Saturday, April 29th, 2000, my great grandmother was having her 93rd birthday party. We went to dinner with my family at The Greenery in Montrose, afterward I was feeling a little funky. I decided to skip the get-together at Great Grandma's house, and ask my mother in law if she would watch Cameron, because I was almost sure tonight would be the night. We went home, Blake's cousin Cody came over for awhile and burned some cd's on our burner. After he left, we watched a movie and went to bed.
I inserted my evening primrose oil, put some Clary Sage in the aromatherapy diffuser, and once again tried to use sex to jump start my labor. I lay awake in bed until ten o clock, waiting for something to happen, and finally fell asleep disappointed. A couple of hours later, I woke up in the middle of a terrible contraction. This didn't feel anything like the pains I had with Cameron, this was just unbearable. I looked at the clock, and it was 12:59. I decided to get in the shower to see if they would stop, since I'd had false labor the night before and a shower took care of it. I was half hoping they wouldn't stop, and half hoping they would because they were really amazingly strong, and painful. I knew from the very first pain that this was probably labor. I'd never felt anything like it, since with Cammie I had back labor.
I washed my hair, and while I was putting conditioner in, I had yet another contraction. I couldn't believe they were already coming so fast, so I decided to get out and tell Blake to start timing them. I also needed to get ahold of Rachel and my parents, all of whom were to be at the hospital with me. When Blake started timing my pains, we were absolutely shocked to realize that they were already four minutes apart-- I'd been in labor for less than twenty minutes! I begged my mom to let me come over to their house, but she told me to call my midwife and they would come to our apartment instead. I really wanted to labor at my mom and dad's house like I had with Cameron, since our apartment had no room to walk around. I had the answering serice page Clarice, and then I got into the bathtub. While I was trying to shave my legs, Rachel called. Blake had tried calling her earlier, but nobody had answered. I was afraid she'd miss the birth, since I had assured her earlier that it would be okay for her to go out with her friends. I was glad that she had stayed home. We talked while I was in the tub, I was moaning loudly through the contractions and she was telling me to breathe, which annoyed me to no end. Our call waiting beeped, and I accidentally hung up the phone instead of switching lines. I gave the phone to Blake because I was in no mood to talk anymore. I'd given up on my legs, and was swishing water around my belly isntead. Clarice called back and Blake gave me the phone. I told her how far apart my contractions were, and she told me to get to the hospital as soon as possible, and asked how fast I could get there. I didn't answer her b/c I was getting another contraction, so I just handed the phone to Blake. He talked to her for a moment and then called his mom and told her to meet us at the hospital.
My parents came over, and I got my hospital bag and we got ready to go. My parents gave us a ride to the hospital (at the time, Blake had a few unpaid traffic tickets). We got in the car, and I gave my dad a tape I had made of some soothing music. I sang along softly to help me calm myself down between the contractions. My dad took over timing, because we hadn't been able to find Blake's watch anywhere (later, we remembered it was in my purse, he'd taken it off during dinner earlier that day). By the time we got two streets down from our apartment, my contractions had gone from four minutes apart, to a minute and a half apart and a minute long.
By the time we arrived at the hospital, approximately 20 minutes later, they were sixty to seventy seconds long and under a minute apart. I jumped out of the car, and was going to have the security guard take me up in a wheelchair since I was in incredible pain and finding it difficult to move, much less walk to Labor and Delivery. I left Blake and my parents to unload my hospital bag and the things I would need, and went to walk into the hospital. I heard someone calling my name. I turned around to find Rachel and my brother Tony running towards me. They took me upstairs, and a nurse, Marilyn, brought me into the birthing suite and told me to get changed into whatever I wanted to wear, and said that Clarice would be in to check me soon. I had to wait for Blake to bring in my bag, then while he was out trying to figure out how to load the tape into the video camera, I walked around for a bit, rocked on my hands and knees, and waited for Clarice.
She finally came in and asked me to get on the bed so she could check me. She asked how far along I thought I was and I jokingly said, "ten?" She said, "Well, how about seven?" I was already seven centimeters! I had been maybe a fingertip earlier that night when I inserted my EPO. Rachel said, "Wow!" and I said, "I kick ass!" Clarice told Marilyn that I was seven centimeters, very stretchy, zero station, and had a bulging bag of waters. I asked if I could get in the tub, but she said I was too far along for that (the hospital stopped doing waterbirths, I'm not sure why) but agreed to let me get in the shower. Marilyn got a shower seat for me and I sprayed my belly and back with the hand held unit. Blake came in and offered to do it for me, so I let him. My knees would ache with every contraction, and he would spray them for me and it felt wonderful.
