The Night You Weren't Born

So when you read this finally, you'll see that big gap from where I last say, "See you soon!" and then...nothing.

I was going to fill it in, to backtrack, but I'm sticking to the authenticity of Your Story.

There's a gap for a reason and the reason was that I couldn't get back to my computer. 
It didn't really matter anyway because you weren't there yet.
And I couldn't have updated that post to save my life in the moment.

I said before that nothing went as planned and this much is true.
Things seemed to be going really well but it was just a facade.
You weren't coming that night because you weren't meant to.
And believe me, I tried everything I could think of to convince you to change your mind.

The rush, I suppose, was only in that our risk of infection was rising with each hour that passed.
I truly believed that if either Abby or Jill would just help me out a bit internally that it would be enough to trigger my labor.
I was right...and wrong.

I'd also said a few days before you were born that I knew we were getting close but two things had to happen before you'd arrive.
One was that I'd have an epic meltdown.
And the other thing I relied on was a really vigorous and compelling round of false labor.
(And I think I also mentioned that my false labor trips have all been POST internal exams.)
I had no idea when I said this that these two things were mandatory pre-birth experiences.
I now know better.
They are.

This is Part One of Your Birth Story.
Part Two has already been partially shared on Lifelines but only partially.
I kept a lot for just you.

So I left off on July 4th, where Jill had come over, stripped my membranes, realized that I was a good 6-7 cm dilated and wanted to stick around as my contractions took off, both of us fully expecting your arrival in a short amount of time.
By the time Abby arrived, I was well on my way, with my contractions strong and long and relatively uncomfortable.

My mom had also come by--pre-membrane stripping, we'd invited her for dinner.
So while I labored upstairs, Daddy and all of the kids plus Memaw rushed through their meals.
The plan was that Memaw would take the small ones, leaving the boys behind to witness your arrival, and then she would bring them back as soon as we called with your news.
It was only sometime in the 5 to 6:00 hour at this point and honestly, I think we all thought we'd have a baby within the next hour or so.

I labored in bed for a bit, waiting for Daddy to come up and for the Littles to leave and for things to really pick up for me.
In hindsight, I should have known it was too easy.
Because it was.
Though I had to breathe through the contractions with concentration, would go completely still and silent when working through one, I just should have known.
(Hindsight is always 20/20, as they say.  But the very next morning, when I stepped into the shower and was slammed with my first REAL contraction, I knew the difference immediately.)

The weirdest thing about this round of false labor, and this is my personal belief of what it was, was that for all intents and purposes, my body really portrayed signs of impending birth.
I fully dilated at some point and fully effaced.
This is just beyond bizarre to me--I had no idea this could happen during false labor.
But it is a condition that DOES exist as Abby showed me the box she checked on some sort of official paperwork after the fact but it's rare.
Wouldn't you just know it :)

Anyway, when I was fully dilated and effaced, (I did truly reach 10cm) Abby and Jill said I could start pushing.
Again, I should have known something wasn't quite right because though my body acted ready for birth, I never felt that urge to push.
And I can honestly say, having now gone through natural labor, that that urge is the strongest of urges I've ever felt.
There's hunger and thirst and human contact...and pushing.
Those are the true basic urges that exist, if you ask me.
So I never felt that.
But I pushed anyway.

I moved from our bed and labored standing which actually felt much better.
And I pushed in this position for awhile, with everyone there, the boys included.
It was far more awkward than I had anticipated but that was because I wasn't so far gone in pain.
As opposed to real labor, where the whole entire free world could see my goodies and I wouldn't bat  an eye, so focused on dealing with my own private pain-consumed hell, here there started to be lulls in my contractions which left us all sort of waiting...and staring at my mostly naked self.
It just didn't feel right to me and I was growing uncomfortable with my audience and I could tell Abby in particular was growing concerned with my lack of progress,
I think we all started to suspect that something was amiss at about the same time.

Time slipped away from me.
I looked at the clock and couldn't believe so much time had passed.
At this point, we'd been "pushing" for over an hour.
I was exhausted and getting frustrated.
What was going on?
I never dreamed it would have taken me more than ten minutes to actually push you into the world.
(In reality, it took me about a minute--one contraction, two pushes.)

