On Sunday, June 14th Samuel was enjoying his first weekend at Bubbbie and Popsie's house without us, and Steve and I were using the opportunity to go out to brunch in the city with two of Steve's friends from grad school, Charis and Vanessa.
On our way to the freeway, I began to have contractions. I didn't tell Steve what was going on, but did begin to write down how far apart they were. After about 15 minutes, I told Steve what was going on, and we began discussing whether we should turn around. I was all for going to brunch. Steve didn't want to risk the possibility of having the baby in an ambulance on the way to a strange hospital in the city. After timing our contractions for another 15 minutes and noting that they were only 5-6 minutes apart and lasting a minute each, I called Vanessa's cell phone and told them we would need to cancel our brunch plans. I was disappointed to ruin one of Steve's favorite activities, he was relieved that I was finally being reasonable.
When we got home, we called Olga and she told us to go into the hospital to get checked out. We drove straight to the hospital, and walked in. The labor and delivery nurse began to get us set up to check in when I told her we probably wouldn't be staying - we would leave an return when it was time to push. She checked me out, determined that I was 3 centimeters, but not fully effaced, and we went to walk around the park that neighbors the hospital to hopefully speed things along. We were excited and in good spirits. I was laughing and cracking jokes. We walked around the park a few times, and then headed to the grocery store to get Steve some snacks.
When we got back to to the park, I was exhausted from walking around for a couple of hours, so I sat down in the front seat of the car in the hospital's parking garage and ate some blueberries and raspberries. Within ten minutes, all the contractions disappeared. What?!? I guess it simply wasn't the real deal. Steve and I headed home, confused and disappointed as we waited for the contractions to come back.
After a couple of days, I became convinced that there would be no more contractions. I would stay pregnant forever, they would have to induce me, it would be terribly painful and nothing would go as planned. Up until this point in time, in the back of my head I had the idea that I would have the baby at home without any professional help. I was half convinced she would just pop right out. Especially after reading some Ina May Gaskin, I was planning on having a few orgasms during labor too. Of course, I didn't tell Steve about this, I didn't think he would ever forgive me if he knew that I was planning to do something like that. (In fact, when he reads this, it will be the first time he will hear about it.)
On Sunday night, June 21st, Steve and I went to bed at 10:30pm. I fell asleep instantly, Steve stayed up reading for 20 minutes. At 11pm I woke up in intense pain. I didn't wake Steve up, because I was worried it was another false alarm. I went into the living room and turned on the computer as it was the only way I could find a clock with a second hand on it. I couldn't find a paper or pen, so I started memorizing the distance between contractions and their length as I paced the house. Man did they hurt. Worse than I remembered, longer than I remembered, and very close together. I still wasn't convinced this was the real deal, though, so I decided to run a bath to see if relaxing made the pain go away.
The running water woke Steve out of a deep sleep, and he was so groggy, his first thought was that Samuel had gotten out of bed and figured out how to turn the bath on. Steve jumped out of bed and was extremely confused to see me climbing into the tub. Steve began to time the contractions for me. After about 10 minutes I was in so much pain I couldn't sit in the tub any longer. I got out, and we started making phone calls. We paged Bethany, but didn't hear back from her. Steve was unsure if he left his number properly - who knows how to use a pager anymore? We then called her cell - no answer. We also began calling people to come over to stay with Samuel. My mom didn't answer her phone. Kristen and Eric also didn't answer. Suzette answered and said she would get in the car and be on her way. I sent Steve next door to go get Denise to stay until Suzette could get here and I went outside to crawl and moan on the ground.
Lucky for us, we had our bag packed already from the last false alarm. At that point it was midnight. Steve ran the lights on the way to the hospital, pulling over so I could get out during contractions and crawl and moan. This time Steve dropped me off as close to the door as possible (I guess he didn't want to get ribbed by everyone for making me walk to the hospital like the last time) and then proceeded to park the car in Emergency Parking.
I requested that the Labor and Delivery nurse call the midwife as soon as we arrived. She told me she needed to check me out first. I told her that she needed to call the midwife, and then MAYBE I would let her touch me. This did not go over well with her, but as luck would have it, Lin was next door with another patient. Lucky for us, as there is no way Bethany would have made it in time.
Lin came in, turned off the lights, shooed the nurses away, and generally made everything feel much more calm. She checked me, and announced that I could start pushing right away as I was fully dilated and effaced. It all was happening so fast, I was completely freaked out and in enormous pain. Lin calmed me and coached me and then had Steve hold me as I squatted and pushed. Unlike Samuel, Shira's head and body came out all together and nearly fell on the floor. Lin was right there to catch her. Shira, born at 6lbs 14oz, 19 1/2in at 12:46am.
