We took our time getting to the birth center and when we got there all the beds in triage were full, so I walked the waiting room, pausing every 5-6 minutes to have a contraction. The contractions hurt and I could not walk or talk through them, so I practiced relaxing through them and tried not to get psyched out because I remembered that they get so much worse toward the end.
In triage I was still in good spirits. Darren turned on the Seahawks game and we hung out in triage watching Jared's strong heartbeat and my powerful contractions on the monitor. When Melissa come in to check on me I was 5 cm dilated and closer to 80% effaced. After a quick and insanely painful membrane sweep the party got started. Through my contractions never really got much closer together than 4-5 minutes apart, they definitely got more intense and they were lasting about 2 mins. I could feel the contraction ramp up, peak, come down a bit, then ramp up again to another peak and finally dissolve away. I tried to remain as calm as possible by listening to Hypnobabies scripts on my iPod and it really seemed to help. After a while, Melissa came in and announced that I was being admitted and that my room was just a short walk down the hall.
Once in my room I got a hep-lock IV in my arm and was put back on the fetal monitor. I decided to be out of bed sitting on the birthing ball during my contractions. I have no idea how much time passed between getting to my room and the one terrible contraction that made me start crying and telling Darren and the nurse that I couldn't stand it any more and I needed an epidural.
(Earlier that day, while I was in the office with Melissa she asked me if I planned to have an epidural and I said, "no." She politely asked why and I explained that I understood that an epidural can sometimes cause baby's heart rate to be more erratic and that an erratic baby heart rate is one of the indications that my uterine scar is failing and I would need an emergency c-section. I expressed that it was important to me to avoid an unnecessary c-section and therefore, I would avoid an epidural as well. Her response, "good answer.")
After I started crying, expressing my desire for drugs the nurse said that it sounded like I was making progress and that she would go get Melissa. Melissa joined us and reassured me that I was doing so well relaxing through my contractions. She checked me again and this time I was 7-8 cm and nearly 100% effaced. Through I was in a lot of pain and still crying I knew that feeling like I couldn't do it was a good sign that I was well on my way to another successful VBAC. Still feeling in pain, but now more heartened that things were progressing normally I apologized to the midwife and nurse for crying. As soon it came out of my mouth I knew how ridiculous it sounded and so after they both said there was no reason for me to apologize, I said, "As soon as I said that I knew there was no reason to apologize, I'm having a baby for crying out loud!" Soon after the laughs faded I was knee deep in another contraction and the smiles were gone again.
I spent the remainder of transition in a warm bath. It really helped to take some of the pressure off in between contractions. I would not have made it through transition so gracefully if it were not for Darren and Melissa's support. When Darren was with me he would press firmly on my hip bones to help relieve some of the pressure. When Melissa was there she rubbed the crease between my eyebrows reminding me to relax and spoke so kindly and softly about how wonderful I was doing. She taught me how to blow horse lips and that helped a lot to ease my tension during contractions. Often while the second peak in my contraction was ramping up I would say, "damn" and that would make me feel better knowing that at least everyone could hear that though I look calm and collected, those contractions really, really hurt.
After a really bad contraction I would tell Darren or Melissa that I was grateful that the next contraction wouldn't be as bad as that one was. I felt like if I made it through that last one, then this next one would be a piece of cake, and usually it was. The problem was the contraction after the one that wasn't so bad. :) That contraction usually had me saying "damn" and starting to cry again hoping for an end to the pain.
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