After a long sleepless night at the birthing center, pacing through consistent and strong contractions, I finally got some rest around 6am. When I woke up, I realized that my contractions had slowed to about 8 minutes apart.

Our doula Jess, Isaac, and I were just resting and trying to eat a little when my doctor and midwife showed up in the door way and announced it was time for me to go home.

Looking back, it really is a miracle that there weren’t any casualties, and by any, I mean many. In all seriousness, I credit my successful VBA2C to calls like this, as opposed to choosing to speed things up with interventions, which I am pretty sure I got to the point I would have paid CASH MONIES for some go ol’ interventions. So here’s to my brave doctor and midwife, who don’t even know justtt how close they came to getting beat up by an overdue pregnant lady, that they advised to go home WITHOUT a baby in hand. Rude. For the record, my doula was awesome too, HEY Jess, but surprisingly, I actually never wanted to harm her 🙂

For expediency’s sake and the fact that my brain has tried to desperately forget the details of the next 68 hours, let me just summarize what went down. 

-Squatting, walking, lunging, Castor oil, pineapple, spicy food, etc. ETC. ETC.

-My 1 & 2 year old boys “Mama owwie??”…”Yes, baby, mama has an owwie” (AKA. a tiny mutant baby is harming your mother from the inside…no offense, Z)

-Trying to find rest by sleeping in the bathtub. (A clear drowning hazard but that seemed unimportant at the time.)

-Cooking dinner, cleaning house, watching movies, all in 4 minute intervals where I would go in the other room, die ever so briefly, and then resume normal activity.

I also received some well meaning suggestions from others (aka. things people say when they don’t know what to say):

“Try and sleep between contractions”.

Have you tried (FILL IN EVERYTHING I HAD ALREADY TRIED TWICE)?

“How about you go out and do something fun to take your mind off of it?”.

IT BEING THE DYING OF MY UTERUS EVERY 240 SECONDS.

 

I could spend the rest of my life trying to find enough GIFs to portray how I felt in those moments, but I won’t. DID I MENTION I NEVER KILLED ANYONE? I’m getting extra jewels in my crown, for sure.

Saturday morning (mind you all this nonsense started Wednesday afternoon) brought with it an eerie calm and a much needed nap, and then finally. Finally. FINALLY. , I started have a new kind of pain. You know it’s about to hit the fan when new pain is actually an encouraging sign. I was sure that it either meant I was officially dying, OR maybe, just maybe, actually going to have a baby. Isaac and my doula were all blah blah blah “I think today could be the day”; blah blah blah “I have a good feeling about today”. I was real close to telling everyone exactly where they could stick their enthusiasm.

But…lo and behold things seemed to be progressing. As I cooked dinner, frankly I was becoming a bit annoyed (and clearly detached from reality) by the fact that I could barely get anything done to get food on the table before having to double over with yet another contraction. Can’t a woman just make dinner for crying you loud???

Isaac- “babe, I think this is it”

Me- (groaning) “no, it is never “it”. I’m fine”

Isaac- “babe…I really think we should go in”

Me- (pause for contraction I can’t talk through) “noooooo…I am not going back there until I am SURE I am leaving with a baby”

Isaac-“Ali, your contractions are 3 minutes apart and have been for the last 2 hours.”

Me- (wincing in the pain of a contraction, AGAIN) “Ya ya ya…just let me drink a little more Castor oil.”

Isaac-“uhhhh I don’t think you need it, I think we need to go in”.

Me- (…in intense unrelenting pain…) “no, I’m fine”

10 minutes later

Me- (actually dead) “UHH, YA, Ok…I think it’s time to go”.

Commence repacking the bag, cleaning the house (yes, Isaac will never let me live this down. I HATE leaving a messy house), kissing the boys and my dad goodbye, and taking off for the birthing center.

I know. I know. I’m doing it again. The story is just to long to continue here. It’s not my fault. Blame Z, but good luck trying to stay mad at her.