Part 1: The Foreshadowing

At 11AM on Friday, March 11, 2016 mrJo and I walked into the doctors office for what was now my weekly appointments with my OB/GYN. It was just a routine check in, measuring the baby and hearing the heartbeat. Then when the doctor checked me, I was about 1 cm dilated. This didn’t really raise any concern; the doctor just said that I could have the baby at any time – not necessarily that I was in labor. “It could be next week or you could have the baby tomorrow. We really don’t know”.

Then my nightmare of planning a natural childbirth in a hospital started to come true. He said he wanted to schedule me for an induction! I really started to get frustrated. I told him that’s the one thing I didn’t want. He responded that it was only a precaution and “penciled me in” for March 29th (one week and one day after my due date). I was frustrated and thought to myself “you can schedule me all you want, but I’m not coming in until the baby wants to come!” Little did I know my concern would soon prove to be irrelevant.

Part 2: Intense Nesting

After the doctor’s appointment, I had an overwhelming need to start hardcore preparing. I was still working, but from home. I focused the rest of that day on completing the hand off of all of my work, cancelling meetings I had on the calendar, and telling others to take over.

After I was done working for the day, I started planning to make freezer/crockpot meals for after the baby was born because I knew we wouldn’t have the time or energy to cook. So as I was making the grocery list, I realized I hadn’t even packed the hospital bag! So I included those items in the list (I’ll do a separate post on my freezer meals & hospital bag). I spent two hours at Target buying groceries to hold us over for a bit, the ingredients for the freezer meals, and my hospital bag items.

When I got home I started packing my hospital bag and then it was time to get ready for bed. I was planning to use the next day (Saturday) to actually prep the freezer meals. LOL at that.

Part 3: My Naturally Induced Labor

I’m not sure how to elegantly put this so that if family or coworkers end up reading this it’s not weird. So whatever. I was not trying to jump start labor, but sex definitely has that effect whether you like it or not. So after mrJo and I had sex that night, things started to get interesting.

I felt a lot of pain afterwards, but being 9 months pregnant I didn’t really think anything of it. Of course I Googled it and it didn’t seem uncommon (especially after not trying to be gentle – sorry, graphic, but whatever). However, mrJo still thought my pain was a little strange. So he decided to go to bed around 11PM that Friday night. The advice we had gotten was that if you think you’re in labor, do your best to go to sleep in order to prepare for a lot of hard work.

Part 4: Early Labor

Although I did my best to stay horizontal, I could NOT get comfortable in bed. I started to realize this felt a little different. Around 1AM on Saturday morning, the pain started to really be noticeable. I got up to use the restroom and there was the “bloody show” (hint, hint: this is where it’s going to get pretty detailed). I remembered books, posts, and stories about this and also remembered that this could start happening weeks or days before labor for first time moms. So I stayed in denial. Around 2AM I lost my mucus plug. I figured now was a good time to wake up mrJo.

He started asking “Is it time to go to the hospital?!”. I said no. I wanted to stay at home until I really couldn’t anymore so I could reduce the likelihood of medical interventions. I said I needed water and fruit because I knew if we did go to the hospital, they wouldn’t let me eat or drink. I wanted to have energy if this was the real deal.

I realized I had packed my hospital bag, but didn’t have babyJo’s going home outfit! So we headed into the nursery and we (me on my hands and knees having contractions) picked out his outfit and packed it. By this time we had told our immediate families that I may be in early labor. The text at 2:40AM read:

“Hi fam – Just to keep you posted we think I may be in early labor. It may be false so we’re giving it a couple of hours. I’ll let you know if we decide to go to the hospital.”

At this point we were timing contractions. They were about a minute long and averaged 6 or 7 minutes apart.

About an hour later, I had a contraction that made me blurt “let’s go to the hospital!”. All mrJo kept saying was “get a towel!!” because his biggest fear was that I would give birth in the car. LOL at him thinking a towel would solve that problem! We had our bags packed and headed out the door and I sent a text at 4:01 AM, “We are headed to the hospital now. Please don’t go anywhere yet. We will let you know what they say”.

When we got to the hospital, my water started to break as we were waiting for the elevator. “Wait… something is happening down there” were my exact words, I believe. It’s not like the movies; well, not in my case. We got to a room and another fear of mine happened. They hooked me up to the monitor! I did not want continuous monitoring, but I whipped out my handy dandy birth plan and they fixed that real quick! We waited for about an hour before they checked me. Longest. Hour. Ever.

Part 5: It’s About to Go Down!

After I was checked, I sent an update text at 5:22AM: “Water broke & I’m 3 cm dilated. [babyJo] is coming today!”

