My birth story....

I have had a few people ask about my birth story, and so I thought I would write about it on here. I have never been big on sharing this sort of thing, but since it was such a unique experience, I will indulge everyone.
I had been having contractions the whole week before I actually went into labor. My original birth plan was to have this baby girl completely naturally and to labor in the water at the birthing center at Methodist. On Sunday the 30th of August, I was contracting hard and left church early because it was just too much to sit through service as waves rippled through my abdomen. I decided to stay home and ride it out because my contractions were regular, but abnormally regular. I went to bed around midnight and woke up at 4am because I could not sleep through the pain. I called my midwife and she told me to come in. Luckily my bag was completely packed so all we had to do was wake up the girls, get in the car, and head to the hospital.
When we got there, they hooked me up to monitors because I was not quite 37 weeks and they wanted to make sure I was in real labor. They gave me some fluids through an IV and told me to rest so that the contractions would slow down. Lily had other plans, because the contractions only strengthened and started coming closer together. They decided to admit me, and my midwife ordered the birthing tub to be warmed up and ready for me by the time I got to my room. I was in so much pain, but managed to walk down the hall to my room and somehow get my clothes off to get in the tub.
The tub was huge....much too large for my small frame and I just found myself floating all over the place like a beach ball and was not able to stable myself enough to relax. The warm water also did not ease my contractions in the least and after 10 minutes I said screw this bath and screw doing this naturally....I want the epidural now! They told me that my midwife would be here in 20 minutes and wanted to check me before I got the epidural....20 minutes seriously seemed like a lifetime. On a scale from 1 to 10, my pain was a 12....and my water had not even broke yet! With Kennedy, I was dilated to a 5, and was walking around the hospital making phonecalls and functioning normally. This was nothing like that labor. Shane and the nurse got me into the bed (which was not the position I originally wanted to deliver in), and my midwife finally arrived. I was hurting so bad that every other contraction ended with the f-bomb. I am not one to even say that word when I am mad, but this experience definitely warranted that word. My midwife checked me while the anesthesiologist was standing by in the back of the room. I was told that I was 8cm dilated and once my water broke I would be at a 10, and that I was too far to have any pain medicine. I was seriously bummed because I NEEDED some relief. As soon as she said that, my water broke and I immediately felt like I had to push. I don't remember much after that because my body went into some kind of weird shock. I think it was all the natural endorphins that my brain was releasing to help me deal with the pain because I was out of it. My girls and Shane were all there supporting me....Shane was holding my hand and Kaylee was feeding me ice chips with a spoon. Kennedy was just kind of sitting back waiting for the baby to come out, but I could feel her presence, and that helped. I pushed for about 20 minutes and Lillian arrived face up! I now know that the intense pain I was experiencing was actually back labor and my midwife said it is the most painful way to deliver a baby....especially without pain meds! She of course was perfect and because of the lack of the epidural, was breathing on her own, and very alert. Her apgar scores were great and she never left me. Kaylee got to cut the cord, and the girls got to hold her within minutes of her birth. We were all beaming once she was here.
I honestly don't know if I will do a drug-free birth again. I know it is way healthier for both mom and baby, but if our next baby is facing up, I am scared of going through that again. It was not the experience that I expected or wanted,but I was thankful that she was healthy, and that was all that mattered.
So there it is in a nutshell...there are some other bizarre things that happened to me while I was out of it, but it is hard to talk about those things because not a lot of women have experience it and don't know how to react when I talk about it. Here are some pictures from my labor.


Managing the pain...


Shane trying to be supportive, but not knowing quite how to help.


Absolute relief!


Beautiful baby girl.