The Birth Story Part 1

Many apologies for the lack of posting the last week. I realized that when Bailey was born, I was posting like crazy with pictures and thoughts...this time is different. But I'll talk more about that in throuh the birth story! I'll be breaking this down into a couple of different posts, because it is already 10:30 at night and I have to get to sleep soon!

So...on to our birth journey.

It really started about two weeks ago (a week before Connor's birth) when Kelly began some pretty significant pre-labor. For about a week, Kelly would have regular contractions each night for 2-3 hours. These contractions were real - painful and regular. They came with a steady rhythm. The first night, we were super excited. We got out our stop watch and little notebook and started timing. We got more and more hopeful that maybe something was starting. And then we did the next test to see if it was real labor - we laid down. And it stopped. For a week, every night we would have a long cluster of contractions that stopped as soon as we laid down.

By Thursday, February 19, Kelly and I were just worn out and extremely tired and frustrated. Kelly was in lots of pain all the time. Connor was very low and grinding against her cervix. The only thing that we held on to was the hope that all the false labor was leading to something and that we would get really good news when we went in for our 39 week doctor's appointment. We had rescheduled that for late in the afternoon on the 19th. We arrived at the appointment excited and very nervous that we would be told that not much has happened through the entire long week of false labor.

And we were right. After checking her cervix, our doctor told Kelly that her entire week of false labor had thinned her cervix to 90% (it was 80% the week before), but that we were still a very loose one centimeter dilated. The only news that was really good was that he was very low (a -1 station) and that her bag of waters was "bulging". We went home frustrated after having Kelly's membranes stripped again.

Friday, February 20 came and went with more of the same, except that it felt a bit different. The intensity had picked up. It was my last day at work, and I spent the day feeling strange about being so far away from Kelly. I knew that she would call me if anything changed, but it still seemed like I should be there. Nothing was physically different, but everything felt different. Friday night was more of the same - except that a couple of times through the night, Kelly woke up to some very painful contractions. This had happened on and off already, though, so we took very little comfort from it.

Saturday, February 21 was much the same as the previous days. My mom arrived in the early evening, though, which brought us a level of comfort we had not had before. We were carrying a lot of stress regarding what we were going to do if we went into labor before my Mom was here. Her arrival took away that last remaining stressor. It also made the wait that much more unbearable. We were, literally, watching and waiting for the one contraction that would break the water or change things. It didn't happen.

Sunday, February 22 began in much the same way, except the contractions were much more rhythmic and frequent. They didn't really follow the same pattern, in that they were happening in the morning with a much higher intensity than before. We still didn't put any faith in it, though. By this point, Kelly and I were completely exhausted by the entire process. Not so much physically, but mentally. We felt like it was never going to happen.

I should say here that all of this was occuring at the same time that we had a looming induction date on Monday, February 23. We knew that it would end. We knew we had a date.

But Kelly was really worried about the induction. She did not want to have to take cervidil or pitocin. She did not want to have to wonder if we pushed Connor out too quickly. She really just wanted to go into labor on her own and not have any doubt that this was the time for Connor to be born. So we carried around much of the same stress that we would have if we didn't have an induction date, with a bit of a ticking clock in our ears. We didn't want to have to be induced.

So, back to Sunday. At around noon on Sunday, Kelly took a nap. She was so tired and my Mom was here to help me, so she came upstairs and crashed out. She reports that through her nap, she was woken regularly with contractions, but that she slept pretty good anyway. She slept for 2 1/2 hours and woke up at 2:30 PM.

This is the point that we have decided real labor began...

(more to come!)