It was go time – we were pumped! I immediately got out of bed and started walking around. I told mrJo to stay resting and that I’d tell him when I needed him. I was determined to keep him well-rested because I didn’t know how long this labor would last! He continued to time my contractions, which at this point were a minute apart and lasting a minute almost on the dot. At this point, I could talk through the contractions if I wanted to, but started practicing my breathing exercises and continuing to walk around the room when possible.

Eventually, walking and talking during contractions got more and more difficult. I asked for a birthing ball and tried to use this as much as possible, but I really didn’t like it. Sometimes I labored on my hands and knees while mrJo or my mom pushed into my hips and lower back. That kind of helped, but I thought that was pretty overrated based on the stories I had heard. I tried sitting on the toilet, wasn’t a fan of that either. Ultimately and ironically the most comfortable laboring position was just laying in bed on my left side!

Part 6: Why Isn’t it Going Down?!

Around 7AM when the nurses changed their shift, the new nurse checked me and I was still 3-4 cm dilated. Um… what?! I’m not 10 yet?! It’s been forever! At that point I realized maybe I was still in early labor and I should try to rest. So I started trying to sleep in between contractions.

Eventually sleeping was NOT an option anymore. Like, ouch. Or wait. I’ll change the language. It was a lot of “pressure”. So I made the mistake of asking them to check me again only about an hour later – still around 4 cm dilated. Okay, now I’m mad!

Another thing that would prove to really cause frustration was a prediction by mrJo (not blaming him. He was just excited) that the baby would come around 11AM, after 12 hours of labor. So I started watching that clock. 11AM it is, I thought! Around 10AM, only an hour before “go time” they checked me again and I was 5 cm dilated. At first I thought, “Yay! Halfway there!”, then mistakenly countered with, “Wait, but I’m supposed to deliver in an hour! How am I supposed to get to 10 in an hour?!”.

Part 7: “Please Give Me the Epidural!”

Around noon, things were more intense than ever. I screamed for the epidural at the peak of every contraction. Sorry, at the highest point of every “wave”. At this point, I was tuning out the affirmations that had helped me so much through my pregnancy and early labor. I controlled my breathing only at the beginning and end of every contraction; the peak was uncontrollable.

It got to the point where I looked at my mom, who has had three children, in the eyes and told her “you don’t understand how much pain I’m in!”. LOL, like what? I hated mrJo at that point. He kept saying “you do not want the epidural, you’re going to regret it” and would give me false options like “if you tell me three times while you’re not having a contraction that you want it, I will let you have it”. I definitely told him more than three times in between contractions and he still didn’t allow it (I love him for that, by the way).

They checked me and I was 7 cm dilated. If I got the epidural at this point, it’d be pointless. I’m almost there. But honestly I was out of energy. The fruit I had eaten had all been expelled by now (fancy and classy way of me saying I threw it up… whoops). So I did elect to get some medicine to help me sleep. I talked through the pros and cons with the nurse and made my decision that I definitely do not regret! After that I was able to sleep in between contractions and I had the energy when it really was go time!

Part 8: “She Hee-Hee-Hoo’d Herself to Sleep!”

Around 2:00 PM I had the most overpowering need to push! It’s time, I thought! The nurse checked me and I was 8 cm dilated, at 0 stationed, and 90% effaced. So it wasn’t quite time. If I pushed I could tear. But I could not stop it! This is where things started to get VERY graphic. I won’t go into detail here, but I am so sorry, Nurse Shannon. Another nurse came to help me use breathing techniques so I wouldn’t push. I fell asleep while I was doing the exercise, hence the quote for Part 8.

Soon after, my doctor arrived and walked into the room… in his normal, Saturday afternoon clothes… with his hand in his pocket… just casual. My thoughts about that? Ummm – sir can you go get dressed?! Why are you talking to me! I need to push!

Part 9: “Look down!”

At 3PM my doctor returned in his scrubs. He checked me and I was 10 cm, 100% effaced, and he didn’t have to tell me the station, the doctor just said “his head is right here!”. NOW, it’s go time.

Apparently he gave me instructions on how to push, definitely didn’t hear those. So my first push was accompanied by me screaming. I guess you’re not supposed to do that. So he told me it’d be easier if I didn’t make noise. LOL basically he told me to shut up.

Let me pause to say this was my favorite part of the whole thing and it was easy to me! I could actually DO something about my contractions rather than just wait them out. It was so rewarding.

After the second push (done the right way), I heard “his head!” and the doctor said, “a couple more like that and I think we’ll have a baby!”.

Third push. “Oh my gosh!”

Fourth push. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to push that time. The cord was wrapped around babyJo’s neck. Very loosely though, so luckily the doctor was still able to fix it.

Fifth push. “Look down!”

“Why are they telling me to look down”, I thought. And then I heard him. And then I saw him. And then I held him. At 3:13 PM on Saturday, March 12th after about 16 hours of labor and 10 minutes of pushing, mrJo and I finally got to meet babyJo.

Part 10: And Life Has Never Been the Same