Starting the night of Summer Solstice Festival (Sunday, June 20, 2010, downtown Fairbanks), when I was a few days over 39 weeks along, I was sure that Baby would be here soon.  We walked all around the festival for a good long time.  When we went home, I had some decent contractions that kept up for a while.  Little did I know that I would have another two weeks.

In fact, I had roughly two weeks, give or take a few days, of nightly prodromal labor.  I would contract every 10-15 minutes, for 6-10 hours, every night.  Hubby said more than once that it seemed like we were living in the movie “Groundhog Day.”

There was a ton of walking, a ton of red raspberry leaf tea, a great deal of BDing, a lot of visualizations and meditation, a lot of me pleading with my belly dweller, but mostly a lot of waiting.  A LOT of waiting.

I had a lot of apprehension about my upcoming labor.  See, I’ve had two cesareans.  Most doctors wouldn’t even entertain the idea of “letting” me attempt a vaginal birth after two cesareans (VBA2C).  I was determined to have one.  I almost got there with my daughter.  I was confident that my body could do it.  I needed an attending OB to give me a chance.

Dr. Lawrason did.  Sure, I got the usual “I don’t really want to risk my insurance over this” spiel (wherein the risks to the provider’s malpractice insurance is never actually addressed, but they are greater than the risks to the mother and baby).  I countered with my own statistics about VBACs.  He agreed to attend me (tend to me? treat me? monitor?) and I went about having a largely uneventful pregnancy.

As I got closer to my due date (which was June 25th, for those of you curious), I started getting concerned about whom I might have to deal with in the event that Dr. Lawrason was unavailable for the birth.  No other doctor in town wanted the liability of a VBA2C.  Getting one while on call would surely make them grumpy.  But Dr. Lawrason was going to be out of town starting July 1st.  And I was still pregnant then.

Days came and went, my due date came and went, and still I was pregnant.  I resigned myself to the idea that I would be pregnant forever. On my due date I went in to the OB’s office and saw the nurse, Bev.  She checked my cervix and did a super-duper-fast-and-gentle-surely-not-going-to-help-move-things-along membrane sweep and let me know I was essentially at 1.5 cm dilated.  I was hopeful that things would pick up and labor would be imminent.  I was wrong, even though I did lose my plug the next day after a little help.

I went back to the office and saw my OB at 40w3d.  He checked me at a 2+ cm, confirmed bloody show, reminded me he’d be out of town starting that Wednesday night.  I had prepared myself for a barrage of persuasion to induce.  I expected it wholeheartedly.  I was totally blown away when Dr. Lawrason said he expected me to go into labor on my own by the end of the week, and that he didn’t feel any reason whatsoever to induce or augment labor at all.  I felt I had won a victory toward achieving my VBA2C.  I left his office excited and hopeful.

Then I figured out that little babe was occiput posterior — he was sunny side up.  With a head as big as he was bound to have (I mean, have you met me and my husband?), he surely wouldn’t be putting necessary pressure on my cervix to get things going.  I started doing all the recommended exercises and stretches from SpinningBabies.com to get him flipped around.  More days went by.  I could feel him wriggling, but felt that he just wasn’t going to flip without something more from me.  My back pain was excruciating.  I took a friend’s recommendation and scheduled a chiropractic appointment for an adjustment.  McAfee Chiropractic felt like my last hope.

Thursday, July 1st, I had a sacral adjustment and Webster technique done by Bill McAfee.  The adjustment felt like heaven, and the Webster technique (wherein he loosened overly tight uterine ligaments) felt simply amazing.  Dr. McAfee said that the baby started moving immediately.  I felt relief, physically and emotionally, and I had a major contraction the moment I stood up from his table.  I left his office smiling — beaming, actually — and continued to feel great and rejuvenated the rest of the day.  I could tell that Peanut was trying to flip himself around, and he did it the next day.

The next day happened to be Uncle Darrell’s birthday.  We thought that maybe Peanut was waiting for that day since his middle name is Uncle’s name.  We’d have to settle for him flipping around though.

The moment Peanut flipped around felt odd and relieving, and I knew it meant that labor would start soon.  I knew all along that if he would just get in the right position, my body would do the rest.  I have nothing but the greatest of things to say about Bill McAfee and his magical adjustment because I am convinced that that’s what my body needed to get things into the right position and condition for labor.  My baby knew how to be born, and my body knew how to give birth; I just had to give them the chance.

