The Beginning
The story of Cameron's birth actually begins two and a half years earlier at the birth of his big brother Seth.
Seth surprised us all when he decided to come three weeks before his estimated due date. My water broke on a date night while walking around Target with Ben. We waited a couple hours before heading into the hospital, at this point I wasn't feeling contractions, once we got there Seth decided to surprise us again by being in a breech position. After talking about our options with the on-call doctor we decided a c-section was the best option, because my water had already broken there wasn't enough to try a version with him. While in surgery we had another surprise and that was finding out that I had a uterine septum (a extra piece of tissue) that was dividing my uterus in two. This was the reason Seth was breech, he didn't have enough room to turn, and this was probably the reason that he was early, again not enough room.
At a follow up appointment with my doctor we decided to wait a while and then do ultrasounds to see how big the septum was and if anything would need to be done to correct this. That did in fact turn out to be that case and on March 14, 2012 I had surgery to remove the septum. Three months later Cameron was on his way. :-)
Pretty much as soon as Seth was born I was immediately reading anything I could find on VBAC's and hoping my doctor would be able to assist me in this. The local hospital where I had Seth was technically not allowed to "plan" VBAC's there, but they could not make me have surgery and they could not turn me away when I showed up in labor. Talking things over with my doctor I was very happy to learn that she totally supported me in my quest for a VBAC.
Pregnancy
Pregnancy with Cameron was very easy, I had enough energy to do a three hundred mile bike ride over Labor Day weekend, several runs and one triathlon. At my first doctor appointment my date was changed from LMP (which would put EDD at March fifteen) to one week later, March twenty first. I was fine with this as it would give me an extra week before we would have to talk about induction plans. If I did end up needing to be induced I would not be able to have my birth at the local hospital where I wanted it, because that would be planning, the thing that was not allowed.
I tried to stay active as much and as long as possible, to stay in shape for the natural birth that I was planning for. I also was trying to stay away from sugar after learning earlier in the spring that I have bad yeast problems. Staying away from sugar and dairy (I'm lactose intolerant) helped to reduce weight gain from forty five-ish pounds with Seth to thirty two with Cameron.
Labor Day
Thirty seven weeks came...and went.... thirty eight....... I had been expecting a baby any moment since thirty seven weeks because at thirty six weeks I was dilated to three. As the days went by I tried to stop expecting and focus on rest and spending time with Seth who had no idea how much his little life was about to change.
Thirty nine weeks. All day I had been having cramping but I just ignored it because a few weeks before this had happened and no baby showed up with it. I was just hoping that finally my body was getting ready for labor. That evening I went shopping with my SIL and MIL for wedding things. We started at Hobby Lobby, walked over to Kohl's to return some things and then headed over for Target. You didn't know Target would show up again did you?? :-) No water breaking episodes in the store but the cramps were getting stronger and I was feeling more pressure. I grabbed the newborn diapers that we were going to need and we headed home.
That night I didn't sleep long, probably forty five minutes before I realized that these were actually time able and I may as well get up and start timing because they were strong enough that I wasn't going to be able to sleep. I decided to play around for a while first and didn't start timing until probably 1:30AM. I bounced/swayed on my ball and watched a movie, then read a book. Around 4:00 I decided it was time to get Ben up and head to the hospital, at this point I had started shaking and knew it could be a sign of transition. I did not want to have to go through the thirty minute car ride while trying to deal with transition. Contractions were still just annoying but had been coming regularly every five-ish minutes for two and a half hours.
On the way to the hospital I texted my doula and birth photographer Jordan to let her know that we were on our way. We decided that she would meet us there.
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