Hunter Andrew
Natural Birth Diary

I had contractions off and on all this week - the first week of March 2010! I had them throughout every night starting Monday night, then they stopped during the day. They were always sporadic, nothing I would bother to time, until Friday night.

I was watching a movie with my sister-in-law - who was at my house to help with the kids - and realized my contractions were pretty consistent so I decided to time them. They were 5 to 9 minutes apart.

About 3 hours into this I decided I should go ahead and call my midwife. They weren't too painful but were lasting about a minute each. My midwife said that if they continued at that rate for another half hour to go ahead and call my husband who was at work and has a half hour drive home. She said to call her back if they got to be 2 to 5 minutes apart for an hour.

Half an hour later I called my husband, and an hour later when he came home...I was calling my midwife back. This time my midwife told me to climb into a warm bath and to see if this slowed them or brought them closer together and made them more intense.

After an hour in the tub my contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart and had grown slightly more intense. When I called my midwife she said to go ahead and meet her at the birth center.

When I got there she checked me, I was only dilated to 2, and I was still at about 60% effaced. She said I wasn't dilated enough to stay, she gave me something to help me sleep and sent me home, saying that Hunter should arrive in the next day or two.

Alas, by yesterday morning my contractions had stopped.

My husband and I decided to go with the plans we had made earlier in the week and went out that afternoon, had lunch at Red Lobster and saw a movie. We haven't had a date to ourselves since a year ago, the day before Marshall was born, so it was a nice little outing. We got home around 9 pm, I was tired, and I feeling mentally exhausted, just sick of feeling like Hunter should be arriving any time but that things were not progressing.

With both my other boys, I had them quickly and there were no guessing games, waiting out contractions or anything, so this was something entirely new, and to me, draining.

I woke up a couple of times after going to bed, and when I woke up at around 1 am, I was having contractions, they seemed consistent and I couldn't sleep at this point so I filled up the tub and crawled in.

The first two contractions were about 3 minutes apart, then the third followed the second at 5 minutes, but after that they leveled to 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes apart, only lasting about 30 seconds each.

After almost an hour I called my midwife, she said to call her if they started lasting longer or if I had bloody show. Only about half an hour later I was calling her back, my contractions had woken me up, they were slightly longer now, about 45 seconds each and when I went to use the restroom there was bloody show!

I called my midwife - again - and she said to come in to the birth center, so off we went.

When we arrived at 3:20-3:30ish she checked me, there was change from the night before, although not a ton, I was now around 80% effaced, but still only about 3 cm. She said to lie on the bed, try to get some rest, we'd give it 1 to 2 hours and see if I was going to progress.

An hour later I was in AGONY! My contractions felt SO strong but when my midwife checked me I was only 4 cm. She encouraged me to get into the birthing tub, and that's just what I did. What a difference! I don't think I ever want to birth a baby on dry land again!

My previously unbearable contractions were suddenly hardly noticeable, WOW! I was able to relax, rest, and let my body do it's work. I moved freely to whatever position was comfortable for me, it was awesome. Next time my midwife checked me I was already between 7 to 8 cm! I was still so comfortable, in a perfectly good mood talking and carrying on conversations between contractions.

By 9 cm I was more focused, but still comfortable between contractions. I was starting to feel the urge to push and was lightly pushing with some contractions, when my midwife checked me again she found just a lip of my cervix holding Hunter's head back. She encouraged me to reach in and feel his head, it was SO close!

With the next contraction she tried to hold back that one little bit of cervix so his head could get by, it seemed like an eternity of pushing, but then his head was free of it. With the next round of pushing he was crowning, Oh the burn! This was my first time experiencing the "ring of fire" as with my other boys the OB did a routine episiotomy and the boys essentially slid out in one or two pushes. It was painful, I was having to push through it slowly to try to avoid tears.

My water burst, then I finally got his head out, one more push, and I was turning over from my hands and knees delivering position to hold my brand new baby boy. Born March 7th, 2010 at 7:43 am, with a mass of dark hair on his head. Turns out he was born with his hand right up along his face. They suctioned his mouth and nose while I held him, and after a couple minutes told me it was time for us to move to the bed.

I handed Hunter to my midwife who proceeded to work on drying him off, her nurse midwife was to help me dry off. I got one foot out of the birthing pool, then swung over the other leg. Plop! To my surprise the placenta fell to the floor, wow! Easy! They wrapped up the placenta, and wrapped up Hunter, who was still attached. I climbed into the bed, my midwife wanted to check for tears so my husband sat in the bed next to me and was handed the baby.

I did tear, a first degree tear along my previous episiotomy line, also where Hunter's hand had been. Honestly I think getting that thing stitched up rivaled my labor, ouch! After that I was given Hunter, my husband went to pick up some breakfast for us at Ihop and I got to try feeding Hunter. He wasn't really interested, wouldn't latch, so we decided to try again later.

About the time my husband returned I was about to get up and use the restroom, and they were going to give Hunter his official looking over. First they cut his cord, he'd remained attached to his placenta for 2 to 3 hours after his birth. They measured and weighed him and such. My midwife was marveling over the thickness and length of his cord. Anyway, he measured out at 19 1/2 inches and weighed 7 lb. 5 oz.. He was a very decent size for being just short of 37 weeks!

When I attempted nursing again he got the idea and latched on and nursed for a short while. By 11:00 we were heading home. Hunter is doing marvelously! Nursing like a champ now! I'm glad to be done, and I'm just taking it easy in bed.

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