Elizabeth Joy's arrival story

Elizabeth Joy was born at 12:39 a.m. on February 3! Our cooperative little gal waited patiently until the roads had cleared after a snowy icy storm that we had on her due date. The whole family was thankful she waited a little bit. :-)

We are still in the hospital and going home tomorrow. I have a gazillion pictures I want to share, but for my memory's sake, here is the story.

The night of February 1st I woke up a few times with back pain. I wondered if this could be the start of labor, but I didn't want to get my hopes up and become antsy. So, David would rub my back a bit and I'd fall asleep. This happened several times through the night. The next day, my back still hurt, but I could totally continue with my normal routine without any disruption from the back pain. Caroline and I played with some neighbors for the morning and then came home for lunch.

During lunch I started to notice that the pain would be strong in my back for a little bit and then go away. I googled it, and google confirmed that they were contractions. So, even though they weren't bad, once Caroline was asleep for naptime, I started to time them. They were anywhere between 6-8 minutes apart lasting for 30 to 50 seconds. I called the grandparents to give them a heads up and texted my doula.

David and I decided we should probably pack a hospital bag :-) We also started cleaning up the house a bit. During Caroline's nap my contractions were getting closer together but not too much stronger. After a couple hours I called my doctor. They said to go to the hospital and get checked. I felt it was too soon to go to the hospital, but figured I could go and come back, but wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if I got there and was so far along and had no idea? (That didn't happen.)

We got to the hospital around 5:00 p.m. and I was definitely having steady contractions, although they were not too powerful feeling. When the nurse checked me I was only 3 cm along. They asked me to stay for an hour to see what happened in an hour, I guess to see if it was active labor or not. David and I walked around the hospital and got a snack. After that hour I was still 3 cm, so we went home. When we got back to our house, around 6:45 p.m., my contractions took a turn and became pretty powerful. Our doula met us at the house and was ready to be with us for the night! David put Caroline down for bed. Once she was asleep, David, Kelley (the doula) and I got to work :-)

Kelley had lots of tricks on how to work through each contraction and David and I were armed with what we had read about in the Bradley Method books. It really helped! David and Kelley helped me visualize what was really going on in the contractions so that I wouldn't just focus on how it felt. This may sound silly, but it helped: they helped me think of a contraction like a wave, how it swells, peaks and then slowly washes away. We labored at home until I started throwing up about 10:00 p.m. During my labor with Caroline, I threw up during transition (close to the end), so we all felt a strong sense of urgency to get out the door. My contractions were about 2 and a half minutes apart at that point.We got out the door quickly to get to the hospital.

We got to the hospital and got checked in by about 10:30 p.m. That was a hard transition from being completely comfortable at home to all of a sudden being pricked, getting IVs (I was Group B positive), being monitored, etc etc during intense contractions all while trying to be relaxed. Then the "blow" - I was only "4, maybe 5 cm dilated". I was very disappointed that all that work at home only gave me 1 maybe 2 cm. The hospital staff was awesome though and totally respected my wishes to be unmedicated. So, David and Kelley got to work again helping me be relaxed and comfortable with lots of back massages. I walked around my room and changed positions a lot. I was having back labor so massages were the best thing.

I definitely got pretty serious about labor at this point. The natural childbirth books we read taught us about "emotional signposts" of labor. The first is happy, 2nd is serious and 3rd is self-doubt. I would say I was happy at home and very serious at the hospital. I sat still, totally silent with my eyes closed for a while. Kelley said I looked very zen :-) For some reason I was just very inward. I wasn't responding to questions from David and Kelley (Do you want music? Do you want to walk?). I just sat there silent. I had no concept of how long I was doing this, but David said I sat there for over half an hour silently. Just before this silent period I told Kelley that I was starting to get pretty tired of labor and she smiled and said "oh good! I'm glad you're getting doubty." I knew that meant we must be getting to the end... but again, I didn't want to get my hopes up since things had been slower earlier.

Finally, around 12:15 p.m., I had a contraction that made me shoot up from my silent sitting and then get on all fours. Then my water broke and I had a very strong urge to push. Kelley ran to get the nurse, who checked me and said that I was 10 cm dilated! All of a sudden the room became very busy. I was put on the labor bed, two nurses came in, got the house OB in and everyone was ready for the pushing stage.

I pushed once and thought, wow, that hurt! I wasn't quite sure I wanted to do that again. I asked the people in the room, "Is there a way that I can do this and it not hurt so much?" They all kind of laughed and thought I was being cute.... I really had hoped that maybe someone had a trick. But at that point there isn't much to do I guess. Anyway, I realized that I had put myself here, I just needed to have the courage to finish the job. I let a few pushing contractions go by without doing anything. The nurse gently reminded me that I was supposed to push through those. I knew it, but I was a little too chicken. But, in the meantime, my OB got to the room! He got to the hospital super quick. I was amazed. With him there I decided to try pushing again. I gave a wimpy little push and felt that stretching pain again. So, I stopped for a few more contractions and tried to muster up the guts. I kept thinking, I want this over - why am I waiting? Then, with all my might I decided to just FINISH the job. I pushed with everything I had one big time and she came all the way out!

It was so sweet holding her the first time! David cut the umbilical cord. She latched on immediately and nursed like a champ and made a lot of cute little noises. This "little one" (compared to her big sis!) weighed 8 lbs, 10 oz, and was 21 inches tall. I was only at the hospital for 2 hours before she was born!