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It was at about 10:30 pm that I had a really severe cramp. It didn't last long, but it was worse than I had ever felt. I asked my mom, "Is this what labor will feel like? Cause this really hurts!" She said that, usually, if you can walk around still it's not real labor (which I could). Well, about 5-10 minutes later I had another one, so I figured I was having some false (or pre-labor). These were the first of any signs that I would be going in to labor in the next few days. That, and I had lost my plug about the same time.
After the second one I called Dean to let him know that I was having contractions and we were going to start timing them. About 5 minutes after I got off the phone I had a really severe contraction. I was having back labor also, so I could barely stand. When we started to time them they jumped from 7-10 minutes apart to about 4 minutes apart lasting about 30-45 seconds. This was pretty scary because my midwife told me that people usually come in at 4-5 minutes apart. She also told me that if I could wait until I was about 2-3 minutes apart, that would be best.
The next contraction came about 2 minutes later and it was bad! My sister had to call Dean because I couldn't. When he knew that I couldn't even talk through it, it had to be the real deal, so he left his parent's house immediately. At this point, I knew that I needed to go in. I slowly made my way up the stairs to my room to pack my hospital bag (that I didn't have). We grabbed a backpack and started shoving everything in there. During all this my contractions were steady at 2 minutes apart and very severe. It was now midnight and we almost couldn't wait for Dean and he would have had to meet us at the hospital, but I wasn't leaving without him. He held my hand while my mom drove us to St. Joseph's.
We got to the hospital at about 12:30. We entered in the Emergency, but the triage was at the other end of the hospital! That was a long journey, my friends. They put me in a little room behind a curtain while I was waiting to be admitted. They checked me and I was at 5 cm. While I was still waiting my contractions (and back labor) increased to 1 minute apart. It was so bad that I almost vomited and wanted to ask for meds. Good thing I had told Dean prior to all this not to let me get pain meds because I wanted a natural birth. He was there and denied me of them and encouraged me to stay strong.
I don't know what time I was finally moved to a room because it felt like forever. During transition my contractions were steady, one after another. I remember looking to my midwife for direction. She just smiled at me and said, "You're doing great." She was just listening to me and knew what stage I was at by my reactions. At about 2 a.m. I was moved to another room to deliver. I started pushing after I got in there. Once I got to that point, the pain eased and my contractions slowed to about 4 minutes apart. I remember sleeping between contractions. It was about 5 something when he was right there, but I was so exhausted. My midwife said that we would go through one more set of contractions and if I couldn't push him out she would get help (vacuum). When she said that I was like, "nuh-uh!" So I pushed my baby out and Elijah Nathaniel was born at 5:45 a.m. on January 15th. He was 8lbs 7oz and 20" long. I was overjoyed to finally meet and hold our boy!
I healed pretty quickly, but the first couple of days Elijah didn't eat much. I knew that this was normal so I tried not to worry. Around the 5th day he wasn't eating at all, just sleeping so we took him to the doctor. They said he was all normal, probably just constipated. SO we got him some gas relief and he immediately started eating. Thank the Lord he is strong and healthy to this day. (:
