I gave birth to Benjamin in September and had a crazy, whirlwind delivery.
When I was pregnant, I obsessively read other women’s birth stories. I found
them fascinating and felt like they would help me prepare for labour myself. In
hindsight, they didn’t prepare me at all.. I don’t think anything can. But I
still wanted to put down the events of the day in writing so I could remember
it. Here goes! This this not concise in at ALL. I’m writing this more for me and
future Benjamin than anyone else, so that’s why I’ve included all the details.
Congratulations if you can read through this whole thing lol
P.S. My experience with midwives was amazing I would recommend midwifery care
to anyone!
On Thursday September 4th, I had an appointment with my midwife. I was 2 days
overdue and she suggested we do a “stretch and sweep”. She had talked to me
about it at my previous appointment and I had no desire to do it because I
trusted my baby would come on his own when he was ready and because I have a
horribly sensitive cervix and I didn’t want to put myself through unnecessary
pain. We talked a bit more about the procedure and I ended up agreeing to do it.
It was painful and I cried. Like ugly, red faced, huffing and puffing crying.
She wasn’t even able to do it properly because I couldn’t relax at all, so it
was all for NOTHING! Ultimately she was able to deduce that I was not dilated at
all, 0% effaced, and my cervix wasn’t even facing the right direction. She told
me I wouldn’t be going into labour in the next 24 hours and very unlikely would
it be that weekend.
On Saturday September 6th I went to get a pedicure with my mom and sister.
The guy doing mine said I looked HUGE (uhh thanks jackass), but he gave me a
nice strong foot and leg massage that felt awesome, so I forgave him. Later that
day I went grocery shopping with my sister and did an extra large shop. I forgot
to get bagels so I walked back across the length of the store to get back to the
bakery section. The walk back to the bakery section completely winded me, but
like the aesthetician said, I was huge and the extra 35lbs was really weighing
me (literally).
When I got home from grocery shopping, I ate a bunch of pineapple and hung
out with Kevin. I really felt like crap (tired and achy) so I decided to take a
bath. I sat in the tub for maybe 10 minutes and it wasn’t helping me at all, so
I went to bed early. This was about 9pm. I woke up on 3 different occasions with
splashing acid reflux. The third time I actually ran to the bathroom because I
thought I was going to throw up from coughing so hard. Kevin had been watching
TV at that point but came in to check on me. I gave up on sleep at this point
and asked him if we could watch Hitch. It was after midnight. I felt little
twinges when we settled on the couch to watch the movie, but I had been feeling
twinges for weeks, so I ignored them and didn’t say anything to Kevin. At 1:30am
I was having a harder time concentrating on the movie so I told Kevin I thought
I was having contractions. He was excited. I kind of was too, but the
anticipation scared me. I told him at this point that I wanted to wait until at
least 6am before calling the midwife.
Side note:
In my previous appointments, I had said I would like to try to have a natural
(drug-free) hospital birth. I had also said I would like to labour in the
comfort of my home as long as possible. The midwives said that was fine and
waiting up until 7cm was safe. After that point it’s hard to relocate because
then you’re starting the transition phase of labour, which is the shortest, but
most intense, painful part. They told me if I hadn’t asked for an epidural by
that point, that I would by the time I reached the transition phase. They said
that most women will react pretty strongly to the transition phase – crying,
vomiting, diarrea, etc. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to it, but I
really appreciated my midwife’s honesty during that conversation. While I like
to be mentally prepared, NOTHING could have prepared me for labour.
