The Labor Finale: Rebekah’s Version

My story begins Thursday evening. I had finally found a position that resembled comfortable, was endeavoring to fall asleep, only to have a sensation that made my eyes pop open and my thoughts wonder, was that a contraction? I proceeded to spend the rest of the night in two hour rotations of sleeping and lying awake wondering, is labor starting or are my hips just in that bad of shape?

When the morning came I fluctuated between going to the chiropractor appointment I had made in the middle of the night or staying home just in case labor did officially start. I decided I probably wouldn’t get rest either way, but I definitely wouldn’t rest with my hips and coccyx out of place. Yay pregnancy symptoms. Loaded up all the kids, got adjusted, and drove back home, happy to discover my body had calmed down. But since I’d hardly slept the night before, I let Ms. Frizzle substitute teach while I laid in bed, attempting to run through the Miles Circuit but mostly just laying on mounds of pillows.

At some point during all of this, my mother and I made the wise decision for her to come and run kids so I could actually nap. I think she had already decided I was having a baby that day, whereas I still remembered my first daughter tricking me into an early drive to the hospital that only ended in us walking around a parking garage before having breakfast at a nearby coffee shop.

Around 2, I napped between two very adamant contractions. Once I got through the second one, I texted Colton, “wrap things up” and hopped out of bed to inform Grandma I was likely not going to be taking kids to Co-op that Monday. We began the bustle of finding everything the kids needed–backpacks, waterbottles, lunchboxes, etc. and getting all the proper labels done so they could go to her house that night. 

The gang all left excited–and by gang I mean my three children–and Colton arrived home with take out and my traditional birthday cake–Tres Leches from Central Market. I didn’t feel up to eating but told him to go ahead while he told me about his day. After I proceed to squat and breathe through a hard contraction, he suggested we call the midwife at the Birthing Center.

We’ve never lived close to where I gave birth–we’re 40 minutes sans traffic to the Fort Worth Birthing Center–so I’m always antsy to time our departure right. Val and I decided to give it another hour since contractions were strong but inconsistent, plus it was around 5 and I really didn’t want to sit through congestion while in laboring.

By the time an hour had passed, my contractions had calmed, so we opted to stay home and nap. Yeah that didn’t last long.

We laid down, nap masks on cause we were serious about catching some Zzzs, annnnd I immediately had a contraction. Then proceeded to have 4 more, all in ten minute increments. Being the kind wife, I left my presumably asleep husband to call the midwife and get myself ready to go. Well about my sneaking about was unneeded ‘cause he hadn’t fallen asleep either. 

At this point, it was close to 8pm so yay, no traffic. We made the drive to the center without a problem, just more erratic contractions–except they were now 5 to 7 minutes apart, with some being strong and some just period cramps (not ideal because I had no idea what to expect). I kept an eye on the GPS so I could estimate how many more I’d have to bear before we’d arrive.

Valerie promptly met us outside and took me for a quick sonogram and exam. I’ll be honest, I was so disappointed to only be 4-5cm because these contractions were already so strong! I asked about baby’s position, and Val said she was head down but facing sideways (looking at my right hip, ideally she’d be facing my back). I chalked the intense contractions up to her malposition.

We were the only ones laboring when we arrived, so we got our pick of the birthing suites–functionally the same but just slight differences aesthetically. I chose the Cultural District since I hadn’t been able to see it yet. Walking up the stairs, we joked about me getting a birthday buddy, which at that point I thought being done with labor would be a better present.

Throughout my whole prenatal care, my top of mind question was what would labor look like being with a midwife at a birthing center–I had Evie naturally but it was still in a hospital setting. Would the midwife be super involved and make me do all these different things during labor or would I be free to follow what I was comfortable with?

I was happy to see that while she had a plan, and offered guidance, everything was driven by my inclinations. We started with me resting on the bed, where she guided Colton on how to help me stay in a position to help get the baby better positioned. The contractions had stopped being unpredictable and were now always intense, active labor contractions. 

At this point in the night, Time vanished for me. Not in the “it all went by so fast!” way but more that I had no perspective how long anything was taking place. I know we were up in the suite around 9:15. It may have been 20 minutes, maybe less, that I requested to go to the tub. Getting to labor in water was probably the biggest draw for using a birthing center to me–since I’m a VBAC, hospitals treat me as a high risk, so I’ve never had the option to get into hot water to ease labor pains. 

