yuki

Here is how the labor went. All in all it was a very painful but satisfying experience. I would recommend the UW Health Nurse Midwives and Meriter Hospital any day. It also helps to have an husband like Karsten.

It all started when I felt some liquid come out early in the morning on Sunday July 8. I called Julia, the nurse midwife on call at the time from UW Health, who told me to see how things go during the day and though she didn't think that the water had broken, she asked us to call back at 6PM. I had mild contractions all day between 15 - 30 minutes apart. When I called back in the evening, she told us we should go in to test for presence of amnionic fluid. At 7PM we arrived at Meriter triage, and the test was negative. Julia also did an internal exam and I was 1-2 cm dilated and mostly effaced at this point. She told us to call back when contractions were 3 minutes apart. We then went home to eat dinner and relax. The internal exam seems to have triggered stronger contractions that were closer together and from then on I had contractions 5 -7 minutes apart.

Karsten and I ate dinner and I decided to take a shower which spaced out the contractions slightly further apart to more like 10 minutes, so we went to bed and I dozed off between contractions. By 3:30 AM the contractions were 3 minutes apart so I woke up Karsten to pack the car and get ready. We called Julia again and she said to call back after about an hour to let things progress further at home. I took a bath which took some of the edge off, and by 4:30 AM the contractions were starting to come really close together so we called Julia again, and decided to go to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital by 5 AM, checked into triage, at which point I was already 7 cm. Once in our room, I got back into the tub and to my relief the contractions started to become further apart.

By 8 AM I was getting ready to get out of the tub and push. At around 8:30, the next midwife on call, Cally, came back to check and asked if she could break the water to help things move along. Definite yes from me at this point. Immediately after that I started pushing in earnest and Erika, another midwife, came to help us (it was a busy day at the hospital, they told me later). I was 9 cm at this point, and after some more pushing, Erika decided to hook the cervix behind the baby's head. After ~ 20 min more of pushing, Jean, the nurse asked if I wanted to change positions from being reclined. She offered sitting on the toilet or one other thing (I forget now what it was. maybe the medicine ball?) I asked if squatting was an option and they brought out the bar. With every contraction, Jean and Karsten would help me get up to the bar to squat.

Last several pushes were really hard. I finally got the baby's head partially out during one pushing session, then it took a couple more to get out the rest of the head. Then the shoulders, and one more, and the rest of her was out. Once the head was lodged partially out, Erika let me touch the head (I remember pudgy, hairy and slimy). It sounds funny, but the last few pushes were really hard because once the baby was partially out I felt really hungry.

Once she was finally out, they brought her to me and she started nursing almost immediately and she has been a voracious eater ever since then.