Lisa's Unexpected Birth Story of Meagan
Meagan is my second child. After 3 days of gentle, hugging sensations coming every 5 minutes, not increasing in length or intensity, I visited my midwife (a 45 min drive).
I was hooked up to an EFM for over an hour, during which time I had no contractions at all. An internal exam revealed that I was less than 10% effaced, not very "ripe" or soft in the cervix and less than 2cm dilated. I was told to go home, relax, and call in the morning to schedule my prenatal appointment for next week.
I felt like a failure for driving 45 minutes on a false alarm and we returned home that night (after renting a movie and eating dinner) at about 9pm. We watched the movie after putting my older daughter to bed and somewhere in the middle of the movie I found myself needing to have a bowel movement. The bowel movement feeling never ended.
I was so frustrated. An hour after the movie was over, it was still going on with sharp pains every 2 minutes. I was logging the times on a notepad, not fully believing it could be labor. At some point I filled the bathtub up and went in for relief but discovered the water was cold. I collapsed on the floor crying (transition) and after a few minutes I realized that contractions had stopped.
I ran into the living room to wake my husband. I said "I think it's time". I didn't want him to worry unnecessarily, and since we were told (less than 12 hours ago) that we had a long way to go- I had to convince him that it was real. We got into the car and headed for the midwife.
Meagan was born in the car 10 minutes from our house.
