So, Göran went off to play floorball for the day (in a city an hour’s drive away) and I headed out to lunch at a friend's place. We were, in retrospect, sort of oblivious. Clearly, if you’re a week over due and having any kind of cramp at all, it’s probably labour. But I didn’t want to be the girl who cried labour, especially after having been told “Any day now” and then “Today” by the midwives on two other occasions.
I went to lunch with our friends, as planned, and had two contractions that were two hours apart at their house. They have two girls and I think actually had a better idea of what was going on than I did, because after the second one, Johan looked VERY nervous and suggested that he'd be happy to take me home at ANY time I wanted to go. I decided to go along with his suggestion, more to make him feel better than out of worry on my part.
As we left, he predicted we'd go to the hospital by 11pm and have the baby by 3am. I thought that sounded GREAT. Fast and all for a first one, but whatever. I didn't actually believe him though. I was hoping that contractions would pick up during the night and we'd get to go in on Monday morning. He drove me home and Göran arrived 30 min or so after.
Things began to pick up. I started having more contractions pretty quickly. It went from one every 2.5 hours or 30 or 40 min apart really rapidly. We put in a dvd (Transformers, for those of you who are detail obsessed) and by the end of it I was having contractions maybe 20 or so min apart. We'd called the clinic and told them the timing and that the contractions hurt but weren't so strong, and asked for some guidelines. They said 10 min apart, and bad enough I had to breathe through them.
I wasn't there yet, so we decided to drop Jill off, just to ease our minds that she was taken care of, and did the 4 min or so walk to the home of the friends who were to watch her for us, with no problem. In fact, I was at a point where when a contraction hit, the urge to move and walk was really strong, so walking sounded like a grand plan. I had a contraction in the doorway while dropping off Jill (utterly freaking out the friend, who happened to be expecting his own first child in another month), and I decided we needed to grab some food on the way home. No way was I cooking, but I kind of realized that this was probably going to be it and figured I needed some food to give me energy for what was to come.
I didn't make it down the hill to where we were heading though, b/c I had another contraction, this one strong enough to make me grab the stone wall and hang off Göran’s arm. He pretty much had to tell me I was on crack and we were NOT going out to eat, and I agreed rather quickly I think. So we headed home instead, with me experiencing contractions of varying intensity, but 8-12 min apart. I went up to gather the last things I wanted to bring to the hospital (mostly I’d been packed for a week, since the $%^&*ing midwife had said, “Probably today!”) and to make a sandwich while Göran moved the car around to the front of the building.
I had two more contractions on the way to the clinic. I had to concentrate on them, but they weren’t too horrible yet. When we arrived it was exactly 9pm. They gave us a room (double bed, our little bathroom with shower, tv and wifi) and hooked me up to a monitor for 30 min. Alexander had a good heart rate, but my contractions were barely reading! I felt them strongly by the end of the monitoring and really couldn't talk or anything like that, so was sort of bummed to see them registering so low (15 tops, when she'd said 20 was a “true” contraction). The midwife did an internal and pronounced me 2cm, which REALLY sucked, since I'd previously been told I had been at 3 for over a month.
She told us to sit tight for at least another 2 hours, to see if things picked up or tapered off. Göran went to get me my body pillow and some other stuff from the car, and we settled in. Katrin, the midwife, came back in around 2 hours or so later for another 30 min-ish of monitoring (we're both kind of not sure of the details). I was grunting and making noises like a moose by then and she said that she could tell I’d made progress just by listening to me.
When Katrin came back and looked at the monitor (up to 20 by then) she pronounced me at 5cm and said that I was ready to move to the labour room, if I wanted to go (I did) and she wanted to break my water. I agreed, though I still don’t actually know why they didn’t let it go on its own. Anyway, she suggested I try to use the bathroom, so she and Göran carried me into the bathroom (I tried to get up and walk but was in too much pain to use my legs) and I tried to use the toilet but just couldn't.
Mostly I was afraid I’d get caught by a contraction while moving, because I didn’t want to be on my feet when one came. I’d discovered that even being on my hands and knees made me want to die, so I figured that standing would be unbearable. I'd been lying on my side with the body pillow scrunched up between my knees for most of the labour, up till that point.
They got the wheelchair and took me into the labour room, where Katrin broke my water. We think it was around about midnight at that point. After the water went, the contractions were different. Worse in a way but better in a way. Less break between and more pain (even between contractions there was the pressure of his head on my cervix and it hurt) but more of a feeling of progress. I was on my side with a birthing ball between my knees. Göran was holding the ball in place and basically being a wall that I kicked against, poor thing. I think it was around there that a slight pushing urge struck. The midwife said not to push yet though, since I wasn’t fully dilated and the whole thing started getting really tough. There were a few contractions in there that I sort of lost control over. Göran said I looked a bit panicky, and I just remember feeling like the contractions weren't ending. They were actually ending, some gave me a longer break than others though, and I suspect it was a few with just a min or something like that that in between got me a bit freaked. I started begging for some gas (I had nothing for pain relief up to that point) but the awesome midwife gently suggested that I ought to try the warm birthing tub first. She had to say it twice before it got through to me, but I happily agreed when I realized the tub=pain relief.
