by Missy Swanson

 I was hopeful when I found out I was pregnant with my third baby.  I thought, “Maybe this will be the one!”  I wanted to enjoy my pregnancy and have a calm, beautiful birth. I’ve always dreamed of being one of those graceful, “magical-life-is-growing-within-me” type of pregnant ladies.  As a birth center nurse, I see inspiring, beautiful laboring women all the time, but so far, that hasn’t been in the cards for me.  My first two pregnancies and births were pretty straightforward, but 42 weeks of pregnancy with each child reduced me to a miserable, whiny lump.  With my third pregnancy, in addition to the normal pregnancy complaints, I developed gestational diabetes and placenta previa, and my baby preferred to hang out sideways in my uterus.  Since I had two complications that made vaginal birth impossible, I was sure I’d end up with a c-section. And if I didn’t need a c-section, I was concerned about getting the baby delivered by 41 weeks, which is the recommendation for moms with gestational diabetes.  So picture a worried, exhausted, night-shift-working, pregnant mom with two preschoolers.  Then take away her donut.  Graceful?  No. I was just trying to get by. 

Everyone reassured me the placenta previa would probably resolve by 28 weeks, but at 32 weeks, my placenta was still too close to my cervix.  Finally, an ultrasound at 38 weeks showed I was good to go for a birth center birth.  I still had a sideways baby, but one who was now occasionally trying out a head-down position.  By 40 weeks, the baby was head-down most of the time.

I decided that I would wait until 41 weeks and 2 days before having  an induction.   I made a plan with the midwives to do a castor oil/herbs/acupuncture induction at the birth center.  If that didn’t work, we’d go to UNC in the evening.  As I approached 41 weeks, we were doing all sorts of things to try to get labor going – acupuncture, membrane sweeps, spicy food. I was having some mild contractions, but nothing too serious.  A bumpy hayride on a field trip with my kids’ preschool the day before my induction seemed to do the trick:  shortly afterwards, I noticed a little bit of fluid leaking.  We had an appointment at the birth center that afternoon.  During the car ride, I was pretty sure my water had broken.  Since there was no dramatic gush, I wasn’t certain. When we got there, Kate confirmed that I was leaking amniotic fluid – I was actually going to have a baby! My husband Andy and I decided to take the kids out to eat, drop them off with my parents, and wait for labor to start. 

After dinner, my contractions had really spaced out, so we went back home.  We’d stick with our original plan of castor oil in the morning if I didn’t go into labor before then.  At home, I relaxed in the tub for a bit.  After a while, I started having some stronger contractions and decided to get into the shower.  I couldn’t have timed it better. In the shower, I had one massive contraction, and suddenly felt a lot of pressure.  I had a brief moment of panic – was I feeling pushy? – but then the pressure was suddenly relieved as my water broke with a gigantic sploooooooosh.   It was a huge flood, like in the movies.  Then my contractions stopped all together. Once I was sure I wasn’t going to be giving birth in the shower, I was grateful my water broke there and not in the living room.  I did not feel like mopping that mess up.

We went to bed but didn’t rest too well. The next morning, we got out of bed around 5:00 and were ready to get things going. Andy did his best to mask the castor oil in a chocolate shake, but I am still gagging just thinking about it.  We laid down to rest until about 6:30, until I started to feel some results from the shake.  I got into the shower around 7:00 and started having contractions about every 2 minutes.  They were short but intense.  Around 7:30, I decided it was probably time to head in, since we live over an hour away. 

I was very glad that my wonderful friend Sarah (who caught my son Elliot and was there for most of my labor with my daughter Violet) was on call.  I called her and let her know what was going on.  Once we got in the car, though, the contractions spaced out and then stopped. I was starting to think I was never actually going to go into labor.  I called my sister, Becky, who was planning on coming for the birth, and told her it might still be a while.  She decided to head in anyway (she was coming from Winston-Salem), but I told her to be prepared for a long day.  Since I wasn’t contracting anymore, we made time to stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way as an incentive for the baby. “Please get born, little one!” I begged. “Mommy can have donuts again when you’re born!”

We arrived at the birth center a little before 9:00.   I sadly informed Sarah and Helen, the nurse, that I was no longer in labor and would probably be pregnant forever.  We made a plan – Sarah would check my cervix, bind up my belly, start some herbs, and I’d keep my acupuncture appointment.  Hopefully that would get me into labor.

I was only about 4 cm dilated and the baby was still not engaged in my pelvis, but Sarah was able to stretch my cervix to 6 cm.  She bound my belly and gave me a dose of blue and black cohosh, and Andy and I went to walk around the parking lot around 9:30.  Almost immediately, I started having contractions again.  They quickly became intense and close together, but were only lasting about 30 seconds.  I told Andy, “These are too short to be real labor contractions,” and figured I would be in for a long day if I was finding this difficult.  The contractions seemed way more painful than my first two labors.  With each contraction, I would lean on Andy, and he would make a low humming noise that was really soothing to me.  Becky arrived while we were walking around the parking lot.  She walked with us and kept me laughing between contractions. 

Around 10:00, we headed back inside to check heart tones again.  I was starting to feel a little bit of pressure at the peak of my contractions, and they were definitely getting stronger.  I knew I couldn’t handle lying down for acupuncture, so we cancelled my appointment.  We  came back to the peach room and put on some music.  Now the contractions were really painful, and I was feeling a lot more pressure.  Becky went to get Sarah to come and check me again. Now I was 8 cm, but the baby was still really high.    The humming wasn’t doing it for me anymore.  I was over it; it was time to get this baby OUT.  A few minutes later, I was feeling an urge to push.  I still had a little cervix left, but with Sarah’s help was able to push through it. I was screaming like crazy and reminding everyone between contractions that “this hurts, by the way!” and wondering if maybe could I have that C-section now, please. 

I was determined to get this child out as quickly as possible.  I grabbed behind my legs, curled my chin to my chest, and tried to mentally coach myself to do everything we tell people to do when a baby needs to get born fast.  I kept asking Sarah what was happening, with the hopes that her answer would be, ”The baby is being born right this second!”  She calmly guided and encouraged me, and reassured me that the baby was moving down, and no, it wasn’t taking forever. “You’ve gone from 8 and -2 station to complete and +2 in about 10 minutes!” she told me at one point.  She may have been lying to keep me from demanding a hospital transfer, but it kept me going for a little longer.


After about a million years, Sarah told me, “Only one or two more contractions and this baby will be born!” I was grateful, because I didn’t think I could handle much more than that.  Sure enough, I soon felt that unique pain that could only be crowning, and heard myself screaming that very special crowning scream.  And then I reached down and pulled Oliver William to my chest.  It was 10:37 am.   He was born head-first, weighed 8 lbs., 1 oz., and was absolutely perfect in every way.  So maybe the beautiful, calm birth thing didn’t work out for me either, but that sweet little boy was worth it.