So back to the story, I pulled out my big yoga ball and was rocking back and
forth on that. By 2:30, I was surprised by how much pain I was in. Things got
pretty crazy after that. At the beginning of each contraction, I would literally
jump up and run from room to room wailing/screaming. My cat was freaking the F
out. I’d jump in the tub (I hadn’t drained the water from earlier) and back out
again. I felt like I couldn’t get ahead of the pain. Kevin tried timing my
contractions but they were all over the place. At 4:30am, I threw up and Kevin
called my midwife. My secondary midwife (Esther) was available so she said she’d
make her way over. She got to our place at about 5am. I was on the bed, naked,
on all fours, rocking back and forth in the middle of a contraction when she
arrived. I immediately said, “I’m going to need to go to the hospital as soon as
possible to get the epidural!!” She said that was fine and she’d have to check
me first. She did an internal exam (which was painful… ugh damn cervix!!) and
her face said it all. I didn’t even need to hear her say, “You’re barely
dilated…” I was crushed. Stella, my primary midwife, had told me at an earlier
appointment that women generally dilate a half centimetre every hour. Esther
didn’t tell me how far dilated I was and I didn’t ask, but I knew it was less
than 4 because that’s how far you need to be to be admitted to the hospital.
Later on she told me I was 2cm when she checked me.
So then Esther sat on the side of the bed and told me to lay down on my side.
She’d put her hand on the top of my belly when a contraction would start and
would coach me to say “whoooooooooo. whooooooooooo. whooooooooo” and then would
let me know when the contraction had reached its peak. I found her presence to
be extremely comforting. Kevin was trying to rub my leg while Esther was there,
but I didn’t want him to touch me at all lol. I can’t really explain
why I found Esther to be so comforting, but she was authoritative and
caring and she’d gone through labour herself before so I really felt like she
could help me through it. She coached me through contractions for about an hour,
then said she was leaving. She said to call her in a couple of hours or if my
mucus plug came out or if my water broke.
After she left I tried to take little cat naps between contractions but it
was so difficult to rest. I ended up getting up and sitting backwards on the
toilet. At 7:30am I noticed I was bleeding and I was SO FREAKING EXCITED. I
never thought I’d be so excited to see blood, but it meant progress and meant
that we could call Esther back! Yay!! I’d barely even processed the thought
before another contraction started and I heard a huge SPLASH in the toilet. It
legitimately sounded like someone dropped a brick in the toilet bowl and there
was splash back all over the toilet and floor. I yelled out to Kevin that my
mucus plug came out and my water broke and that there was meconium in the water.
Note: there wasn’t meconium in the water. It was super murky looking because I’m
gross and hadn’t flushed the toilet after my mucus plug came out lol.
Esther told us to get to the hospital and she’d meet us there at 8am. We live
just over 1km from the hospital and can see it from our condo, but it took us
over half an hour to get there because my contractions were extremely intense
after my water broke and I couldn’t help but push. Every time a contraction
would start, I’d have to stop and press up with my hand. I’d been told that
pushing before you’re 10cm can cause your cervix to tear so I was freaking out
inside. In my head I thought I was 4-5cm dilated and all that kept me going was
knowing that I was going to be at the hospital soon where I could get an
epidural because if it hurt this much
already, there was NO WAY I was
going to make it through the transition phase drug-free.
When we arrived at the hospital, Kevin parked the car in the ER lot and we
rushed through the doors. I had a contraction in the ER waiting room lol I
seriously felt like I was being ridiculous but it was so painful. I had my dress
hiked up around my waist, my hand pressed upward on my crotch, while I was on my
knees screaming in pain. (I’m laughing while I’m writing this, but it was super
intense at the time). A nurse came out to check out what was going on and told
us how to get to Labour and Delivery. We ended up taking a wrong turn and
another nurse found me (I kid you not) shaking and trying to break through a
set of locked doors like I was the Hulk. She said she’d get us a wheelchair and
I said I didn’t want to wait and could we please run there if you don’t mind???
When we got up to Labour and Delivery, another nurse came up to us and
immediately was like, “They didn’t give you a wheelchair?! Hold on!” She grabbed
a wheely office chair, told me to sit down, then ran down the hall dragging me
on the chair behind her while I was wailing and knocking into the walls and
carts in the hallway. We must’ve looked ridiculous but I didn’t care.
