I know it has taken me two months to get this posted and many of you have been asking for it. The first couple of months with Jaxon were both easier and harder than I thought. While he is a good baby, he is still a newborn and I am his main life support at the moment, which has required all of my attention and has, until now, left me with little time to eat and bathe let alone write. So here it is…
In order to tell about my labor and his birth I will need to start a few days before the day he was born. Almost the entire week before he was born I just started to feel different physically and mentally. In hindsight I can see all the signs that point to me going into labor but during it I didn’t have a clue or I did but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I had read, been told by my midwife, and witnessed (my friend Kate) that most first babies are a week overdue. I didn’t want to think I was reading into my bodies signs that I was going into labor two weeks early when I was mentally preparing to be pregnant 3 more weeks. It would make it a very long 3 weeks if I constantly thought that I would go into labor any time. So I noted the changes but chalked them up to my body preparing for him to come in 3 weeks. All I kept thinking that week was that this was going to be a long 3 weeks if I had to put up with all of these major changes and discomforts. Turned out that I didn’t.
Here is the time line and description of events I went through:
TMI Warning: There is some pregnancy related bodily functions/events described here. Don’t read on if you are easily grossed out or offended by such talk. No one is forcing you to read this! I choose to include it because it is what happened to me and should be a part of my son’s birth story.
Tuesday, August 5th: I woke up and went pee. Nothing new. I did it 4-5 times a night. This time, however, when I wiped I noticed that I had lost my mucus plug. If you don’t know what that is and want to then look it up. I feel that mentioning it is enough as you can tell by the name it is one of those gross things I won’t go into detail about. Anyway…I looked it up because I was sure it meant something. It did. Basically it meant that anytime between 1 day and a couple of weeks I could go into labor. Well that was true anyway. You will find that most labor signs have this vague timeline. Not very helpful in determining when your little one will arrive. I was confused and frustrated but I just went about my regular routine.
Wednesday, August 6th: I woke up with what can only be described as periodic menstrual cramps for about 2-3 hours. It wasn’t time to get up so I just laid there sleeping on and off through them. Nothing too painful but definitely annoying. They went away when I got up so I knew they weren’t labor. I went to my midwife that day for my 37-38 week appointment and let her know about the mucus plug and the cramps. She decided to check me internally, which she doesn’t normally do nor had I had one at that point. My cervix was still closed but “very soft”. She was sure I was effacing due to the softness. I asked her what this meant. Any day to a couple of weeks she said. Great!
Friday, August 8th: I so wanted Jaxon born on this day. How cool would 08/08/08 be for a birthday. Nothing really happened today except that I felt good for the first time in a couple of days. I did have a great prenatal massage. She did so some acupressure techniques to induce labor on me since I was now full term. Later that evening I went to Time Out to see friends and watch the first preseason Hawks game. I had fun. I am now glad I did that.
Saturday, August 9th: I woke up and I was hungry so I went down stairs and ate. I looked at my myspace and email and then decided to go back to bed since it was like 7 a.m. I went to stand up and had intense pressure and pain down there. I tried to walk but I couldn’t. I decided to lay on the carpet in my living room for a few minutes. Finally when I could move I went upstairs. At the top of the stairs I felt intense pressure like I needed to go #2. So I went to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet for about 20 minutes trying but despite the pressure feeling I didn’t have to go #2. I was almost in tears. It hurt pretty badly and I was frustrated/confused. I decided to lie down and try to sleep. I continued to get pressure feelings on and off for about 3-4 hours. The rest of the day I felt very tired and just icky. I called my midwife and she said it was probably more false labor and that if it continued to give her a call. It eventually stopped but I decided not to do much that day. I was supposed to go to Matt & Heidi’s for the UFC Fight but decided that I felt to out of it to go. I went to sleep on and off all day and night. Something was definitely happening…
Stay tuned for Part Three--His Actual Birth Story
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