Abigail's Birth Story

My Mom's all about birth stories, though after 36 years all I know about mine was it was a Friday and storming.

Before it's completely lost in sleep deprivation forgetfulness, I better get Abigail's down on record.

To give things the most accurate time line, it all started 12:00am Feb. 3rd. That's midnight on Tuesday for those of us that think of midnight as the end of the day.

At this point false labor started for Jen. The contractions weren't consistent by any means, but were enough to keep her from sleeping well. By the morning when I got up, they'd subsided and remained that way for most of the day. Due to the lack of sleep, some new snow, and general feelings of being over-pregnant, Jen decided to work from home that day.

Skip ahead to Wednesday night. I went for a ride with Sean (his dog Yoshi), Rick and Rob at the Dtown trails. With some fresh snow, it was an awesome ride. Sean and I were ripping up the trails pretty well. The dogs had a blast keeping up, while Rick and Rob were glad not to be pummeled by the normal Wednesday night group.

After the ride we were off to the bar to get a bite to eat when I got a text message while waiting to be seated.

"Come home. I think it's starting." It read.

I showed the text to Rob, then ran out the door.

Time now is 8:30pm Wednesday night Feb. 3rd.

She had started her iPhone contraction tracker log around 8pm. Here's what we had so far.

Date/Time	Duration	Frequency
2/3/10 7:59 PM	00:26.0
8:04 PM	00:29.6	04:38.7
8:08 PM	00:24.7	04:32.3
8:19 PM	00:37.8	10:06.5
8:25 PM	00:19.6	06:25.8
8:28 PM	00:23.1	03:01.4
8:31 PM	00:23.9	03:09.3
8:35 PM	00:52.8	03:38.4
8:42 PM	02:18.0	06:42.1
8:45 PM	00:29.3	03:37.5
8:52 PM	00:38.3	06:21.5
8:54 PM	00:29.7	02:54.8
8:57 PM	00:31.1	02:36.6
8:59 PM	00:37.3	02:19.8
9:02 PM	00:23.9	02:38.3
9:04 PM	00:33.8	02:18.0
9:06 PM	00:29.1	01:59.7
Avg	00:36.9	04:11.3

The scene at home was a little chaotic. Jen was running around trying to get things ready, take a bath, and eat some food all the while having contractions. She hadn't gotten very far with any of it and had actually dropped her glass of water into the tub.

First thing to do was clean up the broken glass from under the water in the tub - not an easy task. After that, while she took a bath, I cooked her up some perogies and myself some frozen pizzas. Then I took a shower and we continued packing things.

Date/Time	Duration	Frequency
11:43 PM	00:38.3
11:50 PM	00:09.6	07:16.0
11:56 PM	00:45.5	05:44.7
2/4/10 12:02 AM	00:25.9	06:23.5
12:08 AM	00:16.4	05:36.2
12:14 AM	00:45.6	06:47.6
Avg	00:30.2	06:21.6

Beyond the time in the bath I'm not sure why the lapse in contraction logging was so long. You can see when we were tracking again things slowed down a little, so we went to bed shortly after midnight Feb. 4th.

3am. We were up again with more contractions, so we decided to try and watch a movie ("Knocked Up" of all movies). That lasted 15 minutes before Jen's contractions were distracting her from the movie.

Back upstairs we tried some contraction coping techniques, like laying on an exercise ball.

Again, there was a lag in starting the contraction log, but you can see the average contraction duration has nearly doubled.

Date/Time	Duration	Frequency
6:04 AM	00:57.6
6:09 AM	00:41.0	04:18.1
6:13 AM	00:49.9	04:40.3
6:20 AM	01:10.2	06:18.6
6:24 AM	00:46.6	00:01.2
6:30 AM	01:09.7	05:25.2
6:39 AM	01:24.8	09:56.1
6:48 AM	00:53.5	08:27.5
6:55 AM	00:52.2	06:42.9
7:08 AM	01:03.6	12:57.1
7:12 AM	00:30.0	04:22.3
7:16 AM	01:16.4	04:30.2
7:22 AM	01:05.0	05:51.9
7:28 AM	00:36.5	05:29.0
7:36 AM	00:02.3	08:10.8
7:38 AM	00:24.1	02:07.0
7:41 AM	00:42.3	02:52.6
7:46 AM	00:48.1	05:20.0
7:50 AM	00:41.0	03:35.3
7:54 AM	01:32.8	03:36.1
8:00 AM	01:00.4	06:08.6
8:06 AM	00:55.3	06:27.3
8:17 AM	00:24.2	10:41.7
Avg	00:51.6	05:49.1

I remember at some point we were back in bed around 7am thinking we'd be at the Birth Center before lunch to "get down to business."

Then this happened.

Date/Time	Duration	Frequency
8:32 AM	00:06.4
8:38 AM	01:14.1	05:44.3
8:42 AM	00:37.1	04:05.6
8:48 AM	00:53.6	05:50.1
8:55 AM	00:47.5	07:12.9
9:00 AM	00:20.3	04:39.6
9:11 AM	00:42.0	11:18.0
9:17 AM	00:45.2	06:20.8
9:27 AM	00:23.1	09:51.1
Avg	00:38.8	06:52.8

The average contraction duration fell back and the frequency got farther apart.

???

Jen called the Birth Center and explained the situation. We were now a little over twelve hours and the contractions seemed to be going backwards not progressing. The mid-wife considered it all false labor and said some good rest would be best. She prescribed some Ambien, which I went and got, in hopes that Jen could get a few hours sleep, then we'd see where things were.

She started the Ambien at 10am and this is how things went.

Date/Time	Duration	Frequency
10:21 AM	00:45.9
10:26 AM	00:21.2	05:01.3
10:33 AM	00:42.4	06:57.8
10:40 AM	00:40.7	07:01.3
10:48 AM	00:38.4	07:42.9
10:53 AM	00:18.2	05:06.9
10:59 AM	01:11.8	06:33.0
11:06 AM	00:49.7	06:49.4
11:13 AM	01:06.2	06:39.2
11:18 AM	00:42.6	05:27.8
11:28 AM	00:59.4	09:12.0
11:44 AM	00:55.0	16:44.6
11:52 AM	00:56.3	07:52.4
11:59 AM	00:44.0	06:19.5
12:10 PM	06:06.5	11:20.0
12:22 PM	01:26.3	12:25.8
12:28 PM	01:02.7	05:31.4
12:32 PM	00:46.6	04:01.6
12:33 PM	00:47.5	01:07.2
12:53 PM	00:30.9	20:03.0
12:54 PM	00:03.2	00:46.7
Avg	01:01.7	07:38.2

First and foremost, she didn't sleep. You can see the duration of the contractions went up, which is good, but the frequency got longer which is bad.

So we called the Birth Center again. They said come in and they'll "take a look."

To be continued...

- b