Baby Margaret has arrived! XP from November 2012

danak4 · November 2012

Margaret Louise was born on Wednesday 11/14 at 7:23 pm 11 days early. Here is our story:

My water broke while still at work on Tuesday at around 4:30 pm. I was planning to work up until the end and was sort of in denial about the possibility of this happening. It was mildly embarrassing... of course I was wearing khaki dress pants and it looked like I peed myself. I wasn't having any contractions so I went to bed early hoping for the best. Woke up around 1 am with mild contractions, just enough to sort of keep me awake, but I stayed in bed and fell asleep again around 4 am.

My midwife had instructed me to call her around 6 am with an update, so I called her when I got up to let her know we weren't having much progress. I was starting to get a little nervous, the "rule" my practice has for when your water breaks is that they want you to be in active labor by around 18 hours after it breaks. So, by 6 am we were looking at 14 hours and not much progress.

At this point she recommended trying castor oil. This was not at all appealing to me, but we were planning to try an unmedicated birth and I was really hoping to avoid pitocin and an automatic transfer to l&d instead of the hospital birth center like I planned. Let me tell you, castor oil is disgusting, but I think it worked.

Choked down the castor oil at around 7 am and headed in to the birth center around 8 am. Midwife checked me at around 9 am and I was 3 cm and she broke the rest of my water. Things started moving from here, by around 1pm I was 5 cm and by 5:30 pm I was a full 10 cm and ready to push. I didn't quite realize it at the time but my contractions were about 2 minutes apart for most of the day.

Overall, I did pretty well managing my contractions without meds until I got into the tub. Something about that warm water made my contractions so intense and overwhelming that I actually cried and told my husband I wasn't having fun anymore. ( Who thinks labor is fun?) I never asked for any drugs, it was like it never occurred to me despite the pain. The only way I can describe the day is as intense. Painful, yes, but mostly just unbelievably intense. My husband was absolutely amazing, and started referring to himself as a dudela.

I pushed for about two hours and then she was here. The cord was wrapped around her neck, but it never slowed her heart rate and she arrived perfectly healthy. She was 6lbs 5 oz and 19 inches long. I had some slight tearing which needed stitches and we had some issues with breast feeding for the first 24 hours. But, she is such an amazing little thing and we are both doing great!