Valerie had partially filled the tub with hot water, and was now adding some cold water to raise the levels while lowering the temperature a bit. I stuck my hand in, said “eh, its fine” and got it, at a nice, cozy 106 degrees. The relief was immediate, and for a small stretch, my contractions were hardly worth my attention. Colton lit the artificial candles and Valerie brought in this star projector thing, so the entire room had a nice mood.

And then the contractions were back. Despite being in a blazing hot tub, I requested a fan, and then our amazing birthing assistant draped a cool cloth across my head. Colton held the fan while I gripped the side of the tub, reminding myself to make low pitched noise through the contractions because yes dear readers, that matters. 

Valerie sat on the couch with her computers, likely inputting notes, present but letting me do my thing through labor. At some point I asked her to check my progress because I needed to know we were moving forward–I felt like I had been in this state for ages and was so tired, and I was working hard to not tell Colton to shut up (sorry mom) when he would say things like “you’re one contraction closer!”

She told me my body was making progress because the contractions were coming closer together and getting stronger, but she checked and I was much further along. Now looking back, I should have registered that I was really far along, because it was just a moment or two and we were discussing the delivery location. Because my preferred way to get through contractions was facing the tub wall on my knees, but if I wanted to deliver in the tub I had to stay low in the water–babies need to be born completely under the water, they can’t come out in the air and then go under.  And we would not have been discussing where I would push if we weren’t near that point.

Since I knew I was going to be pushing on my knees, we moved to the bed. Now here is where the order of events gets fuzzy to me. When we arrived, Valerie had let another midwife, Katie K, know I was in labor, because Katie had given me STRICT instructions to not go into labor over the weekend–she wasn’t on call and we had made plans to have Ascension Coffee deliver us all lattes and breakfast once I had the baby, priorities right? 

Katie, in my defense, I did go into labor before the weekend.

Valerie asked if I wanted Katie present because she would totally come if I asked; we love Katie but at that point I didn’t care, I just really wanted to be out of labor. Valerie suggested breaking my water to really speed things up (it was just after 10 at this point, I think). The moments after they broke my water were the most peaceful I’d probably experienced in an hour, which in my brain was an eternity. I had zero interest in moving, and stayed laying on the bed until the contractions decided it was time to play again. 

So back up on the peanut ball I went, but this labor had the oh so lovely experience of vomiting. Never done that before. Sweet Colton thought it might have been the Olive Garden, so later, when I was no longer experiencing vice-like gripping on my internal organs, that was just a byproduct of relaxin coursing through my system. 

That is both the good and downside of being me in natural labor: I never enter this euphoric or primal state, I’m just over here being miserably coherent and sarcastic through the entire experience. At this point it really was just a mental game for myself while Colton and Kasey (forgive me if that’s spelt wrong) supported me through contractions. With each contraction, I would focus on making low pitched noises like you do in choir practice; squeezing Colton’s hands to get through while Kasey did counter pressure. 

Now I assumed I would have a similar experience as I did with Evie, that my body would just push, no questions asked. That wasn’t happening. But I was so over being in labor. I oscillated back and forth, and found some slight more encouragement from my body to push but nowhere near what I had with Evie. I didn’t care we were pushing. 

It felt like forever. I have never felt the ring of fire before and I absolutely did this time. I was exhausted, pushed so hard and heard Valerie say, “Great! The head is almost out!”

All I could think was, WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALMOST?

I was struggling through those last pushes. I was not feeling connected with what my body was doing like last time, I was so tired, desperately wanted to be done. At some point Colton whispered in my ear that I was a warrior, and all I thought was, really? That is so cliche.

Still impressed with myself that after 4 labors, I have managed to keep all the mean thoughts I have in my head, and not out loud (very demure, very mindful).

In truth, pushing was only a few minutes. The second that baby was out I said Thank the Lord (I only recall doing this once, but Colton claims I said it at least five times), followed up with, “I’m never doing that again.”

Valerie and Kasey managed to make the transition from me being on all fours to laying on back holding our newborn, who was still attached to the placenta way smoother than I anticipated. I was happy to see that Austen had a full head of hair, and that we got to do delayed cord clamping–something I had wanted to do with all of my kids but hadn’t been able to.