July 2009

Our plan was for a natural, home water birth supported by our midwife. As my due date came and went, we started discussing induction and hospitals - none of it being anything that I wanted to contemplate. As luck would have it, on day eight overdue, I finally went into labour...

I'd been having 'contractions' of a sort for over a month and had learned to ignore them. So I did. Pretty effectively. I missed noticing early labour altogether - at some point the mild contractions must have become regular - who knows when. Anyhow, 'labour' started for me at 11:30PM, after my hubby and I had just finished watching a movie. Bad diarrhoea followed by regular, fairly long pains that could not be ignored (or slept through, even though I tried). I was up and about, alternately bouncing on an exercise ball, belly dancing (sounds nuts, but it worked for me), and stretching on all fours. Hubby was convinced that this could not actually be labour (I must have been imagining or exaggerating) so he spent the next several hours alternately dozing or reviewing the lists of "symptoms of false labour" from our birth class and various pregnancy books.

I finally convinced him to call our midwife at about 4AM (he argued that it was a desperately unsociable hour to call), but a miscommunication led to the times of my contractions (both length and timing between) being rather substantially underreported. So, based on his information, our midwife arrived at 7:30AM (or so; the timeline is a bit fuzzy) to find, to her surprise, me nearly completely dilated (9+ cm) and going slightly nuts. (I will also note here that my two affectionate, normally alert & concerned canine companions had not even batted an eye through all the night's activities - even though they were sleeping in our bedroom where all the commotion was occurring - they just slept on, unworried.) Once the midwife arrived, hubby disappeared to make coffee and breakfast for everybody (seriously!). Midwife #2 (need two midwives present for a home birth) had to be dispatched from her early morning appointment on the other side of the city back to our house for imminent delivery (once she arrived, she laughingly referenced her change in plans with the statement, "oh you people that take birth classes!").

Our bathroom soon became an operational medi-center - it is a bit of a blur but I recall that there was all manner of medical stuff everywhere. I hopped into the bath (we have a gigantic tub) at about 9AM to start pushing - a totally different kind of hard work altogether. I was nauseous and had thrown up several times through the night, so was running on no food and no sleep. After a few rounds of contractions and pushing (which didn't yield much), hubby hopped in the tub to coach me through them - which helped immeasurably (especially once he got rid of the coffee breath!). Just as we had practiced in Rhonda's class, he breathed with me and helped me relax everything but the parts that needed to be working to deliver the baby. In between contractions, he reminded me to drink Emergen-C (with a straw) - which was genius. The 2nd midwife took pictures on our digital camera to record progress with each pushing session (let me see how much more of the baby's head was visible). I got in a bit of sleep between contractions - they spaced out pretty far. Eventually, the baby arrived at noon - healthy, calm and alert. Our first family picture was taken a minute or so after the birth - the baby is cradled in our arms, gazing wide-eyed up at me and holding hubby's finger. One of the loyal canines came in to check about a minute later (they both scrammed once the midwives arrived) - he calmly counted noses, noted the arrival of our addition, then disappeared again.

Beer and pizza greeted the arrival of the new baby - a celebratory end to the pregnancy alcohol ban in our house (well, hubby had beer - I had more Emergen-C as I was still really nauseous). Food for the baby was a challenge for the first few days - breastfeeding definitely took some time to get established (took stubbornness/determination on our part and support from our midwife, plus lots of consultation with the excellent resources of Dr. Jack Newman). Eventually we got it squared away, and are still breastfeeding today, nearly two years later (breastmilk is the one reliable favourite food of our picky toddler).

Rhonda - you are a fabulous coach and a wonderful teacher. You gave us the confidence and skills to successfully complete a natural birth together as a couple. I don't think that we would have tried birthing at home before we took your course. Given that I was at home, I was as calm as I could be going through labour, which definitely made it easier to relax into the contractions and let my body do the work. I have heard a lot of unpleasant labour and delivery stories - thankfully, ours was completely the opposite - I am endlessly grateful to you for our peaceful, calm and happy birth.