Like every Monday night before and during my pregnancy I went to belly dancing class. I got home around 9:45 p.m. and jokingly said to Derek that I’d wake him up around midnight, “that it would be time to go”. We went to bed around 10 p.m. and I fell asleep fast. The full moon was that night and I remember looking at it before going to sleep. I actually woke up just after midnight and went to the bathroom like normal but when I got back into bed I just couldn’t get comfortable. My stomach was feeling funny and to me this meant hunger. I got back up and ate a leftover cinnamon roll from breakfast. Hunger satisfied, I got back into bed. It seemed like I couldn’t go fifteen or twenty minutes without having to move around. I just couldn’t settle. Looking back this was probably the start of my birthing waves. Tossing and turning, Derek was getting no sleep either, so I decided to get up and sit in the Nursery and read Harry Potter. As I sat in my glider thinking about my baby and trying to read Harry Potter I could no longer focus on the words because my waves were coming closer and closer together. I still hadn’t realized that my waves had started because I would feel my belly and it didn’t seem to be getting tighter during a wave to me. I thought I just didn’t feel well.
It was now around 3 a.m. and my midwives had told me that if I just couldn’t sleep that it would be safe to take one Tylenol P.M. I took it with a glass of water but still couldn’t settle in the bed. I began looking through my books reading about signs of early labor, trying to determine if that was what was going on. I guess I should mention that my due date was Wednesday (now only one day away). That’s when Derek told me that the midwives had said that if I couldn’t sleep that I should call them. We made the call around 3:30 a.m. and just said that we thought the birth might be starting. The midwife suggested taking a warm bath and trying to relax because my water hadn’t broken, and maybe my waves would stop.
We ran the water for the tub and I got in, but couldn’t relax because our tub is the bottom of a shower and not contoured very well. Derek would go and get towels to put in the tub to help me get in a more reclined position. After half an hour or so, I gave up on the tub idea. It just wasn’t working out. I was using the bathroom frequently now, so I just sat on the toilet. I was so tired and just wanted to go back to sleep. At least sitting on the toilet meant I wasn’t standing. Just after 4 a.m. my mucus plug came out and that’s when I realized that this was really it. My body was preparing to have a baby. The uncomfortableness that I kept feeling from time to time was my birthing waves. I had Derek bring a small CD player into our bathroom so I could listen to “This is your Birthing Day”. We called the midwife again around 4:45 a.m. and told her that the baby was coming, but in my opinion, not anytime soon. I remember saying that things weren’t very intense. She said to call again in one hour unless things changed. I stayed in the bathroom for most of the time either sitting on the toilet or standing over the sink swaying back and forth a little during the waves. It was close to 5:30 a.m. now and I had Derek call my dad to have him go to pick up my grandmother who lives in Nashville, NC. She lives about an hour away from our home and I wanted her to be there for the birth. I told my dad to bring her back to his house so that way when it was time to go to the Birth Center she would be closer. We also called Diane to let her know that we might be calling her at work today to make the trip to the Birthing Center. Some time went by and we called the midwife again. I wanted Derek to make the call because my waves were so frequent now that having a phone conversation would break my concentration during a wave. I kept going to my special place with my baby to relax through the waves, but talking on the phone was the best way that my midwife could tell how things were progressing with me. I still had the opinion that things weren’t that intense, but my midwife suggested that we come on to the Birthing Center so that she could check me. The drive was about 45 minutes and if we waited too much longer we would be facing heavy rush hour traffic on I-40, the main highway through the Raleigh/Durham area.
My waves were coming every 2-3 minutes now with little break between them. By this point I was usually standing over the sink swaying and singing my baby’s birth song. I like to sing, so low drawn out Oohhhhhs came as a comfort to me. Derek was busy packing the car with the pile of stuff I had collected in the Nursery. Unfortunately I was in no position to help him because I was deeply relaxed in my hypnosis. I had moved the camera and the camcorder out of the glider in the Nursery so I could read earlier that night and therefore, they did not make the trip to the Birthing Center with us.
It was just after 6 a.m. when we finally were ready to leave. It took me two or three waves to get from our bathroom to the car because I would stop during them and sway. I remember when we got to I-540 (one of the two main highways we needed to travel to get to the Birth Center) the traffic was heavy and I felt like I was part of the “rat race” to get to work. I felt special because I was going to have my baby amidst this sea of people living their everyday lives. During the car ride my waves were the most intense. They were back-to-back and had little break between them. Derek was now making calls, informing our parents that they better head to the Birthing Center now. I was singing my birthing song almost continuously during the car ride. I do remember Derek pointing out the full moon to me and saying, “there’s your moon, sweetheart.” (I always thought my baby would come with the full moon) I was listening to different tracks of my hypnosis on my I-Pod during the car ride. Once again, looking back I was going through transformation during this time, but didn’t know it.
We got to the Birthing Center just after 7 a.m. and the midwife had me give a urine sample and I clearly needed to be drinking more. My midwife then checked me and said, “good gracious girl! You are completely dilated!” I had no idea I would be that far along. She asked me if I wanted to try getting in the tub and I said yes. I had hoped for a water birth. My bag of waters was still intact and it most likely broke sometime in the tub because I never felt it. I was in the tub by 7:30 a.m. and didn’t feel like pushing yet. Partly because I didn’t know what that felt like and partly because none of my family had arrived yet. I wanted them to be here, especially my grandmother.
Between 8:15 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. all of my family arrived to the Birth Center. Now I could finally begin pushing. I was still singing my birth song with each wave, but it was not as frequently as in the car because I was complete. In the tub I tried a few different positions for pushing. At first I was on my back, but when the baby was really starting to move down I turned to my left side. The midwives were having trouble finding the baby’s heartbeat when I was on my back and thought the baby may be getting stressed. This worried Derek a little, but I was not scared. I was very peaceful on the inside even if onlookers wouldn’t have thought so. I was in my special place with my baby, but I knew my baby would be leaving my body soon. For the final pushes I was on my left side. My family was called into the room because I wanted them to all witness the birth. One push and the head was out. The cord was around my baby’s head two times! The cord ended up being on the longer side, almost 4 feet long! With the next push my baby came out and the midwife gently placed this small miracle on my chest. I couldn’t believe my baby was here. I was in awe as I gently rubbed my baby’s body, stroking his arms, back, and head. Everybody wanted to know what we had, boy or girl? To my surprise we had a little boy. I had thought we were having a boy all along, but everybody else had said it looked like I would have a girl. As I cuddled my son on my chest, Derek cut the cord and then the midwives took my son to the bassinet to dry him off. My placenta came out easily within minutes of delivery. We had been concerned about the umbilical cord having only one artery, and indeed it had only one instead of the normal two. My son was healthy and thriving. He was so alert. His eyes were wide open and have been since birth. He was so calm and peaceful and I am so thankful that I got to bring him into the world just like I wanted; naturally, with no pain, no drugs, and my family surrounding me with love and support.
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