Atticus: A Labor and Delivery Blog

 

I woke up Sunday morning recovering from a night of restless contractions. I'm thinking to myself...is today the day? I'm 39 weeks and as much as I love the pregnant belly, the glow and the kicks from inside, I'm ready to hold him. Throughout the day, I'm feeling contractions every other hour and just feeling a little restless.

My last appointment, my midwife checked me and I was dilated to 2 at 80% effaced. We talked about options available to me. She'd asked me if I was ok with being induced if labor hadn't kicked in by the following week. She'd mentioned how she only offered this to patients who had a very favorable cervix. I could also wait and see if anything happened on its own. I told her I didn't mind being induced or waiting to see what would happen. Both options were good in my opinion. 

Throughout the day, I cleaned (nesting stage) did some jewelry work and then around 1pm I had my zoom meeting with my team. When I finished the meeting, I came down to find out that my husband had taken the two older boys and gone fishing. I was getting hungry and decided to order some food in because I was too tired. I hopped onto door dash and opted for Red Lobster. It arrived and I took a photo sending it to my husband with a caption saying, "Yummy." He replied, "Oooo, coming home."

I ate the food with the kids who hadn't gone fishing and was feeling normal. I was feeling tired and went to lie down. As I did, I heard my husband and the boys come home. I went down to greet them and then went back upstairs to lie down. As I was on my side, scrolling through Facebook, I felt a gush of liquid and thankfully I had some panty liners on since I'd been discharging. I got up and another gush. I went to use the bathroom and emptied my bladder and on the pad noticed that it was a very sticky texture. I called the hospital, explained everything and they said to come in. We did our practiced routine with the kids of when I had to go to the hospital and left. 

I arrived and went straight up to labor and delivery, floor 3. The nurses greeted me, got me in a gown and the midwife came to swap me to check if my water broke. She also checked and told me I was dilated to 3 and very soft cervix. After the lab, she came back to tell me that PA had to do 3 tests to confirm rupture of the water. 2 tests came back negative and 1 came back positive. It seems there wasn't enough amniotic fluid that was coming out to determine if my water had ruptured or not, but she wanted to keep me there for a bit to make sure everything was ok. 

So I walked around, sat on a birthing ball and as I got up, another gush came out. My midwife came back to ask if I was feeling leaky and I said yes, another gush just came out. She tested and low and behold..."Your water has broken. Let's have a baby!" This was around 8pm. 

At 11:40, I began contracting and my husband was beside me, reminding me to breathe through my pain. I had joked to him earlier that if he fell asleep on me, I was blasting him on Facebook hehehe. The contractions were getting closer and closer together but I wasn't dilating like my midwife wanted. She checked me an hour and said I had dilated to 4. So we tried the birthing ball and walking...me being on my side. After midnight, my contractions were getting worse and I began to get the shakes. I was shaking so much that I felt my body being out of control. The nurses were telling me to just remain calm, let the shakes shake because it's part of it and if I tried to go against it, I would be exhausted. 

At around 2ish in the morning, I was lying on my side and I was grunting in pain. I told my midwife, I have to push. She'd just checked me about 10 minutes ago and I was a 4. So she checked me again and she goes, "Omg, she's ready to have a baby. Let's get her ready!" I'd told them that I tend to go quick so they were all ready. The nurses got me into position and in 3 pushes, out came Mr. Atticus! He came out pooping and not even crying much. Skin to skin lasted an hour as we bonded and it was the most amazing feeling in the world. He had his eyes opened the whole time and was staring at me. 

I had some first degree lacerations, am slightly anemic, low on iron and bled more than my previous 6 labors. My midwife's orders are to take it easy, no heavy lifting, no driving, get myself ironed up and to see her in six weeks. 

It's amazing how beautiful labor is. I remember thinking while in pain, omg, this is horrible pain. But now that he's here, I'm blessed and thinking it was worth every hour of pain. Mothers are amazing beings.