Part 2 of Elizabeth's Birth Story: Laboring at home

Wyatt called our doula, R (full name withheld for privacy), around 10 (or so), to let her know what was going on and to ask what we should be doing at that point. She told us to keep track of how frequent and how long the contractions were, and to take a walk, have breakfast, live life. Though my memory is rather foggy of the exact order of our morning, I know that we did have breakfast (oatmeal), and we showered, walked together slowly in the rain, relaxed in bed some more, and stayed as calm and peaceful as possible. At some point I lost my mucus plug.

Apparently, around 12pm-ish my contractions lengthened in duration, though the frequency remained about the same-- every 5-ish minutes or so. Wyatt ended up calling R two other times before she made her way over to our house around 2.

Overall, my knowledge of anything related to time during labor is non-existent. One of the most helpful pieces of advice we'd been given was to take down, turn off, or cover all of the clocks, and Wyatt did so swiftly once I went in to labor. I don't think I saw a clock from about 8am the morning of the 26th until after the baby was born. Knowing that he was timing contractions and knowing I didn't need to keep track of time was hugely comforting. I had no idea that I had been laboring for 7 hours before R got there, and if I had I imagine I'd have been greatly disappointed.

R's arrival caused a bit of a shift in my mental state. I was thankful to see her, knowing that she's been through the experience of birth herself and helped so many other couples through their own journey into parenthood. She did a brief pelvic exam to check my progress and, as we'd all agreed previously, she did not tell me how far I was dilated. She did mention that I was fully effaced which both surprised and pleased me, and that my bag of waters was bulging and could likely break at any time. It was becoming more and more apparent that this labor was the real thing, and yet I still had a difficult time admitting it to myself. I tried and tried to stay in denial about the whole situation.

Wyatt later told me that I was about 4cm dilated when R first got here.

R suggested that we take another walk, so we grabbed our umbrella and waddled out. Wyatt would hold the umbrella in one hand with his other arm around me and whenever I would experience a contraction we would face each other, with my arms around his neck, and we would sway together while I breathed through the pain.

I was actually really thankful for the rain as it kept all the neighbors and children inside. Our neighborhood is friendly, but can be quite noisy, and I knew ahead of time that I'd like the quiet and cocoon-like feeling of laboring at home on a rainy day. I was definitely not disappointed.

Time passed, though again, I wasn't sure how much, and I continued to labor on steadily. I ate some yogurt, some broth, tried some toast (and got sick), and I had some juice, water or coconut water after each contraction. Yep, I did get my coconut water, one of the important items that we had mentioned to each other the night before that we needed to have on hand for labor. R was nice enough to run to the store to get some for me.

After a bit of a rest-- Wyatt napped upstairs and I sat leaning against the couch with my eyes closed-- labor picked up again, I got sick two times (the only two times I got sick during labor! It was a bit of a miracle), and R checked my progress again. She said that I was not equally dilated around, that one side had more of a lip than the other (around 5cm and 7cm, I think), and she inserted some borage oil capsules into my cervix on the side that needed to catch up to the other. I lay on my left side to help that side of the cervix open up more, and after a while she checked me again. Around this time I was getting concerned that we were staying at home for too long. I didn't want to get stuck delivering the baby at home or in the car, and even though I'm confident than R would not knowingly keep us at home too long I was still eager to get to the hospital. Finally it was time to go.

I waddled my way to the car, slowly, swaying with Wyatt during each contraction despite all the things he was carrying with him. I took the front passenger seat with R sitting in the seat behind me. As soon as we were in the car, someone sprayed our aromatherapy spray (a mix of lavender and grapefruit essential oils), and away we went. I had my sweater's hood pulled up and over my eyes, and I leaned back in the seat to breathe my way through the drive. R rubbed my shoulders and head as we drove. The trip usually takes about 15-20 minutes, and I was so thankful that it was late enough at night that we were able to get there quickly. I'm also thankful that most of the drive is on the freeway. Turns and bumps did not feel good, but the straight ways were tolerable.

We were really going to have our baby!