birth story

There were some things that had been needing done to prepare for the birth but I hadn’t gotten around to them yet. I was 39 weeks and figured I had another week to go at least, since Gavin was 40-41 weeks at birth, but Saturday evening, Jan 13, I decided it was as good a time as ever, so I inflated the labor pool and plugged the camera into the wall charger. Inflating the pool was supposed to just be a test of the size so I could decide where we’d put it when I was finally in labor. I fully intended to put it downstairs before going to bed, but I forgot.

Saturday evening before bed I noticed I'd been having some braxton hicks contractions that felt different, but it wasn't quite real labor contractions so I ignored it. I woke up around 2:00 am and was feeling kind of crampy. I went ot the bathroom and my underwear was pretty soaked. I thought it might be amniotic fluid so I tested with the nitrazine paper the midwives had given us and sure enough it was. I wasn't gushing and had no contractions so I went back to bed.

It was probably only half an hour later when I started to wake up every 10-15 minutes with a crampy contraction. By 3:30 they were every 5-7 minutes and I was pretty sure it was labor. I wanted to let him sleep, but I had to share so I woke Jason up and told him we were having a baby that day. I tried to sleep more but couldn't so I got up and went downstairs, where I ate and puttered around cleaning up. I told Jason he didn't have to get up yet, which he still teases me about, saying how the heck could he go back to sleep with news like that!

By 4 the contractions were getting stronger and were still around 5 minutes apart. I called one of the midwives and told her my water had broken and I was having regular contractions. She said ok and to call back when they were a little closer together. Less than an hour later they were 3-4 minutes apart and nearly a minute long, so I called back. She said they'd be on their way. I also called Caroline, my friend and doula, who headed to our house too.

The midwives, Nina and Kelley, and Caroline arrived around 5.45. Gavin woke up at 6 and my mom got him at 6.30. Jason started filling the pool although I didn’t think it was time to get in – a good thing he started so early, as he had some trouble to work out, since we hadn’t done a test run. He filled it halfway and covered it with a sheet.

Sometime after that my thoughts turned to a close friend of mine who, just 2 days before, had lost one of her prematurely born twins. I was still processing this devastating loss, and thinking of it made my labor come to a standstill. Nothing we tried got it going again - I tried walking up the stairs, we walked outside for a long time (It was a grey morning and spitting rain, but thank goodness for unseasonably warm weather!). At first while walking I had fairly regular and strong contractions but they soon petered out again. Finally Nina suggested we go nap and they'd go home.

After an hour or so of napping I was awakened again by contractions every 10-15 minutes. By 11 I couldn't sleep anymore and we got up. Not long after going back downstairs, I was in the family room. My eyes passed over the candle and flower arrangement that my birthworker friends had given me at my blessingway the week before. I felt an urge so strong it felt as if it physically hit me: I needed to light a candle for my friend’s baby. I called to Jason that he needed to find me a candleholder and matches, and I went on a search, finally turning up a tall forest green taper. I cleared a space on the TV cabinet and lit the candle. Watching the flame dance, my eyes welled up with tears and I felt a sense of peace. The candle remained lit throughout labor, although we had to transfer the flame to a second taper partway through. Eventually the flame went out all on its own about 2 hours after Dermot was born.

Once I had lit the candle, I was more focused on my labor and thoughts of my friend no longer bothered me. I looked at the candle and felt peace instead of grief, and I was able to draw strength from my friend’s experience rather than letting it sap me dry.

We moved around the house, walking and sitting on the birth ball, but it seemed that contractions only came and stayed if I was upright and moving around. Around 2:30 or 3:00 they began to get more intense. Jason and I went outside for another walk. The contractions were now strong enough I didn’t want to go far from home, so we walked back and forth within a couple houses of ours. Soon contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and lasting 60-90 seconds. They were intense and I was vocalizing loudly to get through them.

We came inside and Jason began asking if I thought it was time to call people back. I wasn’t sure, not wanting to make them come out again just to have them go home. After half an hour or so of thinking about it, I decided we should call Caroline – I say I decided but really Jason did the deciding, I just agreed. Jason also called one of the midwives to give them an update, who said we should give it another hour or so and call her back. Caroline arrived sometime after 4:00, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Things were getting very intense and I really needed her. It was a blessing having her there – I really needed someone to lean on to get through every contraction and having both of them there meant I always had at least one pair of hands on me.

Not long after she arrived, I felt it was ok to get into the pool. I'd been avoiding it for fear it would cause my labor to slow again. J and Caroline filled it up and I got in - surprisingly the water we'd put in 10 hours earlier was still warm! It was wonderful, it really helped ease the sensation of the contractions, although they were still wicked strong. By 5:00 I decided it was time to call the MWs back, as I was feeling like the baby was decending into the birth canal. I grew agitated in my mind waiting for them. I was afraid the urge to push would start at any time and I wanted them there for the birth.

