The Birth of William Brawford: Part Four

Get caught up:

{Part One}

{Part Two}

{Part Three}

.....................

Jennifer let me know right away that the first order of business was getting my 20 minutes of pesky required monitoring out of the way. I had to lie on the bed for this and have those damn itchy monitors strapped to my belly.

I didn’t like that last time and I didn’t like it this time, but I figured I could deal for 20 minutes.

Seriously, those things are so itchy.

When and if the day comes where I have to go to a normal hospital, or a military hospital and have to have those things on all the time it is going to be the equivalent of water torture for me.

(That may be a bit dramatic).

In any case, the machines showed that baby was handling contractions super well, had the heart rates that we wanted to see, husband was texting everyone that this was really happening, and I was cleared to get in the tub!

I ran to the restroom again, changed into my bikini top and headed for the tub.

Now, let’s talk about my nurse. She was seriously the nicest lady – and she was back the next day to continue taking care of us, so I had quite the amount of time with her – but during labor, I need to be honest, she annoyed the crap out of me.

First, she held me up from getting in the tub to get me to sign a bunch of paperwork, alright, necessary, I get it...

...But then, she held me up to put my thumbprints on the ceremonial “birth certificate” that the hospital gives you. I repeat, ceremonial.

All I could think was, “Um, kind of in the middle of something here, lady! My thumbprints will be the same when I am not in labor – promise.”

Thankfully, my labor team assures me that I was nothing but nice to her (other than in my head where the snarkiness was hitting alarming heights - oh, Labor Land).

And then, “Ahhh.” Sweet bliss of the tub. Jennifer asked right before I got in if I wanted to take off my skirt before entering.

Foolishly, I said no.

She made a comment that if I wasn’t feeling the crazy desire to begin shedding my clothes, it might not be time for the tub after all. But, a few moments after entering that water and feeling that wet cloth around me I said, “Yup, that was a mistake. Someone take this thing.”

I was still having some good space between the contractions, but the pressure was getting intense. Holy Cow, I had forgotten this. I was still joking with everyone in between the contractions, and just looked down at the water when I was breathing through them.

Jennifer found a towel for me to rest my forehead on, as being up on my knees in the water was definitely the best position for me. The jets were sort of distracting so they were soon turned off.

Shortly after three, I felt a change. The pressure was so intense that it was unbelievable. I just kept saying, “the pressure, the pressure” in a sort of trance like way during contractions, which were closing in on top of one another. Jennifer talked me through it, giving me the go ahead to give a few pushes to see if my water would break to relieve some of that pressure.

I looked up and saw that she and the student midwife were both suited up to catch a baby, and that the warmer had been brought into the room!

Holy crap! This means baby time!

She also mentioned that I needed to decide where I wanted to have this baby, because once my water broke, she was pretty certain the baby wouldn’t be far behind.

I kept telling everyone that I didn’t know what I wanted to happen, and that if I didn’t feel like getting out – welp, then we were having a water birth!

I pushed tentatively to see if I could get my water to break. In my head I just kept talking to myself about how I couldn’t believe how fast this was going!

We had only been there an hour!

This was insane.

It couldn’t be time yet, could it?

I was just making everyone brunch a few hours ago!

Intermittently, my nurse had to listen to the baby’s heartbeat with a Doppler. Thankfully, they have one that can go underwater, which is great. Not so thankfully, the baby’s heartbeat was down so low that I had to push myself up out of the water so that she could reach to find it.

She asked me to sit up in between contractions, but then she could not find the heartbeat fast enough before the next one would hit, and there I was, out of the water! She was trying to work fast and the logical part of me knew it, but in my head I was getting snarkier by the minute.

Who me, annoyed? Never.

I kept groaning and pushing a bit with contractions. Jennifer remarked that I must have a bag of steel surrounding my baby for it to still be intact. I laughed inwardly and then suddenly, everything was clear and I was in the zone.

No fear, no anxiety over the speed of this labor, I was ready for this pressure to be gone and we were having this baby.

Right now.

And boom. My water broke.

It was about 3:20.

Evelyn Rae is 20 months old, Liam is 5 weeks old

...and it is snowing today! On the second day of Spring! Crazy.