My mother had 7 babies and they all came super fast, average of about 3 hours. I figured I would be like her because I’m her twin in everything else!
I worked 60-80 hour weeks from 5-8 months pregnant due to unfortunate circumstances at work. I had to step up to the manager position for that time. The last 5 weeks I was home getting ready for our baby to come. I wanted everything natural. I wanted to have her at home. I had a midwife and appointments were going great until she quit practicing when I was 30 weeks pregnant. I was extremely stressed that I had to find a new midwife and get that connection before it was time to give birth. Unfortunately there were no more midwives in my area, only doulas. I was forced to go to the doctor and I found a great OB who was okay with most of my natural wishes.
November 12th was her due date and at 7pm that day I started having contractions. Maybe 2-5 an hour. I was so excited. But the contractions went through the night. And all day the next day. They were 5 minutes apart for one minute long for a couple hours when we decided to go in and see what was going on. I had never had a baby before and that was when I learned to go in to the hospital!
I was only at 1cm. I wasn’t in extreme pain. Everything was bearable. I was just very angry and tired of how long it was taking. So we went home and kept having contractions every 5 minutes on the dot for one minute long. That lasted another 24 hours. I could barely sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t concentrate to watch a movie or anything. When I started getting nauseous around 2 am on Friday we went back to the hospital. They kept me there for observation since I was 4cm this time.
My husband slept in the massage chair while I paced and kept having contractions. They offered to break my water. I refused. They had to put an IV in and made me promise to drink water or else they would give me fluids. I made them put a lock on the IV so I could move around freely. They attached the monitor to my belly and we compromised with them that I would wear it for an hour and then the next hour it would come off. It was very uncomfortable for me. One of the worse things for me was having that tight on my belly.
Finally around noon, with every contraction a little bit of my water would come out. I thought I was peeing and just cried because I couldn’t hold it. I was trying to relax with each contraction but at this point I couldn’t. My body tensed every time. They checked me again at 2pm and I was 9cm so they told me to do whatever my body was telling me. Around 2:30 I started pushing and around 3pm my doctor came in and at 3:26pm she was born. When I was pushing, I could no longer feel anything. I couldn’t feel the contractions anymore. They told me to push with the contractions but I just pushed when I could catch my breath. My wonderful nurse was holding one leg while my husband held the other. I held the back of my thighs. When she was born my husband caught her and brought her to my chest. They wiped her off and we immediately tried to breastfeed. She was so pink and I thought she would be messier.
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