Lil' Wasaff: Lil' Wasaff Arrives Early

I had a routine doctors appointment on Tuesday, November 6 and definitely felt different that morning. I thought for sure I had some sort of progress. However, the doctor let me know that while the baby was lower, I still wasn't dilated. On Wednesday morning, I felt even more pressure and was extremely uncomfortable. I called a friend that afternoon and said that if I was going to feel this way for another week or more, I wasn't sure I could take it! I officially felt done with being pregnant!

That evening I went to bed early and woke up with what I thought was a contraction. I had another one right away but then was able to go back to sleep. I woke up again at 1 am with another contraction and decided I should probably start timing them. They were pretty regular, every 6-8 minutes, from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. At 4 I decided to get up and call the doula service. While they were regular, and while I thought they hurt, they weren't really intensifying or getting closer together.

(A note about hiring a doula...We had decided early on in the pregnancy that we wanted to hire a doula to help with the labor. We signed up with Get Babied, which is a doula collective. This means that when you go into labor you call their number and the doula on call is who is your doula during your labor. They have many monthly activities you can go to get to know the doulas. After Mike and I went to one of them we knew that we would be comfortable with any of the doulas.)

The doula I spoke with on Wednesday night/Thursday morning suggested I take a bath to see if the contractions slow down or speed up. They pretty much stayed the same. I was still having contractions on Thursday morning and I hadn't slept at all so I called out of work. Mike also stayed home as we were thinking this was it. That afternoon I decided to call the doctor just to let him know that I had contractions for about 12 hours. They asked me to come down for a labor check. At the appointment, I was shocked to find out I still had not progressed. I wanted to cry. I asked the doctor if it was possible that the contractions would stop completely and I wouldn't go into labor until next week. He said it was possible. Again, I wanted to cry. We went home that afternoon and I felt pretty deflated.

The contractions continued that night but a contraction that woke me up at 1 am was the strongest one I had ever felt. The next one came on just as strong and I knew I couldn't go back to sleep. Not only could I not go back to sleep, I didn't think I'd be able to handle them on my own so I called the doula service again and asked them to come. The doula on call was D'Andrea and she arrived about 1:30 a.m.

The reason we wanted a doula was because I really wanted to deliver naturally and didn't think I'd be able to do it on my own. I wanted to stay home and labor as long as possible. When D'Andrea arrived, she talked to me about different things we could do to keep the baby coming: take walks, bounce on the labor ball, do squats. We let Mike sleep since I knew the next day would be a long day and I tried all of these things with D'Andrea's help for a couple hours, then I took a bath. After the bath, I was completely exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep. So that's what I did, I laid down and tried to sleep for a few hours, with the contractions waking me up every 6 or 7 minutes or so. At 6 a.m., we thought we'd try to go to the hospital at 10 am. However, a couple hours later after I showered, I got sick and knew it was time to go to the hospital then. Of course, that had us driving to the hospital in Friday morning rush hour! We did make a pit stop at McDonald's for some breakfast for Mike. It was important that he not be hangry (hungry + angry - a new term I recently learned!) during my labor at the hospital!

My sister-in-law is a postnatal nurse at the hospital we were delivering at and I had just met all of her co-workers at her baby shower the week before. She had called ahead to let her co-workers know to expect me and to make sure I got a good room. When we arrived we got checked in and then came the part we were all eagerly anticipating! The dialation check! I was actually still worried that maybe I still hadn't progressed. We were all pleased to find out I was 5 cm dialated!!!! I was so proud of myself that I had done what I had set out to do, which was labor at home for as long as possible. The doctor wanted to break my water but I wanted it to break naturally. The next few hours went by fast and I actually progressed quickly. By 1 p.m., I was 7.5/8 cm and by 3 p.m. they said I was at a 10 but that my cervix was swollen and part of it in the way still (this part is a little fuzzy to me). I was confused as to why I couldn't push because I felt like I needed to. The next three hours were really a blur...intense contractions, the doctor telling me I wasn't dilated to 10 even though the nurse said I was. We finally decided to have the doctor break my water and when he did that it was definitely time to push. I ended up pushing for about 30 minutes and then Maxwell arrived!! Except for the last three hours, laboring at the hospital wasn't too bad! And of course it was all worth it once Maxwell Luca was born.