Our Birth Story - Day 1, Part 1

Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 10:38 p.m. - Wednesday, March 30, 4 a.m.

To appease Dave's desire to be all literary and stuff on this epic birth story, Courtney has agreed to allow him various licenses. For example, we'll be telling the story in sections, with numbers (1, 2, etc.) setting each section apart from the next. We'll post a section or two at a time, along with pictures that were taken during various moments and phases. Courtney's telling of the story will be the main body of the narrative, while Dave's interjections will appear in italics, much like this intro-interjection here.

Dave and I had been going to bed together by 10 every night for awhile in anticipation of labor starting. On this night Dave cupped his hand on my bottom, sorta near my perineum, and fell asleep. This wasn't something he normally did and he isn't sure what led him to do it that night, but the result was that I felt my entire pelvic floor relax. Unusually, I didn't instantly fall asleep. Suddenly I heard a loud pop, felt something shift inside, and my body jerked. I asked Dave if he heard the noise as well, and he said he just felt my body react (I jerked in response).

Clear mucus was pouring on the bathroom floor. Crawling back in bed, the clock read 10:38 when a few minutes later my contractions began. The back labor started with the first contraction. It was uncomfortable to lay in bed, so I moved to the couch to deal with the back pain.

I was definitely confused as to whether or not my water broke; I was losing mucus, but not water. Because you're meant to call your midwives when your water breaks, I called Laurie around 12:45 and left a message that I wasn't "sure" exactly what was happening. Five minutes later, as I was lying on the couch, my water definitely broke, soaking through a large maternity pad, my underwear and my pants.

I waited a bit for Laurie, my pregnant midwife, to call me back. When she didn't I called Kim, my other midwife. I let her know my fluid was clear, that Baby was moving, that heart tones were good and that I was having contractions.

Courtney was out of the bed for what seemed like a while. I went into the living room to check on her. She told me to go back to bed, and I did for about three minutes. The bed was lonely without her and her pregnant body in it, even though she'd been getting up and moving to the couch to sleep for the last few weeks. This was different because I knew labor was starting. I wanted to experience as much of it as possible. Plus, I imagined she would enjoy the company. So I moved to the living room, where Courtney and I created a nest with the dog beds (the dogs, of course, were fast asleep in their crates). We spooned in the glow of the fireplace holiday lights, and for a while it felt a bit like Christmas Eve.

My contractions were about 8-minutes apart, and according to ContractionMaster.com, varied in duration from 15-to-90 seconds. Between contractions, we held a heating pad on my back; during contractions, I would get up and lean forward on the couch. And yes, it did feel like Christmas Eve, like something really special was going to happen the next day. We couldn't help but feel giddy.