Before the details fade from my mind, I want to get the story of Hudson's birth down on paper... err, pixel. I want to document it honestly so there are some details in here that some people might find a little personal. Also it is long. There, now you've been warned on both counts!
On Thursday evening, I felt a little bit like I had a stomach ache. Nothing major, just enough to notice. It persisted into Friday morning, when it felt like it does when a period is coming... a feeling I had honestly not been missing these past nine months! I also noticed something was different when I used the bathroom. I determined that this was probably the mucus plug passing. I polled some moms via email and the general consensus was that it didn't really correlate specifically to labor starting. I was happy for a sign my body was doing something, but didn't think anything much of it.
By mid-day on Friday, the stomach ache had organized into more discernible contractions - like a big cramp, and then it would go away almost as quickly as it had come on. But they weren't causing me pain, or stopping me from going about my day. Knowing what I did about labor - particularly for first timers - I was still of the opinion that we were at least a day or more away. First babies were supposed to be slow. They weren't supposed to come on your actual due date. The initial stage of labor that I was in could, and probably would, take days.
At 3:30pm I sent my sister a text message that said, "Got your bags packed? Contraction-y today. Not sure if it will develop into the real thing but we'll see!" She was still deciding which day she thought she should come to be here for his birth. My mom had planned to fly down on Monday; during the day when we talked I said maybe she would want to come Saturday or Sunday instead.
I kept running my errands. While I was out and about I met my friend Angilee for Sonic icecream at about 4pm. We felt baby squirming and (as always) sticking those little heels out of my side. I would have a contraction, and feel it distinctly like a cramp from my back, coming around my sides. But again, nothing to take my breath away and they didn't appear to be coming at regular intervals.
I went to the grocery store. As I walked around, I felt the contractions more. I still didn't think they were anything to get worked up about, although I felt excited that something was happening. Surely it meant I would be meeting our baby in the next few days! After the grocery shopping I was tired and thought maybe it would be good to go home and lay down. I didn't want to stop and get gas but the car was pretty empty so I told myself to suck it up and just do it. That turned out to have been a wise decision!
When I got home I tried to lay down and go to sleep. I was still telling myself that this was probably only the beginning of a very long process, and that if this was real labor I would need to get my rest. After a few minutes I decided I just couldn't lay down. It didn't feel good to be laying down when I did have a contraction, and I didn't think I could get to sleep. About this time I was talking with my sister and we decided she best just book a flight for the next morning. Again, I figured even if we ended up going to the hosptial later that night, there was no way he would be born before she could arrive the next day. Besides, she didn't have a lot of other options - it wouldn't have been much quicker for her to drive all the way from Kansas City anyway.
By 7:00pm, I had texted Ben saying, "I need you soon, these are starting to be ouchie." I guess I thought maybe "ouchie" was a less threatening word than "painful?" He said he would hurry home! Later that hour I was also texting Heather. I told her that the contractions felt like "a nasty strong menstrual cramp" but that I still didn't "think they are quite regular enough to declare this officially active labor," and that we were "trying to decide whether to tell [the parents] to just leave now." Closer to 8:30pm, Ben was home. I had downloaded an app for my iPhone called "Full Term," which was a really simple contraction timer/tracker. Plus, it was free! My contractions were about 45 seconds long and happening on average every 5 1/2 minutes. We called our parents and said they should probably go ahead and leave St. Louis. They would still make it by morning and, we were sure, not miss the birth. They said they would hurry and get ready and leave as soon as possible.
Once my contractions were lasting for almost a minute each and happening at close to 4 minutes apart, we went ahead and called the midwives' office. I was THRILLED to hear that my midwife Lauren was the one on call! This meant that if we did end up going to the hospital, she would be the one to come in for our labor and delivery. Lauren talked to Ben on the phone and said that so long as I was happy and comfortable at home, we should stay until the contractions were between 2-3 minutes apart. She suggested I take a shower. I did, and that felt GREAT. I was hollering to Ben from the shower so he would know when to start and stop the contraction timer. When I got out we kept putting our bags together. Ben was frantically trying to make a really awesome labor/delivery playlist for us to listen to at the hospital.
