Daphne's Birth Story (Guys, you really probably want to skip this!)

Many of you know I was having prodromal labor much of the week before I finally went into labor with Daphne. This was agonizing, because it kept me up all night in tons of pain, but then they would just stop in the morning. I was not sleeping, and I felt like a ticking time bomb! So after being up all night on Sunday, I was so frustrated. I spent all day Monday in a complete fog, and I was cramping all day long so I just felt gross. We decided to go out for ice cream with our neighbors to take my mind off things that evening, and while we were there I kept noticing what I thought was Daphne stretching out as hard as she could every so often. We went home, and as the evening went on I realized that the stretching feeling was happening a lot. I realized at that point I was most likely in early real labor, but again, I was super wary. I had thought that before! We sat down to watch a Marley and Me, and went to bed around midnight, but I just couldn't settle.

Finally around 3am, I heard a snap and felt a pop. I LEAPT from the sofa, but there was no gush, so I thought maybe I had imagined it. Then the next contraction hit and that was unbelievably painful! I sat on the PT ball and started to time them, and they were consistently coming less than 2 minutes apart and were lasting around a minute. Then, while I was moving through a contraction on the ball, the gush happened! I bolted across the house to our room where I greeted my sleeping hubby with "Contractions are less than two minutes apart and my water has broken. We need to leave NOW!" That got him moving rather quickly, and he called my mom to come take care of Emma. We knew that we didn't have time to wait for her to get there, so we also called my neighbors to come over until my mom got here. Then we left and drove as fast as we dared to Northside (which is super easy to get to at 4 in the morning!)

As soon as we got out of the car my contractions started coming on top of each other and I could barely walk a few feet without having another one. We got into a room almost immediately, and my first words to the nurse were "Epidural, now!!" I was in agony, and I was terrified we were going to be too late to get one. After a week of no rest whatsoever, I was just not equipped to handle the labor. They were fairly quick to get me the epidural, and when they checked me I was 4 cm. It was not quite 5 at this point. So I settled in so excited to be able to get some sleep! But unfortunately, I spent the next two hours up and extremely nauseous. I knew my blood sugar had dropped precipitously, but you can't eat with an epidural. I had barely eaten on Monday because I felt so gross, so it was just a bad situation. To top it off, I could really really feel pressure with each passing contraction. After 2 or 3 hours, I mentioned to a nurse that I thought they ought to check me. She smiled and said sure and then left and didn't come back. So I tried again with the next nurse, who humored me by checking. And lo and behold, I was 9.5 cm. By this time, they had given me something for the nausea, but heartburn had kicked in so badly that I was on the verge of throwing up stomach acid. I stayed like that for the next hour or so until the midwife realized how miserable I was and said we should try to push. After 20-25 minutes, out came this dark skinned, nearly black haired little baby, and the heartburn ended immediately!!

So there is it in a nutshell. From 32 hours with Emma to less than 7 with Daphne, I would say I would do it again! I did tear, and it was exactly where the episiotomy had been with Emma. A funny side note: I asked the midwife to please not do an episiotomy unless it was absolutely necessary, and she looked at me and said "This is your second baby, and you have no business getting an episitomy with a second baby. What do I look like, a doctor?" I could not stop laughing, and I was so pleased to have her because I felt like she did a fantastic job. She tried super super hard to keep me from tearing, but Daphne was turned exactly like Emma had been, and her right ear was what presented first! My midwife tried to turn her as much as she could, but it was a losing battle. Her position is also what took her so long to get out!

Recovery this time has been a breeze, and I feel fantastic. I feel so good that I have to remind myself to take it easy, which is hard when you see all the things that were neglected when you were pregnant! But we have been getting lots of excellent help, and things are going great. So there it is! If I left anything out, feel free to ask me.