Charlie's Birth Story: Laboring at Home

At this point I hadn't told anyone I was having contractions, so both Ben and my mom went to sleep while I put in my hypnobabies and silently worked through them laying down. I tried to sleep, but started to feel like I needed a new position to labor in. I sat on my birth ball and stacked a bunch of pillows on my bed so I could lean on them and relax. I'm not sure how long I stayed like that because time flies for me when I'm in labor, but after awhile I decided I wanted to try laboring in the tub.

I was excited to get in the tub because I always hear people say how good it feels during labor and how much it helps with the pain, but I have to say it didn't work that way for me. It helped me relax and focus, but there was no reduction in pain. I sat in there for awhile (again, I don't know the times of any of this) and then I decided I should probably get out and have Ben start timing some contractions so we could figure out when to head into the hospital.

When I got out of the tub, my body started shaking, and originally I figured it was just cause I was cold and went back in our room. While Ben was timing my contractions he commented on how bad I was shaking and then I remembered hearing that some women shake as they go through transition and I started to get a little nervous that I was more progressed than I realized. I told Ben to call labor and delivery and give them the status of my contractions and to see what they thought. When they heard I was a second time mom they told us to come in (Later the nurses were joking around and said, "You've gotta come in sooner next time cause those third time moms sneeze and their babies come out.").

Ben started running around grabbing all of our bags and things and loading them into the car, and I went into the kitchen to try to get some last minute nourishment to keep my energy levels up. My contractions were coming about every three minutes and lasting about a minute to a minute and a half at this point, and Ben was getting really nervous. He came into the kitchen saying, "What are you doing? Get in the car! These are getting intense!" (Also, he was really annoyed that it was garbage night and that he had to move the garbage, recycling, and compost out of the way to get our car out, and then put them back before we could leave... haha.) So off we went to have a baby!