Michael's Story
-Falls Church
I started having irregular contractions on Monday evening, July 2nd,
during the premiere of the Transformers movie. They had progressed to
a steady 5 minutes on Wednesday but were still very mild. The midwife
came over and checked me at 8pm on Wednesday evening--just in time for
the fireworks. She said I was only 2cm but was fully effaced (from
zero effacement the Thursday before) and was just entering "real"
labor. She decided to stay.
Around 10pm I began to get very nauseous. I couldn't eat or drink
anything and was suddenly having a really hard time relaxing. I'd had
no problems with the contractions, but the nausea cut right through my
concentration. Luckily my friend Laura arrived (from her home over an
hour away) who had volunteered to step in as my birth partner at the
last minute when my original partner backed out the week before.
At 3am the midwife checked again and I was at 5cm. She said several
times how impressed she was with my relaxation and how well Laura did
as my coach. :-) I labored through the day on Thursday and the
contractions seemed to plateau in the afternoon. The midwife checked
me at 6pm and I had only progressed to 6-7cm, but the baby had dropped
significantly. She had me change position several times--until now I
had been laboring primarily on my side since that was the most
comfortable with my hip and back pain. She also had me take a shower
and walk outside up and down my patio steps (my poor neighbors are
probably scarred for life). Through it all my dogs never left my side.
:-)
I'm not sure what time my water broke, probably around 7:30pm, but
things immediately got much more intense. I labored on hands and knees
and was fully dilated by 8pm and ready to push. My "ahh" breathing got
a little more like "AAHHHHH" yelling at times and there was one "ahh"
that turned into an "ahh, #$^%$!" but luckily that didn't get into the
video. :-)
It was maybe 4-5 waves to Augusta crowning. Despite my plans to watch
her in the mirror (and maybe even catch her myself) I ended up with my
eyes squeezed shut and holding tight onto Laura and the birth
assistant. The baby's head was halfway out when the midwife told me to
stop pushing--that was the hardest thing I'd done. She had me "grunt"
Augusta out, little by little. After her head was out, her body was
easy. I finally opened my eyes as they lifted her to me. She was slimy
and dark purple and almost immediately peed on me. It was love at
first sight!
