After dropping off the kids with my mother in law, we went to run a couple errands and get some food since we knew that I might not eat again until after she was born. We arrived home around 11-11:30pm and then Joe and I started to clean and organize our house a bit. I was feeling anxious and giddy that this was actually happening. My contractions were as short as 5 minutes apart. I knew that my midwives wanted me to contact them once the contractions got that close, so I went ahead and called my doula, Ally, and one of my two midwives, Caitlin, to give them a heads up.
At about 1am, we called the other midwife, Kathy, to let her know my contractions were consistently 4-5 minutes apart. She said that Ally would come over to check me out. Ally arrived a short time later and sat with me through a couple contractions, then recommended that I try to sleep for a while because it could be a long night and this would be my last chance to rest until after Collins was born. Joe and I were totally on board, so I turned on the Christian Hypnobirthing App and laid down, drifting off between contractions. None of them were too intense at first so I was able to relax a bit. But after about 30 minutes or so of resting, I could no longer lay down in between contractions, and I was beginning to shake uncontrollably. My adrenaline was kicking in! I started to work through the contractions with either Joe or Ally applying counter-pressure and/or using a Robozo.
We had planned to do a water birth so Joe started getting the tub ready. He got the inflatable tub itself all set up, but then when he went to fill it with water, the hose adapter wouldn’t stay attached to the faucet! I was thinking “Are you serious!?” I was so nervous about not being able to get into the water when I wanted to. I’d heard that birthing in the water was a great, natural way to ease the intensity of labor and delivery. Both of my first two biological children were born at the hospital with an epidural so this would be my first time doing a natural vaginal delivery without one — I was anxious of how that would go and wanted to have every possible tool to do so.
Thankfully, the contractions took my focus off the malfunction, and Ally suggested that I get into the shower to help ease them. They were very intense by then and started coming so close together that sometimes there was really no break in between them. Joe, Kathy, Caitlin, and Ally started heating pots and a tea kettle on the stovetop plus the Instant Pot and Crock Pot — anything that would heat water to pour in the tub!
When I got out of the shower, I heard that they were still continually working to fill the tub, running back and forth from the kitchen to our bedroom to dump out water, refill the pot, heat it back up, and repeat. I only had to labor for a little while longer until the water level was high enough for me to get in, but the water was too hot for baby to be born into. They topped it off with some cold water to bring down the temperature. Once I finally got in, it felt like my body let out a sigh of relief.
Read part one of the birth story here. Part three coming shortly!
Happy Thanksgiving!
xoxo Tia