So they dragged me over, my legs barely working (holy fuck was I tired, who ever designed a birthing tub with STAIRS to get in? People in labour do not need STAIRS.) and got me in. It was excellent from the start. I felt a bit more human and less animal though I still made moose and cow sounds. Göran knelt outside and held me up while I worked on keeping my shit together through a few more contractions. They were really getting worse, and even between, I had his head pushing down on my cervix, so there were only a few moments when I could really catch a good breath and feel totally calm. I was trying not to push, and to breath through the urge and to basically just let my body work, but it was really, really hard to do.
After what we think was 1,5 or so hours, the midwife said she worried I was getting too tired from the heat and the asked if I wanted out. I was utterly unable to think or make decisions and flailed around a bit before they just got me out. I really can't remember much of the conversation, but think there was a lot of me saying I didn't know, over and over again. I was really shaky at that point, and they had to drag me out.
When Katrin suggested the bathroom again, they had to drag me in there too, and I sort of collapsed a bit outside the door. By this time most of the contractions were a combo of the moose calls I was making and the grunting need to push, which I was trying to alternate between, as per the midwife's direction, but the pushing urge was getting much stronger and Katrin told me that I was actually at 10cm and almost done.
We went to the bed, after a useless trip to the bathroom. I was back on my side, with Göran holding my leg up for me. The midwife declared it time to push for real, without the moose calls. At some point either then, or before, she’d told me my cervix wasn’t totally open, and there was a lip she needed to push back. I know she did it, and I know it was amazingly awful, but I can’t say for sure when it happened.
Anyway, the pushing. We alternated twice between the bed and a birthing stool and he was born on the stool. When I was in bed, Göran held my one leg and reminded me to relax the other, and when I was on the stool, he sat behind me and held me up and let me squeeze and beat at him. The pushing was going on forever it felt like. I was supposed to be holding my breath and pushing then releasing and doing it again, three times per contraction but I often only managed two and evidently Alexander was crowning, but not coming any further. That went on for 20 min or so.
Eventually a doctor came in and they told me my contractions were too short, and gave me a pill of oxytocin to lengthen them. I had to hold it under my tongue and when it dissolved they replaced it. I needed three before the birth was up. It did make the contractions longer, and maybe harder even, but by then I was so gone it didn't really matter. I just wanted him the hell out because I thought I'd tear in half. He just wasn't coming, and the midwife suggested an episiotomy. She and the doctor had been down there massaging and supporting and ramming their damn fingers in around his head, but he stayed at the crowned stage for what felt like an eternity to me, and I swore that I’d felt something ripping down there at some point (turned out that I was right). Even though I'd thought I REALLY didn't want one, I agreed, because, well, fuck, ANYTHING to get him OUT at that point. That was all I wanted in the world. A two cm snip and two more contractions had him out and I've never felt more relieved in my life. Total time pushing was 40 min.
I can still feel that release, the feeling of him slipping out and knowing it was over. It was amazing, the way the pain went from ungodly, agonizing, “OhgodIcan’tdothisanymore” to gone, in 1 second. I can't even begin to find the words for how great that felt. Göran saw him slip out; I was utterly uninterested in anything other than the fact that he WAS out. The cord felt funnnnky, pulsating around in my poor, torn up bits, but then they brought him up to my chest and I got to see him and that was so neat. Another hard to describe thing. I heard the midwife say it was 2.40am.
But then I started shivering so violently that I couldn't really hold him. I was cold and exhausted. They took him to the side of the room to weigh and clean him and apgar him (8 and 9, respectively) and I sent Göran, who'd been sort of looking after me, to go look at him. I heard the midwife tell him that the cord had been around Alexander's neck, but that it hadn't caused any problems.
Then they brought him back and we tried to nurse while I delivered the afterbirth (one or two pushes, not bad at all). Nursing wasn't working. I was shivering too much and he wasn't latching, so Göran took him off to a corner to murmur to him and the midwife gave me a shot of lidocaine and then sprayed some ungodly awful, stinging SHIT all over my ripped up undercarriage. It was meant to help of course, but I'm pretty sure a sailor might have been ashamed of what came out of my mouth. Then she stitched. I think, but am not sure, that there were around 5 stitches down where she cut, plus three where I tore, which she said were for "beauty" which made me want to kick her in the teeth. Awful. I was yelling at her that I wanted it to stay ugly and to stop for the love of god, but she went ahead. It probably wasn't that bad, but I could feel the needle piercing the skin on my labia, both sides, and the string pulling through and I still feel sort of faint thinking about it. Insane after having given birth, but I was just so gone by then that it was the last straw!
Anyway, then we walked back to the room. Göran carried Alexander and the midwife and doctor helped me. We tried to nurse again in the room, this time with me on my side, and he latched on well and drank for around a half hour. I switched him to the other side, but we didn't latch so well on that side and he was nodding off, so Göran moved him to the little clear baby tray to sleep and we all nodded off. That was 3.30am.
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