John’s birth story begins almost 3 weeks before he was born, on Sunday August 10th (38 weeks, 1 day). I woke up very early in the morning with some light contractions. They were short, irregular and very mild. The contractions lasted pretty much the whole day without getting any more severe. I even called Amy that night (Amy Giles, one of my midwives) to ask her what was up. She said that these pre-labor contractions were normal and to give her a call if they turned into active labor. By around midnight, the contractions stopped.

I had these off and on pre-labor contractions for the next 19 days. It was pretty frustrating to always be wondering “Is this the real thing?” I must have gotten the house ready to go half a dozen times within those few weeks. Finally my due date of August 23rd rolls around and still nothing. I was pretty grumpy and uncomfortable by this time and very ready to have the baby. I went in for my appointment on Wednesday August 27th with Becky (Rebecca Burpo, the other midwife) and she checked me out. My cervix was dilated to 3cm and 80% effaced, but the baby still hadn’t dropped into position. She scheduled a sonogram for me for the morning of Friday August 29th so we could make sure that everything was okay.

The next day, Thursday, I was determined to get the baby to drop. Alexandra and I walked around Walmart for a few hours, and then I came home, cleaned the bathrooms, and vacuumed and mopped the floors. Friday morning we took Alexandra to the drop-in daycare center and Tony and I went for the 9:30 am sonogram. The sonogram went well; the baby looked healthy and well developed. From there we met directly with Becky and she discussed our options for how to proceed.

We were at the Birth Center by about 10:30 am. Becky checked me and to my relief, the baby had dropped all the way down into position and that I was now 4cm dilated and 90% effaced. All that walking and working the day before paid off. Since we were right at 41 weeks, Becky felt comfortable discussing ways to naturally induce the baby. We decided to have her strip my membranes in hopes that it would get active labor to start. After she did that she asked me if I wanted to take some castor oil.

For those who may not be familiar with his, taking castor oil is a drug-free way to help bring on labor. It doesn’t work if your body is not ready to go into labor, but if you are past your due date and everything is in position (as I was) it can be the extra kick you need. It works as a diuretic that causes your intestines to contract and spasm. The uterus contracts along with the intestines and, theoretically, labor should start. The “side effect” is that you will have the biggest bowel movement of your life. No kidding. And it tastes horrible.

At that point I was so ready to have the baby that I said “Bring it on!” Becky told me how much to take and to call her if I hadn’t gone into active labor by Sunday. As we were sitting there with her discussing this, I started feeling those pre-labor contractions again. “Great, here we go with the fake contractions again” is what I thought.

We left Becky, went to Target for some castor oil, picked up Alexandra and got lunch at Sonic. Tony remembered that today was payday and he wanted to stop by his office to pick up his check. By this time it was about noon, maybe a little after. I said it was no problem, all I was feeling was the light contractions, and they were only coming every 30 minutes. I’d been having those for weeks, so I didn’t think anything of it.

After running all our errands we were home by about 2:30 pm. I hadn’t slept much the night before, so I decided to take a nap on the couch while Alexandra napped. Tony made my dose of castor oil and then logged in to do some work. I laid on the couch and put the laptop next to me. I decided to keep track of my contractions using http://www.contractionmaster.com/. I dozed off to sleep, just waking up enough to hit the space bar every time I felt a contraction.

I got up around 5:00 pm; it was time to get Alexandra up from her nap. My contractions were still very light (light enough that I slept through most of them) and still very erratic. I was ready to settle in for another day of what I now termed my “do nothing contractions.” Before going to get Alexandra up, I had to go to the bathroom. I’ll leave out the details of this part; let’s just say that the castor oil kicked in.

We’re now at about 5:20 pm and I am finally done in the bathroom. Tony is with Alexandra and is about to change her diaper when suddenly I call to him. I am lying on the floor next to the bed, barely able to move or speak. Out of nowhere, I begin having the most painful contractions that I have had since about an hour before giving birth to Alexandra. These contractions seem to come out of nowhere, they were hard and long with hardly any break between them. Having labored without drugs before, I recognized this stage of labor as transition, the hardest part of labor and the part right before the baby comes. This is the part of labor where women yell nasty things and beg for drugs.

Here is where the house goes into panic mode. Tony also recognized that I was in transition and was frantic. This was nothing like Alexandra’s very textbook labor. With her, each stage of labor was the perfect length. With this one, I went from pre-labor to “this baby is coming out now” labor in no time flat. I was completely out of it; moaning and writhing on the floor of our room as one contraction after another went through me. I kept saying over and over again that this was happening too fast, that it’s not supposed to be like this. Tony kept repeating that he was sorry and that he just didn’t know what to do. Finally, I looked up at him and said, “Stop saying that and do something!” That was the push he needed.

I am not sure how it happened, but he called his mom and she was at our house in no time flat. By 5:45, Tony and I were in the truck and on our way to the birth center. I could not bear to sit in the seat and wear the seatbelt. Instead, I fully reclined the seat and sat in it backwards, my hands gripping the headrest and my body in a squatting position. Tony drove like a bat out of you-know-where. It was the height of Friday before Labor Day traffic. He weaved through the lanes, honked at and cut off anyone in his way. When that wasn’t fast enough, he started running lights. Meanwhile, I am still having one contraction after another. My mind is in a serious panic because now I can feel the baby descending down the birth canal. My body was starting to push and it was all I could to hold it. I did not want to have this baby in the truck on Highway 75.

All of a sudden I can tell that the terrain we are driving on has changed. In order to bypass the traffic backed up at the McDermott exit, Tony cut through a grassy field behind a shopping center! The truck is bouncing up and down, I am moaning in pain and Tony is repeating “Just hold on, I’m going to get you there.”

I don’t know how we did it, but we made it. It was about 6:00 pm when we pulled up. We walk to the front of the birth center and the door is locked! I could hear the panic in Tony’s voice; he’d already called Becky 30 minutes ago and she’d told him that she was there and waiting. Well, apparently one of the other staff members locked the door when she left not knowing Becky was waiting for us. Within seconds, Becky was letting us in and leading us to the main birthing suite.

If you remember, I delivered Alexandra in the secondary birthing suite in the small tub because another woman was there before me. This whole pregnancy I talked about wanting to labor in the big birthing tub. Well, this time I was the only woman there, but it was going to take too much time to fill up the big tub. They managed to get me on the bed and Becky checked me; I was fully dilated and effaced and was ready to push. My mind was racing, “How could this have happened so fast? I was in labor for 12 hours with Alexandra! Something must be wrong.”

By then Amy had arrived and got the little tub ready for me. They told me that I was ready and I could either deliver the baby on the bed or in the water, it was up to me. I decided to get in the tub, hoping that water would relax me and help me to focus and wrap my mind around what was happening. The warm water felt great. I felt my muscles loosen up and I was able to get a moment to just catch my breath before pushing.

Finally, it was time. It only took 2 or 3 pushes and our son literally slid right out at 6:32 pm. Both Becky and Amy were amazed to see that my water had not broken and that he was born still in the amniotic sac. Becky allowed John to break the sac himself and then she placed him on my chest. Just as with his sister, he was born without crying. Also, just as with Alexandra, I had no tears from the birth. Tony cut the cord and we both looked at each other with amazement. John Theodore was 7 pounds, 6 ounces and 20.5 inches long. Apparently all my “do nothing contractions” had been doing something!

written 9/18/08