But I woke up just a few hours later, around 2:30 in the morning on Monday the 10th. I had a fairly strong contraction while I laid in bed awake. Yay, exciting! But I was determined not to get my hopes up, just yet. I had already done that too many times to count in the last week or so. But at 2:45am, I started tracking contractions on my phone app. Between 2:45 and 4am, contractions were reliably between 13 and 9 minutes apart, all with nice intensity. Real contractions - not painful enough to feel like crunch time, but carrying enough pain that you know it's not just a Braxton Hicks.
Jesse rolled over and saw me playing on my phone around 4am, so I filled him in, feeling pretty sure I was in early labor. I still wasn't 100% convinced, however - there was a chance it could still go away! I hadn't had any additional symptoms yet, like loose bowel movements or mucous discharge. Those have always been standard markers for me - if those show up along with contractions, baby will be there soon.
I was, however, tired of laying in bed babysitting those contractions, and I felt wide awake, despite having only a few hours of sleep so far that night. So, thinking it might finally be the day, and it might go faster than I anticipated, I got out of bed with the purpose of doing some last-minute cleaning. We have a bad habit of not picking up after ourselves on Sundays, so the kitchen was a mess, and other little things around the house had been bothering me in the back of my mind. So I picked up the kitchen, wiped down the table and counters, straightened things up. I cleaned up the entry way (which is permanently clogged with a disarray of coats, boots, and backpacks at this time of year), picked a few things up in the hallway and bathroom, and sat down at my desk a while later. Things were still moving along, although around 4:30am I had a lot of very short, non-intense contractions that were only a few minutes apart from each other. I liked that they were closer together, but the duration and intensity going down did confuse me. I didn't have another really strong contraction until after 5am, and then the interval jumped back up, ranging between 10 and 17 minutes apart. At 6am, I decided to call my midwife and tell her what was going on, knowing that things could change in a matter of minutes and I might need her to rush over. I also called Rachel, who was going to be watching our kids, and asked her to come over in an hour or so. I was worried about the kids getting up at 7am, in just an hour, and getting ready for school and out the door on time. It sounded like there was a high potential for things to get really chaotic and happen all at once, although Amy (my midwife) thought it was likely that labor would slow down when the morning activity kicked in. While I waited, I talked to friends on Facebook about my early labor, and made a schedule for Rachel for the school morning, in case Jesse and I weren't able to help out. Contractions continued, although now they were varying between intense and not intense, long and short, larger or smaller intervals. But I had also used the bathroom and found some very light pink mucous, which is a great sign that cervical changes were happening! It was confusing.
At 7am I decided not to risk the chaos if I could help it, and asked Jesse to help Rachel get the kids ready, and I laid down in bed for a rest, and stopped timing contractions. I dozed in and out of sleep, but don't recall any very intense contractions while I laid there. After the kids had gone to school, I got back up and chatted with Rachel, and planned the day. I mostly sat down while we talked, and realized that those contractions were still fairly regular, but definitely less intense than they were in the early morning. But I still forged ahead and planned on labor happening. Rachel would take Alex and Malcolm to her house, get Alex to school, and even plan on getting Malcolm to nap at her house, checking in on us occasionally, in case things changed and we might need to adjust plans.
So around 8:30, she and the boys left the house, and Jesse was officially staying home from work. I kind of wandered aimlessly around the house for a while, waiting to see if things would pick back up again. They didn't, really. So Jesse and I bundled up and went for a walk out in the frigid cold. It was another "freezing fog" day - only around 20 degrees outside, and fog thick enough to layer everything in thick, flaky frost.
We set off with the intention of heading towards the nearby lake like I did the day before, but by the time we got to the end of the parking lot, a pretty darn strong contraction hit me, and I definitely felt some downward pressure along with it. "Uhh, maybe we better just walk around the block so we don't end up too far from home, just in case," I said to Jesse. He agreed, because he didn't think he could manage to carry me home, and he needed his coat and couldn't use it as a sled to pull me home, either. Goof. So we walked around our little block several times. We must have walked about 20 or 30 minutes, but another contraction like it never came! I felt some occasional tightening, but even the walk I took when I was in early labor with Malcolm (after my water had broken and things were having trouble getting started) was more productive than this walk. I was getting tired of walking (and cold), so we made one last loop and went back inside. I sat down on the exercise ball to rest, hoping at least to keep my pelvic bones in a good position for baby. We decided to watch a TV show, and turned on New Girl. I started timing contractions again, after another one finally showed up while we sat.
