My First Son’s Birth

At 39 weeks and _____days pregnant with my oldest son, I went to bed as normal on Thursday (12/2/22) but woke up in the night 2 or 3 times to contractions that had been powerful enough to wake me up. I would get up, go to the bathroom and re-situate myself, in an attempt to get comfortable, and go back to sleep. I didn’t think much of the powerful contractions that had woken me up except that they were interesting because nothing like that had happened to me before.

The next day, Friday, in the afternoon, I began to have contractions. They weren’t strong or painful at first and they were fairly spread out but by the evening, they were closer and stronger. Around 6 pm, I started paying closer attention to them. I dowloaded a contraction timing app and thought to myself that the baby would likely come that night or Saturday at the latest. Little did I know…

When it came time to go to bed (Friday, 12/3/22), I felt too uncomfortable to lay down. Again, I thought that I would go into active labor and deliver a baby that night or first thing in the morning so at 11pm, I told my husband to go to bed and I stayed up and watched my contractions. I sat in our baby’s nursery, and rocked while I listened to the birth playlist that I had compiled. And I watched the app.

The midwives had told me to come to the hospital when I was at 3-1-1 (contractions 3 minutes apart, lasting a minute long, and going on for an hour). I never seemed to meet all 3 criteria. I would have at least minute long contractions going on for an hour, but they would only come every 6 or 5 minutes, occasionally 4 minutes. Then the contraction would get down to 4 and even 3 minutes apart, but they wouldn’t last for a full hour; instead, they’d come on for about 45 minutes to 50 minutes before the cadence would change. At last, they’d go on for an hour with 3 minutes between, but the contraction itself would only last 45-50 seconds before dissipating. The wait and the discomfort was agonizing.

In retrospect, I realize that by watching the clock like I did, I put undue pressure on my body to perform and I was focusing on the pain, which just prolonged and intensified my discomfort.

By 7:30am, after sitting up and watching my contractions all night, I was exhausted and disappointed. When my husband woke up, my contractions stopped all together. It ended up being a blessing because that respite allowed me to lay in bed and rest from 8am-12pm. At noon, I woke up to a contraction. And so they began again.

I tried to make preparations for birth. I made sure that our hospital bag was packed, I tidied the house, and all the while, I watched my contractions and came more and more often, stronger each time. But the waves never matched the 3-1-1 pattern. By the evening, I was sick of laboring around the apartment. By walking around outside, I hoped to help labor along.