Green Child Magazine Winter 2015 | Page 73

Christina & Christopher Welcome Christian Alexander a fast, natural hospital birth My second pregnancy was going fine until I got to 34 weeks. I had already started to dilate, but I had also been experiencing contractions. At my 36 week visit, I was sent to labor and delivery to be monitored as I had dilated further and my contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart. We all thought that I was going to have the baby by the end of the day. and 2 hours of pushing. I went about my day only having mild contractions here and there and feeling a lot of movement, all of which I chalked up to the pelvic. I decided that it was a great day to get Chloe out to the park before the storm rolled in that evening. I walked a mile and played on the equipment and still felt great. By the time we got to L&D, my contractions slowed down to 8 to 10 minutes apart and I was showing no signs of progressing, so I was sent home. I had my mom pick up my 23 month old toddler, Chloe, for the night because at that point we all agreed that my contractions were being caused by stress and exhaustion. As the next couple weeks went by, I progressed more and I was still having on and off contractions, which they said was being caused by an irritable uterus. Later that night, the the lightning lightning started to flash beautifully across started to flash beautifully the sky and I even stepped out on to the across the sky deck to take a video of it. Soon after I started feeling the urge to use the bathroom but each time I went nothing would come. The final time I sat down to try, I felt a gush of fluids come out. I figured with the little pushes that I had done to try to go to the bathroom it was probably just pee. I stood up and even more came out. My water had broken. I started making attempts to call my husband, who was working 2nd shift in a factory, as well as call my mom to get Chloe. After 6 attempts and one call to the security desk, I finally got a phone call from my husband that he was on his way. On June 30th, 2014, I had my 38 week appointment and for once went in not feeling like I wanted to say, “Let’s get this baby out.” I hadn’t made much progress from the week before which disappointed me some but I was at least progressed further than I had with Chloe, who I went into labor and delivery only 1 cm dilated and had her after 17.5 hours of labor 73