Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Sunday, April 11th, 12:00 pm

A nap seemed like the right thing to help relieve my worries about false labor, and at the time the 3 hours I slept felt like a lot but looking back now how I wish I would have slept even longer! By that time both my mom and Kelli had arrived and I found myself wanting to get up and get moving to see if I could make things happen.

Sunday, April 11th, 4:00 pm

Kelli and I went for a 1.5 mile walk, with contractions timing at 41 seconds about every 11.5 minutes. What was there to do other than sit down in the living room and work on my puzzle and eat another banana? That’s number three during the course of my labor if you’re counting! I only managed to sort out the edges and put a few pieces together but it was nice to have something to distract me from the waves of pain that were slowly building. TH presented me with a “push present”, a webcam, and we hooked it up and called my dad and sister so they could be part of the experience all the way from Washington and Utah.

Sunday, April 11th, 8:00 pm

At 8:00 pm I ate my last official meal before baby would arrive, egg salad sandwhiches on sourdough bread I had purchased at the farmer’s market the day before, and saw that my average contraction interval had increased to 47 seconds about every 5 minutes. They were becoming a bit harder to talk through, but when I called Sarah she said I sounded too good to be very far along yet, and urged me to go for another walk to kick start things from what she at the time considered to be prodromal labor. I walked around the parking lot of my apartment complex with my mom, hanging from the poles separating one parking spot from another during contractions. We passed a lady walking her dog and I wanted to say to her “I’m in labor, and soon I’m going to have a baby. Could you tell?” I wondered if my neighbors were looking out their windows questioning why I was walking in circles and dancing with poles every few minutes.

Sunday, April 11th, 10:00 pm

I came back and took a shower, and it was at this point that I found myself wanting to sing. I hummed a bit at first, but that didn’t feel like enough and suddenly with each contraction I found myself belting out the first few lines of Swing Low Sweet Chariot. I started to get tired of singing the same thing over and over but the only other songs I could think of were Johnny Cash, probably because we had watched the movie the night before. My song of choice was Walk the Line, although I now realize that Ring of Fire may have been a better one for the touch of irony it would have added to my laboring experience. :)

Sunday, April 11th, 11:00 pm

I put my wet hair back in a braid and finally, finally, I felt it was time to get in the birth tub. TH brought the temperature up by pouring in boiling pots of water that we kept heating on the stove throughout my labor. I changed into the closest thing I had to a bikini (wish I would have bought one), wearing a Bella Band on top and a pair of too-small bottoms that are likely stretched out for good. The tub felt wonderful and I remember doing a bit of twisting and turning (dare I say frolicking) in delight at how buoyant and care free I felt all of a sudden. Of course then a contraction came and it didn’t feel quite as nice, but still rather wonderful. I kept singing and humming during contractions, and between them I sent out a tweet asking for song suggestions to sing during labor and scanned my iPhone for songs I already had to create a labor playlist. It was at this point that my mom took over the task of jotting down notes in my labor notebook, “11:30 pm, Fun in tub, ducky joined me. ctx 50 sec/ every 6:00”

Monday, April 12th, 12:30 am

“12:30 am, going to try to sleep.” Sometime after midnight I moved out of the tub and decided to try to get some sleep. I kept my phone next to me with a playlist of songs I could sing along with on repeat. The Sarah Mclachlan cover of River became the most comforting option and I remember apologizing to TH for making him listen to it so many times in a row (you say and do strange things when you are in that much pain while operating on so little sleep) Eventually a pattern developed. I would wake with the surge every 5 minutes or so, mumble/sing along to “and this is how I see you, on a snow white Christmas morning”, then fall asleep exhausted once again after the pain receded. Repeat. Repeat again. Repeat multiplied by what felt like 100,000 at the time. I’m pretty sure That Husband didn’t sleep at all that night. Each time I awoke mumbling/singing he was sitting right there next to me, hand outstretched to give me something to anchor myself to. I was awash in a sea of sleep deprivation and pain, but I made it through with him right there beside me. Bringing this baby into the world wasn’t just my work anymore, it had become ours.

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