I did not want to sit or lay down while I was having contractions. Baby was riding so low that the pressure was simply too much. It felt infinitely better to be moving around. I would lean on the table, the counter, and the fireplace mantle when a contraction came, and sort of rock back and forth or side to side. I tried to remember my breathing, and when I would exhale it really felt like it was relieving the pain. I also had this scripture in my mind, and I would concentrate on it, on each word one at a time. "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10)." When I couldn't remember anything else, I could say the last part slowly in my mind while I tried to breathe, over and over again: "I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
The pain of contractions - at least as I experienced them - was a rolling intensity. It wasn't sharp, and somehow the word pressure seems more apt than even the word pain. It felt purposeful, and it wasn't suffering. It was just work. I was very focused and "in the zone," so to speak. I didn't really want to talk or even be touched, but just to work out each contraction one at a time. When we got to about 2 1/2 minutes apart, I told Ben we should leave because if we waited any longer I didn't think I could stand the car ride to the hospital. Ben called Lauren back and said we were on our way! This was about 12:30 pm. We got everything in the car, and I decided I would ride in the back seat. On the way out the door I grabbed a candle (unlit) from our mantle. It seems like a silly thing now, but I just HAD to have that candle so I could hold it and smell it in the car. So I rode the entire twenty minutes to Vanderbilt on my knees in the backseat, half hugging the back headrest and half draped over the seat, staring out the back window. I had my pillow and that stupid candle and I just held onto them both for dear life!
When we arrived, we valet parked and had to enter through the ER since it was after-hours. Ben got stuck in security where the lady was looking in literally every nook and cranny of our bag, even though she could clearly see me leaning against the wall having contractions one after another. We got checked in and taken up to the 4th floor where Lauren met us and took us to our delivery room. After we met the nurses and got some stuff out of the way, she checked my progress. At 1am, I was 80% effaced and 6 centimeters dilated. That was awesome news, but all of us I think assumed it meant we had a way to go.
At Vandy, they have one room that has a hydrotherapy tub for labor. Although you can't push and deliver into the water, you can labor in it right up until go time. Remembering how good the shower at home felt, I was looking forward to some tub time! We still needed to get baby monitored for 20 minutes before I could do anything, though, so that we could make sure he was doing okay with the contractions. Except remember how I said I couldn't stand to sit or lay down? Those of course are the main positions in which they can successfully get the monitors to read anything. I just couldn't do it, though. We tried over and over again to make the monitor work in a position that I could stand. I stood and leaned on the bed; I knelt in the bed while the head of it was raised and draped myself over the back. Lauren was so patient and just stood by me holding the monitors in place. While I was leaning over the bed, the anesthesiologist came in to inform me of pain management options and have me sign papers. They do this so if you decide you want an epidural later they don't have to bother getting you to sign it then. I never even saw the poor guy's face; they just passed the papers over my shoulder and I would scrawl my name best I could.
After a while when it became evident that I wasn't going to give them a good consistent reading on the monitor, Lauren said I could get in the tub and she'd just listen to baby via a hand-held doppler. I was really glad to get in that tub. By this point, the contractions were definitely more serious business. I wasn't really capable of coherent thought to do specific breathing exercises or even recite my scripture. I only focused on getting through each one and just trying to breath as steady as possible. At the height of each contraction, I felt this overwhelming tightening of my torso, from my ribcage down past my hips. It made me want to clench my jaw, and sometimes it felt like that seized-up feeling right before you throw up. Lauren said she thought I was probably feeling the sensation of wanting to bear down because the baby was so low, but that I should try to breathe through that since the cervix wasn't completely dilated yet. Everyone says it, but you don't realize it is true until it is happening to you: it feels like you just want to go to the bathroom worse than you've ever had to go in your life. I remember thinking specifically: "If I could just go, I'd feel so much better. Why didn't I do that before I got started?" Lauren and Ben helped me relax and breathe each time that feeling came.
