February 27th, Alexander is here!

So I finally have a few moments to talk about the arrival of Alexander! I’ve been getting a lot of questions and I hope that this answers some of them. First off, to start with a disclaimer, labor isn’t pretty. Hollywood made it seem so clean and easy, but the truth is, it isn’t. Ha ha! You see movies where the pregnant woman screams “My water broke!” and they rush to the hospital. After 2 minutes of pushing, the baby appears! Reality, it does not happen that way. Now, here we go:
On Friday, I was fast asleep till about 3:30am, then I woke up in extreme pain. How to describe this pain? Think about the worst poop you’ve EVER had to take and it decides to grow arms and punch around! For a moment, I thought I had to go to the bathroom, but shortly after I realized I was just in pain. I really thought I could work through the pain and go back to sleep. I even got in the bathtub to help myself relax, but it all seemed moot. Eventually, I crawled back into bed around 5am. James usually senses when I come to bed and he’ll cuddle me, but that morning, I screamed at him “DON’T TOUCH ME!” He realized that I wasn’t comfortable and that I was in fact having contractions. Right away, he started to time them. This part is gross, but a reality for most women, the pain got so bad for me that I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Having taken a birthing class, we both knew that this was a signal I was in active labor. I couldn’t concentrate on relaxing during the contractions while lying down. I actually had to stand up for a lot of my labor. So, James calls the midwife after timing my contractions for an hour, and she said it was time to come to the hospital.
After one of the most painful car rides of my life (not blaming James, just the labor), we finally get to the hospital where I’m wheeled into my delivery room. I’m going to stop for a moment to describe this room. It’s like a little hotel room with a nice bed, couch, rocking chair, a Jacuzzi tub and TV. James finds this great channel on the TV that plays instrumental music and shows nature scenes, which played the ENTIRE time I was in labor. I kept the room especially cold, probably around 60 degrees or so. I felt bad for my mom (who arrived later) who doesn’t like the cold, and was wearing a blanket my entire labor. So back to the labor story, I got there and changed. The midwife checked and found that I was 5-6cm dilated and 90% effaced. To be honest, I was really surprised! I had wanted to be dilated quite a bit before I got to the hospital, and I did try to labor at home for as long as possible (before I started to throw up). I didn’t think that I was dilated as far as I was since we left the house around 6am (remember, I woke up only at 3:30am in extreme pain). So I was pleasantly surprised, but I still didn’t expect my labor to be short by any means. I stood around the room for a long time, dealing with contractions. Sometimes I would do a slow dance with James, or I would just lay my head on the bed and stay standing. I did throw up a couple more times, and at around 10am, my midwife checked me again and I was 8-9cm dilated. So I was officially in Transition Labor. I DID notice the contractions getting rougher and longer to deal with. The midwife suggested that I get in the Jacuzzi tub and relax. I loved it, and James even made the comment that I was falling asleep between contractions. My mom thought that was funny because she did the same thing when she was in labor with me. After awhile, the midwife comes to me and asks if I wanted her to break my water and try to get pushing started. I did not want that to happen, and asked my midwife if we could wait an hour to see if I could break my water on my own.

Well, I gave it two hours. I waited and tried my hardest, but my water wouldn’t break. So after the midwife checked me again, I was fully dilated and fully effaced, I let her go ahead and break the water. After that happened, Alex’s head went into zero station and I had to prepare to push. I pushed for 1.5 hours and finally, my son was here! The pushing was a lot harder than I expected, but the end result was more than worth it. That’s all I can type for now. If there any questions, let me know!