We were at home on Tuesday night just watching TV and hanging out. Sarah had been having some cramping and mild contractions for a couple of days, but started to have some fairly intense contractions around 10pm on Tuesday night and told me that it might be time for us to go to the hospital. We'd already packed up a bag with clothes and things to take with us, so we left fairly quickly after that. We got to the hospital around 10:30pm and got Sarah checked in and examined within about half of an hour. She was five centimeters dilated (which is considered "active labor) when she was checked in, so they took us to our room and set her up for the process of working through her labor. Our intention was to have a water birth with Norah, and we were lucky that there was no one else using the water birthing room when we arrived. It is the nicest and biggest room in the birthing center at the hospital, and having it to ourselves made the process of labor seem less overwhelming or impossible.
Over the course of the next nine hours, Sarah dealt with her labor, increasing contractions, and fought off exhaustion. Since she went into labor about the time of night she'd normally be going to bed, she didn't have a chance to sleep or rest much before hand. As you can probably imagine, being in labor isn't really conducive to sleeping, either. By 8:30am on Wednesday morning when Norah was born, we'd been up for 24 hours straight.
Like I said before, Sarah was in labor for about nine hours starting at 11pm on Tuesday night. Of those nine hours, she spent about four hours in the jacuzzi, one or two hours in the shower, and a couple of hours in bed or squatting on an exercise ball. While using the jacuzzi or shower during the laboring process are not techniques that are specifically unique to water-birthing, they fit well with our hopes for the birth and, perhaps more importantly, seemed to really help Sarah deal with the contractions she was enduring. I didn't do much, for the most part, but just tried to help with my presence, some encouraging words, and some light-touch massage. There's not much for a partner to do during the laboring/birthing process except to be a go-fer and do what he or she is told. So it goes.
Anyway, the midwife came in to check Sarah's dilation at 8am on Wednesday morning. Sarah was 8 centimeters dilated, but her water still hadn't broken. We decided to have the midwife break her water as they began to fill the rather large water birthing tub with warm water. The tub generally takes 20-25 minutes to fill, so we thought we'd have plenty of time to get it filled and Sarah into it before she really had to start pushing. While it was a good plan, it didn't really work out once the midwife broke her water. Sarah's amniotic sack and fluid was acting as a buffer and keeping Norah's head from dropping fully down onto the cervix. Once Sarah's water was broken, though, Norah dropped right down and started putting pressure on the cervix to the point that it dilated the final two centimeters in a matter of minutes. Sarah's contractions were markedly more intense immediately after the midwife broke her water, and Sarah began to push the baby out just three or four minutes later. There wasn't time to get her into the water, so she delivered the baby while lying on her side in bed. She only had to push for about 20-30 minutes before Norah was out completely at 8:30am on Wednesday.
Sarah used no pain medication and did not have an epidural at any point in the process. She delivered Norah as naturally as possible and did a wonderful job. I can't remember a time in my life when I've been more proud of anyone than I was of Sarah while Norah was being born.
Norah was 7lbs and 11oz when she was born, and 20 inches long. She's got "fair skin" according to one of the nurses, and hair that is lighter in color than I expected it to be. I thought she'd look more like Sarah (with dark hair and eyes, and olive skin), but maybe not? Who knows... I guess we'll see.
And just so everyone is clear... She's pretty much totally awesome.
3 comments:
I am in awe. I love to hear birthing stories - they are all so different. Sarah, I'm glad you made it through so well, in the end, and it's awesome you were able to avoid the medication. I feel so proud, and I have tears in my eyes :) Thanks for sharing your story!!! I'm really glad Norah arrived safely!
I'm so happy for you both! And you are right...she is totally awesome :) You are going to be such amazing parents.
You're such a rockstar, Mama!! I can't wait to meet her, and to give you a big hug!!
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