When I got out of the shower, I decided I would like to lay down for awhile and rest. Clarice got the beanbag for me so I wouldn't be laying on my back. The lights were very dim, and someone got me a cool cloth for my forehead. Vickie (my mother in law) got me a glass of water and put my socks on for me because my feet were getting cold. Rachel rubbed my arms and, at my request, told me about the night I was born. Blake rubbed my feet. Clarice was sitting in a rocking chair in the corner of the room, looking over some papers (my chart, I think) and being very unobtrusive. When I'd have a really bad contraction, and yelled instead of moaning through it, she would pipe up and say, "Good job, just let it out." I was drinking a ton of water, so I had to pee a few times. Whenever I'd sit down on the toilet, the pressure I was feeling was terrible and it would start another contraction. I decided I'd like to be checked again, to see how I was progressing. Clarice took the doppler and listened through a contraction, and then checked me and found I was at 9 with a tiny lip of cervix. She asked me if I wanted my water broken, I said I didn't know, so she told me to just let her know if I decided I did. She also said if I wanted to push, I could, because the lip would slide back. Clarice went to go check on something, and the nurse was sitting with us, watchign me labor. I was moaning, and she told me it would be okay, and I nodded and wailed, "I'll appreciate this later!" The look on her face was priceless!
I was really tired, and kept saying I wanted a "break," and I wanted to sleep. Rachel said it would only be a little while before my baby was born, and then I could sleep . I grumbled, "No I can't, I'll get that damned adrenaline rush." Clarice and Marilyn laughed, and one of them whispered, "She's right, you know." I sat on the side of my bed with my eyes closed, and began praying that I would just have a few minutes to regroup and rest, because I was so exhausted. Suddenly, my eyes popped open and I felt a rush of energy. I started joking and laughing through contractions, and told Blake I was starving and wanted a snack. I munched on some trail mix and drank some 7-Up, through my contractions which were one on top of another. Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over, and I was grumpy and agitated. I told Clarice, "I can't do this anymore!" She replied calmly, "The fact that you think you can't tells me you won't have to."
I decided I wanted to try pushing. I wasn't really having the urge, but I felt a lot of pressure and I think I mostly wanted it over with. It wasn't working, though, and I decided I needed to use the bathroom again. Clarice said, "Bowel movement or urinate?" and I snapped, "I have to pee." I was getting really cranky! She told me to go ahead, but that turned out to be a bad idea! One minute I was complaining that I couldn't stop contracting long enough to concentrate on going to the bathroom, and then suddenly the urge to push hit me full force. I had never realy felt it with Cameron, since time was an issue, but it was amazing. I screamed to Clarice, "Hurry in here, I can't stop pushing!" It wasn't a conscious thing, it wasn't really so much that I was pushing her out, it was that my body was forcing her out without my permission. I've never been able to effectively describe exactly what happened as Rayna was being born, but it was amazing. I was panicking, afraid my baby would fall into the toilet. She came in and had just reached between my legs, when gush, my water broke all over. It sprayed the walls, the floor-- and Clarice. She said, "This baby is coming, you need to get up-- the toilet is not a good place for a baby to be born." I said, "I can't! I can't walk!" and she said, "Yes you can, and you have to." She helped me to the bed, the minute I laid down I started pushing again, I couldn't even stop to get my right leg onto the bed. Clarice had to move it for me, and Blake had to help scoot me over so Clarice could see. I was grunting and my entire body seemed to be squeezing her down and out. I remember thinking quite clearly how strange it was, the force my body was putting into getting her out, and all I really did was bear down along with it. I felt her moving down and Clarice and I both said at exactly the same time, "Here she comes!" She started crowning, and while it didn't hurt as badly as it had with Cameron -- no burning, just stretching -- Clarice told me to slow down, and that was the only real work I did - trying to stop my body from expelling her too quickly. So the sensation did last a lot longer. I started screaming, "Pull her out, pull her out!" Her head delivered and I sighed, "Oh that's so much better."
The relief didn't last long, because then her shoulders began to deliver, and her body slipped out. She was put on my belly, and I said, shocked, "Is she too little?" She was the tiniest baby I'd ever seen, her head looked like an apple! Clarice assured me that she was okay. I kept asked if I'd torn, and Clarice told me to be patient, she had to waited for the placenta to come out. I felt something pulling at me, and Marilyn discovered the cord was twisted around Rayna's leg. She unwound it and I was fine.
The placenta came out soon after that, and Blake cut the cord when it stopped pulsing and went limp. I was checked for tears, and Clarice discovered two tiny skidmarks, which she said were so little that she wasn't even going to count them. I noticed Raney was chewing on her hands, so I latched her on and she nursed for about 45 minutes before we let the nurse take her to weigh, measure, and clean her. Rayna Amelia Taylor Bentley was born at 4:01 a.m on April 30th, 2000. I was in labor for three hours and two minutes, and pushed for exactly five minutes according to my chart. She was 6 pounds and 14 ounces, and 19 and a half inches long. It was a wonderful labor, almost perfect, but next time I will definitely be homebirthing.
