Payson's Birth Story Part 1: Due Date

Photo by Tara Wilcox Photography

Tuesday, April 3, 2018, 8am

Well mom.

Don't even worry about coming to Utah, because I am never having this baby.

I’m never going to wear skinny jeans or my wedding ring again, and I’m doomed to have endlessly swollen feet and locking fingers.

That is all. Sincerely,

40-weeks-tomorrow-and-no-baby,

-Keira

That is the email I sent to my mom the day before my due date as I sat in class at BYU.  

The real problem was that I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to make it to my due date. No, I hadn't even planned on making it all the way into April! I had sat there with a smug look on my face while my hypnobabies birth instructor told my class to plan on going overdue, because "first time moms are notoriously late" and  "babies come when they are ready" and "the longer they stay in, the better."  

Of course other people could plan on having late babies, but not me. In my book, I did all the right things to naturally induce labor, ate handfuls of dates, drank red raspberry leaf tea, tried my best to exercise, bounced on a exercise ball for hours while I did homework, ate pineapples, listened to my hypnobabies tracks, etc. Besides, my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother all had their babies early and due to the stress I was under-- a full credit load at BYU with a slew of projects and finals approaching-- I was absolutely certain baby was coming early.  

Look, unless you've been pregnant and in school, I don't think you can possibly understand how hard the horror it is. Let me paint a picture in three words: winded, waddling, walrus.  Add anemia, back pain, swollen limbs, insomnia, and needing to pee every thirty minutes (I literally timed it), and I was quite over the whole pregnancy thing.  

Pregnancy was really hard for me. I didn't feel like myself, nothing was normal, and it is not a fun memory.   

So there I was, the perfect picture of total dejection as the morning of April 3rd found me squished in my desk, realizing for the first time that baby wasn't coming before my due date. The thought of being pregnant for another one to two weeks was devastating.   

That afternoon I was moping around the house avoiding my homework, wallowing in misery, and driving my husband absolutely crazy. The worst part was that I had absolutely no signs what so ever of labor. In one final desperate attempt at inducing labor, I made myself a cup of red raspberry leaf tea (extra concentrated) with not one, but FOUR tea bags inside.   

That evening, after going to the bathroom, I finally found something I'd been obsessively checking for-- THE MUCUS PLUG! I was so excited! I didn't even know it was possible to be that excited about mucus! I knew it really didn't mean much, but it did mean that my cervix was dilating, and that the process of labor would be starting within hours or days.  

Tuesday, April 3, 2018, 10:30 pm  

MY WATER BROKE!

David and I were laying in bed about to go to sleep when I felt a small popping sensation and a gush of  warm water spreading all over the bed. David’s eyes were huge "I think your water just broke!" It happened so fast I couldn't even process what just happened.  

We were in bed in a flood of amniotic fluid.

It was amazing how much fluid there was. It was like someone had emptied a gallon of water in our bed. There was a perfect, quiet moment of surprise and shock... and then everything erupted into a swirl of motion and emotions!

"What do we do now?"

"Oh my gosh baby is coming!"

"How do we clean this up?"

"Text the Midwife!"

"24 hours! There's only 24 hours after water breaks until baby has to be out!"

"Do we start the hypnobabies tracks yet?"

"ITS REALLY HAPPENING!"

"WE ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS!"

We were laughing and kissing and wide eyed and relieved and excited and nervous and ecstatic. And giddy. Oh so very giddy!  

We cleaned up, I took a shower,  making a new discovery that once your water breaks, it doesn't stop trickling, so I pulled on a pair of trusty depends, texted our midwife, and we climbed back into bed to try and get some sleep because I still didn't have any contractions yet.

You probably guessed it-- it was almost impossible for me to sleep.  

David slept while I lay there like a little kid on Christmas Eve-- wide eyed and mind racing wondering how contractions were going to feel and when they were going to start.   

...Continued on next postPayson's Birth Story Part 2: Labor