(Long birth story ahead, I don’t think I tell anything in gory details, but now is your chance to not read if you aren’t interested.)

E  came right on her due date, so I had big hopes that T would too. But alas, it was not so. As time went on and I told neighbors who I saw (and who commented on how big I was) that I was overdue, some of them told me that here they say boys are often late because they are lazy. Ha!

I have a friend here who was due with a girl a week or two after me but was having a scheduled C-section on October 11. Well my due date was the 3rd, so I told her that I had better beat her! Well I just barely did.

My parents arrived on October 2 and we waited around for much of the first week they were here. I had a doctor appointment on October 4th (an appointment that I was hoping not to have to go to). She said he looked fine, but since she could still see breathing movements on the ultrasound, he probably wouldn’t be born in the next 48 hours. This is the second thing that has happened this pregnancy (the first being the prediction that he was a boy at 13 weeks) that is very different from anything that happened with my American birth and that I had never heard of before. Maybe its just because they don’t do ultrasounds every appointment in America. She scheduled me for an appointment the next Friday the 11th (right after my friend’s c-section), and said that if he wasn’t born by then, she would induce me because she was going out of town that day for the weeklong holiday that was the next week. I sure hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. I was hoping to try to go natural, but knew that pitocin had equalled very strong non-stop contractions last time for me.

After hanging around the house for most of the first week of my parents visit, on Wednesday October 9 I decided I wanted to go to a mall and walk around. That morning I had a little bit of something that made me wonder if the show might be finally getting on the road. I debated going to the mall after all but figured it would be okay.  So we went and walked around IKEA and another mall, let E play in the ball pit, had some burgers, and bought E some shoes.

That evening, as E was sitting on my lap and we played a game with my mom, I started feeling what I figured  must be contractions. I had never felt contractions other than those after I was given pitocin during E’s birth, so that is all I had to go on. I wasn’t sure what it would be like when it just started on its own. I got out my contraction timer on my phone and started timing them. They were about 5 min apart. After about 30 min I got up to do some stuff and they stopped so I figured it must be Braxton Hicks.

As I was going to bed at about 11:25, I was reading a verse on my phone and thought it was good so I took a screenshot of it:

Not long after that, I laid down and they started again. I started timing again and this time they were like less than 5 min apart. My doctor had said to call her when they had been 5 minutes apart for an hour. So I started walking around to see if they would stop. They didn’t and in fact, grew even a little closer together. This continued for about an hour when I started to think I should call her. But it was all happening faster than I had imagined, I guess I thought they would be farther apart to start and gradually move towards being five minutes apart. Then, in the midst of my classic indecision, I had a really strong one and announced to C that I was calling her!

She said go ahead and pack up and head to the hospital and they would call her and tell her when we got there and she would come. Ack! Craziness! So fast! So we woke up my parents and told them we were leaving and called a taxi. Here we are before leaving.

Contractions in the taxi were interesting, but at least we only live a five minute drive from the hospital. I timed them with the clock in the taxi. 1:01, 1:06…

We got there and walked into the emergency room. Contractions were pretty strong by then. I don’t really remember what we told them but there was almost no one there! Not the bustling hive of activity I would imagine an emergency room to be (I had never been in one!). They walked with me down to an elevator and down to what seemed like the basement. There was hardly anyone around, it was so wierd!

They took me into the labor and delivery room and a couple of nurses came in and started asking me questions. This hospital is supposedly known to cater to international patients. It is a private hospital so it isn’t just teeming with people like a government hospital would be. I incorrectly assumed that since so many internationals supposedly go there, they would have hired nurses etc who speak some English. I mean even the guys at Burger King know a little English. My nurses didn’t know any, much less medical terms. So getting my medical history questions answered in a foreign language was interesting, but I was pleased with how I could mostly do it. I did learn that it is completely impossible to understand a question in a foreign language while having a contraction!

They kept asking if I wanted an epidural and I said not right now. I wanted to be able to do it naturally if possible, but was open to an epidural if I reached a point and wanted it. They checked me and I was a 5! They didn’t require me to stay in bed and only monitored the baby for a few  minutes every now and then to check on him. Mostly I walked around and had some music playing on my phone.

