Splish-Splash! Charlie's Birth Story

Fair warning - this is Charlie's birth story... so, if you aren't interested in knowing some of the finer details of my labor, feel free to skip this!
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Contractions started early Sunday morning at about 4am.  Lucky pregnant mom that I am, I have had Braxton-Hicks contractions since week 13, so I am definitely used to annoying cramps in my uterus.  These were clearly more than just the regular BH contractions though.  Nothing too painful, just uncomfortable... but definitely different.  I got my handy-dandy, contraction-timing iphone app going, and realized that even though the contractions were "real" and really annoying, they were still very inconsistent.  Sometimes 7-8 minutes apart... then 15-20... no good pattern, which meant there was nothing much for us to do.  Instead, we decided to spend the morning at the Farmer's market and then Chris and I headed into Portland for one last date night.  I was certain that baby was on his way, and I wanted to make sure I had a gigantic milkshake, before dairy was forcibly removed from my diet for the next 12ish months.   Let me tell you - there is nothing like a cinnamon/dark chocolate milkshake to put you into a food coma, only to be broken by actual labor.

I had a really hard time sleeping... contractions started crossing the line from annoying to irritating to downright painful.  Luckily, they were still spaced pretty poorly, so I occasionally got 20-30 minutes of sleep between them.  At 4am, my body decided that it was time to put the show on the road - contractions were 6 minutes apart, and consistent enough that I knew we'd better get going - we still had 30 minutes to drive to the hospital!  I called our doula and midwives, woke Chris's mom to tell her we were leaving, and headed out the door... knowing life was about to change quickly!

When we arrived at the hospital, the main entrance was closed, the place was under crazy construction, and we ended up walking in circles for 15 minutes trying to find a way into the hospital.  Not fun when you have to stop moving every couple of minutes because of those darn contractions!  By the time we finally found our way inside, I was at 4-5cm and contractions were starting to speed up.  They got me into a room quickly, and I walked and contracted, walked and contracted.  While I was working on the contractions, the nurses set up the big ol' kiddie birthing pool.  Within the next hour and a half, I had progressed to 7cm, so we decided it was time to switch locations and hop into the water.  The warmth of the water was like heaven compared to a cold hospital bed.  It really did make a huge difference in my ability to manage the increasingly difficult contractions.

I labored in the pool for awhile - maybe an hour - before I knew that Charlie really wanted to be born.  Thanks to the shift change timing, we had double the nurses and two midwives on hand for the birth.  Even though I was pretty focused on the whole pushing portion, I was pretty amazed when I heard the midwives and our doula exclaiming that Charlie was being born completely encased in his amniotic sac - my water never broke during labor. Our midwife said she had only seen this happen in 2 out of 600 births that she has attended.  He was born completely quiet and only started to make a tiny bit of noise once they handed him to me in the water.  It was such a peaceful way to be born, I think he just wanted to sleep through it all!

I always thought I had a very easy birth with Carter, but Charlie's birth was unbelievably perfect.  It was quick (3.5 hours at the hospital), peaceful, and truly the ideal experience for me.  If I were ever to have another baby (which is not in our plans - sorry!), I would have another water birth... no question about it!