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Labor story, part 7: In which we finally get this kid out, thank God

Seriously, after I’m fully dilated, it’s like all my worries about labor and delivery are gone. I know I have pushing left, but every labor story I’ve ever read has described pushing as the “easy” part — the part where you’re so close to having your baby in your arms, you don’t really care as much about the pain. My midwife leaves for a bit, telling me to go ahead and practice some pushes with the contractions. And it’s by now 8 a.m. Which I know because Nurse Bubbly is back!

That’s right, I’ve now labored for so long, I’ve gone through a 24-hour rotation of nurses (and keep in mind that I started labor nine or 10 hours before we got to the hospital). Nurse Bubbly, if you recall, is the one who got excited because I wanted to use the squat bar for pushing, so while I’m in the bathroom, trying to empty my bladder and “practice push,” she and King Rabbit set it up. I don’t think the bladder emptying works—I’m pretty sure they need to drain my bladder with a catheter—but I don’t feel it, and I don’t care.

Ima’ bout to get this baby out, and that’s all I can focus on. KR supports me as I squat in the bed, holding onto the bar, and bearing down with all my might, and I think to myself that I’m not going to be able to push this way for long. My legs are killing me, and I keep wanting to sit back down with my knees up next to my ears. Which, it turns out, isn’t good for the baby.

For the first time during my entire labor, she’s showing some signs of distress, her heart rate dipping when I sit in the squat position. This makes sense, it turns out, since I’m probably sitting right on her head, but she’d been at -1 or 0 station the entire labor, including at my last check. I figure she’s still up there pretty high. So, it turns out, does my midwife, because she decides that I’m going to be pushing for a long time, and she wants me to do it on my back where she can get a good view of what’s going on.

She also tells me that she’s called for a pediatric consult, meaning they’ll be taking the baby away to be checked after she’s born. This statement barely registers with me—at least not consciously. Consciously, I’m pretty sure my reaction is something akin to “Oh.” We’ve already strayed so much from the original birth plan that this doesn’t really phase me—besides, the kid’s not here YET. I’m zeroed in on making that happen, and for some reason, I’m not even slightly worried about the baby’s health.

Subconsciously, I must have felt a little concerned—not about how Cricket was doing, but about that whole part where she’s whisked away from me at birth, because at my next contraction—the first one where I’m in the traditional, supported position you see on TV, the nurse holding one leg back, KR holding the other, me curling my shoulders up as much as I can so I’m not technically lying down—I push HARD. And the midwife suddenly goes, “I see a head! With a LOT of dark hair!”

Since nobody uses the term “crowning” I don’t actually realize how close we are. In fact, at my next push, when I feel a horrible, screaming, intense, miserable burning sensation that feels like I might just rip in half, I assume that this is just what pushing feels like, and think briefly to myself that (a) everybody who said this was the easy part is a lying liar who lies, and (b) there is NO WAY I can keep this up for two hours. Which is why I’m so surprised when the midwife tells me to reach down and take my baby.

But I do it. I get her under the arms, and I pull her to my chest, and she lies there very quietly for a minute, with her face all scrunched up. Then she lets out a little mew — not a cry, just a soft little kitten noise — and I love her right away.

It's 8:32 a.m. on September 16, 2010, and I'm a mom.

Labor story, part 6: In which I get the interventions I so desperately wanted to avoid

I want to say again that I do understand that sometimes, interventions are necessary. Pitocin can help move a stalled labor along, c-sections can be life-saving, pain medications are essential for some people. But I did a lot of research before Cricket’s birth and came to the conclusion that —given my extremely ordinary and low-risk pregnancy — a vaginal birth was the best and healthiest option for me and the baby. And given the increased likelihood that an artificially augmented labor can lead to an epidural can lead to a c-section, my birth plan was to do everything I could to avoid these interventions.

And so when my midwife explains to me that, given how far along labor isn’t, and given how we’re approaching 24 hours past when (I’d told them) my water had started leaking, I should really be hurrying things along with some Pitocin and maybe some drugs, I am profoundly disappointed. My midwife stays only long enough to throw these options at me, with another mention of how my body is having (involuntary) reactions to the pain and not letting me relax. Nurse Calm actually gives me the details.

