Kayci's Home birth
On Tuesday, January 10, I was at the full 40 weeks, with no signs of real labor yet. That morning I began losing my mucous plug at 9:25 am and continued to lose it well into Wednesday. On Tuesday afternoon Samuel drove me to the chiropractor at 4:25 to be adjusted and to have acupuncture to try and stimulate some contractions and get things going.
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All day on Wednesday I was still losing my mucous plug, but not feeling any contractions yet. Wednesday afternoon Samuel and I went for a walk around the neighborhood at around 2:00. After our walk, we came home and were just spending some time together and resting. At 4:30 that afternoon, I had one really intense stomach ache/cramp that lasted for at least 3 minutes and only went away after I laid completely still and did some deep breathing. Fast-forward to 6:14 pm I started having some light stomach cramping in my lower abdomen. (These were actually contractions, but being a first-time Momma I wasn’t sure if they were contractions or not…I didn’t want to get my hopes up.) The cramps (contractions) were coming pretty regularly about every 6.5 minutes or so and lasted on average for around 25-35 seconds each. I decided to take a bath to try and relax and keep calm. At around 7:45 pm I contacted my midwife to tell her what was going on. She asked me if the cramps were low and wrapping around the front to the back, or if they felt like poop cramps (if this is TMI you might want to stop reading now). I told her that my cramps were low, but felt like poop cramps and weren’t wrapping around to my back. My midwife then asked me if the baby was moving well today, to which I said, “Yes.” My midwife then told me, “Ok. This is where you eat, drink, go to bed early.” I said, “Okay, Will do. Thank you :).” We were also trying to keep an eye on the weather for that night because it was supposed to rain, then turn to freezing rain, then get really cold…causing some slippery road conditions.
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I then got cleaned up in the shower and told Samuel that I wanted to help him set up the birth area, as we were having an at-home water birth. We laid out the mats (giant picnic table cloths) to protect the carpet, got the inflatable pool out, and began pumping the pool up.
What was funny was that we borrowed the air pump from some friends. Luckily they sent us two pumps because the first one died even though it was plugged in. Samuel was able to get the second pump plugged in and get the pool aired up. During the whole set-up process I kept having contractions. I was using a contraction timing app on my phone to time my contractions. However, my phone was on the verge of dying, and was plugged in in our bedroom. I kept having to go back and forth from our living room to our bedroom to time my contractions each time one came on. At this point the contractions were pretty sporadic, coming every 2-5 minutes, but lasting still for around 30 seconds each. When we finished setting up the birth area at 10:00 pm, the frequency of the contractions was much more regular, at around 2 minutes apart and lasting 35-40 seconds each. I kept filling my midwife in, sending her screenshots of my current contractions so that she would know how things were progressing. She reminded me that we needed to get to really long and intense contractions that last 60-90 seconds each.
I attempted to go to bed at this point (at around 10:00 pm), but would have no luck getting any sleep, as contractions were still coming every 2-3 minutes and lasting 35-60 seconds each throughout the 10:00 hour. We had progressed from the “excitement signpost stage” of labor and into the “serious signpost stage” of labor. I remember saying several times, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get any rest with these contractions coming so close together.” With each contraction, I kept saying, “Again?! Why are they already so close together?” I had expected to have a 12-14 hour labor with it being my first time, so I was really confused as to why the contractions were coming in so strong and so close together after only 4-5 hours of labor at this point. The contractions stayed pretty much consistent from 10:00 until midnight.
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Here comes what is probably some serious TMI, but I am going to keep telling the story just as it happened. If you are easily grossed out, you may want to skip this part.
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Click on the photo at the top to finish reading on Kayci’s Blog
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