I got in the tub and started to relax. Kevin put away the groceries. Slowly the contractions started to space out, so I got out of the tub. I went to lay down on the bed and started watching the baby move. The baby was all over the place. Kevin was amazed at how much the baby moved. Then the baby did this huge flip and went transverse, literally I had the head on one side and rear on the other. I called the midwife.
She said she’d come over and check us out. Kevin got excited but upset because we couldn’t have a homebirth with a transverse baby. I did knee chest position and used a hot pack and a cold pack to encourage baby to turn back to head down. By the time she got here the baby had turned back to a head down position. Baby sounds great and we hung out and chatted for awhile. The contractions were still five minutes apart, but just very low key, if that makes sense. She offered to stay but we sent her home to sleep.
Because the contractions were tolerable, Kevin and I turned off the lights and tried to get some sleep ourselves. It was a fitful night but we did manage some sleep. I got up to get in the tub a couple of times. If I called out, Kevin came. I was now realizing that this was not going to be the fast labor I’d had before with my last two kids, but I didn’t think about the ultimate question of how much longer?
Saturday morning, I was emotionally exhausted. I was really depressed. I knew that would get me in the end. I talked to Kevin and told him that physically I was hanging in there but emotionally I was a wreck. We decided to live our lives as usual. So we left the house. We went and got the hospital grade breast pump in case the baby didn’t nurse. Then Kevin and I went to walk around the mall, Lilah was with us. We had lunch and mostly people watched. The walking was painful but good.
Back home we had a brief nap as I kept contracting. It was more like I laid in bed, pretending to sleep and floating in and out of light sleep. Whatever, it felt good. We had a birth day party that the family had been invited to go to. We decided to go. I had previously told the hostess my goal was to sit on a chair and not move a lot.
I was able to socialize from the perfect chair and people brought me what I needed. The kids had a blast and I was doing okay at hiding my contractions. I got up to go to the bathroom and lo and behold – my mucous plug! Oh finally! I had some idea that I was heading in the right direction! Even though it didn’t mean anything soon, it meant my cervix was changing.
I told Kevin and he freaked. He wanted to leave immediately thinking the baby would be born in the van. I calmed him down and said we had plenty of time. So we stayed a bit longer and then went home.
