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March 18, 2003
To me, a birth story is not just about the baby’s birth. It’s also about all of the circumstances that lead to that point. To really tell a birth story, I think that important elements of the pregnancy need to be included. But it’s easy to go too far back—I mean, doesn’t the story really start at conception? Or how about the day you decided to get pregnant? Or maybe the day you met that special someone you’d later decide to have a baby with? It’s hard to pick the right place to start. But I want to start Aden’s birth story at its true beginning, so bear with me as we travel back in time, all the way back to the day that Derek and I decided to have a baby…
August 2000
When Derek and I got married on March 18th of 2000 (3 years ago today!), we had our whole future planned out. I was going to finish my last year of undergraduate work at K-State, continue on to four years of optometry school, and then, with 5 years of marriage under our belts and 2 incomes, we were going to start a family.
But a short 4 ½ months later, I was already burnt out on school before even beginning my last year of undergrad work. I started to think that maybe I didn't want to go to optometry school in a year. Or ever. I started to wonder why I was going to wait so long to start a family when being a mom was the only thing I really wanted to do in my life. I couldn’t shake the feeling, but I thought maybe if we just added another pet to our household the baby urge would go away. "I want to get a pet rat," I announced to Derek. "I'd rather have a baby than get a rat," he replied. Famous last words. By the end of the month I had taken my last Pill.
October 27, 2000
I got up that morning and wondered if I should take a pregnancy test. Last month I’d taken three, all negative, and finally gotten my period about 2 weeks late. But this month I’d been charting, and I was pretty sure we’d been right on track. It was 13 days since I thought I’d ovulated—too soon to take a test? I didn’t have any pregnancy symptoms, but we were going to a big Halloween party that night and I could envision the perfect moment of being able to announce to all of our friends that we were pregnant. So I took the test and sat there reading a Reader’s Digest while it developed. I got kind of involved in an article and suddenly remembered to glance at the test—two lines!
I rushed into the bedroom, turned on the light, and said, “Honey, two lines!” Poor Derek was really confused for a second. But then we were so excited! Of course I went and peed on another test, just to be sure. A second positive and I made an appointment to go see the nurse to get a blood test. Her results agreed with ours, she set our due date at July 7, 2001, and our journey began.
November 9, 2000—6 weeks
A horrible, scary day. I got home from class and noticed a brownish spotting. I read some books, checked again, tried not to panic. I called my best friend, but no, she’d never had any spotting during her pregnancy. I called and made an appointment to see a doctor at the student health clinic. Derek came home, and we went to the clinic. I was so scared and worried, I couldn’t stop crying and all of the nurses kept handing me Kleenexes. The doctor who examined me said, yes, there was a moderate amount of blood but my cervix was still closed and nothing seemed abnormal. She sent me to my OB’s where they did a blood test to check my HCG level. Alone, it wouldn’t tell them much but if it was high enough they could do a transvaginal ultrasound to look for a heartbeat.
An hour later, we found out that my HCG levels were higher than expected—a good sign. The nurse asked if I was sure about my dates, but since I’d been charting I was very sure. She scheduled the ultrasound, said spotting and high HCG levels could be due to twins, and sent me home with instructions to relax. Relax?? But the next day, all was well. There was my one tiny little six-millimeter-long baby with its little heart just beating away. That little flashing heartbeat was the most beautiful sight in the world.
May 12, 2001—32 weeks
I walked across the graduation stage, 7-month-pregnant belly leading the way, wearing my cap, gown, honor cords, and a stylish maternity dress. Sitting at a stoplight on the way home, I looked at my belly and wondered if my child would think it was cool that it graduated with me. Less than 2 months until my due date, and I was going to enjoy every second of time to myself. I had no job lined up and no grad school to go to, only a baby to birth and raise. My future had never been so open and uncertain. I had never been so happy.
June 17, 2001—37 weeks—Father’s Day
I was convinced that the baby would come early. All the babies in my family were born early. So here I was, at 37 weeks—the baby was full term now! And it’s Father’s Day—wouldn’t that be perfect? But nothing happened. We met my family for lunch and my aunt tried to decide if the baby had dropped. I wasn’t sure but she said I was way too cheerful still. “You’ve got a while,” she said. I hoped she was wrong.
