Maple Baby's Birth Story: Part I

I have been trying to write this post for a while, but Maple Baby makes it a bit difficult.  Every time I sit down to write it, he starts crying.  And he can only be soothed if I hold him.  Of course.  Yup, he's crying right now.  He was sleeping so soundly and then the minute I try to write something, he starts waking up.

Now he's in his swing, so maybe he'll sleep for a bit longer.  I really should be sleeping since I don't get much sleep at night, but for some reason I can't sleep during the day very well.  And I feel like I have so much I want to try and get done during the day.  Eventually I'll crash, I'm sure of it!

Such a cute sleeping baby!

Anyway, so back to the birth story.

It all started on Wednesday, 5 September.

I had an appointment at the birthing center.  I wasn't feeling like the baby was coming any time soon and figured I had at least a week or two to go.  However, when the midwife examined me she said I was 90% effaced and dilated 1-2 centimeters.  She was certain I'd have the baby before the end of the weekend.  She then mentioned she could "sweep my membranes" to help speed up the arrival of the baby.  Before I really had a chance to answer whether I wanted her to do that, she had already done it.  Yikes!  She said if the procedure worked I would go into labor within 24 hours.  Hmm, was I actually ready for that???  Not sure!

So, I went home that night and felt a bit of cramping and was bleeding a bit.  The midwife said that that was going to happen so I wasn't too worried or hopeful that it meant anything.  However, at 12:48am (yes, I looked at the clock) I woke up feeling like I was starting to have back contractions.  I tried to time them but they weren't very consistent and sometimes they were hard to feel.  On top of the contractions I had a constant back pain that I would rate a 4 on a scale of 1-10 (10=extremely painful).  So, at the beginning it was hard to feel both the constant back pain and the back contractions.

However, as time went by, the contractions got stronger.  At around 6am I called the birthing center to see what they said.  I wasn't supposed to show up at the birthing center unless I had called them and they told me it was time to come in.  They said that because I was only having back contractions and nothing was coming to the front that I was still in early labor and to wait a bit longer and start timing the contractions when they came around to the front.  Hmm, well a long time went by and the contractions never came to the front.  However, they were getting stronger and more and more painful.  Hubsters didn't go to work that day because he felt I might be going into labor soon, so when I had a contraction he would push on my back and try to massage the pain away, which helped a bit.

At around 2pm, Ivan said I was in too much pain and I needed to call the birthing center again.  Let me just say, that he was NOT a fan of seeing me in pain and was constantly saying we should go to the hospital.  So I called and talked to someone different.  I said that the contractions still hadn't come to the front but they were really painful and happening quite close together.  So, she said to time them for the next 30 minutes and call back.  So, hubs and I went to work timing them and they were between 2 and 4 minutes apart!  When I called back they said to come in and they'd see what was going on.  I don't think they really believed that I was in labor because I was still just having back labor, but I was thinking that if this wasn't labor I would just DIE because I was in so much pain.

Hubs and I got our hospital bags together and hopped in the car.  I called my mom on the way there and she happened to mention that she had only had back labor and never had contractions in the front.  Hmm, so maybe this was the real thing.

I was really hoping it was...