Thinking About A Year Ago. . .

This was originally written on Wednesday, April 15, 2009:

I can't believe Logan's #1 birthday is this Saturday! I thought I'd take time tonight to reflect on life a year ago. I'm thankful I have my blog to keep the memories alive :)

Those of you who were reading a year ago might remember that today (April 15th), was my 36th week check-up with my OBGYN! (I'm Almost 4 CM Dilated) It was the first and only time I was checked for dilation. I'm probably one of the few women who actually had been looking forward to being checked - I just needed something. It had been a long pregnancy. I was more than ready to be done. Even though I still had a month to go, I was clearly at the same stage as a 40-weeker. My baby was almost 8 pounds and I had all of the symptoms of someone in their last week. Logan had grown quickly during his last 4-5 months (my original due date was May 13, then May 9, then May 2nd), so I didn't get off easy or anything by missing those last 25 days, lol. Even though my third trimester was the best/easiest, I'd borne my cross. :p

So, I didn't care if I was only a half cm, I just wanted to know that my pregnancy was finally coming to an end soon. My worst fear was that my doctor was going to say I had every chance of going late. If that was the case, I wanted to prepare myself. But instead she said "no way" was I going to be late. At almost 4 cm dilated she predicted I was going to go early. She was right. Two-and-a-half days later (on April 18, 2008), Logan James entered the world!

It was a super fast labor (3 hrs) that could have been faster if my pushing phase hadn't added another 4 hrs to that. Did you know you're supposed to try and poop during labor? I was afraid I was going to poop and so I didn't push out my butt until the last hour when my doctor said, "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it because it's working!" I've often replayed that scene in my mind and wondered could things have gone differently if I would have focused on my butt and not my front those first three hours? Excuse me for thinking that a baby comes out the front. :p Nobody told me you should pretend you're pooping! Here I read everything under the sun, went to class, but all they prepared me for was the dilation phase. No one taught me how to push.

Well I didn't even turn out to have the typical dilation experience, I don't know what it's like to have normal contractions. I went from feeling absolutely nothing when my water broke to then the strongest degree of menstrual-like cramps (i.e. they never changed or built up or got any worse from the first to the last. The only difference was when they began they were one minute apart and then switched to not even a second apart when I was 10 cm dilated). Those three hours were such a whirlwind, no time to think (plus, I did hypnobirthing techniques for a natural labor), that when it was time to push I just expected Logan was going to come as fast as everything else had been going.

Who knows, maybe he still wouldn't have slipped right out since I had the pelvis issue and he was changing positions (came out posterior), but I seriously don't feel I was even pushing right until my final hour. I never pooped, but I would have preferred to poop rather than have a 4-hr pushing phase. :p So next time, watch out people down there, because as soon as I feel the need to push I'm pushing out my butt. :/

Thankfully, I have statistics on my side as far as second labors are generally shorter than the first. In fact, on average they are half the time. Of course there is always an exception to every rule, but if there are no serious complications, then according to nature I will dilate faster than the three hours it took me with Logan, and then because my pelvis has already separated once (when Logan finally came out) it should stretch easier next time, thus making my pushing phase quicker (especially if baby #2 is in the right position, and next time I'll be in the proper position to help).

Apparently contractions come quicker and stronger with subsequent labors as well, and there is less tearing/trauma to the vagina. On the downside, apparently recovery is usually harder. That's too bad because I don't even consider myself to have had a recovery with Logan - I remember being in the hospital for Logan's jaundice during his first week and thinking it was amazing that I felt so good physically. (Way better than when I was pregnant!) I had no pain or any discomfort anywhere in my body. I hadn't torn during childbirth and so I stopped bleading by the end of that first week and looked completely normal "down there." I also lost most of my weight within two weeks post partum and sadly had a flatter stomach last summer after I had a baby than I do now but that's a whole different subject. :( Apparently the uterus has a harder time shrinking back the second time and so women sometime experience such painful contractions in the days/weeks following birth that they have to take pain medication.

There's also a 50% chance that my second baby will come early since Logan came 25 days early. (There doesn't seem to be a pattern for those who are on time or late with their first baby.) It's hard to know whether Logan was early because he got into the posterior position which broke the water which then started my labor, or whether I would have gone into labor 25 days early anyway. (After all, I was dilated to almost 4 cm by 36 weeks.) My mom went into labor at 30 wks, but her mom had three babies and wasn't early with any of them (I don't know the childbirth history of my grandma's mom or their mothers because nobody talked/kept records of those sort of things back then. But in my post last August titled Okay. . .I'm Ready For My First Break, I wrote about how both my mom & grandma had 2 to 4 hr labors which is genetic).

Finally, my next baby is probably going to be bigger - but it's not as scary as the horror stories. Statisics show it is usually only by 5 oz. (Also, generally women don't gain as much with subsequent pregnancies so I shouldn't be up 42 pounds again!)

I guess I will find out in a couple of years!