At some point, the floor nurse also comes in and explains the same options to me, telling me they’ll start with a low dose and asking me what my concerns are with Pitocin. I tell her I really want to avoid an epidural, and she tells me she’s had four kids, and for three of them she’d been on Pitocin with no drugs. So I talk it over with KR and my mom, and we all agree that we’re ready to get this over with already.

The next time Nurse Calm comes in, I tell her, and she mentions that I can wait a while if I want. In fact, she says I don’t HAVE to have the Pitocin at all, it’s entirely my choice (she will be the only staff member to say any such thing, but still, I appreciate it). But I feel a sense of inevitability and don’t want to delay if Pitocin will be necessary eventually. So I tell her to go ahead and start it now.

Naturally, it’s not that simple, and it takes quite some time for her to fill out all the necessary paperwork and get the IV ready. Just before she’s about to start it, she notices that the baby’s heartbeat has started reacting differently to the contractions, which could signal that I’ve moved further along. She does one last cervical check, but, no surprise to me, I’m still at about 7.5 centimeters. Nothing has felt remotely different for hours. KR and I have been using the same counted breathing techniques since my water broke, and while my contractions are quite bad, I don’t feel like I’m in the kind of blindingly intense pain many women describe as transition.

The final hiccup comes in the form of my midwife, who bustles in, takes one look at the plan to put me on the lowest dose of Pitocin to start, and shakes her head, no. She explains to me that even after I dilate these last few centimeters, I’ll still have all those hours of pushing, so she wants this to work fast, and she wants me to rest. She tells me she’s going to put me on a higher dose of Pit, and give me Fentanyl, a drug she usually reserves for second and third labors because it has a quick onset but only lasts about an hour. I find out much later that it is 100 times more powerful than morphine, which is pretty sad, turns out.

Because once I’m on the Pit, and the drug, I’m able to sleep through parts of my contractions, but only until the peak. Then, I feel intense pain for about 30 seconds to a minute with each one. I can no longer “relax” my body and can feel my whole lower half seize up every time I contract. I need all the help I can get from my labor coaches, so KR and my mom take turns napping and helping me through.

Because I’m now getting repeatedly interrupted sleep, I feel tired, woozy, and cranky—enough to be ticked that the drugs aren’t working BETTER. Since Pitocin creates artificially relentless contractions, it’s anybody’s guess whether I would have been like Miss Nine Centimeters up there, begging for the drugs when I was so close to the end, but in my present circumstances, I feel like if I have to have drugs anyway, they should darn well take the pain away.

Although I think the whole process takes more than an hour, it’s true that soon enough, my course of both Pit and Fentanyl is over. The midwife comes in for a check, and suddenly, I’m wide awake. As she finishes up, she’s shaking her head, and I have a moment of utter despair. I have no idea WHAT they’ll make me do if this didn’t work. But what she says is, “Well Miss Rbelle, that did it! You’re at a 9!” Of course, my thought NOW is, “Nine? NINE? How do I get that last inch?” Turns out the answer is to give a practice push while she’s got her hand all up in my parts. It hurts like the devil, but suddenly I’m fully dilated, and my long labor nightmare is over.

Labor story, part 5: In which King Rabbit is scared and I am oblivious

Now that we’ve determined that I’ve been in labor for roughly 10 hours with about two inches of progress, people start to talk around me about what the next steps should be. I hardly pay attention. All I know is that the intense feeling that my body has moved beyond my control and Things are Happening that I had when my water broke just 30 minutes before has gone. Someone mentions starting an IV with Pitocin, and I’m tuned in enough to know I DON’T want to do this.

I must have made this preference known, because at some point, it comes up that I’m likely quite dehydrated, and that a first step to addressing my lack of progress could be IV fluids, no augmentation. Since neither drugs nor an epidural are mentioned, I agree to try it. The nurses start getting the line ready.

