I have been waiting to be in the mood to re-cap my labor experience, so here it is. I think I should probably be cooking dinner or something while the baby is sleeping, but oh well, what the heck. I need a break!

It was Jan. 23 and I kept telling myself (and baby William within my womb), that I just had to finish organizing my tax receipts before the baby was born. I knew that I would not have any time afterwards, or if I did have time I would not want to do it. As I sat at my desk adding up numbers, I was in mild labor. I think I made my last diary entry that day! At midnight I finally finished. Feeling relieved, I took a shower and went to bed. At 1:30 a.m., baby William responded to my signal that it was o.k. for him to come now, and I was in full labor. Right on time on his due date.

My husband, Joseph, and I decided to have our baby at home, early on in the pregnancy. He and his entire family were born at home and I have lots of friends who have had all their children at home, so I had a lot of support. Not to mention a great midwife.

I woke up Joseph, and told him the good news. At 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 24, my contractions were strong and 15 minutes apart. After about an hour, we called my friend Nina. Nina went with us to our Bradley classes and was also my support person, along with Joseph. Nina arrived when my contractions were 10 minutes apart. I've never felt anything like a labor contraction in my life! But the single most important thing that I learned in my Bradley classes was the abdominal breathing during the contractions. The times when I was truly focused in on the process rather than the pain, the abdominal breathing really helped to ease the pain of the contraction. I was surprised. Nina and Joseph took turns massaging me and reminding me to breathe. Oh, did I mention that I had back labor? No one could press hard enough into my lower back to ease the discomfort! I hope I'm not scaring anyone. :-) Why you think it's called labor?! It's work!

My midwife said not to call her until I was having contractions 10 minutes apart for one full hour. I was counting the minutes! I did not walk around during my labor like you see in those videos. It was strong labor right from the very beginning. My friend had a 26-hour labor, so she teases me whenever the subject comes up, and tells me that it couldn't have been all that bad considering my labor was six hours. In the fifth hour I got in the bathtub and Joseph called the midwife. I was feeling weak and had vomited all the liquids I drank four or five times all throughout the labor. With the contractions I felt weak and shaky. Upon hearing this, my midwife, Leslie, sounded pleased, and replied, Oh, it sounds like you're making really good progress, I'll be right over. :-) I climbed in the tub of warm water and felt instantly more relaxed. Between contractions I just sank down into the warm water. I vividly remember how truly satisfying this was after five hours of hard contractions. I felt the intense urge to push, and a little pressure on my cervix, so I reached down with my fingers to feel what was going on and I felt a smooth surface. I thought, It can't possibly be his head! Shortly afterwards I sank into the tub and with the next contraction I felt a huge gush come out, like a water balloon bursting. It was my water bag. Fifteen minutes later Leslie arrived. She gave me the option of having the baby in the tub, or on the bed. I chose the bed. I didn't want her to have to crouch down over my tub, and I also knew that my family would want to see what was going on, and the bathtub would make that extremely difficult.

We moved to the bed and I got comfortable. Within 15 minutes I was on my side with one leg in the air pushing out William's head. I pushed for about 20 minutes and he was out. I found it so essential to really focus in on the strength of my pushing and push from the right place. If I had not been focused, I feel that I would have been pushing for much longer. She told me to push like I was pushing out a bowel movement. I felt weak from my lack of fluids but I just gave it all I had. As soon as his head came out my back stopped hurting.

At 7:40 a.m., Jan. 24, 1999, baby William was placed on my chest, eyes wide open and rooting for a breast. His long fingers laid flat on my chest and I just could not believe that I had pushed out this beautiful 8-pound, 1-ounce baby boy. He's just so beautiful and I will never forget that moment!

There's no pain and discomfort not worth it!

April