The following is my birth story of Eli! Mainly so that I will have a record of it to look back on later, I wanted it written out!
I woke up at 3:17 to a contraction and was so glad to feel a real one because I'd been contracting nonstop since like 25 weeks. They continued every 10 minutes. I woke Avery up at around 4:30 to make our plan and give our parents a heads up. Today was the girls' school picture day and I didn't want to make someone else take on that task of getting them ready, so we decided to just get everything ready to head to the hospital after dropping them off if my contractions didn't get too much closer. The contractions did get stronger, but we got the girls dropped off ok then went to Sonic to get me a BLT (I was famished!) My contractions stopped.
This happened with Emma too, so I wasn't sure what to do. I had my midwife appointment at 9am that I hadn't canceled yet, so we decided to go there and just see what was going on. The midwife checked me and said I was dilated 4cm and 50% but since I was only having contractions 10 min apart (they'd started back up after ab an hour) I could have been at 4 a long time, maybe days. So she said we could hang around downtown for a little bit just to see what happens and if the contractions got to be hard ones 4-5 min apart then call her back or go to hospital. We decided to go to centennial park to walk around and hopefully get things moving because at this point, things were in motion...we had a plan for getting the girls picked up from school and Avery's parents had bought their plane tickets and were headed to Dallas. As soon as I got in the car to head to the park, the contractions started hard and fast, 3 minutes apart. I thought maybe it had something to do with being checked and that they would space back out some. At the park, they continued to get stronger and soon were every 2 minutes. I couldn't walk having them so I'd just stop and wait for them to pass. I did this for an hour before deciding to call the midwife back and ask where to go because I still wasn't sure if this was just from being checked. It's now 10am. I had to leave a message for them to call back. No one had called by 10:15 and I had to pee so we drove to McDonalds for me to pee, then back over to midwife's office and Avery ran in to ask what to do. She said go to hospital.
At the hospital we valet parked and got a wheelchair. We went to triage and got checked in. At 11am I was in my triage room contracting very hard. I started to feel pressure. The nurse initially didn't want to check me because I'd just been checked and the midwife I would see was on her way to check me herself. After about 5 minutes complaining of pressure, the nurse checked me, looked shocked, and said I was 9.5cm, 100% effaced, and had a bulging bag of waters right as the midwife walked in. They immediately rolled me into L&D and I was in that room at 11:15.
Joann was my midwife and as she and the nurses set stuff up, she told me to do whatever I wanted to do as far as positioning and pushing goes. I feel like there are no adequate words to describe the intense pain of childbirth and you just have to experience it to believe it. Just like Emma, I thought I was dying. Soon I felt the urge to push. This next section is more Avery and my mom's description because I couldn't think straight or see anything anyway. My water still had not broken and Joann said it's rare, but he could be born in the bag of waters. Avery said he could see the head through what looked like a water balloon and the water balloon would bulge out every time I pushed. Joann tried a few times to break it with her fingers but it wouldn't break. She said I have tough membranes...I don't know if that's good or bad! The nurses joked that they may need an umbrella for when it pops. And pop it did. More like exploded apparently. Avery compared it to a whale's spout and that everyone jumped back and it splashed off the bed. Gross. This was 11:38. Then Eli was coming. Joann told me to stop pushing, but I couldn't so she said push hard and fast and not stop. Eli was born at 11:39 with his cord wrapped around his neck 3 times and he was blue. Very blue. They quickly unwrapped him (while Avery almost lost it) and stimulated him to cry. He did and was/is fine. Joann said she was so glad the water didn't break sooner because it protected him and that she'd thought about getting the hook to break the water but something was telling her not to. I now love Joann. She was awesome. I love that she didn't make me lay on my back and hold my own legs like I had to with Emma. I was kinda on my left side and she let me move however I wanted.
Eli was 6lbs, 9oz and 20.5 inches long. He immediately nursed and has done great ever since. Even though it hurts tremendously, I am so thankful that I've been able to have 2 natural births now. I feel sooooo much better after and get to go home the next day. I wouldn't have made it without the support of my amazing husband and my mom who has become my immediate post birth photographer.