King Rabbit, meanwhile, is shoveling ice chips into my mouth with a fervor. I’m actually a little irritated by this, though I don’t say anything, because I’m about to be put on fluids—I don’t need ice chips anymore, no? But what I don’t realize is that my dehydration has really freaked KR out, and he’s just trying to get liquids into me as quickly as possible.

It takes some time for them to prepare the IV, and when Nurse Fret sticks my hand, she blows the vein. She tries again, telling me she’ll only try twice before getting her supervisor. Um … thanks? She blows a vein in my other hand, so the floor nurse is called. This takes even more time—this is a theme, the extremely long delays between just about every intervention, and it should work to my advantage, but—SPOILER—it doesn’t. Most likely because I’m just sitting around waiting for other people to make my labor happen and, let’s face it, I’m exhausted.

I continue to have contractions every few minutes, and they’re bad enough that we use counted breaths—KR holds up anywhere from 1 to 4 fingers, and I do that many quick, short breaths, followed by a long exhale, rinse and repeat, until the contraction passes. But there still doesn’t seem to be a pattern, and they’re not coming all that close together.

When the floor nurse arrives, she too tries to insert the IV twice. And she, too, blows two veins, one in my hand and one in my arm. The next step is apparently to call an anesthesiologist—he’ll be able to use a smaller needle and hopefully get the IV in without blowing any more veins. And, again, the delay is substantial. When he finally does arrive, he ALSO blows a vein, haha!, and I suddenly wonder what will happen if they can’t get an IV in. I can’t have Pitocin, or drugs, or a c-section without an IV—will they just let me keep going, au naturel? It is a testament to how defeated I feel that this thought doesn’t cheer me. Instead, all I can think is, “What if there is NO WAY TO GET THE BABY OUT?”

On his next try, though, he gets the line in. The whole process is all very much like getting dental work done, with nurses and doctors talking over me, even about me, but never really expecting me to respond. Which is how I get to hear the story of the woman a few doors down who’s at nine centimeters and has decided she no longer wants to keep going without drugs. The anesthesiologist is shaking his head over this, and I’m inclined to agree. In fact, I’m inclined to march down the hall and beat her about the head with mighty blows because, really? Some of us would KILL for nine centimeters, lady. SUCK IT UP.

I’m completely making this up because I actually have no idea, but let’s say from the time they decide I need an IV to the time it’s actually in takes a good hour and a half. It’s at least midnight, because there’s another shift change, and I’m introduced to my new nurse, Nurse Calm, who gets the scoop about my year’s long labor, and my IV, and the whole dish, and suggests I go ahead and take another relaxing shower.

She wraps my hand up nice and tight to keep water out of my IV, and I drag the pole along to the bathroom. KR might even come in to help me, I don’t remember, but I DO know that the entire time I’m in the shower, I only have, like, TWO contractions. So I’m relaxing, yes—so much so that my body has decided to STOP LABORING ALTOGETHER.

I don’t share this information with anybody—they’re all so hopeful that the IV and the shower and, presumably, all the time that’s passed will have helped things move along. But when I get out and put on a nice clean gown and sit down on the yoga ball all I can think is that I’m failing. I’m failing at labor, my baby is NEVER GOING TO COME, and after I undergo another painful contraction, I tell my mother that I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.

We’re all pretty tired and cranky by this point, so I don’t blame her for just shaking her head and saying, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.” I feel like I’m in a fog. I don’t understand what’s happening, why I’m in so much pain, yet know deep down that it’s not enough pain. We’re stuck, the baby and I, and I really just want to give up. But I don’t know what that means—I’m still determined to avoid an epidural—my pain is STILL manageable, despite how long I’ve been going, so I don’t see the point—and I certainly don’t want a c-section, so what are my options? It seems like there are none.

After the next monitoring session, though—which shows us that the baby is still doing great—I decide that I really need to give it the best possible shot. So the next time I’m up, KR and I push the IV pole into the hall and march up and down the corridor, past the nurses’ station, past JANITORS, past rooms with babies who are right that second being born, and I am determined to make something happen. (I should also mention that this is the one and only time I curse during the entire experience—when KR bumps into my heel with the IV pole and I drop a way-too-loud f-bomb. In my defense, the next day’s bruise is pretty dramatic.) We stop during every contraction, and I will my body to relax, let everything hang as loose as I possibly can.

