Early in the morning on Sunday, November 24th, I started waking frequently needing to use the bathroom. This is not unusual for a pregnant lady four days past her due date, but for some reason, it was really bothering me. By 6:00 AM I realized that I was actually having light contractions. Finally, the baby was coming!
Mark and I started hustling around the house, getting last minutes things straightened and supplies gathered. We knew we had awhile to wait...but we didn't know HOW long it would be. My contractions stayed light and infrequent all morning, but I called my doula-friend and midwives, just to give them a heads up that today was the day!
My doula-friend came over after church, but the midwives were at another birth. Our two due dates were two weeks apart, but she started labor early and I was late. We both were experiencing light, slow mornings, so I was not worried at all about when the midwives would come out. Their back up plan was to have one come out here and the other stay with the other mom with another back up midwife.
All afternoon, we puttered around, doing nothing really. I continued to have irregular contractions that weren't even painful. I could talk through them, so I knew the actual labor and delivery were far in my future. I was chilly all day, which was the opposite of how I normally feel, but I knew I was shivering because of the excitement and anticipation of real labor. By dinner time there was still nothing going on. Mark made spaghetti for dinner (I wasn't very hungry so Daniel ate all my noodles and left the sauce) and we started thinking about our next steps. My doula-friend's girls were at home with their grandma, but grandma needed to work the next morning. We decided that my doula-friend should go home, get her girls ready for bed, and be on call for when things really picked up.
At 8:00 PM, I went to bed. I fell asleep immediately, but woke up ten minutes later. Contraction. I went back to sleep. Ten minutes later, I had another contraction. I went back to sleep. This pattern repeated a few times, so I got out of bed to see if the ten minute pattern would stay. It did! By this time, the younger kids were settling into bed and the older kids were getting ready for bed. I called my doula-friend to come back; her kids were settling into bed too, but she was going to wake them up and bring them over with her. I called the midwives and left a message for them that things had finally settled into a pattern.
Between 10:00 and 11:00, my contractions were between 4 and 7 minutes apart. They were slightly painful, but not enough that I had to stop what I was doing. And it's a good thing too! Mark had set up the birth tub and had started to fill it. He sunk the hose deep into the pool and walked away. Somehow, the hose worked itself loose and our precious hot water was sinking into the carpet and running all over the bathroom floor! "Anna! I need your help!" I heard Mark shout from the bedroom. He came running out of the back of the house. "I need a shovel or something!" he shouted. I assumed correctly what happened and grabbed a stack of towels on my way. But the mess was too big for towels. Lucky for us, we have a steam cleaner that worked perfectly for this situation. It was like getting the carpet cleaned when we weren't even planning it! As I was busy sucking the water up, I had another contraction. This was when Mark said, "What do you think you are doing? Give me that steam cleaner! Go rest!" Yeah, I guess a laboring mom shouldn't have to suck up gallons and gallons of water of the bathroom floor.
My midwife, her birth assistant, and my doula-friend (and daughters) all showed up by midnight. I'm not sure exactly when, but I do know that the last contraction I recorded happened at 11:48 PM. The girls went straight downstairs to sleep on the couches. After we chatted with everyone and got supplies set up, I went back to bed to sleep as much as I could. Because, still, my contractions were several minutes apart and not at all unbearably painful-just uncomfortable.
By 2:00 AM, I had had enough. I knew this baby was still posterior (her back was against my back instead of against my front) and I knew I still had another 24 hours of labor ahead of me. I knew that I had only interrupted rest for almost 24 hours and I was tired! I was so tired and so cold and so tired of being cold that I just knew I didn't have what it took to get to the end of this birth. I talked to Mark and told him that I needed to be transported to the hospital to finish this birth. I was willing to receive pitocin and an epidural because I just could not survive another 24 hours without rest. It wasn't the pain sending me in, it was the lack of sleep. He had my midwife come back and talk to me and she offered to check baby's position and my dilation. Guess what? Baby was anterior and in a great position! And guess what else? I was seven centimeters dilated! And as soon as my water broke, my cervix would open right up and it would be time to have the baby! Wow! I thought for sure I would only be a 3 or 4 and here I was, just hours away from being DONE! That was all I needed to hear. I was ready to have this baby at home.
I crawled into the birth tub at this point and labored for only two hours. I was able to sleep between contractions. My doula-friend brought me drinks and wrapped my shoulders in warm towels. Mark was on Lula duty; she woke up twice during the labor and Mark was able to get her back to sleep without bringing her into our room (she still joins us each night). In fact, he was with Lula when my water broke. I shouted, "Go get Mark! My water broke and this baby is coming NOW!" or something like that.
