Our first Bradley birth!

I went into labor 3 weeks early without any help. It all started August 2nd at 6 am. I had my typical sleepless night, but for some reason, I became really restless and couldn't fall back asleep for anything, so I got up. Spencer came home from PT about 7:30 am and was surprised to find me awake. I told him how restless I was feeling. When I went to the bathroom, I noticed tiny peach colored balls of mucus when I wiped. I showed Spencer and he didn't know what to make of it, so I texted my Midwife and asked her about it. She said it was my mucus plug starting to come out and not to worry about it, so I didn't.
I suddenly got the overwhelming urge to clean and rearrange everything in the house. Spencer was shocked by this, because I hadn't had the energy to do anything in months. I started cleaning things and every time I went to the bathroom, more mucus plug would come out as well as some blood clots. I also felt kind of crampy. Spencer was watching me closely and started texting our Doula to confirm his suspicions that I might be in early first stage labor. She thought I was and suggested we go walk around the mall to see if things would pick up.

 

That afternoon, we walked around for about an hour and a half and my contractions picked up enough that I could no longer walk during them. We kept our midwife and doula updated the whole time. Around 8 p.m., they arrived for my regular home visit and realized I was defiantly in labor. They left our birthing tub with us and went to find a hotel for the night, so they could be close by.
By 10:30pm our Doula arrived at the house to see how I was. She was surprised to see my labor signs all over the place. I was only dilated 2cm, but already showing signs of transition. I dilated very slowly, but remained in transition the whole time.
 
Labor itself was very long and hard. I kept moving from the bed to the bathroom to the birthing pool, but couldn't seem to get any sort of relief. There were almost no breaks in between my contractions and each one double and triple peaked. By the time I was at 9cm, I still had a lip of cervix left that wouldn't go away. They started putting ice inside to help reduce the swelling. That was painful. Everyone was shocked by how hard my labor was and by how well I was handling it. I felt like I was a big sissy and doing really poorly, but they were all very proud of me. I was in so much pain that I was begging for drugs, an epidural, a c-section, and once even death.
 
 

Spencer did an amazing job coaching me. Even when my Midwife and Doula couldn't get me to focus, he did. He was with me through every contraction. He never stopped helping me. He even pushed people out of the way to get to me when I moved around.

My water broke in 2 stages. At first, it broke somewhere near the top and slowly leaked fluid. Once I started pushing, I burst the bottom of the bag and things moved very quickly from there. I tried to push in the birthing tub, but for some reason, I couldn't get a handle on pushing so I moved to the toilet and tried some more. I was able to get a grip and push properly from there. I had a small bm and then felt the head drop into the birth canal. We were afraid to get back into the tub and stop things again, so they moved me to the living room.

After trying a few different pushing positions, I ended up on the floor. Spencer sat in front of me, holding my hands to help me sit up while our doula supported my back. It didn't take long at all to push him out from there. Once I felt the ring of fire, I couldn't stop pushing. He came out so fast that I ended up with a third degree tear, despite my midwife's effort to support my perineum.
Once he was out, it took less than 5 minutes for my placenta to come out. My mom took our Doula's place with me and I rested on her while they cut the cord and checked the afterbirth. Shortly afterwards, I stood up and walked to the bed, so they could check me for tears. When they realized I had a third degree tear, they started making calls to find someone who could stitch me up. While waiting to find someone, Spencer helped me take a shower and redress.
We ended up needing to go to the hospital to be stitched, but it was a good thing. They checked my blood and realized my white count was way down, so they gave me iv antibiotics as well. While waiting for the iv to finish up, we all fell asleep. I was so glad it was all over. We finally got back home around 5am and went straight to bed.

As hard as everything was, I would not trade this experience for anything. I finally have the baby I never thought I could, and Spencer and I are closer than we've ever been. He was absolutely amazing. He was so strong and took charge of me when I would lose control. Even though it killed him to see me in so much pain, he never let me give up. This was the hardest and most beautiful experience of my entire life and I am forever changed because of it.

A special thanks to Kimberly Spencer, Jennifer Vines, Jade Chapman for being my birth team and to Carissa Gay for her amazing photography!