Labor and Delivery Pt. 7

This was when labor really kicked in. It was very intense and super painful. Nothing helped. Richard, Laurie and I laid in the bed and they talked to me, held me, rubbed various parts of me, etc. Mom, Gwen and my friend Rosalie took turns rubbing my feet or hips. And while this sounds wonderful, I couldn't even appreciate it (or rather I couldn't enjoy it, I was still grateful).

Everything is so hazy from this time until pretty much the next day. I remember being in the tub for a while. I remember trying to eat and drink but throwing everything immediately back up. Betty "accidently" breaking my water, which is so horrible. Laurie, Richard and I finally got a good thing going. Richard held, rubbed, etc. me while Laurie talked to me. She repeated the same things (Just let the pain wash over you; you can't do anything about it so don't fight it) over and over in the same voice and would touch anywhere on my body that she could see me tensing and tell me to relax that part. It worked great. Around that time Betty checked me and I was 7cm.

But I guess my contractions were getting further apart so Betty wanted to put some kind of cream or something on me to speed up labor. And RICHARD said no, we just want to do this naturally. The same guy who asked Betty when we first talked to her about possibly being our midwife,"If you take her to the hospital if anything goes wrong, why not just start at the hospital?" At this point, I started pushing not because I felt any urge to but just to see what would happen. And after a couple of minutes of that I decided I was ready to have the baby. Again I have no idea why, I never at any point felt any urge to push, I just kinda decided I was going to do it. I have no idea why it worked. I kicked everyone out, decided I wanted to get in the tub and did just that.

By the time I had stripped and gotten in the tub, I really was ready to have the baby. I remember feeling a burning sensation which Laurie told me later is common when the baby crowns. So I got in my cold water (I was hot, I refused to let them turn on the hot water) and started. I couldn't have been in there too long. I remember Betty and everyone trying to get me to push and me just ignoring them. Then Betty yelled at me and made me move around and hold my legs and push. I really felt like if the baby came out, my entire bottom would just burst open (sorry, but I really did). After pushing a couple of times, everyone could see the baby's head and were super excited. So Betty, in an attempt to get me to push harder, told me to reach down and feel my baby's head. At this point I don't know why but I thought I had delivered part of the head (oh silly, silly optimism) so I reached down and realized she was still entirely inside me, I was a little freaked. But in one big push a couple of minutes later, everything came out. I mean her entire body, the whole thing. It was quite shocking to everyone.