Around 5.30 the MWs arrived and sometime soon afterward I had a pushy contraction. Kelley checked me and to my surprise and dismay, she found a bulging bag of waters (what I'd felt descending) and that I was around 6cm.

Flashbacks to Gavin’s birth, when I’d been laboring very intensely for hours. Certain I was close to complete, I was devastated when the nurse checked me and found me at 6. I was so disappointed and frightened at how much worse it would get. It was at that point with Gavin that I broke down and asked for Nubain. I didn’t have that option now.

So I lay there in the water, contemplating my options. I was miserable. The contractions were close to kicking my butt. I had been laboring a long time and was exhausted. I had so far to go, even though I realized that 6-10 can go very quickly, but I remembered that with Gavin it hadn’t gone that quickly and it was still another 3 or more hours until I was complete. I didn’t want to endure that hellish 3 hours again. So I considered going to the hospital and getting an epidural. It was tempting but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be at home. That meant I had to suck it up and pull myself together.

So I sucked it up and got down to the business of laboring. I gave myself up to the power of my body and was so completely relaxed I can honestly say the contractions barely hurt.

I sank into myself while at the same time my mind pulled back from my body and watched objectively – look at that sensation, I told myself. That’s just tightening. It’s just pressure. I began to whisper to myself during the contractions, “tightening… pressure… it’s just tightening, just pressure. Open, open, open….” And quite amazingly the pain receded. I was aware of sensations that I could identify as painful but I didn’t feel the pain. I lay still and quiet through the contractions, perfectly relaxed and calm, hardly moving at all. It was surrender.

This worked beautifully until last few contractions, which were even more intense and I began to lose hold of my calm. Jason and Caroline were right there with me, helping me hold it together. I managed to stay in control, or come back into control when I started to lose focus, with their help. During those last few contractions I was vocal again, groaning and saying “I can’t do this” and so on. The pressure of the baby moving down was immense, which is what I was really fighting as much as the pain of the contractions.

I began to feel the need to turn over. I couldn’t do it myself. Caroline found shorts upstairs and got into the pool with me and helped me flip over. I didn’t want to because moving hurt. But I did it and felt better, while at the same time, moving must have caused things to shift just so because suddenly I HAD to push.

I pushed, not willingly but because my body couldn’t stop itself, but it felt wrong. I fought the urge to push – I was sure I was going to split apart. My water broke with an enormous gush with that first push. I felt the strangest sensations, enormous pressure, a new kind of pain, a burning – it was all very alarming. I was frightened and nearly panicking. Kelley came over and looked and said with surprise that the head was partially crowning already. Once she said that I realized that the pressure was the baby, and the pain and burning were the ‘ring of fire,’ neither of which I remembered from Gavin’s birth. (Had Dermot moved down more slowly, I likely would have had a chance to adjust slowly to these sensations.)

I was on my knees, with my hands up on Jason. I remember being told to blow through the urge to push to give my perineum time to stretch. It was hard, my body wanted to push so badly, but I focused on Jason’s eyes and managed to control the urge. Then I was being told to push and I couldn’t, it was hard to let go and allow my body to do what it needed to. Somehow I did let go and pushed. Through all this I was aware that I was making sounds that matched the ferocity of what was going on in my body. I felt like a wild animal.

I heard someone say the head was out… then the shoulders… and then someone said just one more push was all I needed. I managed another push. With an amazing feeling of release, the baby slid out of me. It was such a relief. I was instantly human again.

Someone pushed the baby through the water between my legs and told me to pick my baby up. It was a surreal moment watching this pale little body float between my knees in the water, facing down. I scooped it up and held it, in awe. I stroked it and lifted it up to my face and kissed it. Someone had to tell me to flip the baby over, which I did, and as I did so, I remembered to check to see what kind of baby it was. It was a boy!

With help I climbed from the pool and sat on the loveseat. Dermot and I were wrapped in dry towels, the placenta was birthed, I was given juice and something to eat. I began to nurse Dermot and was pleasantly surprised when he latched right on and nursed as if he had done it already.

* * * * * * * *

As a bonus treat, I've created a slideshow of pictures from the pregnancy and birth. Caroline and the midwives took some wonderful pictures during labor, and I wanted to share them.

View the slideshow.

Unfortunately the quality in the larger version is poor, because I exported these images from powerpoint slides which is the format i originall created this slideshow in, so my apologies if you were hoping to see the bigger version. If anyone local wants to see it, I will be happy to share the Powerpoint version at any time.

Posted by allison at January 30, 2007 04:27 PM