Birth Story #1 Part 2

I picked up the cold pay phone receiver, pressed the cold buttons, and shivered as I told my husband the news.  The pay phone made our conversation difficult to understand, he rushed to the hospital while I stopped by home to pack my bag and put some laundry into the washing machine.  When I finally arrived to reassure him, we were unceremoniously admitted to the hospital.

At 4 pm the nurses applied prostaglandin to my forbidding cervix (50% effaced and not even 1 cm.) The prostoglandin burned into my tissue, the IV dripped into my veins, my bladder swelled, and my sciatic nerve cringed as I was ordered to lay on my left side and not use the restroom for an hour--the longest hour of my life. The procedure was repeated at 10 pm for the second longest hour of my life.

Birth Story #1 Part 1: Birth and Burgers

After 4 births, whether by a sense of nostalgia, maturity, or appreciation, I feel it is finally time to write my birth stories. I feel like the poster child for methods of delivery having had an emergency c-section, a planned c-section, a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) and a miscarriage. I hope my experiences will enrich yours be it past or present.


Birth Story #1 Part 1

I lay in the quiet darkness of the cavernous ultrasound room at the regional hospital. I listened to my deliberately slow breaths to ease the beating of my heart. The ultrasound technician hadn't said much, but I watched the calculated measurements flash on the screen: gestation 37.5 wks, head 37 wks, abdomen 32 wks, total weight 5 lbs 7 oz.