They kept asking if my water broke, and at one point I thought it had, but I was wrong because a few minutes later, during a particularly strong contraction, it be came quite evident that it was breaking then! After that point, it got really painful.

I knew it was supposed to be painful, but about that point, I passed where I could really handle it and started getting anxious. They checked me again and that is when a language misunderstanding occurred. I thought they said I was still a 5-6. Well after an hour of pretty strong contractions, that was upsetting. I knew I couldn’t keep going for 4 more cm of that! So I wanted an epidural. But they kept telling me how it was going fast, second babies come fast, and it would take a while for them to draw my blood and do a blood test and then have the anesthesiologist come. (Turns out they said I was an 8!)

Finally about 30 minutes later, my doctor showed up.  Contractions were crazy painful by then. Breathing through them and walking around no longer helped. They were strong and had a small break between them. I couldn’t find a good position. I kept thinking that there was something I should be doing, or some way I should be sitting or standing, to help it. I kept asking C, “What should I do?!” Like he knew the answer to that! He just kept telling me to keep breathing. They gave me a little oxygen thing that I put up to my nose to make sure I was getting enough oxygen.

I literally wondered what they do if a women straight up passes out during childbirth!!!

All through this I kept praying and thinking of that verse. God gives strength to the weak, power to the faint! I needed strength to do this!

My doctor checked me and I don’t remember what she said but it was time. They started setting up the room but that meant I had to lay on the bed which was killer! My doctor is great. She is so calm. She speaks English well and has tons of American patients. She is used to the way Americans sometimes want to do things differently. Here a lot of ladies, a really high percentage in fact, want scheduled c-sections!

Finally it was time to push. I had pushed for two and a stinkin half hours with little miss E, so I was very worried it would be the same this time. I pushed two or three times and then was getting upset that he wasn’t out yet. I took a minute to rest and pray and then pushed really hard! And he was here in just 4 or 5 total pushes! They put him on the warming tray right beside me and cleaned him off.

{Notice on the wall beside him, they have wallpaper that is a bunch of baby names! In case you get to that point and still haven’t decided on a name, they offer suggestions. A friend I know might could benefit from this, (ahemjessray).}

A few minutes later they laid him on my chest in a towel for me to see!

Then they took him to the nursery to wash him off and then finished up with me and wheeled me upstairs to my room.

Here are my two nurses on the right and the cleaning/transport lady on the left. One of the nurses was named Meltem which is a name I had not heard before, but close to my dad’s middle name, so that was neat to me.

He was born at 3:54 am on Thursday October 10. (E and I were born on Thursdays too.) So if you count from when I had those contractions that evening, it was a total of 7 hours, but I really would start counting at 11:30 when I had them the second time, so that would mean his whole birth just took 4.5 hours! The nurse was right, this second baby did come quicker. (Although all through laboring, I refused to believe her because I know that all second babies are not fast!)

I am so grateful for the chance to experience natural childbirth. I knew that most women in history have birthed their children without epidurals, so I knew that I should be able to at least survive it! Ha! It would have been nice to take a natural childbirth class to know some strategies to work through it. Really I was just basing it on what I had read. Breathing, relaxation strategies, walking around and rocking side to side and sitting on a birthing ball. All of those things helped. It really only got unreasonably painful during what I now recognize was transition, which was the hour and a half or so before he was born, after I was 8 cm. I really haven’t experienced much pain in my life, no broken bones or surgeries or anything, so I didn’t have much of a pain threshold to compare it to. I was for sure the crazy lady on the birth videos who is yelling the whole time. C was quite surprised as he has never heard me sound like that! I also think my body felt better and recovered much faster after not having all that stuff in my system.

Here he is when he first came in our room.

We caught about 1 hour of sleep before it was time to wake up for the day!

The Lord really did give strength to the weak that day, as I could not have done that without his help. I am glad for the experience, and grateful for the blessing that it was quick and without any interventions, however, I do think that next time, I will choose that epidural. If there is a next time!!!!