A Good Hospital-Assisted Birth

I had been having contractions all day Wednesday, but they felt mostly like monthly cramping. Sometimes 5–10 minutes apart, sometimes more. Never consistent enough to time. By evening, I knew I couldn't make it through another day like that. I took my four older children to a friend's to spend the night. I didn't sleep much that night and had some contractions, but not enough to go in yet.

As an aside: my fourth child was born at home, 80 minutes after waking up with my first "real, no kidding" contraction. I was little nervous about waiting too long and delivering in the car or trying to ride along in the car while in transition.

Finally at 5 a.m. I showered and got my husband up to go in. We had a small breakfast and went in. After I got all checked in, I was finally able to concentrate on getting labor going. I was about 4 cm at this point. I had a few more contractions, not staying very consistent and not lasting very long. Around 10 a.m. I was 6 cm. The midwife had me get hooked up to the breast pump and after that I got into the jacuzzi to help relax. After about 1/2 an hour, the jacuzzi wasn't helping any more and I had a long hard contraction. I got out of the tub and almost immediately the contractions started coming one on top of the other. I realize now that I was in transition and was having a hard time with each contraciton. I was on my hands an knees, telling my sweet patient husband to "put ice on my back", "take the ice off!" "rub my back!!" "not so hard!!". Things were a little crazy because the midwife was next door with another patient who was delivering at exactly the same time. The nurses were trying to find a resident or another midwife to come help me. The nurse asked if she could check me I told her not to bother, she could just look because baby was coming. Sure enough, my water was bulging and it was time to push. I wanted to squat and get baby out but I didn't have time. Just 20 minutes after I had gotten out of the tub, Paul entered the world!!

We were able to go home just 6 hours later and enjoy our first night at home with brothers and sister to welcome him home!! The nurses and midwives at UNMC were awesome.

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