Birthing our Peanut

I was fully prepared to go 10days over due and to endure labor for at least 20 hours. I had read and re read about the different stages of labor, I had bought the birthing ball, aromatherapy oils, and snacks for Stephen for the long road of labour that I was sure to endure. I started having contractions in the early morning of April 15th, Lincoln's due date. I was sure they were false labor, as I had had lots of false labour in the weeks before. I got annoyed when i couldn't sleep through these 'false labours' and decided to get up and read my book around 3am. Not a big deal I thought, i could just catch up on my sleep the next day. When I couldn't read through my contractions, and had to start pacing Lincoln's nursery, I was still sure I was in false labor. Annoying, strong false labor. By 4:30, after doing my 'false labor' by myself for 1.5 hours and it only getting stronger I decided to wake Stephen up. He told me later that when I woke him he thought to himself "can't I just sleep little longer, this is going to be such a long process anyways" Lucky for him he did not voice that wish and got out of bed. The 'false labour' was quite strong by this point, as I paced through out kitchen trying to get through each one. By this point I thought I should maybe call my midwife, but felt really bad for calling her so early in the morning. I decided to wait at least until 5:30. Since it was just false labour. By 5:15 I was on the phone with my mid wife, explaining what was happening. She suggested that I sit in the tub or the shower, also thinking we had a long normal road ahead of us. And then she heard me do a contraction over the phone. She said quickly "I think I will come over check you out." So I decide to go into the shower like she suggested. I don't know who thought that going in the shower is supposed to make contractions any easier because it doesn't. Once I emerged and went to the bathroom I had some 'bloody show', at this point I looked at Stephen and said "honey, this baby is coming today!" After this I remember being in the baby's room, leaning over my birthing ball doing my contractions. I remember at points hitting the wall violently during my contractions. I remember telling Stephen "GO AWAY" as another contraction ripped through my body. I remember saying things like "I don't want to have this baby" " Little baby why do you hurt so much coming out?" "I'm going to die" "I dont want to do this" " I can't do this" I also remember saying rather frantically "I need Becky (my midwife) Where is Becky? Stephen CALL BECKY!!!" I think she arrived around 6:15, found me on the floor, slamming my fist into the carpet. She said "I think we should check to see how far along you are" I was fully expecting 4 maybe 5 cm. I couldn't believe how intense this early labor was, and how I was supposed to endure 20 hours of this. So we get up on the bed and she says "You are 8cm. We need to get you to the hospial now" So Stephen call's my mom, we hurry around trying to finish getting packed up, and my mom walks in the door just as we are walking out to rush to the hospital. On the way to the hospital my wonderful husband tries to give me a suggestion on how best to do a contraction in the my midwife's minivan, I responded with a gentle "STEPHEN SHUT UP!" I also remember at one point seeing a light turn yellow and yelling at my midwife "GO! GO! GO!". She was very smart and went through the red light. I always wondered what it would be like to be that women being pushed hurriedly through the hospital in a wheel chair, screaming because she is in full blown labor. Well now I know, and it didn't feel that great. I remember being in the wheel chair and saying quite loudly "I feel like i have to poop!" We got to the hospital around 7am ( I think, i wasn't really watching the clock)and they were ready for us, as my midwife had called ahead, they rush us into a room, and the most amazing nurse was there to help my midwife. I was on the floor going through a contraction and she comes over and says "Cher honey, if you nee to push you can push" And I looked at her and sad desperately "But I don't know how!" Well, I figured it out farely quickly. Pushing was the best part of the labour. I found it very manageable, since I was in control. Once i started the pushing part of my labor, I never had that huge urge that I thought I would have to push. It was just like , ok I think I should push now, and so I would push. The little rests between pushes were amazing. I remember during one of these little rests my mom said, "You know Cher, both you and Chris were born before 8:00am". I looked at the clock and said, "Well then we have 10 minutes to get this baby out!" We all laughed, no one thinking it would actually happen. Low and behold 7:59am Lincoln was born. My water still hadn't broke when i began pushing. Everyone (being my midwife, a nurse, Stephen and my mom) kept saying "I see the water, I see the water!" I kept thinking, that's great that you can see the water, but I am trying to birth the baby, where is the baby? So my midwife broke my water and after that they could see Linc's hair. But no one told me that they could see hair for quite a while. So I am sitting there thinking man I have a lot pushing ahead of me, we haven't even seen the head or anything! Then someone made some comment about seeing hair or a head and I was like what! you can see the head! Well let's get this baby out! I remember only once having an uncontrollable scream, don't get me wrong, I made lots of noise, but only once was even i surprised and a little scared of the noise that came from my body. Probably because our little Linc decided to sit with his head half way out for about 15 minutes of pushing! When Linc was born and place on my stomach, it was unbelievable. All i kept thinking was "i did it! I did it! Its over. And I did it!" It was quite a few minutes and then I hear my mom say "Well let's find out what it is!" And they hold up our little peanut "It's a boy!" It didn't matter. He was here, he was healthy. I had 2 hair line tears, not enough to stitch. I lost more blood than they realized so i had to be on an IV for most of the rest of that day. I had never had an IV before that. I also was so weak from the loss of blood, they had to do a cathader....that was almost worse than the baby! The hospital food sucked. My dad, Siloam and best friend Ashley sent us amazing bouquets of flowers. The one thing I found most surprising, beside giving birth on my due date, and in under 5 hours, was how badly the contractions hurt after he was born. They hurt even the next day. So that's it, that's how it went down. Next time we are going to just sleep in the parking lot of the hospital, or if I get my way, just do it at home!