I went more than a week with no signs of progress at all. No contractions, baby wasn’t moving much, wasn’t gaining any weight… nothing. It was as if my pregnancy had stalled and my body wasn’t doing anything. I watched my due date come and go, then another week passed. I began to worry that my homebirth wasn’t going to happen because once I went passed 42 weeks of pregnancy, I would no longer be a good candidate for a homebirth.
The day before my next appointment I noticed a little bloody show. It was just a little but still there. I had also started having very mild contractions, barely noticeable. I didn’t think labor was imminent but
I was hopeful that my body was doing something. My body was not failing me. I called my midwife and ran things past her. She thought I would have the baby within the next 48 hours. I called my parents to notify them that they should plan on babysitting my other two children as we had planned. They were supposed to come to my house and I was to deliver at their house. Easy.
I called my dad’s cell phone and he informed me that since I didn’t “look like [I] was close to having the baby” they decided to take a “little road trip” to Florida. They were 30 miles from the Florida border! I couldn’t believe that they took off like that and didn’t even tell me! They are trying to sell their house in Florida and decided that the reason it wasn’t selling was because they needed to stage it better. They made the decision to drive down on a whim, move some things around, and return to the Carolinas in a couple of days. Great. Now I had to find a back-up. I asked dh if his mother could be our back-up babysitter. My youngest dd is not comfortable with her and she takes powerful pain medication for severe arthritis which makes her zone-out but I didn’t have a choice.
I think the stress of everything caused the bleeding and the contractions to stop so; I was hopeful that I could hold out until my parents got back from Florida. That was, until about 11:00 that night when I suddenly had a hard contraction. It was so hard and lasted so long that I couldn’t move. Fortunately, the cordless phone was within reach and I called dh. He started asking me how far apart the contractions were and I blew up at him because I wasn’t watching the clock. I was doubled over in pain and it didn’t matter how far apart they were. They were HARD! I told him to get home and call his mother. I was able to grab my cell and call my mw. She told me that for only the 2nd time in her 16 years of doing this, she had 2 moms in labor at the same time and she didn’t know which one of us needed her first. She assured me that either she or her partner would be there, just keep her posted because she would be about 45 minutes away in Lancaster!!!!
Just then, dh walks in WITHOUT his mother. He said that his mother was heavily medicated and he couldn’t get her to wake up. OMG! He called his sister and asked her to go over to their mother’s house and try to get her up. My contractions were picking up in frequency, about 5 minutes apart, but were less intense. It was well after midnight before my mil arrived. Called my mw around 4AM. My contractions were super hard but still 5 min apart. She told me that she had just delivered the other baby and would be at my side in about 45 minutes. When I saw my mw, I immediately felt relief. My contractions were so painful and I didn’t know what to do. I would describe them as sharp rather than hard, as if someone was shoving a knife up my rectum. She asked me to labor on the toilet. I tried that and quickly decided I didn’t like that. We tried a birthing stool, on the floor, in the tub, on the bed, on a crib mattress, on a chair, on top of dh, birthing ball, every contraction was horrible. Every time I felt one coming, I had the fight or flight reaction and I definitely wanted to fly. It was horrible. In the end, I ended up in the bathtub. I had the jets on and then I turned them off. I told my mw that I just couldn’t do it anymore and that I was going to drown myself. Then I slowly slid my head under water. She pulled my head out of the water, propped it up on a towel, and had her assistant give me a snack and some water. I made it through another contraction and then explained that I was suffering and that I needed to go to the hospital. They talked me off of the ledge by reminding me that the closest hospital was 40 minutes away and that I would have the baby before I even made it to the car.
My mw told me she wanted to check me. I agreed. As soon as she stuck her hand in the water, I screamed and told her that her nails were too sharp. OK, 1. She had on gloves. 2. She hadn’t even touched me yet. Then she reached in further and said the head was out. She said she wanted me to push the baby out with the next contraction. When the next contraction came I screamed for 9-1-1, vodka, and then my voice turned into that demon voice from The Exorcist as I yelled, “GET OUT OF ME!” With that, the baby was born.
