Last week Wednesday, I had my 39 week check up. The midwife told me I was not at all dilated and that since my first baby was induced, there was definitely a chance I’d have to be induced again. This was the last thing I wanted to hear. I’ve been planning to go natural for a few months now and I’ve been reading the Bradley Method book and another book on Hypnobirthing to prepare myself for a natural childbirth. So when she told me I might have to be induced, I was scared and also determined to do whatever was in my power (and safe for the baby) to make sure she came out without the use of pitocin (or any other method of medical induction). The first thing I did when I came home (besides adding “Have a baby!” to my To-Do list) was to do a 45 min long P90X cardio workout. For those of you who’ve not heard of P90X, it’s a set of 10 or 12 DVDs each with a different intense workout focused on a part of the body to help you get yourself in very good shape physically. I’d never used them up to this point, only Sean had, but I’d heard him say how sore they made him. He wasn’t exaggerating. I did have a few contractions at the beginning of the workout, but they didn’t last. The next several days though, I had sore muscles that I’d never felt before.
Saturday morning I felt a few contractions, but again, they didn’t last and weren’t very intense, so I continued on with my day as normal. We did have a “Super-Saturday” activity at the church for Relief Society and I got a lot of comments from people who were wondering why I was there, and why I hadn’t had the baby yet. Apparently Sean had been telling people I was going to have the baby on Wednesday (earlier in the week). I guess he hadn’t made it clear that this was simply his wish, not a guarantee. Anyway, I told some of the people I spoke with at church that it was my goal to get the baby out and that I may or may not see them at church the next day. I also asked for any suggestions people had to cause labor. One friend of mine told me she’d walked up and down the long flight of stairs by the RB at BYU in order to go into labor (and it worked for her).
That evening I decided Mexican food would be a good idea for dinner, with a little extra spicy red pepper on it (I don’t do spicy at ALL). Then I told Sean I was going to go for a walk around the block (choosing the route with the most hills), as they had previously caused some contractions. He joined me a little bit in to my walk and took Aurora to the park while I walked back and forth on this street next to the park that had two nice uphill slopes to it. I probably did that for about 45 minutes and then decided to call it quits. I had been contracting during it, but I didn’t think it would really lead to anything. After we’d been home for a while, and had gotten Aurora to bed I noticed I was having some contractions still. It was about 9:45pm when I checked my watch. About 10pm I passed the mucus plug (sorry if that’s too graphic for anyone), which gave me a lot of hope that this baby would come on her own, even if it could be anywhere from several hours to several days. Sean and I were both pretty excited at this point and had no intention of going to bed yet. Sean had suggested a movie, but I asked if we could do a P90X workout again to make sure the contractions stuck around. So we pulled out the Stretch workout dvd and did that for over an hour. By the end, the contractions were intense enough that it was not too easy to stretch through them. They were also coming about every 3 minutes and lasting 45 seconds to a minute. At that point Sean went out to Walmart for me and bought me a yoga/birthing ball. I’d previously wanted one, but had forgotten to pick one up. I figured it would help me cope with the pain and help the baby drop into position. In the meantime, between contractions, I was packing all the last minute stuff for the hospital and making myself some French Toast, since I knew they weren’t going to want me to eat once I got to the hospital. I still packed a bag of snacks that I could sneak in case labor lasted longer than expected while at the hospital.
Around midnight Sean called the labor and delivery section of the hospital to ask when we should come in based on contraction length and how far apart they were. They told us we should come in, but I knew it was still too soon. We continued preparing though, and Sean went over to ask our neighbor if she’d be willing to come over and sleep at our place with her son to keep an eye on Aurora when we went to the hospital. That worked out very well for us so we didn’t have to worry about waking up Aurora and moving her to a stranger’s house or dropping her off at a friend’s place who lived the opposite direction of the hospital. Just before 3am I noticed I was starting to get a bit nauseous and I figured that meant I was getting towards transition since the only time I threw up during Aurora’s birth was when I was just about fully dilated. That’s when our neighbor came over and Sean drove me to the hospital.
When we got to the triage section of labor and delivery they put me on a bed and started strapping monitors to me. I asked if I had to be on the monitors (knowing from my reading that constant monitoring was far from necessary for a normal birth), and the nurse basically said absolutely yes! She was immediately added to my blacklist. When a different nurse came in to check on me I asked her the same question and she said they just needed 20 minutes of monitoring to make sure the baby’s heart rate was stable during contractions and then they could unstrap me and let me walk around for an hour at which point I’d come back and they’d put the monitors on for another 20 minutes. That nurse was added to my good list. The doctor came in to see how far I was dilated and unfortunately I was only at a 4. That really scared me, because when I had Aurora I was stuck at a 4 for what seemed like an eternity. Of course the whole experience of being induced lasted about 27 hours – which really is an eternity when your epidural isn’t working properly and your strapped to a bed unable to sufficiently cope with the pain. But at least they didn’t send me away saying I wasn’t far enough along. A little later a midwife came in (the one who ended up delivering me) and started reading the form to me that basically says the hospital has the right to do whatever they want to me if they deem it to be medically necessary. Most of the things that she read off were things that I figured would be far from necessary in my situation so I asked her what would happen if I didn’t sign the paper. She wasn’t too happy with me at this point, but I was the one in labor and I didn’t want my baby to be pulled out of me with forceps or a vacuum or to be cut out of me either, so I was just trying to do what I could to keep that from happening. Obviously I lost the battle about signing the paper, but luckily things went smoothly enough that no intervention was necessary.
After being unstrapped, Sean and I walked the hallways of labor and delivery, stopping about every minute so I could grip on to the hallway railing, slump over and try to breath through the contractions. Just under an hour later we were ushered to our room by the nurse on my blacklist who was all too eager to have me back on the monitors. The contractions were still very close together and extremely intense. After being on the bed for a while, the contractions were starting to make me push, so the nurse went and got the midwife who said I was now at a 9. (It was now about 6am, almost 3 hours from when we left home.) The contractions were still forcing me to push, and so that’s what I did. As I did so they broke my water (since it was still intact) and within 10 minutes of starting to push, Zoë arrived.
During this whole experience I was wondering whether I would ever choose to go natural again because the pain was more excruciating than I’d ever experienced before in my life, and it was by far the hardest thing I’d ever done as well. By the way, whoever says giving birth is like running a marathon, they’re wrong. Giving birth (at least naturally), is way harder! However, having had almost a week to recover now, I realize that going natural is probably the only way I will ever choose to go again, because recovery (as everyone who has gone natural has told me) is far faster and easier than recovery from an epidural birth. That’s the truth!
We will send out a birth announcement at some point, but for now, here’s the info:
Zoë Webeck was born Sunday October 25 at 6:35am, weighing 7lbs 7oz and was 20.5 inches long. (For comparison sake, Aurora was 7lbs 8oz and was also 20.5 inches long).
This is our family “To-Do” list with my contraction times on it.
I may not look like I’m in labor here in front of Darnall Army Hospital, but I am.
Not very flattering, but what birth photos ever are?
Aurora was not terribly interested in Zoë, but at least she wasn’t jealous either.
Aurora’s interest quickly turned from Zoë to the Animal Crackers.
Aurora decided she really like Zoë’s car seat.
This is a cute one of the two girls. Oh, and check out those long toes!
I realized after a few comments that I didn’t really give proper credit to my wonderful birthing coach Sean, both during the birth and for all his support since the birth. Sean really has made this entire birthing experience a great one for me. I really am blessed to have such a wonderful husband who supports me and our family so well.
Tammy 
Kathy 
Anna 
Christine
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