Six Months Later...

Here's the story of Cameron's Birth!

I had an appointment on my due date which was October 17. My doctor decided to tell me the fantastic news that she would be out of town from the 20-24. Awesome, I said sarcastically, I would for sure be having this baby during that time. She said she already had all of her other patient's that were due around that time set up for being induced. But I was her only patient that wanted to go natural, but she asked me anyway if I wanted to be induced. I told her no, and that I would just hope to go into labor either before she left or after she got back. The thing is, even though my doctor was "natural childbirth friendly," as I like to call it, she's not a midwife, and I was already nervous that she would pressure me into something I didn't want. So, the fact that there was a good possibility that another doctor would be delivering me, who might not be so naturally-inclined scared me.

She checked to see how dilated I was, and I was dilated to 3.

Absolutely nothing of consequence happened until...

I had my first real contraction around 9:15 pm Friday, October 23. I had been having contractions very, very infrequently ever since that last appointment. One would come, and then nothing for another day or so. So when that one hit at 9:15, and then another one came about 10 minutes after that, I had a strong feeling that this was it...I was in labor. For a while, they were coming anywhere between 2 - 10 minutes, and not really hurting. Then they started getting closer together, and of course, hurting more.

Just before 1 am, we woke my mom up to tell her that we were going to the hospital, because my contractions were getting really painful by this time - during this whole time, my mom had been sleeping, so she had no idea that I had been in labor for the last few hours. I leaned on her for a few of my contractions while Grant got a few pictures and shot some video.



I drank a bit of juice just before we left, to get something in my system. I ended up throwing that up in the hospital parking lot. Once I got to the hospital, they checked me and I was dilated to 5. I was so relieved to hear that, because as any woman who has given childbirth will tell you, there is nothing more depressing than hearing you haven't progressed, or you've progressed very little after you've been laboring for a few hours.

Julie, a lady from my church acted as my doula, and she got there right after we did. I had her blow up a birthing ball for me, which I never ended up using, because...

Apparently, my water didn't want to break. Anytime I would sit down, I had unbelievable pressure! Even walking was difficult. So, I mainly just stood and swayed my hips from side to side. This was completely opposite from Kendall's birth. Even though with hers, my water didn't break until near the end, I felt more comfortable sitting than standing.



Because of all this pressure from the bag of waters, I was in WAY more pain during my contractions than I was during Kendall's birth. I kept telling Grant, "I can't do this...I can't do this..." And in my head I was thinking, "just get the blankety-blank epidural!" But he kept me calm, and Julie was very encouraging. She would just randomly start praying out loud or quoting scriptures, and I so appreciated that. And Grant was always encouraging me to just get through this next contraction.

I kept feeling the need to push...again, I think that was because of the water not breaking. But the nurse kept telling me not to push. That was the hardest thing in the world to do - go against what my body was telling me to do. When the nurse would leave the room, Julie would tell me to just go ahead and push if I felt the need. So I pushed a few times, but tried not to other times. They checked me a couple more times...one time I was 6, and shortly after that I was 8. Finally, I couldn't stop myself from pushing anymore, so the nurse told me to get on the bed so she could check me again. She started getting everything set up, and I said I had to push. Another nurse that was in the room looked at me and said, "She's crowning!" and she ran out to get the doctor.

Cameron came maybe 10 minutes (at the very most) after that. I only pushed a few times.

Julie held a mirror for me so I could see everything. When they said I was crowning, it really was the bag of water. So I saw the bag come out intact, and then pop at the very end. Cameron's head was right behind it. It was incredible to be able to see everything.



As miserable as I was during the labor, as soon as she was out, I was laughing and happy and energetic. I even yelled out, "Yay! No vacuum!" I was on such a high - I'd never felt like that before.



So she was born at 3:43 am, and she was 9 lbs 12 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. Since I'm not around newborns alot, she seemed really tiny to me. In fact, when she came out I said, "She's so tiny!" All the nurses laughed and said, "NO she's NOT!" Then they started trying to guess how big she was - the closest guess was 9 lbs 2 oz.




I did have 2nd degree tearing, but considering the amount of tearing I had with Kendall, it wasn't too bad.




Unfortunately, the hospital had just set up a policy - thanks to the swine flu - that no visitors under 18 could come. So that meant Kendall wasn't able to come visit, and I was totally bummed about that.

But we were able to go home the following day, so it was just a short stay in the hospital, and Kendall met her new baby sister soon enough.




So as I had jokingly predicted, my doctor did not deliver Cameron. She came back in town about 10 hours after Cameron was born. But the doctor that did deliver her literally walked in the door, delivered her, fixed my tearing, and left. He was there maybe a total of 20 minutes. I will say this, though, Cameron's birth made me never want to deliver in a hospital again - if we have more kids. Unless I can find a hospital that works well with midwives, like we had for Kendall's birth. The nurse that I had was not at all sticking to my birth plan, even though my doctor, and the nurses signed off on it about a week before I came in. We kept having to put our foot down with the way we wanted things, and she wasn't too happy about it. All I have to say is, don't mess with a woman in pain! You will not win!! It was just frustrating to have to do that, when I'm trying to focus and concentrate on what I'm supposed to do. So I'm really leaning towards a birthing center for the next one - if there is a next one.

So that's it! I feel like I scare people out of natural childbirth, because I'm not happy and smiley during labor. But I wouldn't have it any other way.