pickle's arrival, part 1: this labor stuff is easy peasy good fun!

today is the little man's first birthday and i've been spending most of the day hugging him and remembering his amazing birth:

at around 2:30 a.m., i woke up to the exciting sensation of REAL contractions, very different from the teasers i had been feeling for weeks. i had begun to worry that i wouldn't know what labor really felt like, because i had been induced with clara. but i knew this was it. somehow, i actually managed to go back to sleep for an hour. i woke up rodney at about 3:30 to let him know that THIS WAS IT. of course, i had said that so many times over the previous weeks that he just rolled over and went back to sleep. miraculously, i fell asleep again, too. but by a little after 4, i was too excited to continue the wake-contraction-nap cycle, so i got up, ate a snack and began pacing around the house. i wanted rodney to keep sleeping so he could be a well-rested coach. but by 4:30, the contractions were so regular and close that i made rodney get up and call patty, one of my midwives. patty arrived at about 5 and began setting up her stuff.

meanwhile, i continued my pacing and took it to the back yard. immediately, i realized that the heat had broken--it was actually COOL outside. i had suffered through third trimester during austin's hottest summer on record and my baby had waited until the first real day of autum to come out?! HA! i knew right there that he was going to be a funny little dude who would do things on his own terms.

at 5:30, i called philippa and as planned, she drove over to pick up clara. i thought clara would be excited to go to her best buddy's house so early in the morning, but she was NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT. she left the house in tears and later i would find out that she spent the morning vomiting because she was so nervous. i'm very glad i didn't know that, because as soon as she left the house, my body must have relaxed a few notches and labor began to progress more quickly.

rodney dutifully set up the texas-style birthing tub (a galvanized feeding trough from a feed store) and filled it with hot water straight from the hot water heater via a garden hose. i luxuriated under the stars in my hot tub for about an hour, chatting with rodney and patty, who were so chilly they had to wear sweaters. i was up to my neck in hot water and it was so comforting that i passed through the entire first stage of labor without event.

(to be continued. . . . part 2: transition)