As my due date approached, I became exceedingly impatient. Convinced that Charlie would come early like his big brother (Oscar made his appearance at just 38 weeks), I was in a constant state of anxious anticipation. So when week 38 rolled around, I thought, "Okay, it's baby time!" Week 39..."Baby time?" Week 40..."Okay, Baby...this is getting ridiculous." Even though I wasn't even overdue yet, my body felt like it. My midwife told me that as of 37 weeks, baby's head was situated very low so he was ready to go - his placement made me very uncomfortable and getting through the day without 12 trips to the bathroom was nearly impossible. In hopes of speeding things up, my midwife stripped the membrane of my cervix (Wed. April 9); it wasn't guaranteed to work but seeing as I was barely dilating, it was worth a shot.
On Thursday (April 10), the discomfort continued. We invited my mom over for dinner and before she was even en route (around 5pm), I started feeling contractions. With Oscar, I was in early labor for nearly 12 hours so I was in no rush to start counting/tracking - they needed to be consistent for a few hours anyway. But these contractions felt consistent and strong. Sure enough, as soon as I started tracking, they were consistently five minutes apart and starting to get stronger. I continued making dinner and playing with Oscar stopping every five minutes or so. Looking back, it's sort of funny to think of Oscar on my lap, reading his truck book together while I'm in labor - "Oscar, where's the yellow truck? Ow, ow, ow. And the...ow....tractor?" I guess that was a good glimpse of what being a Momma of multiple children is like.
We called the BabyLine and the nurse said that given my current state and that this was my second pregnancy, we should make our way to the hospital ASAP. By this time, it was nearing Oscar's bedtime (around 7:45pm). My mom volunteered to take over Oscar duties and to stay the night but Oscar was in one of his "I want daddy" moods. As I'm yelling at Alex to get in the car, Oscar's yelling at Alex to come read to him, and my mom is yelling at both of us to go to the hospital. I had never really worried about my blood pressure during pregnancy but I'm sure it was spiking then.
Alex and I tried to calm down once we were in the car and soon enough, we were at the hospital. Because my water hadn't broken, I went through triage. I was, according to the nurse, "contracting my brains out," but was only a measly 3cm dilated. Were they going to send us home? The nurse asked us to walk around the hospital for about an hour to help speed things up. By then, my contractions were really strong and consistently a minute apart. I sort of felt like an idiot groaning in pain and bracing myself against walls as strangers passed us but I was too focused on getting through the pain to care. We went back to triage and thankfully I was dilated to 5cm - enough to admit me to a room (around 9:30pm). I immediately hopped in a warm bath, turned on some Sondheim, and the fast and furious contractions continued. Our intention was to have a natural childbirth again but I was starting to get worried. My water still hadn't broken, I was dilating slowly, and these contractions were faster and harder than I remembered. After about an hour or so of laboring in the tub I asked the nurse if she could check my cervix. I hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime, it was getting late, and these contractions were wearing me out! The midwife came in to check me and I told her, "I'm so tired. I'm not sure I can do this. If I'm not progressing, I think I want something for the pain." The midwife said, "Honey, I'm not sure that that would help any because you're at 9.5cm. If you want, I can break your water and we can have this baby right now." Uhhhhh....yes! Sure enough, after my bag of waters and broken I began pushing and 10-20 minutes later, our boy had arrived (at exactly 11pm)!
I'm not sure if it was his size or my shear exhaustion but pushing Charlie out seemed more difficult than with Oscar. Or maybe it's true what they say about mothers forgetting the pain of childbirth? Regardless, both Charlie and I had physical signs of the struggle; I had delightful red splotches all over my face from broken blood vessels and Charlie popped blood vessels in both eyes and his face was swollen and purple (a shade that seriously freaked this Momma out!) from the quick exit. Battle wounds aside, we had our prize! All 8lbs and 13oz of him! He not only tipped the scales but also measured in 2.5" taller (21.4") than Oscar - big boy! We named him Charlie Alexander: Charlie (not Charles and NEVER Chuck!) after one of our all-time favorite filmmakers, Charlie Chaplin and Alexander after his wonderful Daddy.
I'm blessed to be on maternity leave through the end of August so hopefully I'll have some time this Spring/Summer to keep this blog updated. Stay tuned as we learn more about being a family of FOUR!
