MommyJogger
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The hospital scheduled my induction for this week, so we were hoping to get things moving along a little earlier than that. My first birth with DS1 was quite traumatic for me (and I believe for him) and was an induction with pit due to a membrane rupture without onset of labor that ended in an epidural and assisted delivery with a severe 3rd degree tear.
I hadn't let anyone do internals on me because I was afraid of how I would feel if someone told me I was high, tight, and closed anywhere near my due date.
Finally let them do it so that we could consider how effective natural induction methods might be (didn't want to poop my guts out for no good reason) and was pleased to hear I was 6cm and stretchy. The OB did a sweep (without asking first :/ ), said to go home, get my bags and head to the hospital. I went to the hb midwife instead to talk about how to proceed. I took some castor oil that evening and it wasn't so bad even though I tried to put a lot of food on my stomach first for maximum effect, lol. The next morning (Saturday), I headed back over for her to listen to the heart rate during some painless, irregular cramping/contractions I was having and he was happy as a clam. Went home with some herbals to putter around, take a walk, and see where it would go. Kept in touch with the midwife and she came by around 4, saw me shivering and vocalizing and called her backup/assistant. I kept saying we would wait to fill the pool when I was in real pain, lol. She checked me again around 6pm and I was a stretchy 8 with baby's head very very low. I asked her to break my water and she did.
And immediately I was in transition. Worst pain-ish pressure I'd ever felt. Asked immediately for the pool and sat in it as it filled up. Tried a bunch of different positions in the pool and none of them did it for me. Meanwhile, DS1 was hanging out and is usually quite upset at someone in pain, but obviously knew something was different about this one. He asked his dad if I was okay and his dad told him that mommy is fine and that I was "working very hard to finish a job right now" and he just said "okay, daddy", gave me a kiss, and ate some pizza we'd ordered. I felt a lot of rectal pressure and the pool wasn't cutting it for me.
I got out to sit on the birthing stool, hated it.
Leaned into DH sitting on a chair, hated it.
Had DH support me in a squat, hated it.
I kept saying I was pushing (it felt like I was, but not much and not on purpose), lol, but I obviously didn't know what pushing felt like when I said that.
Sat on my toilet and decided I would not be moved from that spot, lol, and kept coming up into a light, high squat through contractions.
I was in transition for about 2h and hormonally blubbering away/shaking the whole time.
Sitting on the toilet after a while (maybe an hour?) of not-so-bad farther apart contractions (my rest-and-be-thankful, in hindsight), I finally started to push. And by that I mean my body was seized by an involuntary whole body flex that centered around my anus, lol. And I said "Okay, I lied, THAT was a push".
My absolutely fantastic and precious midwife was talking me through positioning on the toilet so she could catch the baby (she didn't want to ask me to move if that's where I felt best, I realized) and I realized I was about to have my baby in the toilet. So I asked for the birthing stool and moved over to it between pushes (which were actually quite light at the time).
I got onto the stool and leaned one arm against the closed toilet and realized that something hard and the 'right' height to lean on was what I'd been missing the whole time. Felt fantastic to be in the deep squat and leaning on the toilet. From then, the next push was incredibly strong and felt amazingly effective. The push after that, I felt the ring of fire and could tell the baby was going to crown the next push. The midwife had me stop and pant through a handful of pushes to avoid tearing and the head delivered quite slowly. I panted through a couple more and baby boy slipped out, super angry at all of us and immediately rooting on the midwife's hands. He was handed to me and we didn't really get a chance to breast crawl because he went for it right away and latched like a pro.
Almost immediately, we had a gush of blood and the placenta delivered. I was hemorrhaging a bit, so I got the shot of pit in the thigh and lots of absolutely horrendous uterine massage. I would rather have stayed in transition another hour than to have the uterine massage, because it was the worst part and I screamed like a little girl.
The whole pregnancy, I wasn't really sure whether DS1 "got" that there was a baby coming out, but he immediately wanted to "Hold it baby Renton?"
We got our "delayed" cord clamping (it stopped pulsing and no longer had blood in it really quickly, so it was actually quite fast). I had a couple of stitches, but nothing like last time. Then I got to sit down on my own couch and gorge on pizza and all the snacks we'd made, thinking I would have another long, never-ending pre-transition first stage.
