If you know me very well, then you know I am a big supporter for a woman's choice to have her baby how she wants, as long as it doesn't threaten her or her baby's life. So having a baby at home is just as ok as having a baby in the hospital, same with having a baby using pain drugs vs no drugs. If you know me at all, you also know I'm not brave enough to have a baby without being in a hospital.
I will admit, that this time around, I had a definite opinion on how I wanted to do it this time. I refused to have a baby while on my back and my legs in stirrups. I had done it that way the last three times, and hated it. My babies always chose to be sunny-side-up (facing my belly button instead of my spine), which meant slow dilation, because their heads weren't positioned to push on my cervix the best way. Aka, loooooong labors. Even longer when you take gravity out of the equation. I was in labor with Alex for 36 hours, Anthony 14, and Autumn 4, simply because they induced me with her. All of them I had an epidural, because with sunny-side-up babies, it means horrible, awful back labor and I, frankly, am a wimp. Having an epidural means I am stuck with having a baby on my back with my legs in stirrups. So this time, I was going to attempt no epidural. I didn't want them telling me I couldn't use gravity to help me out. So I enlisted the help of a dear friend who is a doula. She was to be my bulldog while I was busy trying not to give in to having an epidural. She would be the one to help me tell the nurses I would NOT be putting my legs in those stirrups and they could shove those stirrups....in the closet!
Ok, long explanation out of the way. That is so you know, I did not intend in ANY way to have a baby on my living room carpet. Yes, that's exactly what happened, and no I do not intend to repeat that again.
I woke up throughout the night, as I had done for over a week now with contractions here and there that were strong enough to disturb my precious sleep, but weak enough I knew it wasn't "time". Around 2:30 am they were frequent enough that I gave up trying to snooze in between, and went to wait it out in the recliner. Around 3:45 they were about 3-5 min apart, so drank some water and went for a walk around my block. I pulled out my phone and played on facebook while I walked. About half way around the block I realized these contractions were hurting enough that I was pausing when I had one. So I walked back home, and at about 4:10 am, called my doula to let her know what was going on, that she and her daughter (who was going to baby sit my sleeping kids while I was at the hospital) might want to head my way. At 4:20 my contractions were strong enough I felt this wasn't my body psyching me out, so I woke Tony. My contractions at this point spread back out to 3-4 min apart and I was thinking, "Great, watch them stop now!" Tony put the car seat for the baby in the mini van while I packed a bag for the hospital in between contractions. I was in no hurry, knowing I still had hours to go. At this point I got really whiny. I told Tony, I was seriously reconsidering the epidural thing, cuz I'm a wimp and couldn't handle it if the pain was going to get worse than this, and I just knew it would with hours left for it to escalate. I just hoped that I was dilating enough that the hospital didn't send me back home (like they had done on one of my previous labors). Then I started to whine that maybe I'd waited to long and wouldn't get the chance to get pain killers. I was soooo worried at that point that I was not going to have a choice in the pain killer department and was stuck doing this pain killer free. I called the OB ward to let them know we were on our way and would be there in about 45 min. Two contractions later my water broke at 5am. Yup, I'd waited too long, but at this point it wasn't just for the pain killers. My water had never broke on it's own before, and there I was kneeling at the couch in the living room. I told Tony I felt like I really had to push, and his response was, "No, don't do that!" He heard the splash from the kitchen. Remember when I was whining about having an extra month of fluid for Abigail to swim in? Well, let me tell you, that's a LOT of liquid to be splashing on my carpet. I then moved to the door to put on my flip flops to get in the minivan, cuz I knew we needed to go, with or without the duola. I just hoped the sleeping kiddos would be okNOW! I told Tony we weren't gonna make it, and he asked, "What do you mean we aren't gonna make it?" Right then my doula walked in the front door as Abigail was crowning. Luckily she is awesome and is also a midwife in training and brought her birthing kit. Three more contractions and Abigail had arrived at 5:13am. She must have been in one heck of a hurry.
Doula Dee, clamped the cord, had Tony cut it and we wrapped Abigail up and headed to the hospital. They kinda freaked when Tony called them halfway there and let them know we were coming with a brand new baby in tow. Security met us at the door, wheeled me in, whisked Abigail off to the nursery, and then set me up to sew me up. Abigail and her shoulder shanks got me pretty good.
