I woke up at
6:30am on the 26th May and wondered why I'd wet my pants when I'd only just
been to the toilet about an hour before. Then I realised I hadn't wet my
pants as such but my waters had broken. I phoned my midwife at about 7:30am
to let her know and she came to see me mid-morning, checked that I knew when
to ring her and did some baseline obs and off she went to clinic for the
day. It was at this point that we discovered she had another woman in the
exact same position - water's broken, not in labour yet - so I spent the
entire day worrying about whether I'd get to have my own midwife or not.
Nothing much happened during the day in regards to labour. We got the birth
pool ready, everyone except me had a nap and we just waited.
N (midwife) had rung us in the evening, somewhere around 7pm I think, and I
told her that I didn’t think I’d need her until after Mr 2.5 went to bed. My
entire pregnancy I’d said I wanted to labour at night and after Mr 2.5 was
in bed, so that we could have our baby with just us and our midwives.
We’d put some cold water in the bottom of the pool after we’d eaten dinner.
After we put Mr 2.5 to bed and started to think about filling the pool we
realised we’d put the wrong mat down under the pool and had to empty the
pool to get it out. Luckily it was only cold water we had to take out. I’m
not really sure what time we started filling the pool, I know we started
after Mr 2.5 went to bed but before N got here.
DH had to really encourage me to ring N, as I was convinced that it was too
soon to ring her as the contractions were still easy enough for me to
breathe through even if they were coming every 3-4 minutes. I phoned her at
9pm, told her the contractions had been 3-4 minutes apart for 30-40 minutes
and were starting to get more intense. After I rang her I wrote on a scrap
of paper “9pm-ish, 2 minutes apart, sore, pain in lower belly and
back/bum/pelvis. Forgot it hurt so much”.
At 9:20pm I rang her back and said the contractions were two minutes apart
and lasting for about a minute, sharp pain. She got here at 9:45pm and
started getting all her things ready. The contractions were really intense
by this point and I needed DH holding me throughout them. Unlike with Mr
2.5’s labour I didn’t need the sacral pressure but it was better with DH
behind me and leaning into him. I was doing a lot of squatting throughout
labour, trying to deal with the pelvic pain. The pain was in my belly,
around my hips and as it got harder the pain went down my thighs and there
was little that relieved it.
I didn’t want to swear so much during labour this time and had practiced
things like “oopppeennn” during BH contractions and early labour but I soon
dropped that and opted for “come on baby”. It was nice and long and I could
drag it out and focus on the baby getting out of me. This labour was really
intense, I can’t even describe how intense it was and that word doesn’t seem
enough for it. When I’d feel a contraction start I knew I only had a small
amount of time to get DH to me before it started to peak. I thought they
were only lasting a minute but according to my notes they were going for
90-120 seconds and happening every 2-3 minutes.
By 10pm I was starting to feel like I couldn’t do it, a sign I was probably
in transition or nearing it, but I didn’t comprehend that as labour had been
going for such a short time. N wrote that I was coping brilliantly and also
commented on the “lovely Brahms lullaby” playing in the background (an
Australian CD btw, by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra). At 10:15pm the pool
was almost ready and our second midwife, M, was on her way.
Around this time I was starting to feel some pressure low down and getting
paranoid about pooing. I kept wanting to go the toilet and managed to poo in
there but got hit with a contraction while sitting down. I joked that that
wasn’t fair, so in between contractions I was still quite lucid and aware of
what was going on.
I got in the pool after 10:30pm which was an amazing relief. The water felt
wonderful and so relaxing. Between contractions I sat back and talked to DH.
During the contractions I knelt and leaned back into the side of the pool
and DH. M arrived at 10:45pm.
N and M were putting pots of hot water into the pool and asking me about the
temperature. I said it was fine for now, N said it needed to be a bit warmer
if baby was going to be born into the water. I thought to myself that baby
was ages away and why was she worrying about the temp for baby already?
Shortly after M arrived she sat on the floor in the lounge and I remember
thinking it was nice to see her at my level and when I had another really
hard contraction she sat by the pool and maintained eye contact with me
while I was trying to get through it.
I sat back after a contraction and felt liquid come out of me. I thought
that I’d emptied my bladder into the lovely clean pool and was going to have
to get out but when I looked down there was cloudy fluid spreading out from
between my legs. I asked “what’s that?”, heard N say “look at this M” and
told me it was my water breaking.
Within a few minutes I had a major urge to push and was surprised and
freaked out to feel that there was a head in my vagina. I had to really
fight the panic as I wasn’t expecting it to go so fast and couldn’t
comprehend that baby was coming out. I kept saying “it’s coming too fast!
Help me! I need pressure!” and I know I was scared that I was going to get
ripped in two. I’d moved to the other side of the pool as soon as I got the
pushing urge and was leaning over the edge. I was in the exact wrong place
for anyone to reach between my legs without them needing waders so had to
move to the other side of the pool after that first contraction. The second
contraction was just as hard and intense and I think the baby crowned at
that point. DH told me later he was surprised to see baby there so quickly.
One of our midwives told me to reach down and touch my baby but I said I
couldn't move, it was taking all of my concentration to cope with the pain.
While waiting for the next contraction I was having to breathe and try to
relax as I could feel the stretching and major pressure. In the third
contraction baby’s head came out and the cord was around his neck so I had
to move mid-contraction to a semi-kneeling position, with one knee on the
floor of the pool and on one foot, so N could untangle baby. Baby came out
in that contraction and he also had the cord wrapped around a leg.
N passed baby to me, I still couldn’t believe that baby was already here as
it had taken about 4 minutes for him to be born. I held him while she
stimulated him by rubbing his chest. I lifted my arm and announced to the
room that it was a little boy.
I sat on a bedpan in the pool to deliver the placenta and had a few after
pains, something I’d not had with Mr 2.5’s labour. Baby was nuzzling at my
breast but wasn’t really interested in suckling. I gave up trying to deliver
the placenta in the pool as my position wasn’t quite right. I sat on the pan
on the floor and delivered it at 11:25, 30 minutes after baby was born.
DH cut the cord after that and I sat on the couch holding baby to my breast.
N wrote in my notes that I looked “radiant”, a lovely thing to read. N
checked out my nether regions and I had a shallow laceration but didn’t need
stitches. Baby latched on by midnight and nursed for an hour. We sat around
chatting, well I did while everyone else alternated between sitting and
tidying up. It was amazing how good I felt afterwards, just sitting there
having a normal conversation after having a baby in such a short period of
time. It felt so normal.
I rang my parents just after midnight. At first I said I’d just rung for a
chat (knowing full well they’d be in bed of course) and Mum asked me what
was happening. When I’d spoken to her a few hours earlier nothing was
happening so she wasn’t expecting to hear that I’d had baby. DH rang his
parents and they came up to help empty the pool and tidy up.
N stayed until about 2am (and went to the next birth of the woman who'd been
labouring while I was!) and we went to bed. I didn't sleep much between the
after pains, getting up to pee a lot and being on a hormonal high. I gave up
sleeping at 3am and sat in the dark sending text messages to everyone on my
phone until my phone ran out of money!
Everyone says to me that it must have been great/easy to have laboured and
given birth all within 3 hours. It was certainly different from the 15 hours
with Mr 2.5 but definitely not easy. I'd do it all again though.
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