Again, they were irregular. Everything about them. But I started to realize that every time I got up from sitting, I would get a major contraction pretty instantly. And then it would hurt so much that I would sit back down. Nothing would really happen while I sat. Stand up again, boom. There's another one that nearly cripples me with the intensity. At 10:20am I talked to Amy on the phone, and she was planning on driving into town to deliver her taxes, anyway, so she wanted to stop by and check on me in person. We agreed. It might be about an hour from then. After I got off the phone with her, I walked back to my bedroom to put something away in dresser, and had to stop everything to lean against my bed during another hard contraction. And when it eased off, I felt like I needed to use the bathroom, so off I went. And had another contraction there on the toilet, just a couple minutes later. They were both so hard that I didn't think I could wait an entire hour for Amy to get here. They were the kind of contractions that made me sure that I would be pushing before very long, and I had no idea how much time would pass before they were closer together. I made Jesse call Amy back. I didn't want to talk on the phone. I knew in my head because of that decision that I had moved past excitement and into the intense transition phase, even if the numbers weren't crunching right. Amy was nearly to our house, and was there only about 5 minutes later, perhaps. I was already on my bed, curled up and trying to avoid more contractions by the time she walked in. I was vocalizing through each of them, and I had stopped timing them, because there was no longer any point. They were the real deal, and there was NO going back at this point.
I was very aware of Amy and Jesse prepping the room around me, laying out the ground cover, pulling out towels. I received a hushed word or two of encouragement as I moaned through contractions while they were busy. I warned them that I was going to be pushing pretty soon. I could feel it threatening with the last few contractions. I kept trying to mentally remind myself of how grateful I was that labor was finally here, that I wouldn't have to go be induced at the hospital, and that I finally didn't have to wait any longer. But those intense contractions... they make it really hard to feel grateful. But I had promised myself to accept them with gratitude, to feel as happy as possible that I was able to take this journey. So I had a warring conversation with myself every time a contraction hit: "Be grateful this is here, so glad this is here" and "PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"
Within minutes, I assumed my position kneeling against the bed, as that had worked well for me in the past two home births. Pushing had begun with little grunts on the bed, but once I was down on the ground, every contraction brought a full urge to push, but oh, how they hurt so badly. I was no longer even able to remind myself to be grateful. It was everything I could do to simply get through each contraction. They were so powerful and forceful, and I had little capacity to meet them with any sort of calm or composure. I eventually began vocalizing quite loudly. This was already going on longer than it ever had before, I knew that, without ever looking at a clock. I could tell there was much less progress than normal for me at this point, and it was extremely discouraging, because it felt so much harder than my previous births, already. How much longer was I going to have to hang on and push through?? I tried to tell myself to take it one contraction at a time, but they were so intense I could barely recover myself between them before another one took me over. I wanted to cry so badly. But there was no energy to be spared for crying. I screamed and growled so loudly with each pushing contraction that I hardly felt like I was within my own body - more like I was watching from afar (but not watching, because my eyes were tightly sealed off from the world), incredulous at this wild woman on the floor by her bed, reacting in such a foreign way to birth. Jesse rubbed my back and gave me fresh cold washcloths (which were amazingly helpful, as I was sweating buckets from every pore of my body at this point), Amy and her assistant Dona (who arrived about 10 minutes into pushing) hung around the room quietly observing and occasionally checking on the baby or offering hushed support. Jesse would tell me with every contraction, "You're doing great, Becky. Keep going, you're doing it." And I had no ability to reply, but my brain was screaming, "I am not doing great! This is going horribly bad!! I should be done by now, and I can tell I'm hardly getting anywhere, and it hurts awfully and I can't stop screaming every time I push!!" No, in my mind, doing great would have been low moans and a baby coming out in a handful of pushes. This was torture. With all the focus on my spiritual and emotional state I had put on myself over the last few weeks, I ended up having a number of very conscious thoughts during contractions along the lines of "This is what the Savior felt like when he atoned for us. I want this to stop so badly. I would beg for it to be over!! Please, just let it be over!!! But I know the only way out is to get through it. I can't get through it! It's unbearable!" I suddenly understood very tangibly all the symbolism I had been reading about only weeks before. Not that it was any comfort, in the moment. But this pregnancy has taught me more in the way of leaning on my Heavenly Father than anything in my life ever has before.
After what seemed like an eternity, Amy suggested that I should turn over into a squat when I could... it might be more productive with the pushing. It seemed a monumental thing to ask. I could barely support myself against the bed. How could I possibly turn over?? But I did. Very awkwardly. Jesse caught me under my arms as I flopped back towards him, and later told me that he was hoping desperately that he was holding me high enough off the ground to be useful. I'm amazed he could hold me up at all, between the weight of my body and the awkward way I leaned against him. My feet were planted on the ground in front of me, and the next contraction brought a blood-curdling scream from me, and pushing with all my might. But I felt that baby move down. It was an awful, terrible feeling, but also such a relief that I could finally feel some progress. And a reminder that an end was in sight, and a baby to enjoy from all that work. Amy thinks he was probably just a bit stuck behind my pubic bone, all that time I was on my knees.
