A Labor and Birth Timeline, in more detail than you're interested in

(Useful information: my prenatal care has all been provided by the Treasure Valley Midwives--a group of three midwives and their assistants who attend home births and have their own un-hospital-affiliated birth center. I chose to have my baby at their birth center. My son John was also born there.)

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010.

8am ish. Showered. Noticing some very mild tightening low in my belly. Hmm, I think, what's this?

8:30ish. Breakfast. More noticeable contractions. Not affecting my normal appetite for a pretty large breakfast. By the end of breakfast I am thinking "these contractions either need to be the real deal or go away because they are annoying."

Because my last labor/birth started and finished in less than 3 hours, I have been coached by my midwives to call them as soon as anything resembling labor happens. So, around 8:30, I call and speak to Teresa (the on-call midwife) and tell her what's going on. She's glad I called to give them a head's up and tells me to call them if anything changes or speeds up.

Contractions continue. I also go to the bathroom a lot. Sometimes, when I sit down on the couch, the contractions stop for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. This makes me wonder if these are actually active labor contractions or the start-stop-ish "false labor" contractions I've always heard about but never experienced.

10:30am-ish. Contractions have slowed way down, so I call my midwife to tell her so. Since I was scheduled for a prenatal visit at 2pm anyway, we agreed I would come in then as planned and they could check my cervix then to see if any progress was occurring.

I kept going back and forth about whether this was "real" labor. For some reason, I was very worried about getting my hopes up and then having all contractions cease. The disappointment would have been unbearable. But, given that my other labors were pretty fast and that I'd never ever felt noticeable "false labor" contractions, I'd say these worries were a bit silly.

Noonish. With Jeremy's help, I tried to time some contractions. Some were 3 - 4 minutes apart, others 5 - 6 minutes apart. Some were 10 or 15 seconds long, others were 30 - 45 seconds long.

12:20ish. I was feeling like waiting until 2pm to go in to the birth center was a bit arbitrary. I was starting to really want to go in and at least have my dilation checked. Just because I had a 2pm appointment didn't mean I had to wait until then. After a bit of debate (which had been going on in my head since 11:30ish), I called my midwife again. We agreed that I would go to the birth center by 1pm.

I felt a bit relieved once that was planned and called my mom to come be with my boys. We had everything ready. I sat down and updated my facebook status to reflect that (after all morning of wondering whether this was the real deal) I was now pretty sure this was labor.

I chatted online briefly with my sister, who conveyed her excitement to me. I was also excited and got the tiniest bit weepy as I thought about that fact that I was soon going to know if my child was a girl or a boy. Then I laughed at myself for being weepy.

12:40pm. My mother arrived, I gave her some instructions about the boys, and then Jeremy and I got ourselves out the door.

During the car ride to the birth center, it was a lot easier to time the contractions with the digital clock right there in front of me on the dashboard. Contractions were 1 - 3 minutes apart during that 12-minute ride.

At some point during a contraction, I really thought my water was going to break. I didn't want it to break in the car, but I knew there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I felt the same thing--"this contraction is going to make my water break!"--during the rest of the contractions on the way there.

1pm. We made it to the birth center without my water breaking. I walked in and felt a jolt of relief just seeing those people there ready to help me. Got a little weepy again.

I changed into a nightgown and Brittany, one of the midwives, told me she'd like to listen to the baby's heart and check my cervix right away. That sounded like a good plan to me.

When we'd made certain that the baby's heart sounded fine, Brittany checked my cervix. She said, "You're at 8 cm and I can feel a really bulgy bag of waters."

I said, "Are you serious? An 8?"

"Yes."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yes. 8 centimeters dilated."

I couldn't believe it, but I was happy to hear it. I had been preparing myself to hear 4 cm. For the next little while, I was downright chatty. I paced the floor, pausing to breathe through contractions, and just sort of babbled at Brittany and Jeremy. And I drank an apple juicebox. I marveled to myself and out loud about how outward focused I was. With previous labors, by the time I was that far into it, I was completely turned inward--focused on the intensity of the labor--and unable to focus on social interaction or anything else.

