Positive Hospital Water Birth

I lurked here for my entire pregnancy and I loved reading birth stories, so I thought I might contribute! First off, Charles!

I was due July 1st and finished working June 26th- those last days were torture!! On the morning of the 3rd I sat down on the couch at 7 AM with my coffee and a book finally coming to terms with the fact that it will happen when it happens. Then I coughed...and my water broke! I wasn't having any real contractions or anything, so I called the doctor's office and was told to see how things went and come by 1 PM if things hadn't really progressed. We went out for breakfast and packed up the house and headed to the hospital. We were hoping we would be checked out and sent home to do early labor but we were prepared to be kept if need be. Glad we were because the doctor said she really strongly recommended we stay and essentially now we are on a timeline! She didn't want me to go more than 12 hours without progressing (aka she would induce) and no more than 18 hours without giving birth. We had really wanted a natural birth, so this pressure was not my ideal plan.

By now it's 1 PM and we are told to walk around to make things happen and later the doctor would come in and check on us-they also said, there was some bag intact and she would break it if I wanted then. SO now I was stressed that things weren't really moving, but we walked around and I had some contractions start. She came back in around 4PM and I was actually at 4CM! She broke the bag more (it's like a LOT of liquid in there ladies) and that's when things started really moving. The rest os my timeline is really kind of a blur to be honest. I tried sitting in bed, on all fours and on the ball. None of these were comfortable- and if I had tried to push through labor those ways I would have certainly gotten an epidural! We went into the shower and it was heaven! We spent seriously like 4 hours in there I was sitting in a chair with the hand sprayer on my belly. I leaned back to be in kind of a straight line and worked really hard to relax my belly when contractions came. If I did relax my stomach, things went pretty smoothly, if I tensed up it was like riding through a really bad muscle cramp. Word to the wise, bring a bathing suit and flip flops for your coach!

We went on like this for several hours (I think is was around 9 PM) when the Dr. came back in and I was at 8 CM! She asked if I wanted to try the tub and I certainly did! From there things went pretty fast and around 10:30 I said "I think I need to push soon" then I tried moving in the tub and a push happened! I had been VERY quiet the whole time, but when pushing started, I sounded like a bleating goat gone tribal chant. My throat really hurt the next day because of it. The Dr. checked that I was actually ready to push and asked me if I wanted a water birth. I said, I'm here, it's happening here," I wasn't freaking moving! Pushing took an hour and a half and out came my baby boy at 12:01 AM on the 4th of July. Afterwards I had to crawl over to the bed to get stitched up (second degree tear and a small tear upwards-ouch!). The room looked like something out of a crime scene but they cleaned it up quickly. I was surprised that for having a natural birth I had to stay in bed for almost 3 hours afterwards (I was getting really antsy and also had to pee). I can't even tell you how proud I felt to have delivered naturally a 9lb 11 oz baby! I still can't believe it really.