The Birth Story

With my due date quickly approaching and night after night of false labor (16 hours one night), I was losing my patience. I was uncomfortable, swollen, out of breath and in pain a lot of the time. I took an unofficial poll of my friends on facebook to see how they suggested I get this baby out. Castor oil and sex were the top picks, sex had not worked up until then. So J went out to buy castor oil. I was nervous about taking it, it hadn't worked for some people, others threw up from it, but I needed to do something. I had also asked my doula abt it and she didn't seem to recommend it unless you are facing an induction with pitocin.

So once the kids were in bed, J mixed 4 tbsp of castor oil with a small amount of ice cream. It wasn't as bad as I expected and I would recommend the ice cream method to anyone thinking of trying it. 2 1/2 hours later I threw up. I was disappointed that it hadn't worked and was not willing to try it again. About an hour later I realized that I had not thrown it all up and what was in me began to work. After several trips to the bathroom, it had done its job.

I went to bed around 11. At midnight I was having some contractions but was able to sleep and kept remembering all the false labor I had been having. At 2:30 I got up to go to the bathroom and began having awful back labor with the contractions 4-6 minutes apart and lasting about a minute. This all started very suddenly with J insisting the contractions were very close together. I called my doula who suggested we meet at the hospital rather than at my house. The contractions kept coming, now abt 3-4 minutes apart.
We just grabbed my bag and left, I decided I would be better off on the floor in the back of the car on my hands on knees with my body pillow. As I got into the car my water broke. J raced to the hospital and actually had a cop pull in behind us at the hospital but I guess we were excused! The contractions kept coming quickly.

On the way to labor delivery I had 3 contractions. Once we got into the room, they kept coming. I went into the bathroom to change into a gown when I had another contraction and felt the head coming down. The nurse wanted to check the heart rate but I was in too much pain to lie on my back in the bed. I got onto my hands and knees and she tried to find the heart rate, she said it was too low and I should change positions. Turns out she was picking up my heart rate bc the baby was so far down.
He then decided he was ready to be born and was "caught" by the nurse. My doctor didn't make it in time! It was the best birth I have ever had, which have included a c-section after a failed version, a vbac with epidural and pitocin and some tearing. It has been 30 hrs since he was born, I feel great, am sooooo ready to go home.

The big question that belongs on this blog......how are the hips? Remember, my first ever groin pain came right after my last delivery, with the epidural, feet in stirrups, hips being forcibly flexed. This was so fast there was none of that and I feel absolutely no hip pain today at all.

I will continue to monitor in the coming weeks but I am pretty sure that I was able to have successful hip arthroscopy followed by a pregnancy only 5 months later. So yes, it can be done. On a side note, if you are able to I highly recommend getting a doula for birth, it was such a great experience, even though I only used her for a short amount of time.