MsMacual's Birth Story

MsMacual · October 2014

First- sorry for the huge delay in posting our announcement and story. It all has been a whirlwind and we're finally settling into a routine.

My mom arrived at dinner time on Friday, October 10. We cooked dinner, ate, made a plan for Saturday, and went to bed. I woke up at 11 with back pain similar to the pain that I had two nights earlier. I figured that changing my position would help so I sat up a little. The pain didn't stop. I tried a few other things- walked around a little and finally sat on my exercise ball. I realized while I was sitting that I also was feeling some cramping and tried at that point to time everything. I was having a hard time determining the beginning and the end bc the back pain was consistent, but I was able to get a rough number- about a minute to a minute and half long and two to three minutes apart. I told my husband that I thought I might be in labor- to which he responded, but your water hasn't broken (it broke before my contractions started with our first). Around midnight or a little after I decided to take a shower. I figured that I was awake anyway and it would be one less thing to do in the morning if this was a false alarm. I spent a super long time in the shower because the hot water felt amazing on my back. I eventually decided to get out of the shower and spent a little time between contractions adding last minute stuff to my hospital bag. Around 1:15 am I decided to eat a snack just in case I ended up pushing for a long time like I did with my first. I timed my contractions again after I ate and was at about 30-45 seconds and a minute to a minute and a half apart. I told my husband that I was going to call the midwife and thought that we would need to head to the hospital sooner than later. I called the MW's answering service at 2 am and the MW on call called back about 10 min later. She agreed that I should come in sooner than later. I told her that we didn't live far from the hospital (it's a little over a mile), but that we would need to wake my mom so it would be 15 min or so before we would get there. We got to the hospital at 2:30, checked in through the ER, and headed up to L&D. Our nurse met us in the hallway, immediately took us to our room, and started hooking me up to the monitors so she could get a baseline. The MW arrived about 5 min after we did and I was 8 cm and 100%. She also told the nurse to start filling the tub right before she checked me as I was planning (and really hoping for a water birth). They worked on unhooking me from the monitors while the tub filled and I got in around 2:50. My mw told me as I was getting in the tub to start pushing when I felt the urge. I maybe had one contraction in the tub before I felt the urge to push. Cameron Alexander arrived at 3:10 am. He was 8 lbs 9 oz, 21 in long and totally perfect.

I delivered med free (didn't even have a hep lock put in) and the only medical intervention was when the MW caught him as he came out. I realized after I delivered that my labor with our first followed almost the exact same timeline (including the actual times!) until I started pushing.