#@?*!! … I don’t think a word exists that can fully describe the enormity of the experience of giving birth for the first time. I’m patting myself on the back and crying with happiness at my brilliant achievement.
So, to the details: The next day Friday, after the ’sweep’, I had period pains. I felt direct benefits from my usual yoga class that evening. The tutor Carmen knowing I was due any day prepared a session on positions especially good for labour. Christ, I felt the entire class was working with me on my suddenly authentic breathing… Living nearby, Carmen gave a few of us girls a lift home after the class. I arrived a few steps from the door and realised my walk was hilariously hindered by the cramps I was experiencing - Freddie was on his way…
After a night of yoga fuelled, TENS enhanced contractions; Saturday was perhaps the most frustrating day of my entire pregnancy. I’d had a good run from midnight to 5am puffing and panting on all fours every 5 minutes, really feeling the pull… (as Pau slept!). I managed to settle down and get a couple of hours sleep until the morning only to feel hugely disappointed with no major contractions to follow, just discomfort and a waiting frustration. That afternoon I called the hospital and explained where I was at. The midwife told me I needed to wait until I was having ‘REALLY PAINFUL’ contractions every 3-4 minutes lasting a minute each for at least two hours. Christ! The prospect of this became a looming fear which I needed to face.
At this point, My mum was called upon. I updated her explaining the stop/start contractions. She shared stories of my delivery and suggested I walk around the house and continue my yoga to encourage the contractions to start again. I had a weepy moment confiding in her how frightened I was. She almost broke emotionally herself but the tone of her voice picked up and I could sense she was being strong for the both of us which naturally, made me blub even more. I knew her advise was right, gave her my love and hung up only to run to Pau for a hug and an outburst of tears - Here, I can safely say I was sh**ting myself. The contractions during the night were painful enough but to wait for ‘REALLY PAINFUL’ to come along = PURE FEAR!
And so, as the hours passed, the contractions intensified. It got going around 8pm on Saturday night. I’d become dependent on the TENS machine over the last 24 hours and was beginning to get paranoid that I might be charging the baby, so I decided to brave it alone and get in the bath. HOLY CHRIST!! The TENS was doing a brilliant job in easing the shock of the pain, but then swimming, jumping and splashing in warm water seemed to bring on ‘REALLY PAINFUL’. I had my 2 hours of SERIOUSLY SHARP! contractions including one unexpected discharge of what I can only think to call ’shock vomit’ (urrgh) - Every 3-5minutes I jumped from lying on my back to all fours, ass in the cold air. “PAU!!” was instructed to knead and massage my lower back for the duration of my breathy screams. He must have had about four phone calls from clients during the course of this process and the joke of him running from room to room, me jumping, shouting for his attention breathing for my LIFE was, looking back, pure comedy… Pau became my TENS.
Finally we agreed that I was in labour… (err, yah) and decided that maybe we should make our way to the hospital; the next challenge. I had got to a point where there was no alternative to the comfort (?) of being on all fours. The prospect of getting in a car and riding the speed bumps was inconceivable. Knowing the journey should take between 10-20 mins I was trying to calculate how many times I’d have to contort around the car interior. We had several people on stand-by for the lift and Harriet, our neighbour and good friend was ready and waiting. One last doggy style panting extravaganza on the sofa with my TENS machine back in favour and a quick monty python walk to the car was had. Pau and I piled in the back seat and I just grimaced to bear it.
We arrived to empty hospital corridors and in the panic forgot everything we were told in ante-natal classes about where to go. - I’m 100% reliant on Pau at this stage and can not believe there’s no one waiting for us with a wheelchair or bed or SOMETHING! … CHRIST, I HAVE TO WALK NOW? I remember jigging my way through the hospital swaging my bum with each hobbled step whilst leaning forward to catch the air I just lost from the last breath. We got a little confused and had to retrace some steps - it felt eternal, but finally we arrived at the labour ward and were greeted by Lucy, a midwife I’d got to know over the last month during my pregnancy yoga class at Tyssen Children’s Centre (see network page). A friendly face, it couldn’t have been better!
