Matthew's Birth Story, Part One: Prelude to A Baby

I guess the true beginning of this story took place on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day. I was feeling extremely uncomfortable that evening, and Nathan and I were just chilling on the couch, watching a movie together. I was having consistent Braxton Hicks contractions that were getting intense, so I started walking around and changing positions to see if they would stop. They didn't. I went into the bedroom, lay down on my side, and started timing them. They seemed very regular, so after a couple of hours, I told Nathan that I would feel better if we went into Austin. My last labor was so quick that I was afraid to be at home much longer, as I knew things could progress very, very quickly.

So, we started the trip into Austin just as the New Year came in, watching fireworks explode in the sky as we were driving down the highway. We checked into L&D, I was hooked up to monitors, and we just waited.

For seven hours we watched as I had regular contractions, and I was starting to have pain. Despite all the discomfort and despite what we saw on the monitors, however, I just wasn't making any more progress. I walked the hallways of L&D with my poor, sleep-deprived husband, wondering what was going on in all the other rooms, and feeling pangs of sadness whenever I would hear a baby cry. When I felt the contractions easing up after the fifth or sixth lap, I realized that it just wasn't going to happen that day. Finally, I made the decision to go home, knowing that I would risk a homebirth if something suddenly happened. I didn't want to sit on the uncomfortable triage bed anymore, and I couldn't be admitted to L&D without making more progress. Also, because I was only just past 37 weeks, the nurses and the on-call OB couldn't do any sort of intervention to help labor progress without medical authorization from my doctor or without some kind of emergency. Truth be told, I didn't want them to intervene. I didn't want anything resembling an induction at all. No, thank you! I knew that the baby would come whenever he was ready to come, and that it would be unmistakeable at that point that I was in labor. They told me that I was in prodromal labor, which can be just as painful as the real thing, and can last for hours (or even days!) without helping things to progress. Fun stuff. So, we went home.

The next day, I had some pretty sore muscles, but I really felt great! It was nice to have an end to the pain, but I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to have gone through all that without getting a baby in the end. I focused on finishing the last few things that needed to be done before the baby was born, because something was telling me that we didn't have much longer to wait. I made plans for one last trek to the store for some stocking up so we didn't have to worry about any essentials afterward. Since the kids were going to be at my parents on Friday night, I thought it would be good to go early Saturday morning, without having to take four kids along and before it got really busy in town. It was a good idea, but that's not exactly how the weekend ultimately played out!