I was 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant with my second baby on Wednesday, August 7th, 2013. I woke up at 5am because my 4 year old son was dragging his little foam couch into my bedroom to try and sleep on my floor. I put him back to bed, go pee, and lay back down. But I just couldn't go back to sleep; I felt uneasy. As I'm laying there, wide awake, I start feeling very mild contractions. I figured it was just braxton hicks, as I'd been having for weeks, but decided to time them after the 4th one. I timed them until 7am, when I would normally be getting ready for work. They were coming regularly, every 20 minutes and lasting about 30 seconds but they were very, very mild. I decided to call out of work because I felt like this was it and expected it to progress quickly (as my first labor had). As soon as I called out, the contractions stopped. I was very confused. My husband suggested we take a morning walk to see if that helped anything along so husband, my son, and myself walk around the block. It was cold and raining and I was mad that the contractions had stopped so I was being awfully irritable. Get home from the walk and still no contractions. It's been almost 2 hours without any contractions at this point. I start thinking about going into work, figuring it was just braxton hicks but my boss tells me to just stay home and relax and see what happens. Then the contractions start again. Now they are coming every 15 minutes and lasting 45-60 seconds long. WTF?! That goes on for about 2 hours and they stop again for 2 hours. Then they come back again, stop again, all throughout the day. All the while, they don't get painful and are very, very mild. So we go about the day as normal; go food shopping, clean up, etc. Meanwhile, I'm being irritable and cranky as ever because I just want to know if I'm labor or not!

8pm rolls around and we put our son to bed. Husband and I are standing in the living room, talking. I'm in the middle of a sentence when I feel a "pop" and then a trickle down my leg. I stopped mid-sentence and just looked at my husband and said, "......I either just peed myself or my water broke. Both of which are completely possible right now". So I call my midwife and tell her that I think my water broke while husband runs around and makes sure all our bags are packed and starts packing the car. The midwife tells me that she's already at the hospital with another woman and that I can come in anytime I want or I can stay home and labor there. I decide to head straight for the hospital. We wake our son up and get him in the car and ride to the hospital. Up until this point, none of the contractions had been even somewhat painful, just a tight pressure-like feeling. When my water broke, I didn't have a contraction until we were halfway to the hospital and boy was it a big one! We get to the hospital and husband has to drop me off at the ER entrance while he parks the car in the garage. I head into the ER and they take my information and get me seated in a wheelchair. My husband comes in with our son and the bags and has to go through a metal detector. Turns out, he has a switch blade on his keychain and they tell him he can't come in with that. So he tells them to take it off and they throw it in the trash (he was mad! lol). They take us all up to the maternity ward and bring us to the triage room to have me checked. At this point, the contractions were coming fast and strong. Midwife checks me, I'm 5cm dilated and fully effaced. They say they need to get a labor room ready for me and they'll come back to get me once it's ready. I start walking around the triage room, breathing through contractions. Then I feel sick and have to throw up in the trashcan. The nurse finally comes back and says my room is ready and asks if I want them to wheel me there or do I want to walk. I tell her that my legs feel really shaky and weak and I'd like a wheelchair. She says hold on, she'll go get one. After waiting what felt like forever, she comes back and says that no wheelchairs are available but I can hop in the bed and they can wheel that to the room. I ask her how far the room is ("just down the hallway") and say that I'll just walk. So we start walking to the labor room down the LONGEST HALLWAY OF MY FREAKING LIFE. Get into the labor room and I'm having trouble talking through the contractions at this point. I'm trying to focus on breathing while the nurse is asking me the 101 questions they need to ask you. During the questions, I'm bent over the bed, breathing hard, and wiggling my hips back and forth. Once the questions were done, she says that they need to do a 20-minute fetal monitoring strip, which I need to lay down for, and after that I can get into the labor tub or labor however I want to. So I jump in bed, hoping to just get this part over and done with. Laying down was THE WORST and the pain went up like 12 notches. I tell the midwife that once I'm done, I want to get into the labor tub, so she starts to get it ready for me. After maybe 15 minutes of laying there, I feel the urge to push. I tell the midwife and she looks at me like she doesn't believe me. So she comes checks me. Sure enough, fully dilated and ready to push! She tells me to just push as my body tells me and don't fight the urge. So I start pushing when I would feel the urge to and the pressure was intense at this point. Finally, the baby starts to crown and OMG RING OF FIRE. I was sure that I was going to split right in half and found myself resisting the urge to push because it stung so bad. Finally, I wasn't able to resist the urge anymore and with one giant push, she slid out at 10:49pm.They immediately placed her on my chest for skin-to-skin and waited a while before cutting her umbilical cord. After a few minutes, they said that she was getting cold and wanted to place her under the warmer. She sat under the warmer for a good bit, which I originally hadn't wanted, but I was shaking so much after delivery, I don't think I would've been able to hold her very well.

Juniper Rose was born 8/7/2013 at 10:49pm. She weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and was 20 inches long. I was in labor for a total of 18 hours.

 

Bonus link to the birth story of my first child