Can I just say I knew next to nothing about babies or pregnancy when I learned I was pregnant with my first child. I was teaching 3rd and 4th grade at the time and would literally completely forget I was pregnant during the course of my busy days in the classroom. I had given up birth control because of the side effects I was experiencing and so we were implementing "The Family Planning" method. Didn't exactly help us ward off a pregnancy, but God had different plans. Getting a nice cushion of my salary for five years like I had planned in my head was not going to happen. After I became pregnant, there was once that I went to the bathroom at school and saw some slimy, alien-looking thing in the toilet and ran back to my classroom to google if it was possible to have a painless miscarriage with no bleeding! For the rest of that day in between teaching about personal narratives and multiplication I tried to come to terms with the fact that I had lost my baby. Looking back, this is the most ridiculous thing in the world, but you know how you get during those first few weeks of pregnancy. You are just nervous about every little thing. Needless to say, my pregnancy progressed as normal.
Jadon Scott Gilmour decided to enter this world on May 31, 2007, six days before his due date. I had decided to take a family leave in the middle of May and not finish out the school year so I could have some peace and a little time to prepare for his arrival. Like I said earlier, my first year of teaching required every last ounce of my physical, emotional, and mental energy and I almost paid no attention to the little guy while teaching unless he started kicking and contracting. I had Braxton Hicks contractions pretty early in my pregnancy beginning around month 7. By my last day of work I was 36 1/2 weeks pregnant and already 4 centimeters dialated! My coworkers were shocked each day I kept showing up. The doctor had long since told me to pack my bags, but I finally went into labor just about three weeks after coming home from work.
During my pregnancy I decided that I wanted to try to have a natural childbirth. This was mostly because of fear of an epidural because of a friend from high school whose mom was paralyzed due to a botched epidural. I know the odds are like one in a million, but I happened to have personal contact with that "one". I read a Bradley book and talked to other women who had experienced natural childbirth to prepare. I had a really laid back doctor who told me to skip the hospital classes because they were a waste of time. It was good advice for my personality. I loved reading the Bradley book--and yes, looking at the pictures--because for me, knowledge is power and it gave me greater peace to know what I was in for!
I was out at the pool with my in-laws having lunch and watching my husband play tennis between 11 and 12 that morning. (Ha, those were the days!) Anyway, we were sitting having lunch and I started to put my head down a lot. My mother-in-law asked if I was in labor and I said I had no idea, probably not. The lady working in the pro-shop brought us a clock and sure enough they were coming consistently 7 minutes apart. Scotty and I finished lunch and decided to head back home. I had a couple contractions in the car, but that didn't stop me from having Scotty drive thru McDonald's and get me an ice cream cone. :) When I got home, Scotty had to head up to his work at a nearby high school to finish entering some grades for the end of the year report cards. While he was gone, I remember showering and blow drying my hair between contractions. So funny! By the time he came back home they were far more intense and getting closer together. When Scotty got home I was starting to "freak out". I was losing control of the pain and I remember rolling all over my bed in pain and screaming. That was when Scotty called my friend, Carla, a physical therapist who had had two children naturally. We had already planned to have her there as my doula of sorts, but were a little slow in actually calling her to come over. God used her in a tremendous way to calm me down and get me back in control of my contractions. She helped me get "in the zone" and from that point on people said I looked like I was asleep. This is hilarious to me. The last thing I was, was asleep!! However, I was so in my own world and trying to relax into my contractions that I lost all track of time and had no clue who was around. This went on for several hours. Eventually, I told Carla that I needed to poop. I remember leaning against the bathroom wall in my house when she said, "Wait a second, are you pushing?" I was definitely pushing and there was no poop coming out! She told me to get in the car and I rode in her van on my hands and knees to the hospital. I found out after the fact that I transitioned on the way to the hospital. When I arrived I declined the wheelchair and they quickly realized I was in full fledged labor. There was no way that I was going to sit down at this point! When they checked me I was 10 centimeters dilated! I was totally shocked by this. I had mentally been gearing up to go "all night" like so many stories you hear. Anyway, they got me into a labor & delivery room and 45 minutes later with the help of an episiotomy and suction Jadon Scott Gilmour entered the world at 6:57 p.m. My first words out of my mouth after giving birth? "I am never doing that again!" Well, if you know me you know that Reece and Vera Grace have made a liar out of their mommy! The experience was thrilling, amazing, agonizing, but also one of the most worshipful experiences in my life.
For the record, I have had three natural childbirths and two episiotomies. I thought the recovery from my episiotomies was bad until my midwife missed the delivery (she was scrubbed into a c-section at the time) of Vera Grace, my third, and I pushed her out with no coaching or intervention and tore to the front. Four months later I was finally back to my new "normal". The third time around I really wanted a zero intervention labor. That is what I got, but it wasn't all I had dreamed. I'm not sure what my opinion is about episiotomies, but if I had to make a decision based on my birth experiences I would say "cut me open!" (Sorry for being crass, but that is just exactly how you feel when you are at the end of labor and just want it to be over. Are you with me, moms?)
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