silver_penny
triandem nursing 3 and pg
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- Feb 5, 2010
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At around 36 weeks, I started having early labor contractions. They were occurring every 5-10 minutes and lasted for hours. I could feel them opening my cervix. Over the next week, I had a start/stop labor pattern and opened from 1 cm to 3-4 cm. The contractions also helped with some effacement. Week 37 of my pregnancy I became irritable and frustrated with my body for taking so long. There were times where I broke down in tears, just wishing my body would go into active labor so we could meet our baby. Prodromal labor had taken its toll on my patience and sanity. I read others stories of their prodromal labor to try and comfort myself, but I didnt expect to still be pregnant when I reached 38 weeks. I was. I had gone to bed with the feeling of surrender to my body and the baby, knowing that they would know when the right time would be. Early Monday morning, at 38+1, I started having more intense contractions that were more frequent. I got two loads of laundry done, cooked breakfast, and washed the dishes. We decided that we needed to send my GMa-IL over to my ILs house so we could have some privacy. DH drove her over to his parents that morning, around 10. Contractions slowed a little during the day, but they were still there. At one point, when I was making dinner, I thought my waters had either broke or I peed myself. Turned out that baby had just decided to kick my full bladder, as when I did an internal check, my waters were still very much intact.
I figured the contractions would start back up again at night when the house was quiet. I was right, and they became 2-3 minutes apart after my boys went to sleep. DH and I stayed up for a while listening to some music on YouTube (Boyce Avenue). Due to the long day and not knowing when baby was going to make its arrival, I told DH he should get some sleep around 11. I laboured through the night, filled up the master bath, and lit a candle in the bathroom. I laboured in and out of the water, as the water would slow down the contractions. I laid down with my family a few times during the night and each time I got a few minutes of restful sleep before the contractions woke me up again. I knew I would need my energy to push out our baby, and welcomed any rest I could get. I also drank plenty of orange juice and gatoraide to keep up my fluids and energy. I contemplated waking my husband up around 4am, as I only had 1-2 cms to go, most of it being an anterior lip. I waited, though.
After two hours, the lip was still there and I decided that I was going to push through it. It was around 6 am when I called DH into the bathroom to tell him I was pushing. The contractions seemed ages apart, but with each push I could feel the waters bulge. It was an amazing feeling, as they felt like they were going to pop any minute. You could feel the tension on the bag. I would only push with the contractions, and it felt like such a relief. After about 6 pushes, the waters burst with such force that it almost stung my hand, and the babys head was almost immediately on my perineum. I felt that ring of fire, and breathed through it for the rest of that contraction. The next contraction came almost immediately after that one ended and I pushed out our babys head. I could feel baby move inside to get in the right position s its shoulders could pass through. I had never felt that before, as my first was breech and my second came out in one push. It was surreal, as I knew baby was assisting in its own birth. I pushed again and our baby was born into my husbands hands. He placed the baby on my chest, and checked to see what we had. Our little bump had turned pink, and my DH and I had our first daughter. I was ecstatic, as was he. I said so many things in elation, but I cant even remember what. I was high with all the birth hormones and love just swept over me. As our little girl laid on my chest, I watched her breathe ever so peacefully. She was sleeping and didnt even cry. We let her rest, undisturbed, as we saw she was having no trouble breathing and her cord was still attached. The placenta was birthed about 15 minutes later. We woke her brothers to see their new sister, and they do nothing but adore her. DS1 loves to hold her and cuddle her, and DS2 pats her back and says OK baby, OK baby whenever she makes a noise.
We didnt cut her cord until more than 24 hours later. I was thinking I might do a lotus birth, but after having the placenta attached for 24 hours, it was getting in the way and I was too tired to take care of it. DH was also worried about what others might think. Her cord stump fell off on day 4, and her naval is completely healed at 2 weeks and she is such a peaceful baby. We weighed her that morning, and she weighed an even 7 lbs, with a length of 19 and head circumference of 34 ½ cm. I had no tearing or grazing. She is an amazing nurser, and latched on perfectly from the start. At two weeks, she is already 10 oz over her birth weight. We are completely in love with our little Abigail.
