Monkey Bear's Miraculous VBAC: A Homebirth, Part 1

10 days before launch

I've been wanting to post Monkey Bear's birth story for quite some time. Since tomorrow is his birthday, I figured: why not now? I tried not to make it too graphic, but hey. It's childbirth. I hope it encourages some of you. This is part 1.

I went to bed on Saturday, Nov. 14th 2009, but was kept awake most of the whole night by horrible acid reflux. I slept maybe 2 hours that night. I started having timeable contractions at 6 AM. I had 3 about 9-10 minutes apart; I could lay down through them. I continued to snooze on & off until around 8, at which point I had a few more contractions. I got up, took a bath/shower. Bear & Roy got up at 9. We hung out, had oatmeal, and went for walk. We went to the store to get some Zantac for the reflux, which was still really bad, and grabbed some lunch while we were out.

I called the midwife around 2 PM, just to keep her informed. The contractions were still 5-20 minutes apart, and not too intense. She said second-time moms could have pockets of labor like this for days before "the real thing", but I felt like this was going to be it. Roy & I put Bear down for nap at around 3. I started having more regular contractions, every 10 minutes, around then, so I called the midwife again. The contractions picked up to every 4-6 minutes, and I had blood show around 6, so I called the midwife at 6:15. Based on numerous factors, she too thought this was it. I called her again around 9 (the poor woman!) when contractions were 2-4 minutes apart. She headed over. I got in the shower, and the water helped a little. The midwife arrived at 10.

I tried different positions for laboring, but only really liked standing. Every time I tried a different position, the contractions got even more intense and scary. I felt out of control in other positions. I did take Benadryl around 10 & was able to lay down for 45 minutes after my midwife arrived. Then I labored outside on porch for a while. The only way to get through contractions was to vocalize and push down on back of hips. I got too loud outside and was disturbing the neighbors (I'm not kidding - the one across the street ran out of her house at one point to see what was going on), so I eventually went upstairs & tried the birthing tub.

Part 2 :)