satisfying thing I've ever done in my life, and I have a beautiful, healthy baby boy to show for it.