I didn't really understand at the time, but it turns out one of the nurses "tattled" on Lauren that she'd let me get in the tub before I had a complete 20 minutes on the monitor. All I knew is that I had to get out of the water. Quickly before I did, Lauren checked my progress again. This time I was 90% effaced and between 8-9 centimeters. Woah! That surprised me. While I was walking back across the room from the tub to the bed, I thought, "I'm still dripping water everywhere even though I dried off with a towel." I overheard Lauren say my water must have finally broken. We tried for a few more minutes to get me on the monitor and keep baby's heartrate visible, but to no avail. Lauren apologized but told me I'd have to lay down so we could monitor him, because she thought his heartrate was dropping each time I had a contraction. As I crawled into the bed, I remember thinking to myself that I might have to ask for an epidural. I didn't think I could stand the intensity of the contractions if I couldn't move around. I had a few contractions in the bed and they could tell baby's heartrate was being affected.
I don't know what the game plan would've been, because at that point Lauren checked again and to everyone's surprise - hers included - there was his head! "Amy, it's time to push this baby out right now," she told me. I was stunned! I told Ben I was a little scared. No time for further consideration of that epidural! They got me ready, helped me hold my legs, and then it was time to push. It was so intense, but it did feel good to be able to go with the desire to bear down instead of fight it off. I was sort of yelling, but Lauren and the nurses helped me stop that and focus that energy into each push. "Push your baby out," Lauren kept saying. After a few minutes she told me I could reach down and feel his head. It didn't feel like a head, but it was something! They put the oxygen mask on me so that baby could get lots of pure oxygen through the umbilical cord for those final moments, because his heartrate still showed he was being affected by the contractions. I kept pushing. I don't remember this part hurting or burning, just the crazy intense pressure, like I couldn't do anything else other than just push.
Suddenly the pressure was gone and Lauren was saying, "Reach down, reach down and take your baby." I did, and there he was!! I pulled him up onto my chest. It was utterly surreal. I don't remember if I was crying or laughing or neither or both. How was it possible I was holding my son?! It was 3:02 am, just over two hours from when we arrived at the hospital and just ten minutes from when I first started to push.
He was fussing but not crying out very loudly. They needed to take him to give him more oxygen. Ben cut the cord and I told him to name him before they took him off of me. "Hudson Patrick James," Ben said. I was glad, because that was my favorite from our short list. They had him just a few minutes and we could hear him really hollering, which was a relief! Lauren delivered the placenta, which was also weirdly a relief, and then set about stitching me up. I had a few surface tears, and one that was more pronounced but way up high inside. It turns out Hudson came out with his hand up in his neck, and she thought this might have been why I tore there. It also was the probable cause for the dropping heartrate; he must've had his cord tucked in his hand or under his arm.
They brought him back to me and we cuddled and snuggled. The grandparents arrived not five minutes later. (They would've made it on time but my dad got stuck in security with his pocketknife!) Everyone admired Hudson and we called my sister so she could hear him cry. We tried some breastfeeding and tried to take in everything that had just happened. No one including Lauren could believe he came so fast! She'd told Ben she guessed it would be a couple hours when I got out of the tub. Hudson wasn't even an hour old, but he was the timeliest member of our family by far.
When I think back, I still can't believe I did it. I wouldn't have made it if it weren't for Ben, who did everything I asked exactly when and how I needed it without batting an eye. He saw me in quite a state and if he was ever unnerved or scared, he didn't show it. And how he loves his boy, well that is more than would fill 100 blogs.
I also had the indispensable support and care of my midwife Lauren. She was AMAZING. She helped me work through the process and instructed me when I was losing my focus. She never left my side, from the time we arrived on the 4th floor until after Hudson was born and we had tried breastfeeding. Her skill and trustworthiness made Hudson's birth a beautiful, rewarding experience. I can't recommend the midwife practice enough.
So that's it. I was going to say, "That's it in a nutshell," but I think this post is a little long to be called a "nutshell." So maybe the nutshell version is this: I had a baby. He's beautiful. We're going to keep him.
