Magnus’s Birth Story

Today is Magnus’s 3-week birthday. To celebrate, I thought I’d take a nap. Magnus has other plans, however. So instead I’ll post his birth story. Feel free to read it or not.

Monday, May 2^nd I had mild contractions all day.  They came on and off all day, nothing serious or continuous. We went to Else’s that night to do laundry. By the end of the evening there, I had started having contractions 5 minutes apart, but they still weren’t strong. But the midwife had told me to call when they were five minutes apart. So when we got home (11:22 pm) I tried to give her a call. The phone number I had for her turned out to be no good. I decided that since the contractions weren’t all that strong, I’d try to sleep for a few hours and see what happened. This was around 12:30.

As soon as I tried to go to sleep the contractions got stronger and more unpleasant. I woke Dana and my mom up around 1:30 and told them I wanted to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital at 2:03. Mom dropped Dana and I off at the emergency room and we went up to Labor & Delivery to sign in. They got me into a room right away and checked me out – I was already 4 cm dilated. Good enough to let me stay. It turned out my midwife was on call that morning at the hospital so not being able to get a hold of her was OK. The labor nurse they assigned to me was great.

Early labor was pretty OK . I got to use their fancy hot tub with hot hot water and nice jets. I stayed in there for an hour or so until I started getting cold and wanted to be dry again. By 6 ‘o’clock I had progressed to a 6 or 7 and they started setting things up for having the baby. That was encouraging. By that point none of the contractions had been terrible.

I had heard that transitional labor was so bad that the feeling to start pushing and the actual pushing was a huge relief. And the transitional labor was very awful. At point it was so bad that I considered telling the nurse to just cut me open and take the baby out. I wasn’t all that coherent, however, and all I could say was, “no, no, no, no!” I stopped after than particular contraction ended, but I think if they had given me the option from that point on to have a C-section, I would have taken it. (I’m glad I didn’t). They finally gave me the OK to start pushing. It was not the relief it had been played up as. It was still quite painful and required intense concentration. Also, it turned out my cervix was stuck on the baby’s head which required some tossing and turning on my part until eventually the nurse and the midwife had to peel it from around his head (gross, right?) so that I could push uninhibited.

I pushed for 20 minutes.  At one point I think I blacked out a little bit; I felt removed from what was going on.  Dana was great and held my hand whenever I needed it.  Mom was great too, rubbing my legs or back when I needed it and helping with anything. I couldn’t ask for better supporters.

Magnus was born at 10:22 AM (I think). He weighed 10 lbs, 14 oz. and measured 23 and 1/4 inches. The whole experience is definitely on the list of hardest things I have ever done. But now that a little time has gone by, I’m glad I did it and I realize how lucky I was to have a pretty uncomplicated labor.