July 4, 2001—39 ½ weeks—Independence Day
Still no baby—so much for a 4th of July baby! I’d been trying everything to get labor started—walking 1 or 2 miles every day, sex, various weird food combinations, sitting in a squatting position to try to open up my pelvis. One night as I was sitting like that and Derek was rubbing my back, I felt a trickle. I held my breath and hoped my water was breaking, but nothing else happened. Another day I went on a cleaning frenzy and I thought, “Am I nesting? Maybe this means something!” But my OB told me I was only 1 cm with no effacement, and the baby’s head wasn’t even engaged.
As I watched the fireworks I thought about the baby a lot. My mom left to drive home about 10:30 and I started to fix macaroni because I was hungry. A really strong contraction caught me off guard a little after 11:00. I couldn’t decide, do I call Mom and tell her to turn around and drive back? I decided to wait and see. I had contractions about 20 minutes apart for several hours, but finally we decided to go to bed and try to get some rest. They stopped.
The next day was a full moon, something I’d been focusing on my entire pregnancy because it was so close to my due date. I thought, “Maybe it will work, maybe it will start something!” Especially with the contractions the night before. But nothing happened that entire day. I was so upset that night—discouraged, frustrated. Derek held me as I cried. I was realizing that I had no control, that I’d tried nearly everything I could think of and nothing was working. To put it bluntly, pregnancy was starting to suck.
July 7, 2001—my due date
I was awakened by a contraction at 5:30 and had a few more but then they stopped. My mom reminded me that a late baby would be bigger and would probably sleep better—her way to cheer me up and look on the bright side. But the not-so-bright side (and my main concern at that point) was that my mom had to schedule a hysterectomy on July 25th. She was one of my labor coaches along with Derek and Sally, my mother-in-law (who’s a labor & delivery nurse and a lactation consultant). I was counting on my mom being there for the birth. How late was this baby going to be? Was she going to be able to be with my through my labor and at home afterwards? I was growing more concerned by the day.
July 11, 2001—40 ½ weeks
I woke up really early that morning feeling very stressed and overwhelmed by the entire situation. A few days earlier, my mom’s neighbor, a doula, had given me instructions for taking castor oil. At the time I had thought I would never try it, but something about the desperation I felt that morning made me get in my car, drive to Wal-mart, and buy a bottle of castor oil. I stared at it a while and then took my first dose—1 oz. mixed into 6 oz. of orange juice. It wasn’t as bad to take as I thought it would be, but it tasted waxy or oily, kind of like eating lipstick. I took another dose in an hour, and a third an hour after that. I called my mom and told her she had better come up for the day, just in case. I started having diarrhea and regular contractions about 4 hours after the last dose. At first the contractions were 8 minutes apart, but by dinner they were 3-4 minutes apart and stronger. After dinner I took a nap, and when I woke up I was afraid they had stopped but they were still 5 minutes apart, although not as strong. By that time I was feeling very uncertain about if the contractions were real or not, and I didn’t know if Mom should stay or head home. I called Sally, who said to try walking, and after one lap around the park the contractions had stopped. I went home and cried.
July 16, 2001 (Monday)—41 ½ weeks
Finally, an end is in sight! At my OB appointment, I was still only 1 cm—no progress in 2 weeks, even with all of those contractions. After a non-stress test that looked fine, Dr. Haun said we could wait another week or schedule an induction for Thursday. I had mixed feelings—I really didn’t want to induce, but with 9 days until Mom’s surgery I didn’t feel like waiting was a valid option any more. I was glad to know that the baby would be here soon, but afraid the induction would fail. I wanted my body to just work on its own and I felt like inducing meant I was failing. I didn’t like the idea of so many interventions being planned—inserting prostaglandin tablets to get me dilating, then breaking my water to strengthen the contractions, then starting a pitocin drip if the contractions were still not strong enough. In my birth plan I’d decided I didn’t want to do any of those things! But the bottom line was that I wasn’t waiting another week, not if it meant risking my mom not being there. So we made plans to be at the hospital at 7:30 Thursday morning, unless of course the baby came on its own before that. My fingers were crossed!
So... did I go into labor on my own or not? Tune in next time to find out! Boy, am I a tease or what? I know, it's a shameless bid to get you back here, but I promise, Part 2 will actually be about the birth. Until next time...
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