Roberta said I was dilated 9.5 cm and to push if I wanted to. The problem was, I wasn’t really feeling the urge that strongly, and when I pushed it didn’t feel right. The pressure was not in my bottom where it should be. A couple of surges later I was fully dilated but I still wasn’t feeling right. She had me turn on my side; the baby probably needed to turn a bit more and that’s why things didn’t feel quite right. I was pushing all on my own, I felt, with almost no help from my body. I could feel him coming down though, and that was encouraging me to keep pushing even though it was extremely difficult and quite painful. Pretty soon I could feel him coming over the tailbone and I knew it was close. As he was crowning, Roberta had me reach down and feel his head. Almost there!
I started to sense and urgency that they really wanted this baby out. I later learned that his heart rate was dropping a bit and one of the nurses was even talking c-section. I’m glad I didn’t hear that at the time! Roberta was wonderful, she kept encouraging me to push without freaking me out. I was a little worried about my perineum at this point, but I was more worried about the baby, so I gave it literally everything I had, and pretty soon his head was out. Moments later, I had delivered him and I heard him cry. This is the most wonderful feeling in the world! Nathan was right there with me the whole time, and since we couldn’t yet hold our baby, we held each other and kissed.
[…] Stage 2 […]