Eliam: my second child and my first son. Oh, how I love him! His story is one of learning to set boundaries and the consequences of choosing not to do so. For a month before his arrival, I had been having contractions every night for 4-8 hours. This is called prodromal labor, and it’s definitely a thing. It’s also exhausting. I was still working those last few weeks, and I had a 14 month old. My labor was happening mostly from 9pm to 3am, so I was not getting much sleep. My mother in law had come to help, and then a few weeks before my due date, my mother came as well. They did not get along well, and it caused additional stress in an already stressful situation.

There was a park about half a mile from our house with a long path surrounding it. Every night, we would go to the park, and I would walk 2-3 miles, trying to convince Eliam it was time to arrive. The night before his due date, on a Friday evening, the contractions seemed to be getting stronger and closer together. I was GBS positive, so when I called the obstetrician to let them know what was happening, they wanted to make sure I got to the hospital in time to get my two rounds of antibiotics, so they told me to come in. I went to triage, and was at 2cm, so they let me walk around the hospital for two hours to see if I progressed at all. I was at 3.5cm when they checked again, and I was admitted. Afa and I put our whole labor plan into practice. We played some Mo-town, danced around the labor room, used the birth ball, and stayed generally active for several hours. Around 3am, I started to get really tired, so I laid down to sleep. At some point, the contractions slowed and began to fade away. The nurse came in around 4am and told us we had three choices: we could have Pitocin; we could have the OB come in and break my water; or we could go home and wait to see if they baby came before our scheduled induction Tuesday night. Afa and I decided that we would go home and try some additional methods to see if we could get labor to start spontaneously.

(On a side note, hindsight is 20/20. In both my second and third births, breaking my water brought on strong labor. I think if we had asked the OB to break it on Saturday morning, Eliam probably would have come that day. It’s one of the things I would have done differently given if that was possible.)

We went home, and my mother was upset that we came home, and my mother in law didn’t understand why we would come home from the hospital without a baby. It led to a very tense few days because everyone had very strong opinion on what we should have done instead of respecting the decision that Afa and I had made. Our church was on its annual camping trip, so most of my friends were not even available by phone. It was rough weekend. Stress delays labor, so Tuesday night came, and we went to the hospital for our scheduled induction. Shout out to Kevin and Erica for keeping Ana Lia during both hospital visits!

We showed up at 10pm, and they hooked me up to both the Pitocin and the antibiotics, and we settled in for the night. Independence Day was on TV, which is one of my favorite movies, so we watched that for a few hours. We got a little sleep, and the nurses turned up the Pitocin every two hours overnight. I was having contractions every ten minutes, but they were not getting stronger or closer together. The OB came into check me around 5am, and I was still at 3.5 and not having strong contractions. By this point, we had moved onto watching a Super Nanny marathon. The nurses kept increasing my Pitocin, but nothing really happened until the OB came back an 11am and broke my bag of waters. It was minutes later that an extremely strong contraction took over my whole body, and I knew that’s what we had been waiting for. Afa and I decided that we would continue to delay the epidural and labor for a while on our own. We tried a variety of labor positions as the contractions got stronger, and I did best in a squatting position with standing behind me, holding me up. He is such a great labor partner. Eventually I got to a place where I was crying with each contraction, and Afa asked me to get an epidural because the contractions were becoming too much. (Again, hindsight, but I think if I had asked them to check me right then instead of give me an epidural, it would have been almost time to push.)

We got the epidural, and I relaxed so much I fell asleep. I woke up about twenty minutes later with the urge to push. I watched the clock and timed the pushy contractions but didn’t tell anyone. I had had such a hard time after my first birth because I started pushing too early, and I was determined not to do that a second time. So I let these continue for another twenty minutes, and the next time the nurse came, I told her I thought it might be time for the doctor to come. She looked at me, didn’t even have to do an internal check, and called for the doctor. The OB walked in, said she could see him, and told me to push, which I did. Then she said “Give me half a push,” which sounded a little strange, but I did my best, and the nurse had to tell me to look down because the baby was here! What?! I had pushed for 45 minutes with Ana Lia and not in any way prepared for the baby to already be there. Eliam came out with his cord around his neck, so the doctor cut it before he was even fully birthed, the only cord Afa didn’t cut.

They let me hold him very briefly before they took him to be measured, etc. They kept him there a long time, and he was crying a lot. I was getting really stressed that he was screaming, and the nurses wouldn’t give him to me. When Afa looked over and saw me, he asked them to take him out of the heater and give him back. When I finally got him and got to nurse him, I was so grateful. I ended up tandem nursing both kids while we were in the hospital, and that’s a memory I will always cherish. Looking back, his was my easiest birth, and he’s also the easiest kid. He just goes with the flow, no matter what we’re doing…and he started the day he was born.