My quite medical, but quite wonderful, birth story!

[Cherryskin]

I wrote this on 5 January 2004, 17 days after the birth. I have put some notes in (**).




Just as a bit of background, I was induced at 41w6d, just because I was 2 weeks overdue. They had been monitoring our baby for a week, and everything had been going well. I don't regret it, but I realise now it was most likely unneccessary, especially considering I'd started to dilate naturally for a week before.

Anyway, here's the story of the birth of our first child, our treasured daughter:

The labour was the most surreal experience I’ve ever been through. It was like going through a gateway to another life. A massive, elaborate gateway in a wide-open deserted landscape (a landscape we had reached after passing through busier lands, and a gateway leading to busier lands, too, but around the gateway the land was deserted, which suited me just fine).
After waiting for labour to start naturally – two weeks of nothing happening – we awoke at 6:30am on the Friday, knowing that we would have our baby today. That in itself was a bizarre feeling, but I was strangely calm and not nervous.
I ate breakfast and had a shower, then called the midwives, who told me to mosey on in at about 7:30am. We had been rushing a little, because we thought we had to be in by a bit after 7am, but then relaxed, and after dh stuck the TENS machine on my back, we grabbed all our gear, hopped in the car, and drove to the hospital.
It was a sunny day, I think – not too hot, as they’d downgraded the prediction from a scorching 39 degrees to mid-20s - and seemed very quiet, as it was fairly early in the morning. The feeling I recall well was that I felt like we had the world to ourselves, which was the second layer of bizarreness. Monash Moorabbin is (*was, the BC is now closed there*) such a quiet place, too – feels like walking through a school during school holidays.
We arrived on ward 4 (Maternity) and were told to take a seat and someone would come and show us through to the delivery suite. DH went off to the loo, and that’s when the midwife came and took me through to the delivery suite, where I had my choice of rooms. I chose the room we had seen the very first time we had been shown the delivery suite, not the room we had seen the second time we had been there, during antenatal classes.
DH was not back yet, so after putting all my stuff down, I wandered out to the corridor to meet up with him and let him know we were in the labour ward. We went back to the room, and the midwife came and introduced herself, and told me to get changed into whatever I wanted to labour in, which happened to be my black singlet-nightie. It was then that I started being quite nervous – it felt somehow wrong that my baby would be forced into the world, but I knew that it could be worse leaving things be (*that's what I believed at the time*).
I went to the toilet, and after a little while I heard Dr.GP/ob’s voice, and he came in. We exchanged amused sort of “here we are, then” smiles, and I’m sure words to the effect of “ready to go?” “ready as I’m gonna get”. He said to hop onto the bed, and that he would do an internal like the previous week, which I dreaded, but he did it, and it didn’t hurt a bit (*the previous week he'd done an unexpected and painful stretch & sweep*). He said I’d further dilated to about 3 or 4 cm. Then he said he was going to break my waters, and I lay there while he fiddled around a bit – he couldn’t get a hold of the membranes to break them, then he did break them, and I felt some fluid rush out of my body – it was warm and felt like I was having a wee with no control at all over it – strange, especially knowing that it was the fluid that had been bathing my precious baby, and now its secure home was being invaded and about to be taken away forever.
The midwife and doctor had a look at the fluid, and were happy to announce that it was good and clear, which means our baby had been happy so far (not passed meconium). Then I sat up a bit and heaps more fluid gushed out.
I asked the midwife whether we could wait and see if the contractions would start on their own, and she said it was up to me – either wait and see, or “get this over with”. I decided the latter was the preferable option.
Doc then came back and inserted the cannula, and put up the bag of saline, then the midwife came and put up the bag with oxytocin. She said we could go for a walk while we waited for it to kick in, so first I went to the toilet, and then dh and I did one lap around the labour ward, but I felt like going back to the room, which we did.
At some stage soon after that, I started feeling some period-like twinges, and it wasn’t long before they had intensified, and I went to the toilet one more time, with contractions gripping me, and then I crawled into the bed and lay in the foetal position on my left, and we started timing the now-very-painful contractions. They were coming fairly thick and fast by then – definitely 4 in 10 minutes, which I thought was the aim, but the midwife kept turning the infusion rate up every time she came in.
I had entered another zone by then – walking through the gateway – and asked for the gas, as the TENS machine was just not enough (though it felt good – nice and powerful stimulation like a massage on my back).
The midwife hooked me up to the baby monitor, and so I had to lie on my right side then, and I started sucking the gas with every contraction. The pain of the contractions was awful – it was all I could do to withstand it, sucking the gas hard, my mouth and throat drying up, and telling myself that each contraction was like a wave sweeping me, and I just had to fight to keep my head above the water.
DH was my “rock” during the labour – a real comfort feeling his strong hands on my shoulder or arm. He was worried about me, as the gas was really making my head spin and my consciousness to falter. I felt like I was pretty much just under the water by that point, with the world muffled somewhere above/around me. Around that time I decided I didn’t think I could go on, and decided to ask for pethidine. DH checked if I was sure (as I was so determined to try to avoid it for fear of effects on the baby), and expressed his concern about the pethidine further deteriorating my state of consciousness, which I admit was a worry that did cross my mind, but I thought even if I pass out, there’s medical help at hand, and it would be a blessing in a way! That’s how bad the pain was.
