As most of you know by now, little surro baby Carlene made her way into the world on the 4th of July. She definitely kept things interesting the entire pregnancy and the end was no different. I wanted to share my surrogacy birth story below, but it is a birth story, so if you do not like that sort of thing you may want to skip this post. While I am sad to see the end of my surrogacy journey that has seemed to consume my life for the last year and a half, I am absolutely thrilled to have helped to create a family and to see them happy together!


{False Alarm}

This birth story is actually going to start on July 2nd. Why? Because that is the day I thought I was going to have her. On Monday evening I started having regular contractions that were uncomfortable, but certainly not unbearable. When they got to be every 4-5 minutes apart I called my mom and she came in to get the boys. Matt and I walked around Walmart for an hour or so because it was the only place open that late and then we headed off to the hospital.

At the hospital, they did say I was having regular contractions, but there had been no change since they checked me at the doctor's office that morning and I was still 3cm's dilated. I was sent home and told to come back if the contractions were every 2-3 minutes. Once I fell asleep that night, they stopped.

On Tuesday, Matt and I walked at least 6 hours at the Mall and went bowling, trying to get things started again. The boys were with my mom an hour away and I didn't want to pick them up just to have to bring them right back. Plus, I felt bad about having her watch them for a false alarm. Unfortunately, nothing really happened on Tuesday and I went to bed a bit discouraged.

{Was That What I Think It Was?}

Wednesday morning I got up and was intending to go get the boys from my mom's house. I went to sit on the couch and felt a small gush of liquid. I didn't think it was my water leaking because in all my pregnancies, my water has never ever broken on its own. Also, it was only a small amount and I shrugged it off as an unstable bladder. As the morning went on however, it happened more and more. I let my mom know and Matt and I walked around the mall for a bit more. Once I was sure it was my water leaking, we headed to the hospital again around 4:30pm.

{It's Go Time}

Once at the hospital, I was hooked up to all the usual monitors. Carlene looked great, but there were no contractions. There was a test done to determine whether it was actually my water that was leaking and it came back positive. Once that happened, I was admitted to the hospital and taken to a labor and delivery room.

Unfortunately, I was still not having contractions and the doctor who was on call for my OB would not allow Pitocin to be used for VBAC's. I was really starting to wonder how we were going to get labor started. My midwife came in and discussed putting in two internal monitors. One to measure the contractions and the other to monitor the baby. I agreed and she went to work. In the process the rest of my water broke and apparently that is all my body needed to get up and go. When she put the monitors in I was at 4cm's dilated and almost completely effaced.

I called the guys at about 6:20pm to let them know I had been admitted to the hospital, but was not having contractions and that it could be awhile. As soon as I got off the phone with them, the contractions started hard and fast. At one point I was having double contractions and the nurse came in to make sure the monitor wasn't crazy. I like to labor naturally and in all of my births have never used pain medication of any kind. After about an hour and a half of this labor though, I was about to give in. I had had pain and contractions like this with my boys, but only in the last 30 minutes when I was ready to push. Before that, the pain was something I could work through.

Around 8:00pm I asked to be checked and was at a 7, by 8:30pm I was at 7.5 cm's, but was feeling the urge to push with contractions. I decided to try and wait it out until 9 and if I was not ready to push, I would get some IV meds, as I could not concentrate through the contractions anymore and there was no break between them at this point. When the midwife came in at 8:45pm, I was only at an 8 and I was given the option to try and push through the rest of the cervix or to get the IV meds. Not wanting to ruin my record of natural labors, I decided to push through the cervix. Ummm. This is not easy to do, but at around 9 I had it gone and was ready to push the little girl out.

She decided to throw one last twist in there though. She was sunny side up, looking at my stomach and the midwife would need to rotate her before she could come out. This took a while too and was pretty frustrating. It took another 15 minutes or so to get her rotated, but by 9:15 I was ready to push her out, and I do mean READY! I kept pushing and pushing and everyone kept telling me she was right there. I am pretty sure at one point I accused them of lying because they kept saying she was coming out and she definitely was not. I also said "I'm sorry" about a million times, because that is what I do. In the end, she did come out and for those who have labored naturally, the feeling that comes after that last push is unlike anything I could ever describe. The relief is amazing and it was wonderful to know I was finally done.