Zarya's birth

Shortly after arriving at the birth center, about to have my water broken

A baby!  This picture was taken about 30 minutes after the one above.

Our lovely midwife, Nancy

For those who don't care to read labor and birth stories, don't worry about reading this blog post, just look at the pictures and then go to Facebook to look at more (thanks to Andrew, our family photographer).  And for those who do like the details, keep reading!

Early Friday morning (Nov. 2), I was awakened at about 2:30 with pre-labor contractions coming about every 10 minutes.  I could tell that these were definitely different than the Braxton-Hicks ones, but they didn't really hurt all that much, either.  I tried to get back to sleep, but having a contraction every 10 minutes doesn't really lend itself to snoozing!  The contractions stopped around 9:00am, so I thought I might be in for a few days of pre-labor off and on and got myself mentally ready for that option.  I was excited that maybe in the next few days Zarya would be born - I was anxious about going way overdue.

The contractions began again at around 11:00, but were well-spaced.  They were strong enough to convince us to cancel our lunch appointment, though, as I couldn't really sit down and carry on a conversation through them.  Around noon they got stronger and I felt nauseous with most of them.  They weren't all that close together though (5-7 min apart), and when we called the midwife to update her on where things were at (we'd talked to her a few times earlier in the day), she told us that contractions really need to be more like 3-4 minutes apart to "get the job done".

So, we kept keeping track of the timing and I started feeling pretty miserable.  The contractions were consistently 4-7 minutes apart by this point.  On a couple of the bad ones I thought, "I don't know if I can do this for like 12 more hours!"  The pain was mostly in the front of my upper thighs, of all the strange places to be experiencing it.  I was grateful that I didn't have any back labor, though - during contractions I could stand up and lean forward or walk around hunched a bit pressing my fists into my hip flexor muscles, which helped a lot.  It was the nausea that was really getting me, not the pain so much.  With that said, though, at 2:00-something I recall telling Andrew, "I didn't know contractions would hurt so much!"  But to be realistic, only about every 4th contraction was really bad.

At 3:00 we felt that the likely road conditions merited us leaving soon (it was pouring rain on a Friday afternoon, the very worst traffic time of the week.  In perfect weather and no traffic, the trip from our house to the birth center was a full hour long drive).  Contractions were consistently strong and 4-7 minutes apart.  I was quite concerned about handling the pain in the car, because I was not able to sit through them, but had to walk around pressing my fists into my thighs and I felt horribly nauseous during them.  Andrew was concerned about driving on I-5 in the kind of conditions that typically lead to stop-and-go traffic.

As soon as we got in the car we prayed and God answered miraculously.  All my nausea was gone!  The contractions continued, but they weren't quite as painful as before.  I even dozed off a few times between them.  I was a bit concerned that they might be slowing down and lessening and that the midwife would tell us to go back home again until things were serious.

Traffic was bad but not awful and it took us 90 minutes to get to the birth center instead of the usual 60.  It was one of the longest drives of Andrew's life, I think, with the pouring rain and traffic and me moaning and breathing heavily in the seat next to him.

We arrived at the birth center at about 4:30pm, hoping that I was at least somewhat dilated and effaced and that Zarya might be born that night or early the next morning.  Nancy, our midwife, was expecting us and had the lights dimmed, soft music playing, and towels being warmed in the dryer.  She checked me and announced that I was 6-7 centimeters dilated and completely effaced!  We were so surprised!  My waters had not broken yet, so she did that for me, at which point I suddenly became almost totally dilated and she told me I could start pushing.

I was taken a bit off-guard by things moving so quickly, since I'd been reading up on the different stages of labor and had imagined hours of labor and a rough transition labor stage.  I experienced the pause that is typical between transition and the pushing phase, so I guess I did go through transition, but it only lasted for a contraction or two.

Nancy told me when to push and with her coaching me and Andrew letting me grip one of his hands, after about eight mighty pushes (I'd like to think they were mighty, I can't really compare), out came Zarya's head!  When she told me that the head was nearly out, I thought, "Okay, this is the big one!"  Well, the head came out fine and I relaxed back, but then she said, "Now the shoulders, keep pushing."  I thought the shoulders would just slip out after the head, so was slightly chagrined that I had to give two more big pushes to get Zarya out the rest of the way.  It was when her shoulders came out that I tore a bit.  I guess she's already built like a swimmer with big shoulders!  Andrew, with Nancy helping, caught Zarya when she came out.  They immediately laid the baby on me and covered us with a warm towel.  I was almost surprised to see her, because I'd been focusing so much on labor and pushing that I'd kind of forgotten about the actual baby part of things.  She was born at 5:17pm, 45 minutes after we got to the birth center.

After the placenta came out (which, I have to say, felt really nice in a strange way), Nancy spent the next 35 minutes or so carefully stitching me.  It was like she was doing embroidery down there it seemed like it took so long!  But I do appreciate that she was being really careful to do a good job.  Andrew held Zarya right next to me so I could see her.  We called our families with the good news and surprised them a bit by how soon things had happened.  What could we say other than that we were surprised ourselves!

Zarya was weighed and measured and came out at 9 pounds, 2 ounces, and 22 inches long - a rather big baby for one only two days past her due date, so I am really glad she wasn't any later than that.  I fed Zarya, then Nancy washed her hair and got her dressed, and then checked me and got me up and dressed, and we were out the door on our way home at about 8:00.  There was no traffic on the way back and it was a significantly more pleasant and easy drive!  We sang along with a Chris Tomlin CD and talked about what a surprisingly good birth experience it was.  And it was - after five hours of labor, we had a beautiful, healthy baby girl. :-) God is so good!