At 3 am on July 3rd, a major contraction woke me up.  They kept coming, about every 12-15 minutes, strong enough to wake me/keep me awake, but still manageable.  Around 5:15 am, I woke John to keep me company while I soaked in a warm bath.  When the water was too cold for comfort, I got out and went back upstairs to try to sleep again.  Sleep never fully came to me, though I did get some rest before going back downstairs to soak again.  Around 10 or 11 am, I scarfed down some turkey and swiss cheese croissants with a cup of coffee, as I suddenly felt ravenous.  Around noon, the contractions were becoming extremely intense, and I had retreated into our bedroom while John kept the kids either downstairs or in the dining room.  They checked on me occasionally, surely disturbed by the moaning and grimacing I was doing, but they handled it really well.  I was blown away, humbled, by their compassion and concern for me.  For being 3 and 16 months, they’re very sensitive and sweet, and make me proud of the job I’ve done with them so far.  Still, it was best for them to be in another room.

I stood with the contractions, knees bent, hips swaying, as much as I could, trying to relax as much as possible so as not to counter the work my body was trying to do.  I focused on my breathing, on relaxing my body, on making sure I wasn’t fighting what my body knew how to do.  I kept saying to myself that “my baby knows how to be born, my body knows how to give birth.”  I kept timing the contractions, noting that they were still anywhere from 7 to 12-ish minutes apart despite being strong and lasting 60 to 90 seconds.  Doc told me I didn’t need to go to the hospital until they were 4 to 5 minutes apart, 60 seconds long, for at least an hour.  Surely I had more time to labor at home.  So I kept working with my contractions, vocalizing as I needed to, noting the increase in pain and intensity, laboring in my bedroom with frequent trips to the potty, waiting for the contractions to get closer together.

Around 1:45 or 2 pm, my legs started trembling, the contractions got stronger (but still not closer together) and I suddenly got frantic.  I started sobbing.  What was I doing?  I couldn’t labor at home.  I couldn’t give birth naturally.  I couldn’t do any of it.  I got John and told him that he needed to reassure me because I was sure I couldn’t do it.  He gave me the most brilliant, heartwarming, reassuring, calm pep talk, and it was exactly what I needed.  The pain started to get really intense.  I decided it was close to time to go in, at least for pain meds (which I had sworn to myself I wouldn’t use). I was lucid enough to realize that I was in transition, evidenced by the sobbing and uncontrollable urge to find an even quieter darker place to be, as well as the sudden sense that I couldn’t handle it even though I knew I could.  Transition meant I was even closer to birthing than I thought.

I had been calling our sitter.  She was nowhere to be found, for like an hour.  I was pissed off at her, certain that we’d just have to drag the kids to labor and delivery with us.  I was seeing red, beyond livid, when I finally reached her and she said she was on her way.  I got up to pee for the umpteenth time only to figure out I couldn’t pee.  I reached down to see if I could tell how much my cervix had progressed when my heart just about stopped — I felt baby’s head and bag of waters.  He was crowning.  No wonder I couldn’t pee.  My body wasn’t trying to urinate; my body was trying to push him out.  I put slight pressure on the bag of waters, and my water broke; it was a thin, light-pea-soup green.  There was meconium in the amniotic fluid.  My heart started racing, I told John, the sitter arrived, and we left, all within a matter of minutes.

The urge to push is a strong urge.  It’s hard to fight it.  Good thing we’re only like 6 blocks from the hospital.

Oh, and people really hustle when they can tell that you’re about to give birth.

It was raining when we left for the hospital — there was a total downpour, actually, like we only see every few years here.  I remember toying with the idea of naming him Thunder or Storm during the last couple hours of labor.  We got there at about 2:30 pm.  At the hospital, I was afraid baby would slip out when I went to get out of the truck.  He didn’t; it just hurt like a sonofabitch.  Then the ER clerk said he didn’t even know where L&D was at and I wanted to punch him.  He doesn’t know how lucky he was that I was in a wheelchair fighting the urge to push.

They got me upstairs and put me in the last room on the left, and I remember thinking that they wanted to stick me in the corner so I wouldn’t scare the other birthing mothers-to-be with how loud I was going to get.  They told me I was going to have Dr. X since he was the only one on call and I started to protest.  I had refused treatment by Dr. X ever since my pregnancy with JR because the guy was an arrogant condescending prick, and I was about to refuse treatment again but stopped myself.  I knew that baby had to come out, and was coming out quickly whether I had Dr. X’s help or not, and if Dr. X was the only person there, he’d be delivering my baby.  I made myself okay with it, and my body gave me some labor pains to reinforce the decision.

