Today, I took sometime to reflect on this past week and wrote down some thoughts that I had.
A week ago today, I felt horrible, looked horrible and was feeling just plain worn down. I chose to stay home from church just because of how uncomfortable I was. I was just shy of being 38 weeks pregnant and the mentally daunting task of being pregnant for another two weeks seemed quite overwhelming to me. I didn’t know it then, but looking back, now I see that I was working into labor. I missed the people at church, I missed my energy, I missed feeling good, yet I tried to remember that God had ordained this for me and that I was supposed to have a spirit of contentment.
That night, I started to have fairly regular Braxton-Hick contractions but since this was a common occurrence for me, I just tried to ignore them and go to sleep. The next morning I woke up around 5am to use the restroom and was shocked to find a significant amount of blood and a very large clot. I wasn’t having any contractions worth mentioning but obviously something was going on. I called my midwife, Michelle and explained to her what was going on and she said she would stop by in a little bit. By 7:30am, she was here and we chatted for a bit. I was 3cm dilated and there were cervical changes and lots of blood. She was puzzled at this since this bleeding was much heavier than a normal bloody show. She was pretty sure that it wasn’t a placenta abruption because I had no other symptoms, however she wanted to stay with me and if things changed, she would send me for an ultrasound to see what was going on.
Around 10:30am, Michelle received a phone call from another expectant mom who was overdue. She was approximately 40 minutes away from me and was going into labor. Since I was pretty much at a stand still with only irregular contractions, Michelle called her assistant to come over and sit with me while Michelle went and assessed this other woman. I took the opportunity of a quiet house to lay down and attempted to get some sleep. I was still exhausted from Sunday and not properly eating or sleeping and I knew that if I was going into labor, I was going to need all the rest I could get.
Sarah, the assistant, arrived somewhere at 11am and by then the bleeding had stopped. She was just supposed to hang out and make sure that if something started up, that she would call Michelle and let her know what was going on. We ate lunch while I bounced on my exercise ball and managed to get several strong contractions, but after getting up and walking around, they all went away again. I tried to lay down in the afternoon but still couldn’t sleep. So I ended up going downstairs and started to play classical hymn arrangements on the piano for an hour. Getting very tired and weary of waiting for something to happen, I decided to try to get some more rest. Art and the kids made dinner, but I wasn’t at all hungry.
At this point, it was around 5:30pm. I had been up for 12 hours, nothing great was happening and I was just worn out. While trying to rest and sleep some more, I began to have more noticable contractions, but nothing that fabulous. I stayed in bed until a little after 6:30pm when I decided to get up and move around. The contractions had started to take a more regular approach and were coming around every 6-8 minutes and the bleeding had picked up again. Around 7pm, I told Sarah that things were starting to pick up again. She called Michelle to let her know what was going on and Michelle said to time the contractions and to check me. After timing my contractions for several minutes, and with a look of shock and maybe almost horror, said that the contractions were 4 minutes apart! She checked me and I was a full 6cm dialated. Things seemed to be progressing rather quickly! I wasn’t enjoying the pain, but was somewhat excited that things were finally moving in the right direction. I told Art that he needed to get the kids to bed since I wasn’t sure how fast things were going to progress. After my last labor and delivery (three hours from start to finish) I didn’t know what to expect. Sarah called Michelle and found out that the other woman who was also in labor just started to get into heavy labor as well. Obviously, Michelle couldn’t be in two places at once, but there was a plan in place in the off chance that this was going to happen. Michelle called in another midwife, Kathy, to come to my home and help with the delivery.
I will admit that I was slightly disappointed to find out that Michelle wouldn’t be able to deliver my baby, but I understood that these things happen. My only concern was that it would be at least an hour before Kathy would arrive at my house. All I could think about was what happened before and almost not making it to the hospital before I had my last baby. I just sat in bed, praying that this baby would not come before the midwife could make it. I also asked my paramedic friend who lives five minutes away, that if we run into trouble, could she come over and assist with the delivery.
Things continued to progress and Kathy did arrive with plenty of time to spare. At this point, I was having back to back contractions and was just trying to focus through them. The intensity was not unbearable but things were moving along. This was around 9pm. After a while, I was starting to feel like I was getting close to pushing. Kathy suggested that I move to my hands and knees to take some of the pressure off my back since I was having lots of back pain. I think this was around 10 or 10:30ish but I was losing track of time. The baby’s heart rate was still good before, during and after contractions. Once I was on my hands and knees, my back pain was better and I was attempting to push, but being in the position was certainly different and the body mechanics was different than what I was used to. I began to feel very panicky and wasn’t sure how much more of this I would take. With all my other labors, once I started to feel the need to push, it was only a few pushes later and the baby was born. Obviously, this was not happening with this one and being so exhausted from Sunday and all day Monday, I was felt like I was losing my composure and my strength. Both Kathy and Sarah started singing to me and rubbing my back trying to help me to stay calm and focused. Around 10:58pm, my water finally broke and I knew that it wouldn’t be long! Sarah checked the heart rate of the baby and it had decelerated somewhat but they weren’t concerned because they knew that the baby would be born very soon. There was no meconium and I could start to feel the head beginning to crown. But instead of one push to deliver the head, it took like 4 or 5 pushes. This baby felt huge! Kathy gave Art the opportunity catch the baby and Art, being a real trooper agreed to do it. This is no small feat for someone who does not like blood and body fluids!!! With the head being so large and slow to deliver, I was subconsciously concerned that the shoulders would get stuck. I was also thinking about what is said in Genesis that the woman’s curse would be pain in childbirth. This was one time that I was very MAD that Eve had taken that fruit and had eaten it!
With a little bit of positional coaching from Kathy, baby Mary Katherine finally made her appearance into this world, two weeks earlier than her due date at 11:01pm, July 22, 2013 weighing in at 8lbs 2 oz and 20.5 inches long. She was covered in vernix and seemed somewhat pale but alert to me. Her Apgars were 8 at one minute and 8 at 5 minutes. The placenta was delivered 9 minutes later…I record speed for me. Not even 25 minutes later, she was nursing and Art went to wake up the older children. Only the boys were awake enough to come and see Mary but their excitement was enchanting!
Despite the heavy amount of bleeding earlier that day, I had very little bleeding following the birth. Hemorrhaging was one of my biggest concerns so I was very relieved to not have this problem. Around 2:30am, Kathy headed home leaving me to cuddle and rest with Mary. It was certainly an amazing experience to never have to leave my home and to be able to just cuddle up in my own bed, in my own home and just bond with my new baby.
Looking back, God having Kathy come for the delivery instead of Michelle worked out wonderfully. Kathy did an awesome job giving me the support that I needed and never did I dream that the whole process would have worked out so wonderfully. I have much to be thankful for!
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