The Birth of Lindsay Margaret – Part One

It was Monday morning – Halloween, but about 2:45am – and I awoke with contractions. They were steady, but not very strong. I did manage to get myself pretty excited though, and stayed awake hoping they would turn into something. I put MyBeloved on notice that something was happening, but I didn’t think it was necessary for him to stay home from work. But, they didn’t progress and in fact they fizzled out about the time he left for work. They came back, but still not strong. That night, I took LittleGirl Trick or Treating, hoping the walk up and down our street might inspire something further. But, nothing. And Tuesday was uneventful… I think – it was either Monday or Tuesday my mucous plug came out, which was interesting because that was something that didn’t happen until I was well in labor with LG. As mentioned in a previous entry, Illegal Midwife told me that baby girls tend to be born during the New Moon – that was Wednesday. And in fact, again, around 2:30am I woke up with contractions. These were stronger than before, and I was cautiously optimistic. Very cautious. My instincts nervously told me that it would still be ok for MB to go to work and that it was not time to call my mother to have her watch LG. But I was feeling strange; feeling like important was going on. I call this the beginning of my labor, because I was compelled to pay attention, even though the contractions were still not the caliber I had with LG. I walked around the house outside, took extra time to play with LG, grooved to my Black Eyed Peas CD (Elephunk – with great songs for labor like, "Labor Day (It’s a Holiday)" and "Hey Mama"), and tried to enjoy the last few hours of being a 3-person family. And then, again at 2:30am on Thursday… whammo! No doubt that this was it. I decided not to time them, but they were strong and steady. Around 4am MB [finally!] woke up and tried to comfort me. I kept asking him to call my mom and IMW, but he told me it wasn’t time yet. Finally I insisted on him calling my mom at least, and after trying to get a hold of her for over an hour, I called her myself, and got through. She answered the phone and I could tell I was making her nervous by being in labor, but she came right over. I’d made the decision early in labor that it probably wasn’t a good idea for LG to be around… she is very attached to me and I was in no position to explain to her why I couldn’t give her my usual full attention. So my mom picked her up and she stayed with her grandparents. Shortly after my mom and daughter left, IMW came to check on me. I asked her to do an internal exam, and she thought I was around 3-4cm. After watching me and occasionally checking fetal heart tones, she left and said she’d check in with us in a little while. At some point I took a shower, and at another point I sat in the warm tub with the shower water on my belly, which felt wonderful. I did that at least one more time during my labor at home. My contractions grew stronger, but did not grow closer together. IMW made phone calls to check in with me, and occasionally popped in. I couldn’t seem to keep any food down and she had concerns, so I made concerted efforts to drink plenty of fluid. The big surprise of the night was around 7pm when my water broke! That was such a surprise to me, and was reassuring and wonderful. My water had been broken artificially with LG, so this was progress, a milestone, and a rite of passage. But, Thursday came and eventually left. There was no baby yet, and MB and I hadn’t slept much at all. By Friday I was simply exhausted. Still nauseated from contractions (I’m kind of a puker anyway), I managed to eat some eggs and toast but it took me all day. Then we noticed something disheartening – that my contractions had actually slowed down. They had gone from 7 minutes apart to about 15. IMW was very concerned about this, and gave us some suggestions to get them rolling again. We tried all of them, and for a time the contractions did pick up again, but when I stopped doing them, they spaced out again. Time to nurse baby – stay tuned for more of my birthing adventure!