Wandering Browns

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After realizing that my body was not defective, I had Austin do the Hypnobirthing balloon trip fear release script- one reserved to use if I was having doubts about my abilities as a woman to birth my baby without fear and without medical intervention. It was a very emotional time for me, and around 12:00-1:00 pm on Thursday, August 23rd, my contractions started to get much stronger and much more regular. I ignored the timing of them for awhile because we had had so many disappointments leading up to this point. By the time I had Austin start timing contractions, I was having them every 2-3 minutes, and they were much more intense, requiring me to go into relaxation in order to not tense up and fight what my body was trying to do. I can't say that I didn't feel pain, but for the most part I was able to relax through them enough to just feel intense pressure/discomfort especially in my low back. Sometimes I felt them in the front as well, but it was the back pressure that was th

On Tuesday, August 21st, I went to my last midwife appointment. At this point I was 41 weeks, 2 days and I knew that we would be making a plan of what to do if my little guy didn't come by a certain date. We decided that if I did not go into labor by 8:00 pm on Thursday night, I would come into the hospital to be induced. Being induced would opt me out of the alternative birthing center room and the water birth that I really wanted to try. At that point, I was dilated to a 1-2 and 50% effaced. Things were not looking great as far as having the birth that I wanted. That night, however, I began to have regular, stronger contractions. These were definitely different from the mini contractions I had been having the past week. They started out about 10 minutes apart, and got to be 2-3 minutes apart after an evening walk around the neighborhood. These were fairly strong contractions, although I was still able to walk through them. After returning home, they slowed down to every 6-8 min