Harriet's birth story, part 3: baby spinning

Alrighty! Part One got us to the point where my water broke. Part Two got us to the point where we headed to the hospital. Part Three is all about the six most athletic hours of my life. I'm smiling in the picture above because I have no idea what is ahead. And because I had just ordered a bowl of oatmeal off the hospital menu, and I loved ordering off that fancy menu.

We got to the hospital and I felt so welcome there. I didn't know if I would...we were a home birth that was now showing up without any doctor that had me on their charts. But the administrator who ran the birthing wing was incredibly warm and kind to me. And the nurse we had actually had birthed two of her four babies at home, so there was no stigma with her either. In fact, she was really knowledgeable in all sorts of baby spinning techniques, as we tried to get this baby to get into position to come into the world. I had read a bit about these maneuvers so I sort of knew what was coming.

They checked me and I was dilated to a three. They hooked up the pitocin and before we started the baby spinning I took the traditional walk down the hospital hallways.

I'd caption that picture above, "get back into life! With depends!" Because I was still wearing them... And then I'd caption the picture below, "I'm a good sport!" This smile was before the pitocin really kicked in. Also, it's strange to remember that between contractions life is bearable. The pain is not constant. Which is nice of it. I seem to forget this fact (that there is relief between contractions) from baby to baby.

But then the contractions come. And they do hurt. Oh land, they hurt so bad. My favorite birthing position was in the glider rocker, singing quietly little falsetto melodies to the music we were listening to. We were playing the new Sara Groves album (Floodplain) and the new Andrew Peterson album (The Burning Edge of Dawn). Both of which are incredible. And since they were brand new to us, I was listening to the words with great concentration. My little falsetto melodies went along with the songs and somehow the singing and the rocking lessened the pain for me.

Along with the contractions hurting like craaaazy was the penicillin IV that I had in case of strep. I hadn't been tested for strep and because we didn't know if I was positive they administered the penicillin as a precaution. And man that IV killed going into my arm. It burned on the way in and my arm felt like it might explode.

My nurse had me doing all sorts of things with my legs and belly. At one point she had me squatting as low as I could with Rory standing behind me holding my belly up from behind as securely as he could. Folks, I don't do squats on a good day, let alone through a series of three contractions, multiple times in a row. In the picture above, one leg is swung off the bed. We did other exercises with the medicine ball and after six hours of pure athleticism they checked me again and I was dilated to a four. After all that, I had earned one centimeter. I was discouraged and exhausted and called mercy. Which translated to: epidural. 

At 7:30 the lady with the epidural showed up. She told me I should be able to still feel my toes with the epidural. But a few minutes later I couldn't feel a thing from my belly button down and I could not have been happier. They kept one leg up on a medicine ball (under the sheets) still hoping the baby would get into position. They turned me every hour, changing the leg on the medicine ball. The epidural made me throw up (it has with all three kids) a total of twelve times and after a while it was obvious this baby was still not coming anytime soon. We decided to sleep for a while. Thankfully we didn't know it would still be eleven more hours before our baby would be born.