My birth story has elements of dreaminess and mysticism because that’s how I experienced it. I used notes from the doula and phone call/text records to figure out the timelines because after a certain point my mind was very much in the here-and-now and not looking at the clock.
We were almost certainly based on first pregnancy and my maternal history that our baby girl, Michelle, would be at least one week late and probably long labor.
A birth story. Wyatt was induced on Monday, October 4 at 7 AM. We headed into Sibley to meet Wyatt, coffee in hand and bags by our sides.
This mercifully brief tale begins on a balmy Wednesday in September. September 23rd to be precise. It was the Fall Solstice, Pope Francis was making an apostolic journey, something about a blood moon was going on–no way we’re having a baby during this series of cosmic coincidences. Our baby and the doctors at GW felt differently, however.
I started with pre-labor at about 4 am on Friday. My contractions were actually fairly regular, but not very strong, 1 minute long, every 5-6 minutes. This lasted until about 7, at which time they were slowing down to every 7-15 minutes. I decided to go to work (I walk to work, so I thought it would be good!) and take care of a few things since active labor might happen soon! The fairly weak contractions continued their sporadic 7-15 minute time course, also varying in duration. I bounced on my ball at work for a couple of hours, then decided to work from home for the rest of the day (my boss is pretty chill and I was one of two people actually at work anyway!).