Berf story, part 1

A 2 minute backstory: I got pregnant very quickly with Harper and had a pukey, but largely uneventful pregnancy. She was born in the hospital, in San Francisco, and the whole experience was, how you say...fine. I experienced killer, killer back labor and after 12 hours at home, I signed up for the epidural and felt pretty good about it. After pushing for 4 longlong hours and then leaving with a section of residual numbness, I thought I might try unmedicated the next time.

It took me a lot longer to get pregnant the second time and that definitely stressed me out. No one quite knows what to say when you're going through those murky waters, so I felt isolated and weird. It was rough, but it passed. I'm not sure what my bod was doing, but Bea came out of it all, so -- good. Anyway. I got KU again (naturally) and committed to the idea of a birthing center and no drugs. I liked that Harper wouldn't have to see me in the hospital (I still remember some fun things I saw when my brother was born, including my mom's OB covered in blood...? Of course that was 1986 and things have tightened up considerably... ) and I liked that I'd immediately be mobile and I guess I also wanted to try it from a pure experiential standpoint. Oh, self. *pats head*

Because Harper came "early" (not by much, but a few days before her due date) and because my belly was so big and so low, I was convinced I'd go early again. I told this to everyone and even got the midwives in agreement. "You know best!" ...do I? So when I started having painful contractions around 39 weeks, it was obvious this! was! it! I texted my mom, who was going to be on Harper duty, and my poor cousin, who was going to help me during labor, and let it be known they had to get here now, from Maine, because baby was EN ROUTE.

Only, yeah, she wasn't.

I really can't even handle discussing the following twoish weeks because they were equal parts boring/stressful/painful and exhausting. It snowed and snowed and snowed and we celebrated Harper's birthday and then of course it would be baby's next! But then no, it was mine. (I hadn't even considered that she might come after mine. No, no, Kimpossible.) (Harper and my mom and cousin made me a cake that said "WHERE BABY?" in sugar letters. T'will go down as my favorite birthday cake of all time.) We watched a lot of Olympics. We walked around dirty snow covered parking lots.

Every other night or so, I'd be up for hours with painful but unprogressing contractions. I told my midwives I'd pretty much accepted that I wasn't going to get a baby out of this, that it wasn't going to end and I guess I'd be okay eventually. I wasn't joking. They laughed nervously.

And let's just say I became very... close with my midwives. I had 5 intense membrane sweeps over a 10 day period and many emotional phone calls in the middle of the night and teary non-stress tests where I'd make them promise me she wasn't slowly being eaten by the umbilical cord. They made me get an acupressure massage and I did visualization and bounced constantly on the blue ball and I ate pineapple and did Evening Primrose Oil and jogged on the treadmill. Nada.

We finally decided we would induce at 41 + 1, a Sunday evening. I just didn't feel comfortable going over 41 weeks for a few reasons, the major one being this babe was clearly big. Harper had been 8 lb 8 oz and everyone was guessing bug 2 would be even chunkier.

My cousin had to go back home and I felt so terrible she was going to miss the actual birth after all the time she put in. And after two weeks here, my mom was due back at work on Monday. I was frustrated and emotional and kept waffling between letting her cook till Sunday and inducing rightthisminutenow. I definitely felt disappointed and surprised that it was going down like this after all my prep and focus, but admittedly, a small piece of me felt relieved. I'd be in a hospital and I'd probably get an epidural and it would all be very familiar.

On Friday, two days before induction, I got yet another membrane sweep and my midwife told me I must go get acupuncture and take an Ambien at bedtime. That this would do it. Yep sure I'm a shell of a human, whatever, pass the jelly. I got an appointment with my acupuncturist ( har har "my acunpuncturist" ... who am I? ... I'll write another post on how this lady is pretty much a magician, though) and filled the Ambien scrip. The theory on the latter being because I wasn't sleeping at night and suffering through "false" contractions, my body couldn't fully relax and push me that one final step into real labor.

I had my acupuncture session and it was terrible. I pretty much hate lying on that table always, but this time was just ridiculous. So many parts of me had needles (probably 30-40) and then she started doing electric shocks on my feet...? I was so miserable and grumpy and probably inappropriately mean to her. Drove home in the cold and fog and rain, popped half an Ambien (#hardcore) and hit the hay.

I could tell I was having contractions all night, but I was able to keep sleeping through them. I would come to the surface, feel very intense pressure, breathe deeply and then...nitey nite. I didn't feel drugged or queasy or bad, I just felt pleasantly sleepy and like my body was working it out on its own. I can see being reluctant to try this because what if you're drugged and suddenly in full out labor? But I could tell I was in control and this was helping and for once for once for once, I was really sleeping.

When I woke up in the morning (we're now at 41 weeks exactly, the day before my scheduled induction), I pretty much knew it would happen that day -- but had a hard time saying it out loud after all the many false alarms. #girlwhocriedbaby #tobecontinued