We originally thought my due date was August 6th and I was ready a week early, so I'd been waiting quite awhile to go into labor. I was feeling more anxious to have this baby than with either Parker or Ashtyn (I think because I was ready with everything sooner). Talking with my midwife, though, we realized that we'd miscalculated the due date (the new one was actually August 14th). I wasn't expecting to go into labor when I did because of that.
Friday evening, we had Ben's sister and her kids over and I was starting to notice mucus plug discharge. With Parker, my mucus plug came out about 24 hours before we had her, so I wasn't too concerned about imminent labor. My plan was to put the girls to bed and then call my midwife and just let her know that it was probably soon.
I came downstairs after putting the girls to bed and felt my first contraction, at almost exactly 8:30. Ben was outside working on putting up fence posts with his brother, so I started picking up the house a little while I tracked the contractions. After a couple, I told Ben he'd better be done with the fence and called my midwife.
My contractions were about 30 seconds long and three minutes apart. When Donna checked me, though, I was only dilated to a 4 and not super effaced, so not as far along as I'd been with Parker. With Parker, I was dilated to a six before I had any contractions even. We later figured out it was because Rylee was turned sideways, so the right part of her head wasn't on my cervix.
The contractions also slowed down quite a bit anytime I sat down, so since it was so late and my body wasn't as ready as Donna would have liked, we decided to try to stop labor for the night. Donna had me lie down and start taking a lot of calcium.
My labor didn't stop, but it did slow quite a bit. The contractions were really intense and about a minute long, but they were seven or eight minutes apart. This allowed me to doze off between contractions and gave me quite the break between each one. This is how it was until about 12:30.
At this point, I was already four hours into labor (Parker's was three) and worried that my labor was going to be quite a bit longer, but I was trying to just relax and not worry about it. At this point, I started having back labor (which is the hardest of contractions for me), so I moved into the tub. The contractions started getting closer together and longer, so I had Donna come check me. I was dilated to an 8 (I was happy with that progress!) and she was able to feel better how Rylee was positioned.
To fix the position, she had me turn on my side and lift up my leg. She then went in with her assistant to get the bed ready. Two contractions later, I felt the immediate urge to push. Donna wanted me to push on the bed (not in the tub), so I waited two contractions of wanting to push in the tub, breathing so I wouldn't push.
We got me on the bed and three pushes later, Rylee was here. The pushing, even though it was so short, was really intense and I actually had a hard time with it. I was glad it was so short, for that reason. Rylee had the cord around her neck and was purple, so we got her on some oxygen pretty quick. She was a cutie, crying to get the air into her. She'd start turning purple and cry until she turned pink, then stop unless she started turning purple again. It was amazing to watch.
It turned out to be a five hour labor. It didn't go exactly how I had wanted it to, mostly because of Rylee's position, but I thought it was a beautiful labor and in many ways it was easier than Parker's. I had wanted to end, intense part of labor and the pushing time to be shorter with this labor than Parker's and those were, even though the actual labor was longer. Because the first four hours, I had such long breaks between contractions (and the first two hours the contractions weren't really intense at all), I felt very happy with how it all went.
And now we get to just enjoy our baby. 💗
