On Friday January 1st, I went to bed feeling a bit crampy. I was camped out on the couch since my huge, pregnant belly prevented me from sleeping in the bed for the past week or so. At 3am, I woke to reposition myself and heard a "pop". I thought that was odd and so I hoisted myself off the couch. My water broke everywhere! I was quite suprised since I was only 37 weeks and 6 days pregnant. I hobbeled down the hall, water still gushing and yelled for Jeff. Jeff leaped up from his sleeping position and sprinted towards me across our king size bed at a about 100 miles an hour- I thought he was going to mow me down! In his sleepy state, he thought I had said the water main of our house was broken and was expecting to find a flooded kitchen. Always thinking about our hardwood floors that one is.
Jeff and I were not ready for my water to break. I had not packed a bag or brought my birth plan home from work where I had been finalizing it. We called the ob office who put a call through to the on-call ob since ours was out of town. I explained to her that my water broke and I was having regular contractions. She advised we head in. So we bumbled around in the hallway, trying to pack a bag, figure out what to do with dog, call the family...all the while my contractions were getting pretty strong.
We finally arrived at the hospital at 4am. I was really feeling the contractions and the nurses asked me if I was going to want pain medicine. I told her we had planned on doing this naturally and she advised me to play things by ear. She checked my progress and I was already 5 centimeters and we were both surprised by that. She started rushing around a bit and called the ob to start heading in (the ob was still at home in bed, convinced my labor would take hours to progress like most first time mothers). Jeff and I never took a child birthing class so I had to make up my own ways of dealing with the pain by breathing wildly and flailing around my arms like a chicken- not very effective -, but to my credit the contractions were coming hard and fast.
When the nurse checked me again at 5:15am, I was already 9 centimeters. Nurses began rushing in and out, Jeff was trying to call my family and I felt the urge to push. The ob, who arrived at about 5:14am, got her scrubs on and I signed some paperwork (always relaxing to sign forms while in active labor) and the nurse told me I could push if I wanted to. I bore down with a few contractions which felt so much better. The ob then positioned herself and told me to push with all my might with the next contraction. So the contraction came and I pushed as hard as I could. Two more pushes and Elle arrived. They placed her on my stomach and Jeff cut the cord. My family arrived 20 minutes later and everyone, from the ob to nurses, were all very surprised at the speed of my labor.
Elle was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She came out with her arm next to her head, which caused me to tear a bit. Unfortunately, the numbing medicine did not work and I felt most of that pain while getting the tear fixed. I was happy when I was finally stitched up and could relax and focus on Elle. She is just the prettiest baby and I am so in love. I was very lucky to have had such a fast labor but also feel very proud of myself that I accomplished childbirth med-free.
We have been home for the past 5 days and she is doing well. She is getting on a bit of a schedule and becoming more alert. She is the center of our universe, rightly so.
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