Birth Story of the Month

Mom called to let me know that her waters had released. I crossed my fingers and hoped that the mild contractions she was experiencing would pick-up their intensity before we saw the sun rise on the next day. At about 11:15 pm that evening I received a phone call from dad. Mom was in the shower with 45 second long contractions coming every 6 minutes or so. They'd been this way for about an hour and we decided that it would be appropriate for me to come join them at home. I had no doubt now, that baby was on the way!
At home mom had found herself a comfortable position lying on the living room floor. Calmly relaxing as she watched TV. She was coping perfectly with every contraction, breathing slowly and deeply, rocking her hips. Around 1 am mom decided that she wanted to move to the hospital to avoid the cold bumpy ride at a later and more challenging point of labour.
By 2:25 am the couple is being admitted to Labour and Delivery. She was about 3 cm dilated and baby's heart rate was strong and healthy. As soon as the nurse was willing to remove the monitors,mom moved into the shower. For close to the next 2 hours she followed the lead of her body and moved into various positions in the shower. Dad never left her side and together we made sure she had warm blankets, towels to kneel and rest on, cool water to drink and satisfied any other needs we could to help mom stay on top of the powerful contractions.
Just before 5 am, mom decided to come out of the shower. Missing a night of sleep combined with the efforts of labour were making her pretty tired. As mom lay on her side in the bed dad put on some music for her. I marveled at how smart mom's body was to allow her contractions to slow and spread out just a little bit, as if to help her rest and regain some energy. We used some hot packs under her belly and on her back to ease the ache of these intense contractions. As I used a bit of counter pressure on mom's back, I over-heard her whisper to dad; “I don't think I can do this”. I don't know what words of encouragement dad was whispering back to her, but through the next hour he kept his arms around her and told her exactly what she needed to hear.
By 6:30 am mom had gotten up to use the wash room and started sounding a bit “grunty” . What a delight to hear the nurse announce that mom was fully dilated! Mom expertly followed her body's pushing efforts and began the hard work of bringing baby through the birth canal into this world. The OB impressed me by encouraging mom to spend some time pushing on the toilet. But when she tired of that, she pushed kneeling on the bed while leaning over the back. Dad and I worked to keep her cool with wash cloths on her neck and back.
The OB was starting to feel discouraged that nearly 3 hours of pushing had not yet delivered a baby. She felt that mom need some pitocin to augment her labour. But as the nurses changed shifts, I laughed in delight as our new nurse insisted (and proved) that some nipple stimulation and acupressure to strengthen the contractions, along with some good pushes in a squatting position would bring down this baby. Sure enough at 9:25 am a baby boy came lustfully crying into this world. He weighed 8 lbs. 5 oz at 20 inches long.
BEAUTIFUL!