Elijah's Birth Story

I was so, so sure Elijah would be born early. Seth was ten days early and Aaron was four days early. Both girls were late. Obviously another boy = another early birth.

Plus there was all the false/pre-term labor. Starting at around 35 weeks I had several nights of contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart, lasting almost a minute. They never started getting painful, so I never went in to the hospital, but I got a little nervous.

But as his due date approached, the contractions kept getting less and less frequent. The week before he was born I barely had any (but the ones I did have were getting stronger). At first I was frustrated to still be pregnant, but the extra nights of good sleep were very much appreciated!

I was able to make it to all the activities I was afraid we'd have to cancel due to baby. I was there to teach the (rather complicated) lesson on acids & bases to my co-op classes. We got to go to the luncheon that Elise's preschool teacher had lovingly prepared as a farewell to her class. We enjoyed the gorgeous April weather and went on some local "hikes".

On Thursday evening I noticed that the contractions were coming regularly, about every 5-10 minutes. Not painful, but didn't go away. Pretty standard early labor for me. I put my friend Melissa on alert (again, poor thing had so many false alarms from me!) and went to bed. I told Jon we'd either get one last night's sleep or I'd be waking him up at 1 am to go to the hospital.

Sleep won, which was a lovely thing. I woke up to more contractions, so I knew this really was it. It was just a question of how long before we needed to go in.

I happened to have an appointment scheduled that morning already. I was shocked to find out I was already at 4-5 cm and 75% effaced. Normally I have to walk through contractions for a couple of hours to get to that point! I told the midwife that I was having regular contractions and she told me not to wait too long before coming in.

Jon had the day off work and my friend Bente had already arranged to take all four (!!) kids with her on a field trip. We had a lovely, peaceful morning running errands together and assembling a shed for the kids' bikes. I even convinced Jon to take me out to lunch before baby arrived. Had to sneak in some Thai drunken noodles before the "no food during labor" fun.

I timed my contractions all during lunch. They were every 3-5 minutes and lasting around 1 minute. Still nothing intense, but Jon was a little nervous since I was already much further along than I'd ever been. He was very opposed to the idea of delivering a baby in the car on the way to the hospital for some reason.

Around 3:30 pm  we decided to head in, even though the contractions were still pretty mild. Jon dropped the kids off  to play at the Knoxes until Timmy could come to stay with them. Timmy was amazing: he dropped all his plans for the weekend to come watch our four little monsters. I really don't know what we would have done without him.

I was so afraid they were going to send me home since my contractions weren't super strong yet. I'm SO grateful the midwife checked me that morning--I'm pretty sure they would have at least made me walk. But since I came in at 6 cm, which was an improvement over that morning, I got to stay!

My friend Heidi mentioned that her friend worked as a L&D nurse at the hospital and thought it would be fun if she happened to be my nurse. I figured there was a very low chance of that, but when the nurse walked in, her first question was, "Do you know Heidi?" Kind of funny! Also a little odd to think that someone in my neighborhood has watched me push out a baby, though...

Since I have an atrocious record of epidural failure (I had one with all 4 kids, it only worked with Aaron. It was GLORIOUS when it worked, though!), I decided to try a natural birth this time. My hope was that things would progress more quickly if I could move around rather than being stuck in a bed. I did a lot of research on techniques for faster labor, but I was willing to get the epidural out of desperation if I needed it.

And so I bounced on the ball, and paced, and tried to stay upright as much as possible so gravity could do its work. It was SO NICE to not be stuck in the bed like usual! Even though the contractions were getting a little stronger, it was easier to cope with them since I wasn't flat on my back.

We were hopeful that he would arrive quickly since I was already at a 6. But around 10 pm, I started to lose hope. I felt like things just weren't progressing. The midwife came in to check and sure enough--after laboring for six hours I was still at 6 cm. Gah. She offered to break my water in the hopes that it would kick-start labor. If not, we were going to try pitocin (which I wanted to avoid).

Around 10:30 she broke my water. Within a few minutes my contractions got intense. REALLY intense. And the back labor that I'd hoped to avoid kicked in with a vengeance. It felt like someone was gripping the back of my hips, trying to break them into pieces. I tried all the techniques I'd studied for back pain relief, but nothing seemed to help. At this point I seriously considered the epidural, but I knew they'd have to pump me with liquids for an hour before I could even get the anesthesiologist in there. It seemed hopeless: I'd obviously be dead before then. Or at least passed out from exhaustion.

One article I read mentioned that kneeling on the bed, facing the head of the bed and hugging the raised head area could help with labor. It didn't seem to do much, but it did give me a good place to rest between contractions. I was kneeling, kind of draped over the top of the bed when I felt the pressure: it was time to push.

Jon ran for the nurse, who was thankfully close by. Within minutes the midwife was there and I was pushing, still on my knees, facing away from everyone in the room. Not how I imagined labor going, but I wasn't inclined to flip around in the middle of pushing. It took a few pushes to get him out, at which point I definitely said, "I can't do this!" So stereotypical. But of course, I did do it, and then he was here, just over 30 minutes after she broke my water. I might have sobbed, partially because I was happy to be done with the labor, but mostly because he was here and so perfect.

From the beginning it was obvious that he was our child, and obvious that he was a redhead. There would be no mix-ups at the nursery, that's for sure (not that our hospital will take the babies to the nursery, which is another story). He did cry a bit more and a bit more intensely than our other kids, which made me nervous. But he eventually calmed down and passed out for basically the entire next day.

So was the natural birth worth it? In the moment I would have said absolutely not, never again. But with the advantage of hindsight, I would say...maybe. My recovery was much, much better and much faster. It was a little weird to just be able to stand up and walk around after birth instead of being all wobbly or dead-legged like I was after an epidural. I also didn't tear, which was a first.  Plus I do think that labor went faster because I was able to stay off my back. I wish the midwife had broken my water when we walked in at 3:30 (she had mentioned that it was bulging). I think his head just couldn't engage because there was too much liquid in the way. We could have had a baby hours earlier! But it was what it was, and he made it here safely, which is what really mattered in the end.