Up All Night- The Growing Prysocks

{Warning: long post}

I woke up at 2:30am on the morning of July 3^rd having contractions. In our {wonderful} Bradley Birth Class, they recommended that if you started having contractions early in the morning, you should try and get some more rest, which is precisely what I did. I slept until about 4:30am at which point the contractions were strong enough that I couldn’t sleep through them any more.

In an effort to not disturb my sleepy and overworked husband on his 3 day weekend, I moved to the living room and began timing my contractions. They were not in any sort of pattern at all, but I was excited that they didn’t seem to be going away. At 6:30am, David noticed I wasn’t in bed anymore and came to find me. I explained what was going on and urged him to go back to bed. He complied for about 2 minutes before reappearing and declaring that he could not possibly sleep. He was too excited by the prospect of finally meeting Jonah.

We timed the contractions together for awhile {read: basically all day} and decided to slowly get ready and go for a walk to see if the contractions would fall into a pattern. We called the midwife at about 8:30am and gave her the run-down of the situation. She encouraged our desire to go for a walk and instructed us to call her back with any progress.

Our walk started outside. At 9:00am. It was blazing hot. So we quickly {an hour later} moved the party to Central Market. Which was air-conditioned and had a plethora of snacks for the pregnant lady to munch on. Much better.

After about 2 hours of walking, the contractions were not falling into a pattern. I was very disappointed, figuring that I had been mistaken and Jonah would not be making his arrival that day. We headed home and I napped in between contractions for a couple of hours. The midwife called and suggested I take a bath to slow down the contractions, which would give me a chance to rest.

The contractions continued to be random all afternoon. One would be 1 ½ minutes long and the next would be 30 seconds. They would be 4 minutes apart and then 15 minutes apart. Finally, around 5pm, we made the decision that Jonah clearly wouldn’t be joining us that day and we decided to have a mini-date night. We hopped in the car to go get a pizza for dinner.

Not two minutes down the road, I had a strong contraction that lasted 1 minute long. And the entire rest of the ride, they were exactly 7 minutes apart. We came home, ate the pizza and {attempted} to watch a movie. Eventually, we had to turn the movie off because the contractions were too strong. David was amazing during this time. He got me water in between contractions, massaged my back, and comforted me during the contractions. At 7:30pm, he called the midwife and she instructed us to come to the birth center to see if I was progressing.

We arrived at 8:30pm and I was 4cm dilated. She sent us on a walk around the adjacent park for one hour with the instructions to walk through each contraction.

It. Was. Torture.

We walked outside. For an hour. In the blazing heat. Through spider webs. Yuck.

David was dragging me through each contraction reminding me of the midwife’s instructions. Like I cared {I was definitely my grumpiest at this point}.

When we went back inside at 9:30pm, I was dilated to 6cm. The midwife encouraged us to stay and broke my water. The contractions came on much stronger at this point. We turned on some music, which I happily sang to in between contractions. David continued to be amazing, offering things to drink and rubbing my back through each contractions. I moved to the {giant} bathtub at some point and labored in the water for a while.

Finally, it was time to push. I remember the midwife glancing at the clock and saying, “I don’t think this baby is going to wait until the 4^th.” And she was right. At 11:24pm, after 9 minutes of pushing, baby Jonah Matthew was born.

The entire process was absolutely amazing. David was the best coach. He was considerate and tireless in his efforts to make me as comfortable as possible. I relied on him so much and can honestly say I could not have done it without him.

I always was slightly afraid that I would be screaming at David during the entire process {you know, like all the women in movies do?} But that never happened. I was so grateful the entire time for his presence. I was also nervous that I would struggle with the unmedicated aspect of the birth. I thought I would be begging for an epidural. But that never happened either. The techniques we learned in the Bradley class came to my mind at just the right moment {a work of the LORD, no doubt} and, by God’s grace, I was able to handle each contraction with a clear mind, remembering that each one brought me closer to meeting our sweet baby.

{Mama and Jonah after a hard night's work}