When we got to the room (at 8:12am) I could barely keep my eyes open. I
noticed a few women I didn’t recognize and I said, “I have a midwife! Where’s
Esther??” She said, “I’m right in front of you. Open your eyes” lol I didn’t
realize my eyes were closed. I hopped up off the chair and said, “I’m going to
need that epidural right now!! What do I need to do?” She told me to get
undressed and get onto the bed so she could examine me. I stripped down in about
5 seconds and while I was doing that I told Kevin to go pay for a parking pass
because I didn’t want to get a ticket or have our car towed. LOLOLOL! He
obediently ran out of the room. Not even 20 seconds later, Esther takes one look
at me and says, shocked, “omg you’re crowning!! The baby is coming NOW! Someone
get Kevin back here or he’s going to miss it!!” I couldn’t believe I’d gone from
2-10cm in 2 hours. I’d just sent Kevin to go pay for parking. They were telling
me the baby was coming RIGHT NOW. And there was no time for an epidural. Esther
gave one of the other midwives (who had just finished attending another birth)
her phone and they called Kevin and told him to get back ASAP. Poor hubby… he
told me later he ran back through the hospital as fast as he could. All I was
thinking when I started pushing was, “If Kevin misses the birth of his child
because I told him to pay for parking, he will
never forgive me!” He
got back to the room just as I started pushing. I had one midwife on each side
of me and I had one foot resting on each of their hips. Pushing felt AMAZING.
The relief I felt once I was able to start pushing was fantastic. Three
contractions in and Benjamin was born! It was 8:22am, 10 minutes after we
arrived in the room. I didn’t know it at the time, but his cord was wrapped
tightly around his neck so they had to cut his cord when only his head was out.
And then he did a poo-splosion all over me on the way out. Because of this, they
took him away to examine him for a minute. I was overwhelmed by the amazing
relief I felt when he came out and there was no more pressure - I just fell back
in (no joke) complete bliss. When Benjamin let out his first cry that’s when I
realized they’d taken him to the examination station a few feet away and I just
lost it. I started sobbing uncontrollably. The experience was so amazing. Esther
put him on my chest and he
immediately found my nipple and started
sucking. I was surprised at how strong his latch was. Kevin called our families
at this point to tell them we had the baby. They were all so shocked. We had
agreed earlier that we wanted it to just be me and him at the hospital and I’m
so glad we did. As it turned out, we barely made it to the hospital ourselves so
we wouldn’t have been able to have our families there even if we’d wanted them
there.
When Benjamin was born, we were still deciding between two names. Naming a
person is HARD! Ultimately we ended up naming him Benjamin Joseph. He weighed in
at 8lbs 8oz with a head full of hair and dark grey eyes. The whole time I was in
labour I kept saying to Kevin that I wouldn’t be able to have another child
because it was so painful. Then literally the moment he was born I thought,
“That wasn’t so bad! I could totally do that again”
And about the drug-free part… I’m happy I got to experience a drug-free
birth. Even though I asked for an epidural a few times, I wasn’t able to get any
kind of pain relief – not even a Tylenol! I had a difficult time getting ahead
of the pain and when we were on our way to the hospital, the thought of pain
relief via epidural is what kept me going. Little did I know this guy was
already making his way down. If I can make a comparison, it’s like running a
marathon and feeling like you can’t make it, but the finish line is
just
around the corner. You just can’t see it. Also, birth was so incredibly
different than I thought it would be! My recovery was slow as molasses, but I
felt so great immediately afterwards. Also, we packed a hospital bag and didn’t
even open it lol. I thought I would be walking during the contractions and using
the whirlpool tub, but as it was, I didn’t even get a hospital gown LOL I just
delivered naked with the midwives holding my legs. I even packed my DSLR, but
the whole thing was over with so fast that we didn’t get any labour photos at
all!
Hopefully my story helps someone out there, or at least entertains a few :) If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments
section down below!