As a result, my contractions do seem to increase in intensity, with some coming almost back to back. KR is helping me with the breathing and I’m feeling encouraged and once again optimistic. We do a couple rounds of this standing/marching business in between fetal monitoring sessions, but after a couple hours, it obvious that I’m still more or less where I was before.

I can’t remember if the nurse or midwife comes to check me or not, but I think someone must have, because I’m no more than 7 centimeters—still not even fully in transition. And so, around 4 or 5 in the morning, Nurse Calm and my midwife, along with the floor nurse, start talking to me about starting some Pitocin.

Labor story, part 4: In which we arrive, and everything gets moving, except not

I have a very distinct recollection from first arriving at the hospital. I get out of the car and while King Rabbit and my mom are gathering their things, I start walking, pause during a contraction, and then keep going, a lone, laboring woman in a red shirt and black yoga pants, waddling through a blistering hot parking lot. Pretty soon, KR comes up behind me with the video camera on, but for some reason that moment by myself sticks in my mind, maybe because no matter how much help and coaching I have – and I’m here to tell you, I have a superb coaching team – labor is still something a woman ultimately undergoes alone. Only I know what exactly is happening with my body when, and it feels good to be on my own with that for just a minute.

Of course, once we get inside I won’t be alone again for the next several hours, and sure enough, it’s a quick walk to L&D triage, where there are nurses, and my midwife, and a hospital administrator who for some reason reminds me of a janitor, but who tells me how awesome my healthcare plan must be, because I don’t owe Giant Famous HMO a cent (it was awesome, in that regard, and is one of the few things I miss about not having a full-time job). This story is already getting rather long, so here are a few quick points.

First, in triage I get my first electronic fetal monitoring experience, with the belts and the lying down, the whole shebang. Nobody tells me how far apart the contractions are, but KR and I have stopped timing them. Four or five minutes is my guess. My midwife comes after about 30 minutes and checks me (whee! I’m kidding – that part ALWAYS sucks). I don’t really remember, but let’s pretend I’m fully effaced (I’m pretty sure I was) and about 3 to 4 cm dilated. And, apparently, my “bag of waters is bulging.” Meaning not broken. Meaning what are you doing at the hospital, fool?

And this, Internet, is when she does something very gross and very embarrassing that I shouldn’t even mention in public, but what they hey, in a short while an entire human being is going to come out of my nethers, so here goes: she takes a little test strip and swipes it across my underwear (which, I should probably mention, I am no longer wearing at the time). And then she gets this thoroughly delighted look on her face and says, “Yep, positive for amniotic fluid. You probably have a high leak!” Somewhere in the vicinity of the waiting room, my mother smiles with righteous smugosity.

Of course, this high leak means that, bulging bag of waters or no, I’m checking in at Chez Childbirth for the duration. Let’s blip bleep bloop ahead to when we’re happily ensconced in our room (room 4, for those of you playing along at home) and introduced to our shift nurse, Nurse Bubbly. She is and will be by far my favorite nurse we have during the whole of my labor experience, in no small part because she gets extremely excited about helping KR find and test set up the squat bar for pushing (and I quote, “I don’t think anybody’s ever wanted to use this before!”). She’s also extremely understanding when I tell her I want intermittent monitoring only and sticks quite well to the schedule (the hospital policy is 20 minutes of monitoring every hour).

Our first hour left alone, KR and my mom (released from the waiting room and allowed to be with me during the rest of the process) switch off getting something to eat, while I pace around, and sway, and breathe, and bounce on my yoga ball, and shuffle up and down the halls, trying to get something going. Although we’re not timing at this point, I can tell my contractions aren’t very regular. After my first couple rounds of monitoring, during which Cricket’s heartbeat registers as fantastic, we pull out the stopwatch, and my suspicions are confirmed. Some are long, some are short, and they’re anywhere from 3 1/2 to 5 minutes apart.

