SO - I was 41+3 days and had been taking black and blue cohosh along with primrose oil at the direction of my midwife for 2 days. We were expecting that something would be happening soon. I woke up on Thursday, the 23rd with mild surges (hypnobirthing word for contractions) at 3am. I knew they were different from the normal cramping I had been feeling for about a month cause I felt them in my back first, then wrap around front. They were also timeable, about 10 min apart. After fussing around on my own for a while I decided just to let my hubs know what was going on... he continued to sleep peacefully while I couldn't relax enough from the excitement haha.
Anyway so around breakfast I texted my midwife and doula letting them know and they told me to keep them updated and let them know when they were about 5 min apart. Well the whole day passed and they never got closer than 7ish mins, but never more than 15 and were very random. They were getting stronger though and I was needing to be in the tub a lot and have my husband give me counter pressure on my back all night cause yay! I was having back labor (obvious sarcasm). At about 1am Friday they were finally 5 min apart for more than an hour so we called the midwives and doula and they all headed over. Once they got there, they checked me and I was 6cm! I was so happy to know that I was more than half way there and with VERY little discomfort. Hypnobirthing the whole time made this totally doable. I was listening to my affirmations the whole time, my baby day playlist I made, singing, chillin in the hot tub, getting massages from Danny, etc. Although that was great and all, the surges quickly slowed down again to about 15 min apart. Everyone spent the night and my doula let my poor hubby get some rest while she layed in bed with me and took over his job. She was awesome!
The next morning, we all woke up, ate breakfast and I went for a walk with my doula around my neighborhood to see if that picked things up again. No dice. They decided to leave my husband and I for a bit to "do what we needed to do" aka have sex, nipple stimulation, bath tub, etc. and to call them when things were back to 5 min apart again. Mid afternoon we called them and when they came back and checked my I had progressed to 9.5cm! Got through transition and everything without even noticing a change in intensity. Maybe it was the sex? haha. The one thing the midwife noticed was that I had an anterior lip of cervix, so we moved all around to try and get it out of the way. In the meantime, called our family to come over cause I would be pushing soon.
Little did we know, after already 2 days of labor, this is when things would get rough. Everyone was there in the living room while we continued to labor in my tub (I planned a waterbirth). An hour or so passed and the baby was not coming down, everyone was stumped. We continued to try and try different positions, I mean EVERYTHING you could imagine, and after 5 hours of no progress the midwives suggested I rest. Rest?! I was having pretty much back to back surges but they felt I was so physically worn that I should breathe through a few and see if that helped. It did not, I was in a "what the hell are we gonna do" state at this point wondering what was going on. How was I gonna get this baby out? How long did I have to do this for? Finally my midwife said she thought I should call my backup OB and transfer. He is SUPER natural friendly and supportive of my homebirth, but told me specifically that if I ran into a situation like this, or if my water was broken for an extended amount of time I should call him. So that we did, about 5 times with no answer. Semi-scared my husband and I were faced with the decision of going to a hospital with a 60%+ c-section rate that was 5 min away, or driving 30 min to a more natural hospital, while in VERY active labor and bearing down urges coming every 2 min. I told my husband to make the decision for me and off the the 5 min hospital we went with the midwives and my family.
We got there, checked in and I was so afraid they would section me because my waters were broken and I had already been pushing so long. Faced with an on-call Dr, I knew this might be my fate. Thing is, Aiden's HR was amazing the whole time and because I was knowledgeable about my options here is when I found my voice. I was in the delivery room and at the suggestion of my midwife asked for an epi to allow me to rest for a bit while I could speak to the Dr about my options. At this time, the anesthesiologist came in and said "hello, I'm here to talk to you about pain relief for the c-section". I said, uh what? Her reply "oh, they didn't tell you?" and I said "my baby's heart rate has been strong and perfect this whole time. There will be no c-section unless my or his life is at risk, and it's not". She looked at me confused, said "ooook" and went on to talk about the epi. I asked for the lowest dose possible while she encouraged me to take it with Fentanyl. I told her no, I'm good. I've been laboring for days drug free and I don't need the "extra punch" she was offering me, I just needed to rest. Right about this point they came in and told me MY Doctor was pulling in. I would have jumped for joy if I could! He was my hero (well, second hero, next to my husband). In he came to try to talk me out of the epi, the natural Dr that he is hahaha. I was so mentally and physically exhausted though that I told him I needed the rest to keep going. So we did it. When he checked me he found that the lip of cervix was still there and basically said I started pushing too early, which made things impossible to progress. I asked him what my options were, did I need a vacuum? Pitocin? What did we have to do to get this baby out? I trusted his opinion and he said that a very low dose of pit would help to move the lip out of the way, and the epi would relax me enough to get me to a full 10cm so we could start getting the baby down. Vacuum was not an option cause he was still to high up, at a 0 station.
After 3 hours of rest we started the second hurdle. My epidural was turned off but I still had to wait for the urge to push again cause my butt was numb. I started to push and he got stuck again, except this time on my pubic bone. That started the next 3 hours of pushing.... really?! FINALLY after a lot of feeling discouraged, the nurse asked me to think about someone or something I hated to help me. I thought about how much I hated the idea of them c-sectioning me after all I had learned and prepared for. That got him out! He was born at 7:16am on Saturday August 25th. Love of my life! Aiden Joe was finally here and super healthy, no conehead and weighed 8lb 3oz. My perfect baby boy.
*** EDIT ABOUT MY AFTERCARE:
Here is where I was very happy with the hospital. Another lesson I learned about expectations (negative or positive), speaking up for yourself, and not just going along with procedure if you don't want to...
In the middle of the ordeal I was still able to gather my thoughts and remind my husband of our original birth plan: Delayed Cord Clamping, No episiotomy, No nursery care, No Formula, No shots or eye goop. While we had to speak up in the moment to the nurses, we got it all. My OB remembered everything we spoke about during our prenatal visits too. When you don't say a thing yes, they will take the baby to the nursery for 3 hours, yes they will inject them with things, and yes they will cut the cord immediately and take him from your chest to clean him up. Not in our case though, we got everything we asked for without a fight. I realize it depends on your Dr and nurses you get... maybe we just got lucky after all we had been through. I nursed Aiden immediately, on my own, just the two of us figured it out :)
Also, the nurses upgraded us to a postpartum suite for free. The after care was great in terms of showing me different ways to nurse, caring for my battle wounds (only one stitch!), giving me food and my husband a more comfy bed, changing diapers, and honoring our requests to always keep Aiden in the room with us. We were glad to be there for those 2 days. Now we are home and armed with even more knowledge!
