An Officer and a Grunt: Birth Story

I was asked by my friend Miss Emmy Lou if I would be interested in sharing my birth story. It's definitely something worth writing down for posterity, so I figured I would go ahead and do it. You can go over to Mama Days and check out the other birth stories as well.

Birth Story
William Mason
Born August 31, 2010
4:47 AM 5 lb, 14 oz

I had just switched my insurance over to Tricare standard so that I could go to a civilian hospital. Before this point I had been in the midwife program at the local military hospital, but after hearing so many horror stories I knew that civilian was the way I wanted to go, especially hearing the wonderful things about the birthing center near my house. I was 37 weeks along at my first appointment.

It was a Thursday when I went in to see the midwife. She did the typical checks of weight, heart rate, fundus height, etc then asked if I wanted to be checked to see how dilated I was. I figured, I'm already here, why the heck not? So she felt. Then looked at me.

"You're 3 cm dilated," she said. "And 90% effaced. This baby could come any day." She said she was surprised I wasn't waddling like crazy and rushed me through the registration paperwork for the hospital.

At this point my husband was in California doing training so I contacted the FRO to see if she could get a hold of his command and find out if he was authorized to come home early. She said she would contact them but there was no guarantee.

After finding out how close I was to delivery we decided we should get my maternity photos done ASAP. Sunsay was the earliest my photographer could do it so we met at the beach and had a wonderful shoot. She kept saying how photographic I was and we joked about how funny it would be if I went into labor that night, still in my make-up. Around 9pm that night I started contractions. They were a couple minutes apart, but by morning they were gone.

Monday morning I got a call from the hubby. He said his command told him he could leave early, but not until the 1st, and they wouldn't pay for the ticket. So we checked for the cheapest one, which was roughly $500 and took him from LA to Phoenix to Lilani to Honolulu. It would take about 12 hours to get from CA to Hawaii, but it was our only real option, so we bought the ticket. I asked him what would happen if I went into labor before he got home. He insisted it wouldn't happen and that he would see me soon. A few hours later I started contractions again.

They felt like strong menstrual cramps and I wasn't even sure they were the real thing. I called the hospital and they told me I should come in just in case. So my friend Heather picked me up and drove me over. In the 10 minutes it took to get to the hospital my contractions got stronger and by the time I got inside I was 4 cm dilated with contractions about 3 minutes apart. At this point I knew I was in active labor and I again called the FRO to let the command know. A few minutes later I got a call from the husband, completely flustered. I could just tell he was pacing the floor where he was and it was driving him crazy knowing what was going on and being so far away. Still, the sound of his voice, nervous or not, was enough to calm me down and give me the confidence I needed.

It wasn't too much longer before the doula and my friend Mrs R. arrived. The doula helped me walk through my contractions until he shifted in a way that pushed on a nerve, causing back labor. I couldn't sit or have anyone even touch me without shooting pain. I moved into transition and had contractions right on top of each other. My mother called right about this time and my friend told her I was in transition and the baby should be here any moment. She and my dad decided to wait for my phonecall before leaving for work. Transition lasted about 3 more hours. That's right. Three hours with literally 1-2 seconds of rest in between contractions. By this point I had almost given up. I was nauseated, I couldn't get comfortable for even a moment, and my strength was fading fast. I almost begged for an epidural, or a cesarean - anything to get this baby out and let me sleep.

The doula could tell I was defeated and gave me some encouraging words. She suggested I try the squatting bar to get things moving. The squatting bar helped tremendously and the adrenaline kept me going. My doula said she had never seen anyone stay in a squatting position for so long (and let me tell you, the next day I was certainly feeling it). I moved from the squatting bar to the jacuzzi tub to give myself a little rest. At this point I was 9cm dilated and my water still hadn't broken. Even with the adrenaline I was tired, and beginning to think that this baby would never get here. We finally made the decision to have them break my water. They moved me back into the bed and when they checked me I was at 10 cm so they said they would call the doctor in to do it. As they got the equipment ready the doula suggested I start pushing if I had the urge, even though the nurse said she wanted me to wait until after the doctor I got there. I started pushing. At one point I started to feel sick to my stomach again and called my friend Heather over with the vomit bucket. I had the urge to push again and just as she moved from the foot of the bed I pushed, breaking my water, and shooting it about 5 feet across the room. It missed her by inches.

The doctor came in and agreed that I could start pushing for real. Finally by this point the baby had dropped low enough that he was no longer pushing on my nerve and the contractions were far enough apart that I had a significant rest in between. It felt like a piece of cake compared to the rest of the labor. I ended up pushing for about 2 hours. So, 5 hours after I was "almost done" and 15 hours of active labor I finally got to meet my baby boy at 4:47 the next morning. We got about 2 hours of uninterrupted bonding time and I got to talk to my husband for a few minutes before he got on the plane. At around 4 pm that day the hubby finally made it to the hospital and got to meet his son for the very first time. You could tell it was one of his proudest moments and it felt so good to have the whole family together.