DS1 has DH's name. DS2 has DH's birthday. Renton Hugh, born 9/13 at 9:13, 8lbs 14oz. Adored by his older brother. And this chick is 2 and done.
I hadn't let anyone do internals on me because I was afraid of how I would feel if someone told me I was high, tight, and closed anywhere near my due date.
Finally let them do it so that we could consider how effective natural induction methods might be (didn't want to poop my guts out for no good reason) and was pleased to hear I was 6cm and stretchy. The OB did a sweep (without asking first :/ ), said to go home, get my bags and head to the hospital. I went to the hb midwife instead to talk about how to proceed. I took some castor oil that evening and it wasn't so bad even though I tried to put a lot of food on my stomach first for maximum effect, lol. The next morning (Saturday), I headed back over for her to listen to the heart rate during some painless, irregular cramping/contractions I was having and he was happy as a clam. Went home with some herbals to putter around, take a walk, and see where it would go. Kept in touch with the midwife and she came by around 4, saw me shivering and vocalizing and called her backup/assistant. I kept saying we would wait to fill the pool when I was in real pain, lol. She checked me again around 6pm and I was a stretchy 8 with baby's head very very low. I asked her to break my water and she did.
And immediately I was in transition. Worst pain-ish pressure I'd ever felt. Asked immediately for the pool and sat in it as it filled up. Tried a bunch of different positions in the pool and none of them did it for me. Meanwhile, DS1 was hanging out and is usually quite upset at someone in pain, but obviously knew something was different about this one. He asked his dad if I was okay and his dad told him that mommy is fine and that I was "working very hard to finish a job right now" and he just said "okay, daddy", gave me a kiss, and ate some pizza we'd ordered. I felt a lot of rectal pressure and the pool wasn't cutting it for me.
I got out to sit on the birthing stool, hated it.
Leaned into DH sitting on a chair, hated it.
Had DH support me in a squat, hated it.
I kept saying I was pushing (it felt like I was, but not much and not on purpose), lol, but I obviously didn't know what pushing felt like when I said that.
Sat on my toilet and decided I would not be moved from that spot, lol, and kept coming up into a light, high squat through contractions.
I was in transition for about 2h and hormonally blubbering away/shaking the whole time.
Sitting on the toilet after a while (maybe an hour?) of not-so-bad farther apart contractions (my rest-and-be-thankful, in hindsight), I finally started to push. And by that I mean my body was seized by an involuntary whole body flex that centered around my anus, lol. And I said "Okay, I lied, THAT was a push".
My absolutely fantastic and precious midwife was talking me through positioning on the toilet so she could catch the baby (she didn't want to ask me to move if that's where I felt best, I realized) and I realized I was about to have my baby in the toilet. So I asked for the birthing stool and moved over to it between pushes (which were actually quite light at the time).
I got onto the stool and leaned one arm against the closed toilet and realized that something hard and the 'right' height to lean on was what I'd been missing the whole time. Felt fantastic to be in the deep squat and leaning on the toilet. From then, the next push was incredibly strong and felt amazingly effective. The push after that, I felt the ring of fire and could tell the baby was going to crown the next push. The midwife had me stop and pant through a handful of pushes to avoid tearing and the head delivered quite slowly. I panted through a couple more and baby boy slipped out, super angry at all of us and immediately rooting on the midwife's hands. He was handed to me and we didn't really get a chance to breast crawl because he went for it right away and latched like a pro.
Almost immediately, we had a gush of blood and the placenta delivered. I was hemorrhaging a bit, so I got the shot of pit in the thigh and lots of absolutely horrendous uterine massage. I would rather have stayed in transition another hour than to have the uterine massage, because it was the worst part and I screamed like a little girl.
The whole pregnancy, I wasn't really sure whether DS1 "got" that there was a baby coming out, but he immediately wanted to "Hold it baby Renton?"
We got our "delayed" cord clamping (it stopped pulsing and no longer had blood in it really quickly, so it was actually quite fast). I had a couple of stitches, but nothing like last time. Then I got to sit down on my own couch and gorge on pizza and all the snacks we'd made, thinking I would have another long, never-ending pre-transition first stage.
DS1 has DH's name. DS2 has DH's birthday. Renton Hugh, born 9/13 at 9:13, 8lbs 14oz. Adored by his older brother. And this chick is 2 and done.
