French apartment renovations, Days 244-45: When two days become one

Countless hip squeezes & sacrum counterpressure

Is today today or is it yesterday? Since I didn't go to bed at all last night, I'm not sure! I got a call on Sunday afternoon from a friend. "Rixa, I'm in labor and I'm having my baby right now. I need your help. Please can you come?" 3 minutes later I was out the door with only my purse, phone, chapstick, gum, and glasses.

We had talked several months ago about me coming to her birth if she wanted me there. I didn't know details about the labor I was walking into, other than it was a planned home birth.

I arrived 15 minutes later via Uber and learned that she had decided not to use a midwife and instead brought in a doula to attend her unassisted birth. Okay, well then. Freebirth it is.

Super long birth story short...it was an epic labor with all sorts of weird and difficult things, many of which we didn't know until after the birth. 34 hours of active labor, even longer time from ROM, 21 hours of nonstop back labor (aka nonstop pain way worse than contractions), 2 straight nights of no sleep for the birth team, 18 hours of not being able to empty her bladder, 10+ hours of pushing.

Thanks to a tenacious birth team, a rebozo, an eternally optimistic and encouraging papa, an exhausted but motivated mama, and lots and lots of time, we got the baby out. I don't usually say "we" because the mama gives birth, not the partner or the midwife or the doula. But this birth truly involved everyone's maximum cooperation in a way I've never witnessed before. I say without any hesitation that this birth could not have happened without all of us there.

I was only there for the last 19 hours and *only* missed one full night of sleep.

For those of you birth people, you'll be interested to know that baby was not just a military presentation, but significantly asynclitic. After the baby came out and I saw his head, I thought "THAT EXPLAINS SO MUCH!"

This was the weirdest, most unreadable labor I had ever attended and I kept wondering if I was just particularly inept at figuring out what was going on. Nope.

I got home today a bit after 11 am. I bought myself a pain au chocolat as a treat for all that hard work. I enjoyed the warm buttery flaky pastry on my way home.

I passed out for an hour and a half nap after lunch. That gave me enough reserves to make it through the rest of today. Today was special: we were packing for vacation! It's a short vacation (technically we are dog/house sitting for some friends in the back country). We left Nice mid-afternoon.

We had considered driving back to Nice each day to work on the Communist apartment. But then we decided to just stay here and enjoy 3 days of family time with no other obligations.

The kids jumped on the trampoline, picked cherry tomatoes and wild blackberries, played ping pong, learned to play guitar, and ran around outside. I made Thai coconut soup for dinner and chocolate tart for dessert. It is definitely time for bed!