My Birth Story

So, you want to know about my birth story, huh? Well, several people have already mentioned the possibility of a difficult pregnancy resulting in an easy birth.

Well, I had an easy pregnancy. No morning sickness. No real horrible mood swings. Nothing more than an achy back, an unbelievable craving for beer, and that last 6 weeks of beached whaledom.

There are things that I don't tell 1st time expectant mothers. One of those things? Is that the last month of pregnancy? Sucks ass. Everything is uncomfortable.

But I digress.

I was due on January 31st. I was wishing painful boils and other such unpleasantness on all people saying I would be 2 weeks overdue, sending me links to stories of 18 pound babies born in cars stuck on the freeway, and 90lb coworkers who felt the need to crank the heat all the way up in the office because they're cold. Wahhh. You can put on a sweater. I can't take off the pregnant.

Again, with the digression.

I left work on Wednesday the 25th, large, uncomfortable, and with a number of tasks that still needed to be completed on Thursday. At about 3:45 in the morning, I woke up and had to pee. Shock, I know. With my pregnancy, I often had contractions after I peed. Mostly because I held it too long, I think. I don't like peeing. And at 9 months pregnant? There are certain clean-up aspects of this task that get decidedly more difficult to accomplish.

I have issues staying on-topic apparently.

So, I head back to bed, all contracty. I have work in the morning & want to get back to sleep. After about an hour, I'm still all contracty. Hmm. Perhaps I should walk around & see if they go away. All the books say that if you walk & they go away it's not really labor. So, I begin pacing around my apartment at 4:45 in the morning. Contractions aren't really mellowing. Hmm. Perhaps I should pack my hospital bag while I'm pacing. At this point? I had about 2 comfortable outfits & I wasn't going to have 1 clean, comfy outfit wasting away in a hospital bag for weeks. Besides, labor lasts a long time, right? Plenty of time to pack the bag.

At about 5:30, I had to pee again. Or so I thought. Conveniently enough? My water broke while I was on the toilet. Yes! No mess for me to worry about.

At this point, I decided I'd better call my boyfriend. He lived across town about 25 minutes away. After about 3 calls, I finally managed to wake him up. I figured I had time to finish up my bag, get dressed, & grab a snack before he got there. I had nearly half an hour, right?

He made it there in 10 minutes.

The hospital was about 30 minutes away. And lordy, I had never noticed how bumpy the roads were between home & hospital until going over them while in labor. Ugh.

I had decided to try to go the natural birth route, altho I was not against drugs, should I change my mind. I've always had really bad cramps, so how much worse could labor be?

A whole hell of a lot worse, that's how much. When I got to the transitional phase? I did not even finish one contraction before the next would start. It was excruciating. They kept telling me to breathe & I couldn't. They asked me if I wanted an epidural.

HELL YES I WANT AN EPIDURAL!

And to this day? I still have a small shrine honoring the epidural dude.

I had to stay laying on my right side, because if I turned over, the baby's heart rate showed distress. So, by the time it was time to push? My right leg was a worthless slab of meat. No feeling, no control, nada.

Boo was face up, so I had to push for about an hour. He came out very coney. Thankfully his head returned to a normal shape by the next day.

From start to finish? My labor was about 10 hours. So I can't complain about duration. But the pain? Was God awful.

And if we ever have another baby? I'm packing the bag by 6 months and we're picking a hospital close by. If baby #1 came out in 10 hours (delayed an hour because of how Boo was facing), I can totally see myself being one of those "birth on the highway" stories....