Whilst my room was being prepared in the mother’s suit (or ‘home from home’) we were left in the waiting area. I had no choice but to adopt cat pose (Not sure if I’m letting my yoga tutor Carmen down here, is that the right term for the all fours position?). My TENS machine is on MAX power, I honestly can’t care less about the fact that there’s another couple loitering right next to us I’m just down in the middle of the floor rotating my ass and shouting intermittently through each breath. Focussing on the vinyl flooring I manage a thought for how dirty it was and think how I’m going to remember this moment.
We get to the room, I immediately strip to my vest and climb on the bed to my favourite all fours. At this point it’s 11.30pm. Lucy is my midwife (brilliant) and she asks how frequent the contractions have been… She checks and informs us I’m dilated by 7-8cm. MY GOD! She expects the cervix to dilate another cm per hour, so we anticipate waiting for up to three hours before any real action occurs. Several more contractions demonstrate where we’re at more or less and an assistant comes in the room to allow Lucy a quick break. Within a few moments it all changes. I have a CLEAR need to push. I suddenly felt the pressure pulling down and the increased decibel range of my reaction encourages her to get Lucy back off her break.
We’re in the transition stage, I’m fully dilated and ready to push this baby out. By this point I’m on the gas and air. I’m sucking that duct like you won’t believe trying to co-ordinate having the nozzle ‘in the mouth’ when breathing in, ‘out the mouth’ on the outward breath, amazingly, this simple action totally baffled me at the time and I was worried I’d lose the effect of the gas by taking the nozzle out of my mouth and breathing the gas away… Anyway (minor point). I change my position to seated, knees high up and as soon as I do that WHOOOOOOOOOOOO, the difference was HUGE. Suddenly, baby was falling down the birth canal, I could feel the pressure right up against the opening. With a few pushes Pau and Lucy were acknowledging with wide open eyes that something was visible down there. Lucy told me to push again and my waters broke (David, this is for you:) it felt like a ‘warm gush’ of (and here’s the bad bit) green water. There was meconium, so being 10 days overdue, baby was potentially stressed and there could be a risk of infection if he’s taken it in to his lungs…
Baby’s head quickly follows and I’m having to push down with all my might to get him out. His head is crowning but stuck. She tells me to push with the pain. The pain comes every few minutes and allows me a maximum of about three pushes before I’m exhausted. Lucy and Pau have hold of my knees and push them up toward my chest as far as possible. I’m exploring flexibility I never knew I had here. I’m WIDE OPEN and pushing as hard as I can but this baby isn’t budging. Lucy is determined to hold on and avoid episiotomy (making an incision into the perineum to widen the gap…) she gives me several more goes but insists that I push for longer. In amongst the mayhem, Pau explains that the baby has brown hair and Lucy invites me to touch his head, I venture with my right hand down below and feel the top of baby’s head soft and moist, it’s too much, I can’t believe it, I’m like the women in the text book photo’s feeling the pain. There he is, on his way out. I have to finish it COME ON!
At the next round of contractions I really try to PUUUUUUSH; holding my breath and gritting my teeth until my head gently wobbles from side to side at speed and my face must have turned a deep shade of purple. My vision blurs and I have to ask myself if I’m giving birth to a baby or my eye balls? With that thought, I feel a kind of cracking (*) sensation and the head was out. I clearly remember the feeling of baby leaving the body as though I spat him out and then seeing him lying in a heap on the bed below me, wet and a little bit grey. He was absolutely incredible to me, a human being made!
* I later discovered this was my coccyx… fracturing!! Didn’t expect that.
He was born at 1.40am on Sunday 3rd February all his faculties in tact weighing 7lbs exactly (3.18kg). We stayed in hospital for the night for observation due to there being meconium in the waters. We were discharged 24hours later all being well. Pau was able to take a few photo’s of the birth and looking at them now is just amazing, I’m so pleased he captured the experience. He kindly didn’t take pictures of my ‘push’ face… Shame - I would have been interested to see how scary that looked. Anyway, that was a week ago almost to the hour as I sit here writing. Freddie has been a complete joy since and I’m the happiest living person on the planet as a result!