Blaise's Birth: Part 7

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.
Part 4 is here.
Part 5 is here.
Part 6 is here.

I'm loving the tub.  But even as my contractions are getting longer and stronger, they're also spacing out and failing to come at regular intervals.  This happened during my last labor, too - I was fairly comfortable lying on my left side, but felt instinctively that I needed to be upright to get things moving.  Lying down I'd been stalled out at 4.5cm, but once I got up I went from 4.5cm to birth in three hours.

I feel the same way this time: I want to stay where I am in the warm water, but I feel that I'll end up with much more labor to manage if I don't get it moving along.

There is a key difference between this time and last time: with Camilla's labor I felt external pressure about the progress of my labor.  The doctor actually mentioned the word "c-section" only eight hours after my water had broken, and I knew more and more Pitocin would be coming if we didn't get the baby out.  (My labor ended up being only eleven hours, quite short for a first delivery, and Camilla never showed signs of distress.)  The doctor or one of the nurses was checking my cervix for progress every one-and-a-half to two hours.

This time, I know the midwife who is in charge of my care will not pressure me about lack of progress for a very long time.  She came in at 2:30am, bleary-eyed.  She'd been at the hospital for a birth at 11:30pm and had just gotten home when she got the call to come back for my birth.  She was ready to offer labor support for me, but we told her to please go ahead and take a nap in the on-call room - I actually feel she'd probably rather have my labor take a while longer!

Ros, my wonderful nurse, isn't pressuring me either.  No one has said a word about artificial labor augmentation, and Ros told me when I asked that they wouldn't be checking my cervix until I was feeling like pushing.  "Your body will tell us when you're ready," she said.  (I kind of wanted to hug her.)

But after being in labor for more than five hours, and because it's the middle of the night, I want to speed my labor along so that we can meet our son and relax.  So, with the help of Ros and Bryan, I get out of the tub and back into my gown.  It's around 3:30am now.

Thinking about moving forward, I have the idea of resting on the bed for ten minutes or so before going into the next stage.  But as they help me on to the bed, I can already tell it's not going to work.  My contractions are too strong for me to be stationary during them.  There is no way I'm going to be able to sit still, let alone lie down!

Every room in the L&D ward has a birthing ball, and I want to try using it.  I didn't have one during my labor with Camilla (silly backwards hospital also let me have nothing but ice chips - during this labor I've downed several large cups of ice water and a few small ones of juice) but during our birthing class I tried the ball and thought it was pretty cool.  I wasn't in labor then, though, so I don't know how it'll work now.

Ros suggests that we lower the bed and set the ball next to it.  We put a pillow by my head, and I sit on the ball, facing the bed.  I bounce and sway through each contraction and rest my upper body on the bed between them, laying my head on the pillow and closing my eyes.  It works surprisingly well.

Bryan's sitting in a chair behind me, putting his hands on my back and shoulders for comfort as the contractions hit.  For a while this feels good, but after a while I don't want him touching me anymore.  With each contraction I need to be along in my head and my body to make it through the wave.

I'm not positive, but I'm guessing that my newfound desire not to be touched - along with the still-strengthening contractions - means transition is arriving.

Part 8 is here.

Comments

[Petroni]

Is the birthing ball pretty much just like an inflatable exercise ball? I'm not sure whether our hospital has them or not, but I could certainly buy an exercise ball at Target and bring it along if that's all it is. The ball seems like such a good idea.

[Betty Beguiles]

This is exactly how my most recent labor progressed. The bath felt amazing but I knew the contractions weren't strong enough. My midwife would have been happy to let me stay in the bath and have a longer and possibly gentler labor but I was ready to meet my little girl so I got out. She checked me and I was 6 cm dilated. Thirty (intense) minutes later she was born.

Wait, this is your birth story. I'll be quiet now and just read. ;)

[Tracy]

what fun to come back to two more installments of your birth story (from my own short vacation!). I'm looking forward to more!