On January 10th 2018 I woke up at 5:30 AM, beginning my full day of teaching elementary school art. It was the day before my due date. That evening my husband, Alex, and I went to see I, Tonya. My contractions began during the movie. This was around 10 pm. The chairs were reclining, otherwise I think I wouldn’t have been able to finish the movie sitting down. The contractions lasted all night and at 3 AM after not sleeping at all and both of us excitedly timing the length between each contraction, I let my work know that it was all starting to happen and I would be starting my maternity leave. My brain immediately scanned what the future would look like if I did go into work in this condition and decided that it would not work.
As the day progressed, my contractions became stronger and were 15 minutes apart. I still had not slept I’d have a contraction, drop to the ground while it lasted, and then as soon as it was over I was up again and dancing.
We called the birthing center to let them know that my labor was starting. They didn’t want me to come in until my contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasted more than a minute.
They also suggested taking a Tylenol PM to try and sleep between the contractions. I was so exhausted from the excitement and from being up all night. I was waking up every 15 minutes with each contraction.
At midnight they had finally shifted to about 10 minutes apart. So we went into the birthing center. But I was only 1 cm dilated and they sent me home.
I continued trying to sleep in between contractions but as they inched closer to 7 minutes apart, each contraction lasting a minute and a half, it was increasingly hard to rest even though I became more and more exhausted. At noon we called the birthing center again and they said to come in.
We arrived at the birthing center and the midwife on duty was Nikki. She asked me to tell her what was happening in my own words, I started crying and said how I’d already done so much work and been in so much pain for so long and nothing seemed to be happening.
She checked to see how dilated I was and I was at 7 cm and the relief and hope that I felt was incredible. I was much farther along. I hopped in the tub to try to birth there but didn’t like it because it made it too difficult to get on my hands and knees during the contractions. Nikki asked me if I wanted essence of flower under my tongue. I meekly agreed.
I put on my nightgown and hopped on the bed and crouched over a yoga ball. My water broke.
Nikki came in and told me to lay on my side with a yoga ball between my knees and she said it wouldn’t feel good but would get some work done. I couldn’t handle it and flipped back over onto hands and knees. The contractions felt constant at this point. I was screaming during the contractions and Nikki had to work to get my attention to get me to focus.
She told me to sit on the toilet through 5 contractions which was roughly 20 minutes.
The toilet was so high that it was difficult so she gave me yoga blocks under my feet but I felt unstable. I started to fall asleep sitting up on the toilet. My head started to lull and so did Alex’s. He’d been with me through this entire experience. At that moment I began to feel a stretching feeling so Nikki got the birth assistant and made me lay down on the bed on my back.
It took a few pushes to get the hang of how to harness the contraction to push against it. But it felt like I only pushed about 4 or 5 times. The second to last push Ezra’s head was out and as the contraction stopped and Ezra was lodged in my birth canal I had extreme pain and discomfort like I’ve never known. Then on the last push I felt extreme relief as Ezra popped out. His umbilical cord was short so they immediately put him on my lower belly and he was so warm and wiggly and I was excited and euphoric. The following endorphin rush was intense. After 42.5 hours of labor, Ezra Storm was born at 4:56 on Friday, January 12, 2018.