The midwife came and gave me the pethidine, and it wasn’t long before it started to kick in, and I got high, and paradoxically resurfaced into the world (albeit tripping!). It was the best thing I could have done, as I regained control and could actually move out of the foetal position.
I sat up in bed, waffling on about how great the pethidine was, and felt goooooood compared to before.
I was still sucking the gas through the contractions. DH also offered me some of my Milo drinks, and water, which I appreciated (yummy). I also had the novel experience of sitting on a bedpan for the first time in my life, which was kind of fun, but I don’t care if I never do it again. The midwife got me some peppermint ointment for my lips, as they were so dry from sucking the gas. She also asked me if I would like to try hopping off the bed and onto a beanbag on a mat on the floor, which sounded like a good idea to me (hey, I was high, so anything may have sounded good, although I vaguely recall being the instigator of moving off my butt – I felt like I really needed to get off my butt, or else how else would my baby come out?). I did just that, and not long afterwards doc came back in and checked to see how my dilation had progressed, and announced that I was fully dilated and could start pushing whenever I had the urge. I couldn’t believe it – just like that. I had expected to arrive at the transition/2nd stage with some kind of official fanfare (from my body) but lo and behold, all of a sudden I could push!
I started to kind of push with the contractions, but I didn’t really feel like I was doing much. I think it did serve to distract me from the pain of contractions, though – either that or I had grown accustomed to the pain by that stage!
Somehow I ended up on a birthing stool (*how I'd planned on birthing*), and the midwife and doc were there, and doc was asking me if this is where I wanted to give birth, and was I absolutely sure because he was setting up all his gear there. I said yes, I was sure. DH was somehow supporting me from behind – I think he was in a chair of some description.
I was suddenly being encouraged to really push hard with each contraction, and I tried really hard, but my body knew that pushing this baby out through my vagina was just too much, and so I was pushing but at the same time, holding back. The doc and midwife could see this, and they told me I have to push hard, and so I had no choice – I knew I had no other way but to push this giant object out through my vagina, whether my body could handle it or not. That was like deliberately, methodically, cutting my own arm off. Not easy!
With each push I could hear the heartbeat slow way down, and it worried me, but I think it was just the monitor losing track of the baby’s heartbeat and picking mine up (*that's what the doc and mw told me at the time, as I expressed my concern*).
They said the head was right there, and I reached down and felt it. They offered me a look in the mirror, but I didn’t want to (*I didn't want to see my body being torn asunder!*). DH had a look, though. Then they said, that’s it – push or else. So I pushed, and despite a desperate urge to hold back and save my poor body, when I bore down it was the strongest I had ever pushed – like a runaway train once each push had begun. And then the head popped out, and I felt it there like a warm melon between my legs, and I couldn’t believe it, and then with the next contraction I pushed like hell, and then something gave, and I felt the shoulders emerge and then I felt my uterus being emptied of the rest of the little body as it slid lumpily out of me. A most extraordinary feeling! But at the same time, exactly how I would have imagined it would feel. Thinking back on the moment that my little baby left my body makes me a bit sad.
Then they held the baby up and it was 1:29pm, and the baby was all pale and bluish and wet, and it gave out a little squall with a big red mouth, and they put a little mask on it to help oxygenate its body, and then I had it in my arms, and realised they hadn’t told us what it was, so I lifted its leg to check, and it was a little girl!!!!!! I turned to dh and said, “It’s a little girl!” then I held her and they wrapped her and put her under the heater to warm her, and she was sucking on her fingers (we took her first photo then) and I somehow ended up on the bed again and they gave her to me and I put her to my breast and she sucked like mad. She was a natural-born sucker, and hasn’t changed a bit so far!
The doctor then stitched me up, while dh held her and made faces at her to get her to imitate him, which she did. I commented on the stitching taking a while, and doc said, “Oh, I’m just finishing the last layer” – last layer! I asked if it had been an episiotomy, as I wasn’t paying attention to whether anyone was doing anything to me at the time I was pushing, but he told me I tore (I “popped” before they could do anything about it) and it was fairly significant. Well, I can confirm that now. I basically tore from the back of the entrance to my vagina all the way to my anus. Hmph. Ouch. No wonder my body didn’t want to push! I couldn’t sit on it for a good week without pain, and luckily it is feeling better every day, but still looks a bit lumpy and ouchy. Like our dog’s scar looked after her desexing operation, and now you can’t see the scar at all, which I am pinning my hopes on.
So that’s the story of my experience of the birth of M.
I had a quick shower, then wobbily walked to my room on the maternity ward, with dh, and pushing our little girl in a plastic cot.
My main memory of the labour: quiet, natural-light-filled room, muffled world, swathed in pain, the sound of quiet verbal exchanges between dh and the midwife, the rattle of the gas being sucked, and the wobble-board sound of our baby’s heartbeat.
The next day I walked back into the delivery suite and into the room where I had given birth to M, which was as light and quiet as it was during the birth, and empty, and I got quite teary.
Thinking about the room being there now makes me emotional – it may be again light, quiet and empty, but what incredible events it holds in its memory! My little girl was born there! I gave birth there! DH and I met M there for the first time! What a room.

