In Lieu of a Nap

I guess I could tell you the whole birth story in great detail, but since it wasn't really that exciting, I'm going to see if I can give you the condensed-ish version.

Contractions started at around 4am on Tuesday morning. The kind of contractions that made me tell LJ when he woke up at 6:30 that he should consider staying home from work. He was happy to oblige.

At around 9am, we called our midwife, Joelle, just to let her know what was happening. She came over to check me and of course, I was really no further than I was at my previous appointment. The contractions were all over the place as far as timing was concerned so she said she'd call in a couple hours. Two hours later, nothing had really changed and we were just going about our day as usual (eat, nap, laundry, walk) so she said she'd check in before she left work at 4:30.

Enter the Wii Fit. A friend of mine had told me she was doing the hula-hooping the night before she went into labour, so I thought I'd give it a try. She and I are both now convinced that it worked for me too! I unlocked some sort of super hula-hooping and set two new records, plus set new records for step aerobics and unlocked a new level of that too - and I could feel it working.

Joelle came over after work and checked me again and I was only one centimeter further along so she said she'd check again in the morning. Well, that's not quite how it happened, is it? We called her back just before 7 to let her know we were going to head to the hospital. Of course, this was also shortly after we had touched base with Erin K. & Co. who were on their way over to a friend's house for supper, but Erin met us in the parking lot at the hospital and whisked away the Little Goat for a way funner evening than I had, that's for sure.

LJ and I walked very slowly into the ER and can I just say, pre-registration really is the way to go! The triage nurse recognized that I was in labour right away, asked my name and about two minutes later, I had a wheelchair and my paperwork to bring upstairs. When we got upstairs, they asked my name and said, "Oh! We have a room right here for you - #35." (I'm guessing Joelle called the hospital on her way there.)

So from there, it's not ALL blurry.....I laboured in the shower on the birthing ball for a while which was nice but funny because the ball kept rolling over the drain and the shower was filling up with water pretty quickly. Then I tried a few positions on the bed and/or floor, none of which felt really great because, uh, hello! I was in labour....not much feels 'great.'

There was a big kerfuffle with getting something for the pain because they couldn't find a stinking scale which they needed to determine what dose they could give me of whatever it was. Then I only got one tiny dose because it was too close to delivery and the meds can make the baby sluggish. (I suppose I should've learned from last time that the meds wouldn't do anything anyway. Any. Thing.)

Sometime or other, my water broke and in about 25 minutes, I went from 5cm to ready to push. Gack! My back has never felt that much pain! It was way worse than when the LG was born! So I pushed for not quite 45 minutes and then Sibling XX was born!

I ended up delivering in a very awkward position sort of side-lying, but she came out and that was what I wanted most - from about oh, May 1st onward.

LJ did great as my "Support Person." Joelle and Marla (our midwives) were great too. I only had a tiny first degree tear (but then, is ANY tear NOT painful?). I learned that laughing gas does not make me laugh, but it sure does make me sleepy. I also learned that almost falling asleep and then 'waking up' to push is no fun.

Total labour and delivery time was somewhere between 4 1/2 and 5 hours. L&D with the LG was 4 1/2 hours. So this wasn't shorter, it was more painful, they tried to hand me a slimy baby (thanks to LJ for jumping on that one), the LG did great at Erin's and we're all still alive. Score!

Our pastor and his wife (from Maine) have four kids and this running joke/saying: "Four and No More."

I think ours might be "Two and We're Through." At least that's what I'm thinking right now.....don't hold us to that though, okay?