I notice that every time I get up or change position, things seem to intensify, so for a while, I alternate between sitting on the yoga ball and standing up and pacing, which seems to get a nice pattern going, with contractions about 4 minutes apart and one minute long. But before we know it, the nurse is back – a new nurse, this time, Nurse Fret – and I have to lie down again. Nurse Fret takes forever, seemingly, to place the belts, and there’s some concern that the baby’s heartbeat is down, until she figures out that the monitor is picking up my heartbeat instead. This will happen many, many times throughout the next several hours, until each and every new nurse figures out what’s going on. Ah, technology.

To give you an idea of the time, the shift change happens at 4 p.m. At some point, I take a nice hot shower, which relaxes me, but not enough, apparently, to keep contractions moving. At another point, I ask Nurse Fret if I can stand up during monitoring. She allows it, but stays in the room the entire time, and I realize that unless I tell her I want to take a walk or take a break from the monitors, she’ll happily leave me attached to the belts, standing indefinitely.

All during this time, I’ve been chugging water and juice, and sneaking little packets of electrolyte goo in an attempt to keep my blood sugar up, but I can tell it’s flagging pretty badly. I haven’t had anything substantial to eat since about 9 a.m., and I’m starting to feel sick. I tell Nurse Fret this, and she cheerfully gets me a bucket, telling me that my nausea is a good sign, since maybe transition is coming on. I wish rather than suspect this to be the case.

Eventually, I lie down for more monitoring, KR at my side, grasping my hand. My contractions are suddenly no longer manageable with measured breathing, but it takes me a while to realize that we should move on to counting breaths. Instead, I close my eyes tight and squeeze his hand every time a contraction comes on. I’m having a very hard time “relaxing”—that is, keeping my body from seizing up involuntarily during contractions, but KR tries to help me with our breathing techniques.

Nurse Fret, meanwhile, is having a devil of a time positioning the monitors to get the baby’s heartbeat, and she keeps futzing with the belts and pushing on my abdomen and in all other ways annoying the crap out of me until at one point during a particularly uncomfortable contraction, she puts her hand on my belly and I feel a sudden release of tension as my water breaks and gushes all over the bed. I start to cry and laugh at the same time—I am so very relieved and think for certain this means things are finally moving along. The contractions have seemed so strong and close together, I’m sure I must be close to or entering transition.

Which is why I feel so utterly defeated when the midwife’s check reveals that I’m at 5.5 centimeters, max. “That’s it?” I’m practically crying for real now, and my midwife’s response is somewhat grim as she confirms that, indeed, “That’s it.” I protest a little more that I’ve been in labor for so long, and I think I even say “I’m trying so hard.” And instead of offering words of encouragement or praise, the midwife says, “I know, but you’re just not relaxing enough.”

In the interests of keeping this narrative moving, I won’t pause just yet to dissect what’s wrong with the previous paragraph. Instead, I’ll just say that I’m feeling completely deflated by this point, almost panicked, and my brain and body begin what I can only describe as a very slow process of checking out of my own labor.

Labor story, part 3: In which we dither a bunch, but ultimately make a Fateful decision

One thing you need to understand if you’ve never had a baby (and which you will no doubt be very familiar with if you have) is that all your doctors, nurses, hospital-employed midwives, HMO handouts, clergymen, childbirth instructors, and pets will make a huge deal before you go into labor about your water breaking. They might tell you six ways from Sunday to stay home as long as possible if you want to avoid an epidural or medication or other interventions, but they will ALSO tell you to rush right in at the first sign of fluid, because SOMETHING HORRIBLE COULD BE HAPPENING.

At least that’s what I’m assuming from the many, many times I heard “Come in if your water breaks or starts to leak” in those last few weeks before Cricket’s birth. And it is true that, in rare cases, something horrible could happen. A cord prolapse, in which the umbilical cord slides out the birth canal along with all that fluid is the most alarming, and of course you would want to rush right in if one is happening to you (although there are positions that can help ease it back up, not to be too graphic, OMG I’m sorry this whole series is just way TMI). And if you see copious amounts of blood in the fluid, ALSO a bad sign, and one that would necessitate going in right away.

