Maple Baby's Birth Story: Part II

Ok, on with the birth story!

When I got to the birthing center (around 4pm) they examined me and found I was 5cm dilated.  And then the midwife accidentally broke my water.  Whoops!  So, I guess I was in active labor and I wasn't going anywhere.  We headed upstairs to the birthing room and I hopped into the jacuzzi.  I had been so excited about hopping into a nice warm bath!  We don't have a bathtub at our place (well, we do but it has cracks in it so I don't like to fill it with water) and I felt like a nice warm bath would be awesome.  And it was!  I hung out in the tub for an hour or so.  Actually, I have no idea how long I was there.  It felt like forever.  The contractions were getting stronger and eventually I felt like I couldn't handle it anymore.  I called hubs and asked him to push on my back again and as he was trying to relieve my pain, I decided that it was too much.  I had had enough of these stupid contractions.

I called my sister to tell her not to come.  She had been planning on stopping by later in the evening, but I decided I was in too much pain and didn't want her to stop by.  I told her to just wait until the baby was born and come then. 

I also decided that I wanted to go to the hospital to get an epidural.  I think Hubs was relieved because he hated seeing me in so much pain.  So, he helped me out of the tub and I put all my clothes on (yup, I was sitting in the tub buck naked - I had no modesty at this point) and waited for the midwife to come back.  I was bouncing around on the birthing ball trying to manage the pain, but it wasn't helping too much.  When he, the midwife, came back I told him my decision to go to the hospital.  He was super calm and suggested we see how far along I was and maybe try a few other options before heading to the hospital (in retrospect it was obvious I was in transition - the stage of labor where you want to give up - and he was trying to stall me until I started pushing).  At that point I was 8cm dilated (it had been about two hours) and they were shocked at how fast I was progressing.  The midwife said that we could try a TENS unit to help mitigate some of the pain.  I had heard of this because Red Boots used one during her labor, so I decided to give it a shot.

While he went off to find the TENS unit, I writhed around on the bed in pain.  I tried "mooing" like a cow because I had read in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth book that "mooing" helped.  Well, maybe it helps in the beginning but it sure didn't help much at this point.  I felt like I was in the middle of one large contraction that never ended.  Eventually a nurse stopped in and suggested that I try and use the bathroom because sometimes if you have a full bladder it pushes on the uterus and makes it contract.  At this point I was willing to try anything, so headed to the bathroom.  She turned out to be right - the minute I used the bathroom my contractions got a tad bit lighter. 

They then came and hooked me up to the TENS unit.  They put two patches on my back and turned up the electricity until my pain got a bit lighter.  It actually seemed to work.  It didn't take all my pain away but it made it a lot more bearable.

And then I got the urge to start pushing...