launching the meeple, part 1

[psocoptera]

Before going into labor, the whole idea of orgasmic birth seemed ludicrous to me, but finding out how wrong I was was the very best kind of surprise!



You did note the date stamp on this post, right?

By the time we got to the hospital, I'd been having contractions for something like 11 hours, and we made our very slow way through the lobby, registration, etc, up to labor and delivery, with me stopping every hundred feet or so to bend over against a wall and look forward to not being on my feet. We were let into an exam room and I was hooked up to heartbeat and contraction monitors. I remember finding it extremely gratifying to finally see my contractions in objective form as peaks on the monitoring line - *see, there they were, really* - not that anyone was doubting me. I was also really psyched to hear that I had dilated to 5 cm - I'd made good progress, I hadn't come to the hospital too early, I secretly agreed with the midwife on call that I was doing a really good job of working through my contractions, which were coming about every 3 minutes, sometimes a bit more or less.

Unfortunately a lot of other pregnant women thought Sunday was a good day to go into labor, and after a couple of hours in the exam room waiting for a real labor and delivery room, I was getting frustrated. The contractions were getting harder to deal with - they brought me a ball (which had been helpful at home), but I really wanted to get in the tub and see if the buoyancy would help me relax between contractions. I'd had a bath at home but I somehow expected Even Better Things from The Official Labor Bathtub. The worst thing, though, was that the exam room had no bathroom, and I was doing a good job of staying hydrated; the trek down the hall was becoming really really difficult, with every trip meaning two awful contractions in the bathroom and one awful one when I got back.

They finally got us into a real room, and Josh somehow got me down the hall to it (while, I suspect, Chaos, who had joined us once we were sure we were getting admitted, made a zillion trips back and forth to get all our stuff). I was still with it enough to be amused by our encounter with a very concerned woman who tried to urgently inform Josh without embarrassing me that my hospital gown was exposing me - I don't have tremendously high body-modesty at the best of times, and I felt very confident that everyone who might see me had seen girl parts before, since a) the staff was entirely female and b) we were on a labor and delivery ward. Josh filled up the tub - and it turned out to be terrible. It was if anything smaller than our tub at home, and leaning back in it put me at *completely* the wrong angle. I was there for maybe as many as two contractions before demanding to be out. For the rest of the work I did, I was back in the only position that was working at all - sitting pretty much bolt upright on the corner of the bed, one leg to each side of the corner.

Junie's waking up, rest in part 2.

Comments

[bhadrika.livejournal.com]

Oh, I so remember the bits you're describing! The satisfying validation of the contraction strip. The silliness of people assuming you'd be embarassed to have anything showing. And the bitter disappointment with the tub -- I think I even whined, "But I can't even enjoy the jacuzzi because I'm in labor!" (And the meanies don't let you come back the next day, when you could actually appreciated the bubbly jets.)

As for the title, I assumed you had a pleasurable, relaxing labor -- why else take your time like that, right? :-)