But the main thing all those helpful people and pamphlets are worried about is infection which is, I suppose, possible while you’re laboring unobtrusively at home in your yoga pants, but is far more likely once you’ve gone to the hospital, and various OBs and/or midwives are patient hopping and sticking their hands all up in your va-jay jay. This isn’t a controversial statement as far as I know – even my nurses were telling me that they weren’t going to check my cervix more than absolutely necessary due to the risk. And yet the VERY FIRST THING they tell you to do when your water breaks is go into the hospital where the VERY FIRST THING they do while you’re there is check your cervix. Logic!

This is all to say that at 7 a.m. the morning of September 15, I was suddenly confronted with the dilemma of being in very early labor with leaking fluid and no idea whether to head to the hospital or not. But my labor team (Mom and King Rabbit, remember) and I agree that before we make any decisions, I should eat something.

Leading up my due date, I’d been gathering a host of foods I thought I’d be able to tolerate while laboring, like chocolate pudding and watermelon. How, then, I ended up with a crescent roll spread with peanut butter I do not recall – something about protein, I’d imagine – but I am here to attest that nothing goes down worse when you’re trying to handle contractions on a single hour of sleep than complex carbs and peanut butter. I think it takes me a full half an hour to eat my sandwich, during which we try to decide whether to go into the hospital. My mom thinks I have a “high leak” but in my sleep-deprived, pain-addled state, I have no idea what she means. I can tell, though, she’s not overly concerned and is leaning toward staying put.

No closer to a decision, KR and I take a walk around our cul de sac, or in my case, a waddle. We start out in the backyard, where I put my arms around his neck to ride out the contractions, and at one point, we actually run into some neighbors we’ve never met, and can you just imagine THAT conversation. “Hello! We’re three doors down and gaaahargh, but if you’d like to come over for pie sometime yeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiii.” So I let KR do the talking.

As we’re walking back to the house, I have another little gush, and when we get back — after KR and my mom make me eat again (roast beef with ketchup, I’m telling you, what?) — we decide to call labor and delivery. They ask me many questions that I don’t remember now and am sure felt very irrelevant at the time. I know I’m half-hoping they’ll tell me not to worry, that I can stay home if I want. At this point, my contractions are roughly five-ish minutes apart, and maaaybe one minute long, but not remotely consistent. Everything we’ve been told about how labor has a very consistent pattern with contractions you can set a watch by has yet to apply to my case, and it just serves to make me more confused than ever.

But of course I am tired, and I hurt, and I want very much for things to get moving so we can meet our kid, and so when they tell me to come in, I say ok. The question I DO remember is that they ask when my water started leaking, and somewhere in the back of my mind I think that this could be important … so I fudge a little. I tack on about two hours, telling them it was around 8:30 or 9. It’s almost 10 at the time, and partly my little white lie comes from how I didn’t call right away, and I don’t want to flunk being in labor. But partly … well, we’ll get to that.

After I get off the phone, we dawdle a little more, packing our bags and making sure I’m drinking, and drinking, and drinking water, but eventually, we’re on our way. It’s a short drive – 10, maybe 15 minutes – and I only yell at KR once for taking a dip too fast and slamming my giant whale carcass up and back down in my seat. I have one more little fluid gush, but by the time we’re there, I’m feeling relieved and just a little excited. This is it! We’re at the hospital! Today will be our child’s birthday!

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Labor story, part 2: In which stuff starts to happen and then sort of doesn't

So, what I left out of my last entry is that the night before my final appointment – the night before Cricket’s due date – my mother and I go on a walk. King Rabbit teaches an evening jujitsu class at a school roughly one mile from our house, so that night, my mom and I hitch a ride there with him and then walk back, at the breakneck pace you’d imagine from a sexagenarian with bad ankles towing a bloated camel. By the time we get back to the house, though, I’m not FEELING like a bloated camel. Instead, I feel fantastic – like, bring-me-Everest-that-I-might-climb-it fantastic.

