In the spirit of celebrating Olive's birthday all weekend I thought I'd throw together a little sketch of her birth story...
On Sunday evening, July 5th I started having contractions 4-5 minutes apart. I was uncomfortable. I took a bath to try and relax. I remember Isaac set up our laptop and brought a beach chair in from the patio so he could sit next to the tub and watch a show with me. =)
That night I couldn't sleep. I kept feeling sharp pains in my back every time I tried to relax. I knew Isaac had work in the morning so I didn't wake him. I texted my midwife - I'm so tired... what should I do? She recommended trying another bath to relax. So I got another bath ready as quietly as I could and laid there trying to relax for a couple hours. I tried to sleep but kept waking up every 5-10 minutes. Sitting on the edge of my bed and arching my back seemed to help with the contractions. Isaac slept like a baby that night. =)
In the morning (July 6th) I waited for Isaac to wake up and promptly burst into tears. I was overtired and I didn't know how I was going to get through the day alone. He was so sweet and took the day off to stay with me.
My midwife suggested doing something to take our minds off everything, so we took a walk in the park and I must have been so sleep deprived that Isaac was able to convince me to go to Lowes with him and pick out plants for our patio AND THEN PLANT THEM. Probably the last thing I would ever want to do pregnant. We went to Lowes and I remember hiding behind hanging pots of flowers so people wouldn't see me wince with each contraction. I don't even remember what we bought but Isaac packed the car up and we came home. Let me fast forward a bit.... walk walk walk, dinner, another bath...
At 9:30 PM we put on a tv show... (West Wing, if you're wondering. How not fun of us. Why weren't we watching some cute chick flick?) I think we got about 5 minutes into the show and all of a sudden it just hit me. I was sitting on the edge of the couch breathing hard and my legs just started shaking uncontrollably and Isaac saw them and was like "I'M TEXTING THE MIDWIFE!"
*this is when my labor started!*
I got off the couch and started swaying side to side like I was doing slow motion hula hooping while Isaac scurried around the house gathering supplies and stuff... have I ever mentioned before how well Isaac does under pressure? I have no idea how he did it but by the time the midwife got here he had music on, lights dimmed, towels freshly washed and folded, our birthing pool inflated and water and snacks handy for me and our birthing team. He is my hero!
If you're still reading you're my hero too. I had no idea how long this story was going to be. Here comes the fun part!
10:00 PM - we filled the birthing pool. Surprisingly more difficult than we thought it was going to be since our water heater was (accidentally?) set to a billion degrees so my midwives and Isaac were running back and forth filling and dumping buckets of cold water into the pool to try to cool it down for me. We all laughed about it and decided to take a walk while we waited for the water to cool down.
My midwife suggested going up and down the stairs a few times. I politely declined and asked for a cold towel for my head. I remember Isaac standing there with the cold towel saying, "If you want this towel you'll do 2 sets of stairs. Go." Haha he was like a (sweet?) drill sergeant helping (making) me keep moving.
Around 11:30 PM I got in the pool. I loooove the birthing pool! I spent the most difficult part of my labor in the pool and I think it helped a lot. That, and my midwife massaging my back for me =) =) =) Hot towels on the back, cold towels on the face. Awesome awesome. I prayed harder than I've ever prayed for the strength to just make it through that time in the pool.
12:15 AM - decided to get out of the pool and stand for a bit. I was leaning on the couch and something changed and I remember saying, "These are different AND THEY ARE BAD!"
12:47 AM - went to use the bathroom and freaked out when my body just all of a sudden started pushing! I yelled out "I'm starting to PUSH!" and immediately Isaac and my midwife were at the door to help me - I should mention that we have the teeny tiniest bathroom ever and it got a whole lot smaller with three people in it! My midwife gave her assistant a thumbs up and said to me, "If you want to have this baby in the water (I did) you need to move RIGHT NOW." She told me later that she could see my water bag pushing out because my water still hadn't broken. I jumped in the tub before my next push. I remember looking up at my midwife and saying, "Here we go!" =)
12:58 AM - head crowning with one hand up...
12:59 AM - baby out
1:00 AM - welcome to the world, Olivia Jane!
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