Just another push or two later, after nearly an hour of the most intense pushing contractions of my life, he was finally crowning. Jesse tried to tell me I could see it in the mirror off to the side, but my eyes couldn't focus on anything for more than a half second or so. I saw the mirror, I saw a reflection, but I couldn't make sense of it. And I didn't want to expend the energy to try, so my eyes closed again. All my focus was inward, it had to be. I was still going through the most physically difficult thing of my life. I was just doing everything I could to get through it in one piece. Another couple contractions. He was crowning much longer than I anticipated. I expected the pain and burning of crowning during one contraction, but he stayed there through maybe 3, despite my efforts with pushing. Again, it was terrible. I have no recollection of any pain of crowning even remotely nearing the pain of this baby crowning. I felt sure I was going to rip in two if I pushed anymore, but I couldn't possibly bear that pain for any longer, so I pushed again, as hard as I could. His head moved out, and there was momentary relief. But I had to push again to get the rest of him out, and it took another colossal contraction and more screaming, if not quite as intensely.
Half a second after he was out, he was swiftly wrapped in a towel and put on my chest. I was still wrapped up in the pain and effort, and it took me a few seconds to even be able to open my eyes and look at him, or move my hands to hold him. It was all so intense, more intense than anything I had ever experienced in my life, and I did not transition from "get me out of this!" to "yay, it's finally over!!" for a couple minutes.
As I sat there and tried to catch my breath and take in what had just happened to me, my favorite thing of the entire experience was happening just behind me: Jesse was laughing breathily, I think maybe even wiping tears from his eyes, and he kissed me lightly a few times on the side of my face. I could tell he was just absolutely overcome and amazed by what he had just taken part in and witnessed. His amazement eventually made me appreciate the moment more clearly, and I looked at the sweet "little" baby in my arms incredulously. It really was finally over. And look at this angel resting on me!!
He took a few gurgly moments to give his first cry, but when he did, it was nice and strong. I remained on the floor, leaning against Jesse, but no longer off the ground. Amy had me work on pushing the placenta out, which did not come as readily as she expected. It took a few tries, and then there were some skin-like membranes that were being stubborn about detaching. But it all finally came out just fine (and honestly, it was pretty soon after birth - for my past homebirths, we haven't worried about the placenta for at least 30 minutes, and I'm tucked in bed). Then I got some help getting up into bed, and was pleasantly surprised when Charlie wanted to nurse very soon after. He figured it out with no trouble at all, and didn't want to stop for about the next couple hours.
The next part all sort of blends together in my head, but we rested for a bit, made sure I had some Recharge to drink, and Jesse started some lunch for me (Brazilian beans frozen ahead of time, and rice). Amy and Dona cleaned up a bit, we all ate some food, and Charlie kept nursing. Finally, I was examined (just a little tear that didn't need a suture! Even though I felt like I was ripping apart!!), and everything looked good. I passed Charlie off to Jesse while I was escorted to the bathroom to get the standard observed urination and a quick rinse in the shower.
Dona started the newborn exam while I rinsed off, and when I rejoined them, I took a few pictures of the process, and got to cut my very first cord - Jesse said he had had enough turns over the years.
Finally the big moment came, where we learned his stats. Everyone was saying what a big baby he looked like. Honest to goodness, I cannot remember for the life of me from one baby to the next. I lose all frame of reference!! They had estimated maybe 9ish pounds at my last prenatal appointment, and I had been measuring a whopping 45 weeks. Perhaps that should have clued me in, as it was about the same story when I was still expecting Alex. We measured him at 21.25in long, and a 15.25in head. Oh my! Amy said that Charlie broke her personal record for deliveries she's attended. She's had some maybe reach 15in, but never 15.25in. And, she added to Jesse, it had looked like his head came down a bit crooked, probably adding the sensation of extra size. Yay me? And then we get to weighing him...
10lb 8oz! Way bigger than I was expecting. I didn't think we'd near Alex's record of 10lb 10oz, but we almost did! I honestly wish I knew why 3 of my babies were 8.5lbs, and 2 of them were 10.5lbs. What makes the difference?? It's crazy. And a little sad. I really wanted my last baby to be on the smaller side, so I could enjoy the tiny baby stage a little big longer. Instead, Charlie decided he needed to make for a very memorable experience and grand entrance into the world. My throat was raw and painful from all my insane vocalizing, and the next day my abdominal muscles felt tortured enough to have been in a boxing match, rather than a birth.
Just after 2pm, all the exams and cleanup were finished, Amy and Dona left, and Jesse and I had a few minutes of quiet before the kids arrived home from school to meet their new little brother. He was just starting to finally settle down and getting ready to sleep, so we kept the visit brief, and they all went to Grandma's house for the rest of the evening so I could get some rest. After only a few hours of sleep and the most difficult birth I'd ever imagined, I needed the rest pretty badly. I had been shaking from the adrenaline for a very long time, and I was just now starting to feel more collected. Even still, when the quiet wrapped around me, the intensity of the birth was brought right back to the front of my mind, and I still felt overwhelmed and on the brink of crying, a mix between horrified at what I had been through, and relief that I had made it. It was a raw, intense experience. If it had been my first homebirth, I may not have opted for future homebirths. But the love and care I received from my midwives and from my husband, and the learning experience of it for myself - those things make it worth it.
And most of all, this precious little boy is the best thing of all. A little baby I never intended to have, but one who is beautiful and perfect and soft and round and smells like heaven. We love him, and are so glad to have him here with us, finally!
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