Alas, no 29,000-foot peak is available in my little SoCal suburb, plus see above re: my mom’s bad ankles. But I really am just full up on energy, practically skipping into our driveway and then? Then I take one look at the front lawn and decide it absolutely MUST be mowed. RIGHT THEN. I kind of half joke to my mom that I should do it myself, maybe it will bring on labor, and instead of saying, “You’re so cute, honey, let’s go in and watch How I Met Your Mother,” she says “Let me get my camera.”

So, I pull out our electric mower and I mow that stupid lawn. And my mother gets some very dark and somewhat blurry pictures of it, and when KR gets home, he thinks I am the most awesome pregnant wife ever (although I might be projecting a bit, there). This is the only evidence I have that labor is in any way imminent, although after I go to sleep and wake up with no change (see, absolutely no contractions whatsoever, not even Braxton-Hicks), I figure it’s just wishful thinking that my desperate flurry of yard work was indicative of anything at all.

Around 10 p.m. the next night, KR and I are watching … probably the Daily Show, while my mother is in the guest room on the phone with my father. I am feeling decidedly uncomfortable, sort of bloated and (WARNING, poop talk ahead) constipated, and when I stand up to go say goodnight to my mom, it’s even worse. I tell her I’m feeling constipated, and although I don’t use the words “rectal pressure” this is the feeling that I have – a feeling I remember being told in our childbirth class comes only after the baby’s head moves fairly low. Which, naturally, is why I think it’s poop related. Head position was just checked that morning, and the baby hadn’t moved below -1 station. I’m not even having contractions! This is obviously not labor!

KR and I are in bed by 11. He starts snoring almost immediately, but I just can’t get comfortable. I move positions a lot, and start drifting, but every time I get close to sleep, my “bowel cramps” wake me up. I make a trip to the bathroom, where I reconfirm that I must just be bloated because all I can do is pee a little, but when I get back into bed, I STILL can’t get to sleep. And as I lie there, the cramps get strong enough that I start trying to focus on something, anything that might put me to sleep.

As a kid, I could recite The Princess Bride almost verbatim, the whole movie. So I start going through the dialogue in my head, but I can’t get past the first couple of lines. I switch to Pride & Prejudice, a movie I know at least as well, and for the next hour or two, scenes from these two movies flit back and forth in my head as I try to manage the pain. Finally, around two o’clock I get up to use the bathroom again, and admit to myself, somewhat gleefully, that this is it. Then, even more gleefully, I wake KR up to make him share in my pain tell him the good news.

For the next few hours, we just sort of hang out, half asleep, talking, and my contractions are mild enough that I can easily breathe through them. KR fixes me a glass of hot milk, at my request, and then a bath. As I’m sitting in the tub, we get the idea to time my contractions, and they’re coming in no pattern I’ve heard about in any of my classes or books: a minute and a half apart, 30 to 45 seconds long. They’re still not particularly strong, though, so I assume it’s some sort of pre-labor.

What happens next is a little fuzzy, order-wise, but at some point, KR goes to wake up my mom, maybe around 5:00, and I get out of the bath. I know he isn’t with me as I’m standing by the sink, drying off, because that’s when I get hit with a contraction so strong that I double over and start to whimper. All my breathing techniques, visualizations, everything leaves me, and I have the fleeting thought that if the rest of my labor is going to feel this bad, I’m never going to make it. I then vomit violently, doubled over the toilet, and by the time that’s over, so is the contraction.

After I get dressed, I crawl back into bed. My mom comes to say hello, then goes to take a shower. My contractions have slowed down considerably since the one that made me puke, and they’re weak enough that my breathing techniques are sufficient again. KR is drifting in and out of the room, trying to get ready for us to go to the hospital whenever the need should arise, and I start drifting in and out of sleep. I actually get in a good hour-long nap, and around 7:00, I wake up feeling somewhat refreshed. I have a fairly decent contraction — and then feel a little gush of fluid between my legs.