The staff checked me and I was almost completely dilated, at like 9-1/2 cm.  The nurse asked me to get on all fours, and I thought she was insane.  I tried, and got caught about mid-turn with a massive contraction that completed the dilation.  It was about 2:45 pm.  They said I was allowed to push — yay!  OMG, you should have seen their faces when they all heard that I’d had two previous c-sections.  You’d think I was giving birth to an alien for the shock they registered.  Nothing was stopping me at that point though!

They had me on my back, curling myself into a “C,” which didn’t exactly feel like the most productive position to be in, but it was going to have to do.  Someone put an oxygen mask on me, and I love them for that.  Every pushing contraction I bore down as hard as I could.  My ass felt like it was on fire.  I could get three pushes in one contraction (push, short breath, push, short breath, push) before it would pass and I would pant like a rabid dog.  Dr. X pissed me off by trying to tell me to keep pushing once the contraction was over, and once again for telling me to keep going when I had stopped to breathe.  I snapped at him.

John was awesome.  He had had to leave the truck in front of the ER entrance, and got someone in security to park it for him.  I wouldn’t let him leave my side because I was sure that as soon as he would leave to park the truck, baby would be born and I didn’t want him to miss it.  He kept telling me that I was doing great, that baby was right there, that he was almost out, that he was coming, just keep pushing.  I was so proud of him for being so incredibly encouraging and brave and stable and calm when I knew for damn sure he had to be terrified inside.  I have the most amazing husband.

I was starting to get worried about the meconium in the fluid, and that’s why I didn’t even flinch when Dr. X told me that he wanted to do an episiotomy to help baby come out.  If there hadn’t been any meconium, I would have fought him tooth and nail about it (since he admits that 95% of his patients get one whether they really need it or not), but I wanted baby out as quickly as possible so they could suction as much fluid out of him as possible.  I’d already felt some big tears too and was sure that without the episiotomy the push that gets him out would rip me apart.  I asked him to make it as small as possible, and within two or three pushes, his head was born!

Dr. X asked me to stop pushing when his head was born, for which he got snapped at again since I wasn’t pushing but my uterus was.  They suctioned him out as much as they could, and the push after that marked the complete birth of my son at 41 weeks 1 day gestation, at 3:07 pm on July 3rd, 2010.  John got to cut the cord!  They cleaned him off and suctioned him some more before checking his stats:  21-1/8″ tall!  14-3/4″ head!  9 lbs 5.4 oz! I got to hold him for a minute before they took him to the nursery for a thorough cleaning and suctioning, and I could see instantly that he looked exactly like John.  Such a gorgeous baby.  John went with him to the nursery while I got my many tears stitched up, and basked in my victory.

I had a perfect vaginal birth after two cesareans when no one believed I could do it.  Not only that, but he was a huge baby too, who happens to be perfect in every way himself.  River Darrell McDonald had come into the world, making a grand entrance in a hurry during a downpour.  We were ecstatic.

An hour and a half after giving birth, I was up and showered, and John kept telling me how great and alert I looked compared to how I was after the c-sections.  I felt on top of the world.  He called his family, I called my brother and aunt and cried a bit because I couldn’t tell my mama.  River nursed a lot, and I could tell his latch was shallow like Camilla’s, but knew we could get through it.  I was starving, and quickly ate a big meal.  John brought the kids up to meet River.  JR said, “Yep, that’s the baby.  Look, jello.”  He was excited, but not threatened or put off by the appearance of another baby.  It seemed like he’d already figured out that mommy’s big belly held another baby that would have to come out sooner or later, and now that the baby was out, life could go on as normal.  Camilla was fascinated with him, couldn’t peel her eyes off him, and was even distracted from food (which is a big deal to the little bottomless pit that she currently is right now) just so she could gaze at him, pat his head, and call him “bebe.”  The kids have become incredibly protective of him, and we are certain that all three of them are sure to be very close to each other as they grow up.  John took JR and Camilla back to the house and stayed with them a while before coming back to the hospital to spend the night with me and River.

We were cleared to go home the next day, and have spent the last week and a half getting to know this handsome little boy, and watch all three of our kids become closer to each other.  JR and Camilla dote on him.  John calms River down wicked quick.  River looks exactly like JR did at this age.  He nurses nonstop, and his shallow latch has led to cracked, bleeding nipples, but I know this will resolve itself soon.  He’s already up over 10-1/2 lbs, and that’s the magic of breast milk.  He’s so serene (except when hungry or in need of a diaper), and often gets this sleepy little smile that makes it look like he has a really funny story to tell.  I, for one, can’t wait to hear that story told.