Teresa arrived (she'd been at another birth) very shortly and we filled her in on my progress.

1:30 or 1:45ish. Things got harder. I began to have to moan to get through the contractions. Jeremy stayed right behind me and gave me lots of support. Sometimes I leaned against him. He helped me keep my breathing as slow and calm as possible, which got more and more difficult for me as time passed. Between contractions, he gave me verbal encouragement.

I began to get hot and sweaty during contractions and Jeremy got a cold cloth and dabbed my face with it as I needed it.

At this point, it was requiring a lot of effort to keep myself calm during contractions. My moaning became louder. The idea of contractions of this intensity continuing much longer was unbearable. How much longer? I would usually have a break of only a few seconds between contractions. At the height of each one, I started to get a bit panicky. I was trying to survive and stay calm, but I was only succeeding at surviving. Jeremy's efforts at helping me stay calm were successful enough that I never became hysterical, although I did cry.

In addition to the contractions, I was having sciatic pain down my right leg. I'd had that off and on throughout the pregnancy and it was pretty mild, but it was just one more thing to make labor difficult. Standing and swaying was my best way to cope with contractions, but my sciatic pain is worse when I'm standing and makes standing up more tiring.

Eventually, probably about 1:50, I decided to try lying down. I knew it wouldn't be comfortable for dealing with contractions, but I was beginning to feel like I didn't have the strength to stand through them anymore either. I also thought my water might break any moment and we all knew that if it did, the baby would be here very quickly after that. I knew I wanted to push the baby out while lying on my side (since that had worked so wonderfully when I gave birth to Johnny). I lay down on the bed and felt miserable.

1:55pm. Between contractions, I looked up at the clock, noticed the time, and said "It's not even two o'clock yet. Glad I didn't wait until then to come in."

Once I was on the bed, I began to feel really strong downward pressure. It wasn't the unmistakable urge to push, so I wasn't sure how to deal with it. I couldn't just sit and take it. I felt I had to DO something, but wasn't sure if I should push or what. Teresa said it was ok to push if I wanted and then checked my cervix again, announcing that she could feel no cervix there and could only feel my bag of waters bulging.

(We had talked a few times in the past hour about if she should just break it for me, but I kept putting the decision off thinking it would break on its own any minute. She was fine to leave it in tact even though we all knew that would probably speed things up for me.)

With the idea that I could push in response to the pressure I felt, I began to do so. Sometimes that seemed to help and sometimes it seemed impossibly painful for me to do. During this time, I was scared and panicky and a bit insecure. I always feel this way during pushing, but it was worse this time because I was overthinking things, wondering when my water would break. Teresa gave me instructions and coaching, and she and Jeremy gave me encouragement. Shortly after 2pm, as I was pushing against this downward pressure, my water broke with a startling burst and I felt that need to push that can't be ignored.

I didn't need to be told, but Teresa told me to push with all I had when I felt that. And I did. Wow, that was painful. With previous births, the pushing stage was a relief for me, but this time, while I was relieved to be at this point, the pain of pushing was way more intense than I had expected. I did it anyway, of course. But because this pushing felt different, I wondered at a couple of points if there was something wrong. I think I said it out loud, "why is this hurting so bad?" After a couple of long strong pushes (during which I was moaning quite loudly), Teresa told me to slow it down a little bit and breathe the baby out. This is easier said than done, but I knew these were really important instructions, so I tried very hard. She guided me "little push, breathe. little push, breathe. little push, breathe." After about four of those, they told me my baby's head was out and I need to push the rest of baby's body out. I did that.

Teresa handed baby to me, and I hastily pulled my nightgown the rest of the way up to place this warm purplish body against the skin of my belly and chest. And everything was all right. That's the only way to say it. My mind knew it. I put my arms around this baby and said it, "Now everything is right again."

I looked up at the clock and saw that it now read 2:15pm.

[While nothing was strictly wrong during the pushing stage, the reason I felt something was wrong is that baby was born with his fist up next to his head. As I pushed him down the birth canal and out, instead of feeling just the round smooth head, I was also feeling that hand and arm.]