Melanie Brooke Curtis
June 14th, 2011
6lbs 11oz, 19.5in
I had officially started working from home full-time on Friday the 10th since my due date was a week away and the hospital was more than an hour away from my office...I didn't want to take any chances. Plus it is was more comfortable to work from home and not have to get all fancied up and stuff my sausage feet into any dress shoes.
Monday the 13th, I sat down at my desk at 8am and noticed my back was aching. I thought maybe it was just from sleeping on it funny since I was big and spent most of the night rolling around. I just dealt with it, rubbing it every now and then to try and massage what I thought were sore muscles. Just after lunchtime I realized that it would hurt worse and then diminish, but it never completely went away. Out of curiousity I looked online to refresh my knowledge on true and false labor....I definitely wasn't in labor....I was sure I was just psyching myself out, but I wanted to be positive. All the definitions said true labor would start in your back and move to your abdomen and that your whole abdomen would harden with each contraction. Well....if these were contractions they definitely started in my back but I wasn't feeling anything in my abdomen. So, I called my mom and told her I WASN'T in labor, not to worry...but just in case, I described my symptoms. Since mom's are so smart she said, "Well, sounds like your going to have back labor, I'm so sorry honey." Great....
At around 4:30pm, when I started getting on my hands and knees to sway my hips and relieve the pain, I finally admited to myself that this was the real deal. I called Tyler at 5:30pm and he picked up the phone and said, "Are we having a baby tonight?" and I said, "I think we might be." He got home around 6:30 and ate some leftovers because I couldn't bear to make dinner and I definitely didn't want to eat dinner. About every 4 minutes I would roll forward off the couch and just sway my hips back and forth. I'm sure Tyler thought I was a crazy person. At around 8:00pm I crawled down the hall to the bathroom because I thought I may throw up and I had Tyler give me a blessing. I was determined to wait as long as possible to go to the hospital because I wanted to have a natural birth. Then finally at 9:00pm, when my contractions were about 3 minutes apart, Tyler looked at me and said, "Can we stop waiting to go to the hospital?". The hospital was only 3 minutes away and I had two contractions on the way there and another one at the check in desk.
Once in triage I was only dialated to 2cm! Just my luck...haha The nurse told us to walk for about an hour and I definitely looked like a fool stopping every 2 minutes to get on my hands and knees in the middle of the hospital hallway and sway my hips. About 20 minutes in to our walk I threw up (thankfully I hadn't eaten any dinner), so they took my back to triage, gave me and IV and some anti-nausea medicine and the doctor decided to go ahead and keep me around...thank goodness!!
We got into our labor and delivery room at around 12:30am and I had the most wonderful nurse of all time. I'm not kidding....this lady was meant to be my nurse. Wanting to go natural and having back labor, she was so supportive and told me to do whatever I needed to do in order to keep myself comfortable and she would figure out a way to monitor the baby.
The contractions got tough, really tough. I'd watched a lot of hippy natural labor videos, read a ton of literature, and talked with quite a few people, so I started to use a low moan to get me through each one. I'd get on my hands and knees on the bed (anyone who walked in got a good glimpse of my backside if the nurse wasn't fast enough to cover me up...but I didn't even care...haha) and would just take a big, deep breath, and moan through it. It actually helped because it forced me to focus on something else and control my breathing.
At about 2:45am, I was on a medicine ball leaning onto the bed and I hit that breaking point where I was just exhausted and sore. I asked the question that no one can answer, but you just want an answer to...."how much longer is this going to take?" the nurse was so great and told me it could potentially take another 6 hours and she knew I wanted to go natural, so we could try a dose of stadol if I wanted to. In between contractions we talked about the pros and cons. It would only last an hour, so I was nervous that I wouldn't progress in that hour and have to finish out the rest of the labor because I didn't want to keep taking medicine all night long. I decided to ask Tyler, who was also exhausted and trying to catch some sleep between my moans, and he convinced me to go ahead and try it. I was only 4cm dialated.
At 3:45 I woke up from the nap the stadol had allowed me to take. The nurse said I would wake up enough to breathe through contractions, but just go back to sleep. She checked me...9.5cm dialated!!! Holy guacamole! If I remember correctly, I looked down at her and said, "Shut up. Are you serious?" She called in more nurses and the frenzy began!
Then the contractions got out of control. I was laying on my side and I would have Tyler put counter pressure on my lower back by pushing his fists against my spine as hard as he could. They came fast and started to double up on me so I didn't have any breaks. I continued to moan through it, definitely louder and longer, but I stuck to what I knew worked. The nurse had me roll onto my back so she could keep a better eye on the baby and as soon as I did that, my body kicked in. I'd heard women say that their body just started to push for them and I had a hard time imagining that actually happening, but boy did it! I couldn't stop it....a contraction came and my whole body would just bear down and push. After two pushes, the nurses all told me to stop pushing and grunt through it....guess I was being pretty productive! I could feel someone helping my body stretch out and after about 4 more contractions I think we all realized that this baby was coming out whether we were ready or not. About 3 more focused pushes and a good "that hurts!" shout and there she was!
I remember them saying "she's a girl" and I shouted "hallelujah" (I had a fear that she'd come out a boy and then I wouldn't have any clothes for her!). The nurses cleaned her up and the nurse 'down in the trenches' said, "I don't think you even tore!" the doctor walked in 15 minutes later (I don't think anyone expected this newbie to go so quick!) confirmed I hadn't torn and wandered around with this look on her face that read, "this was so easy, I don't even know what to do with myself" haha.
Labor was hard and I don't want to make light of it at all. Our family was just so blessed to have no complications and a wonderful nurse. Those two things were key. I tried to keep my mind on the end goal, take one contraction at a time, and remember that pain wouldn't kill me. I never once felt like I couldn't do it, it never felt impossible, and honestly, even having back labor, I think I was expecting it to get worse than it did. Maybe that's the key, managing my expecations :)
Now, just about 3 weeks later, we're doing great. Melanie is starting to show her personality and it is so wonderful to get to know her little spirit. I know she was meant for our family, it is such a humbling feeling to be reminded how we fit into our Heavenly Father's plan.
