Birth Story - Five Hours Start to Finish

PAAZwife · August 2012

I went into labor with baby #2 at 39w. I had been having non-painful contractions for about a week. At 10pm Saturday night I started having contractions 8.5-9.5 minutes apart. These were stronger than the ones I had felt all week and I was having pain low in my belly and at the top of my legs. Since my first baby was born pretty quickly (induction), I figured that I had better call my midwives after about an hour and half of that.

At 11:30pm she suggested I take a hot shower and see what happens and to call back in an hour. I was in the shower for 12 minutes and the contractions were now 5-6 minutes apart. I decided to wait a bit to see if they spaced out after I got out of the shower, but a few contractions later after a particularly painful one, I decided to wake up my DH and head into the hospital. By 12:20am we were in the car headed to the hospital and I called my midwives on the way.

Arrived at the hospital and got checked in around 1:30am, contractions still only 6 minutes apart. Got checked and I was 3cm (same as four days earlier), but now progressed from 50% to 90% effaced. Midwife wanted me to walk the halls, but I had to be strapped to monitors and because my BP was elevated and baby had late decels, so I had to endure the contractions from the confines of the bed. As soon as she checked me at 1:30, the contractions went to 3 minutes apart. She checked me again at 2:00am since the contractions had gotten so much closer together and because of the heart rate decels and I was at 6cm and was admitted and wheeled from triage to a delivery room.

A few more contractions and two quick pushes and our little peanut was born at 3:06am just about five hours after I felt my first contraction and 1.5 hours after we arrived at the hospital. He weighed 5lbs, 14oz and was 20 inches long...a full half pound smaller than DS1.