P.S. A few weeks after writing this, they closed the midwife-run BC there for good. I went back to see the room again on their last day open (they only had a couple of women left in the ward), and I cried and cried. I couldn't believe such a magical place was going to effectively cease to exist, or that those rooms holding SUCH echoes would stand empty. The labour rooms, the bathroom with the two empty baby-bathing-sinks, the ward rooms....all previously buzzing with the ESSENCE of life, now quiet and empty. It still makes me very melancholy.

[~joh~]

lol at the bedpan experience.

very discriptive and easy to read - thanks for sharing

[Mama Latte]

thankyou for sharing your story! xx Sounded very similar to my first birth.

[Cherryskin]

I forgot to mention a couple of things (what?! you say ):
- I barely remember birthing the placenta, except that it was easy and hassle-free. We decided to keep it. I work in a hospital, and didn't want that amazing organ which my dd and I shared to end up in a big Biohazard bin. It's still in a tupperware in our deep freeze! I want to bury it at the place dh and I met (fairly isolated camp ground on the Victorian coast). I figured I may as well bury this bubba's placenta at the same time.
- I discharged us about 48 hours after the labour, because I wanted to be with our dd in our own space. While I was in hosp, though, dd slept next to me in bed, which was delightful -- I'm sure many of you know the feeling. Nobody minded, as long as the side was up on the bed. The first night I slept a grand total of about 1.5 hours -- I was too enthralled and couldn't take my eyes off this treasure of ours! I'm still like that at times (although I don't stay up anymore!).
- Thanks for getting this far through the epic!

[StormAngel]

your story is beautiful and you embraced your birth

doesn't matter about the medical stuff, a happy birth is something to treaure good on you

[moneypenny]

and I felt the shoulders emerge and then I felt my uterus being emptied of the rest of the little body as it slid lumpily out of me

Oh that brings back lovely memories! What a ride you went on. Thank you for sharing. I too can sympathise with your tear. The same thing happened with my DD's birth. It is amazing just how fast your body can heal though

[froggie]

I really enjoyed reading your birthing journey. I felt the peace that you described. Thankyou for sharing.

xoxo Amanda

[virtualmeg]

I was wondering about the placenta, had to re-read to see if I had missed it! Thanks for updating.

[bunty]

Thanks for sharing this story as your approach your next birth .