Post by aprilsails on Sept 23, 2019 8:08:26 GMT -5
Here is our little smush Daniel Spencer:
He was born yesterday at 40w2d after a 6 hour quasi induction. I had been having mild and intermittent contractions for over a week and was basically walking around at 4cm dilated, however only 50% effaced. My midwives had a rough week (8 births in 2 days across 4 teams) but since L&D was dead yesterday and no one else in the practice was due to have a baby they thought it might be a nice chance to have a baby during daylight hours.
By 11am my water was broken and I was walking the halls for the next 3 hours. Contractions picked up from every 5 minutes to every 1-2 and sometimes they were coupling but they weren’t very painful. If I stopped walking they slowed down (booo). During this time I dilated to 5cm. So really just early labour. We all took a lunch break and I did some spinning babies stuff.
Just after lunch I felt a clunk. It was so freaking weird but I guess since when we started he was sideways that was his head shifting past my pubic bone. That changed everything.
During the next 2 hours I went through transition. 45 second contractions with 2 minutes between, not entirely eased up but manageable. I used breathing techniques and word cues from Hypnobabies but I never bothered listening to the tracks or felt I could have reasonably entered hypnosis. I really felt best while labouring standing and walking around although bobbing on the peanut ball wasn’t too bad either. I felt terrified when I turned down the epidural (the anesthesiologist came in and offered before his shift ended) but I felt like I was already too far along to bother.
The last 25 minutes went fast. I asked to try the NOx and then jumped up in the bed, said I needed to poop, the second midwife breezed in and I laboured down squatting for a couple of contractions and then went into pushing while lying down on my side semi squatting for 10 minutes. I was glad to have the NOx since it forced me to continue to focus my breathing and I definitely screamed less since I was too busy taking the NOx. I was actually surprisingly quiet and only dropped two F-bombs.
Baby boy is 8lb7.5oz and 20.5”. I had minimal tearing and was able to eat dinner and do skin to skin and an attempt at nursing while they stitched me up, verified my placenta and filled out all the forms. I was given extra active management since I had retained placenta with DD and they wanted to make sure I expelled everything. I’m still having pretty strong contractions every half hour now which sucks for my sleep but I will be happy if I don’t have any ongoing issues.
I was at home, toasting with champagne with all the grandparents and DD within 3 hours of his birth. I can’t even begin to describe how happy I am with how everything went.