At some point, Jill decided to check me internally while I was pushing.
I was still standing beside the bed so she reached up during the next contraction and then she yelled, "STOP!"
Stop? 
"When you started pushing, your cervix closed back up."

This was not good.

This basically meant that I couldn't get you out, no matter how hard I tried.
It meant that if I continued pushing, you would bruise my cervix and then I'd be in real trouble.
It meant that we had to stop and this was bad because now we'd really messed around up near you and the risk of infection for both of us just went soaring.
It meant that if things did not change fast, that we were going to be going to the hospital.

So we stopped.

Whereas before this was this buildup of excitement as my contractions had picked up, now there was a heaviness in the room.
I know we were all thinking the same thing and it was this: something was just not right.
Not at all.

We backpedaled majorly.
The boys left the room as the adults talked.
Going to the hospital was definitely mentioned by the midwives but I hadn't given up yet.

"How much time will you give me?" I wanted to know.
I was still hopeful that things would pick back up but really, I knew they wouldn't.
I had already started to suspect that we were done for the night.
d AnI felt like my body was betraying me.

"If nothing happens by morning," they said.

We decided that we'd take a break.
Charlie and I would go for a walk and see if we couldn't get my contractions to pick back up.
I know this is a method that works a lot of times for laboring women but this was just so far off from what I knew.
I've never had to convince my body into labor before.
Normally I'm given notice, the kind I needed "five minutes ago."
Normally I go straight from being fine one minute to intense labor in just a handful.

We walked but my spirits were down, down, down.
During the time we were out there, I would have some good, strong contractions but not as strong as what I was having earlier or what I remembered needing in order to bring you out.

We probably walked for 45 minutes or so and on our second round, we saw Abby come out of the house and walk down to the sidewalk to meet us.
She wanted to talk to me.

As it turned out, Abby was starting to wonder if there wasn't some mental stuff going on with me.
Maybe was I deep down worried about this home birth?  Too scared of a natural labor?
Or was it more rooted than that...perhaps was I worried about your birth because I was conflicted about how I'd care for another in addition to all that I already do?

"We're a lot alike, " I remember her saying, "I like to be very in control, too."

But I was certain then and am absolutely certain now that it wasn't some sort of mental block--this stalling of my labor.
I hadn't yet clued in that it was necessarily a trip of false labor---instead I started to worry that something wasn't working right physically.
There's definitely merit found in each of her inquiries but there's also nothing but truth in my response.
It was not mental.
It was, what I firmly believe, my typical round of false labor which has always occurred in the hours following an internal exam.
Nothing less and nothing more.

It was probably around 10:30-11:00pm at this point and I knew we were giving up.
Labor shouldn't be a forced thing, it never has been in the past for me, and I could tell that I was pushing an issue that wasn't to be pushed.
We went inside and talked to the midwives.
We all agreed to take a break and to see how we felt in a few hours.

I never left my bedroom after that so I had no idea that they both ended up sleeping on the couch.
I was a totally exhausted woman by that point, beaten so bad physically and emotionally.
I wanted time alone and so I took a hot shower.
My contractions totally subsided.

When I came out I was so tired, I could barely speak nor keep my eyes open.
Daddy was tired too--at some point, he came to bed and fell right to sleep.
And though I was exhausted, I did not sleep much or well.
We'd just that day placed a light in the pool off our deck and it glowed eerily all night long, disturbing my sleep.
I'd forgotten as well that we'd turned off the fan and opened the deck door to warm up the bedroom for your arrival and everything was still this way.
The room was hot and strangely illuminated.
I tossed and turned and woke hourly.

This was to be the only time during the whole birthing experience that I truly worried about your well-being.
I was very concerned that you had become stressed during that whole laboring ordeal and I kept poking you throughout the night.
I also knew that I no longer could justify staying home any longer.
Deep down, I was not comfortable.
I hated imagining what the next day would bring for me except for this one thing: I knew for sure that you would be in my arms by the end of it.
I imagined an uncomfortable but uneventful check-in, a "typical for me" easy, fast delivery, and a sweet baby to hold finally.

Little did I know that you surely were to be in my arms hours later but that was the only thing I was right about.

***I'm going to switch these posts over to birth entries for the next little while so I can make sure to get this down for you.  It's taken me FAR too long to get this much out and it's because I tried to do it all in one entry.