Birth Story

This is the closest to my due date I have ever come -- just one day past. I attribute this to the fact that for the past year or two I have been working on and resolving a lot of issues that likely caused "emotional dystocia" in the past. This time I had no issues to deal with (which felt very peculiar and unfamiliar, but also very freeing) and I was even free of the usual stress about waiting and nesting in that I typically experience. It was like I couldn't get motivated to clean or cook to prepare for this baby. The difference this time was that I forced myself to do some cooking a week before with the help of my good friend, Milly, and only a day or two before James was born, I had a sudden compulsion to stock the fridge and freezer instead of doing this six weeks ahead of time and fretting the whole time I was doing it.

Thursday (my due date) was spent doing a huge grocery shopping and I filled the freezer and three fridges with food. I told my dh, "I am cooking andcan't seem to stop!"

Friday I woke up and had a slight pinkish tinge to my flow which made me go"hmmmm." I also noticed a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing serious. Later that afternoon I had a midwifery appointment and had the mw do a VE to check how things were. There was nothing to indicate anything was imminent and I resigned myself to at least another week or so of pregnancy.

I took my daughter Bethany to the mall to buy some earrings and we enjoyed a mother/daughter time having lunch and an ice cream before I headed home. When I got home, I was tired, was feeling cranky, and wanted my house clean. I got the older kids to work on cleaning things up, finishing up laundry, etc. We had supper and then afterwards I sat down to watch a video with the kids while I disentangled some yarn in a laundry basket that the kids had thoroughly mixed together.

All of a sudden the quality and intensity of the Braxton Hicks contractions changed. I went "hmmm" again and decided that maybe I should give my mw a head's up. So I called her and told her that I felt like my body might be kicking over into the real thing. Dawn arrived about 45 minutes later to have some tea and check up on me. She watched me for a while, did a check, and while things looked like they might be moving along there was nothing definitive to go on so I told her to go ahead and go home, that I would be fine and would call her if anything definite was happening. My last pregnancy I walked around for two weeks at 7 cm dilation, so we had no way of gauging how long this one was going to take. After all, how serious can things be if you can talk and laugh your head off through a contraction? And we did a lot of that.

She didn't get far. Soon after she left I went into high gear, called her back, and 20 minutes later had a baby. My intentions were to catch this one myself again, but when it came right down to it, I just let Dawn do the catch because I was too busy standing up and holding on to her shoulders. Baby came out in one whoosh that I had no intention of stopping and I really only had about 3 contractions that were serious. I remember saying to Dawn,'Okay, I've had enough of this!" and she replied, "You know what that means, right?" Mhmmm. Transition. I went and sat on the toilet and my water broke and baby was there a few minutes later. Marc later commented on what a stoic trooperI was through the labor, but truthfully, it wasn't that uncomfortable until the last 3 contractions.

Anyhow, that's about the long and short of it. Glad to have it over with, have fallen in love at first sight all over again, and I'm wishing they would stay little and sweet like this for a lot longer than they do.

The natural high that occurs when you have a baby is better than anything else I have ever experienced. I think I am addicted.