Wednesday morning, November 30, 2005 at 2am I felt like I had to pee so I got up and went to the bathroom. I felt like I had to pee again 12 min. later. I started to get suspicious when I had to pee again 11 min. later. I tried to wake up MrLivingOurWay but he just mumbled to tell him when the baby came out went back to sleep. He doesn't even remember me waking him the first several times and finally got up about 4:30 am. So I went out to the kitchen and I finished swiffering the kitchen and dining room floors. Contractions weren't so bad that I couldn't work through them. I just wrote them down so that I could tell how far apart they were. They got as close as 4 min. a part and then they lengthened back out to 12 min. apart. At 4am, I decided to call my midwife at home. Her husband informed me that she was at a birth but if it was urgent I should call her cell. I spent 15 min. or so trying to figure out whether it was worth bothering her. I saw blood in the bathroom and then got on the computer to do a few things and when I was done, I called her cell phone. She informed me that she was a birth and there was no way she could leave. She would send a back up. I told her I'd call her back if the contractions got worse.
The contractions stayed separated but eventually hurt so bad that I had to get in the bath tub to get through them. About 6:45 am, I told MrLivingOurWay to call the midwife and tell her she'd better send someone right then if she was going to send someone. She asked to speak to me and I told her it hurt really, really bad every time I got out of the water. She said "Well you're in labor, it's going to hurt." She called back in a few minutes and told me she was sending her apprentice but it would take an hour and forty five minutes for her to get there. I later found out they were both at a birth that was technically two and a half hours away. She told MrLivingOurWay that if I started pushing before the apprentice got there to call and she’d walk him through it. At seven, I had MrLivingOurWay call a lady who'd offered to watch our oldest FindingOurWay. To my surprise the FindingOurWay wanted to go to lady's house and was very excited to leave with her. She came in the bathroom all excited about leaving just as I was getting a really bad contraction but I was still able to smile at her and tell her to have good time. The contractions really didn't appear to be very close together while I was in the water and I could get through them by letting my body go limp. It was really bad, however, if i got out of the water. It would be like one big contraction that just kept getting stronger and stronger and never went away. Needless to say I was only out of the water for quick trips to the bathroom. About 8:30am, I got tired of the bathtub and asked MrLivingOurWay to finish filling the birth tub. He mumbled something about having plenty of time and I had to get pretty mean with him. He got to work. I told him at that point I didn't even care about the temperature. I just wanted to stretch my legs out and have deeper water and a softer bottom.
I got in the birth tub (an inflatable kiddie pool) and the relief was even better than the bathtub. However the contractions were now too bad to just go limp through. I started making some really ugly noises but not out of control noises. About 15 to 20 minutes into this I told MrLivingOurWay to call the midwife's apprentice and find out where she was. She informed him she was just over a mile from our house. It seemed to take forever before she was standing in our bedroom.
The apprentice began getting the birth supplies organized. She told me that my noises meant I was in transition which was not what I expected to hear. I figured I would just be in active labor because I was still able to carry on a conversation. The apprentice later said I was probably complete when she walked in. She asked if I was pushing with my noises and I told her no. I told her that I absolutely did NOT want to push at all. It had been very painful with the first one and I just didn't want to. It wasn't long before I realized that my water had never broken. The apprentice began to give instructions on how she would have to handle the situation if the water hadn't broken by the time the baby's head came out. The water not breaking was what had probably made the contractions to this point less painful and at and after this point more painful. The bag of waters was hitting my bowel but it didn't feel like I had to use the bathroom it just HURT. When I was informed of why this was happening I begged her to break my water. She said to push for 10 more minutes and if it didn't break she'd do it for me. I ended up pushing with my knees against her hands. And the water did infact break two pushes before the baby came out. It was instant relief. I did after several contractions in the pushing stage lose control and say that I couldn't do it not so calmly. I pushed out our second daughter at 10:12 am in a very very small cloud of blood. She had apgars of 9 and 10 (she cried right way) and had more vernex on her than the apprentice had seen on a full term baby before. The midwife commented what a big baby she was. Then later commented how little the placenta was for such a big baby and began looking carefully for missing parts. However, when we weighed and measured we realized why the placenta was so small. Our second FindingOurWay was 7 lbs 6 oz and only 18 inches long. She had broad shoulders and a larger head. She was just "fat". For a few minutes there was concern that she was a little early but after counting the folds on her feet it was decided that she was definitely right on time at 39 weeks and 6 days.
I have no doubt that if I’d had her in the hospital, I would have ended up with an epidural this time. The pain when I was out of the water was very unbearable and the contractions felt way different. The water was definitely what got me through this birth.
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