Birth Story, sorry it's long, but I don't want to forget a single moment, especially as this is my last baby!
Friday 7th November 2008.
I woke up on the morning of the 7th November and somehow felt that THIS might be the day. I was also a bit exasperated that I was more pregnant than I had ever been in my life, 9 days overdue. We were all more than ready to meet the little boy I had been carrying around for the better part of a year!
I noticed that I was having a couple of contractions which were strong enough for me to sit up and take notice, but I would have say 2 in 15 minutes and then nothing for an hour or more. During the morning I pooped a few times and then noticed I had a full bloody show, instead of the streaks of bloody show I had the day before. I was really hoping that something, anything would happen before the afternoon so that I wouldn't have to go to the midwife drop-in clinic at the hospital for 2.15pm. Needless to say, nothing happened, so I took myself off to the hospital to see Janet, the community midwife I had seen on Monday. We arranged that I should see her again as she was the midwife who had done my sweep on Monday (3rd), and she said that she would be able to tell me how I had progressed. We chatted, did the usual antenatal checks and then she did the sweep. It turns out that in just 4 days I went from being pretty much closed with a posterior cervix to 50% effaced, 2-3cm dilated, very stretchy and ripe. Janet said it was the easiest sweep she had done in months, that she was able to get 2 fingers behind the membranes and was "brutal" with her sweep. We discussed what could happen, like bleeding, more show, contractions, back ache, ect. As a precaution, we also arranaged the date for my induction, which would have been for Wednesday 12th Nov. While on the phone, Janet was telling the woman to just pencil my name in as she doubted I would make it to my induction, doubted I would make it through the weekend. I told Janet I was really sad that it wouldn't be her delivering my baby, we got on really well, but I knew that she was going on holiday later that evening, lol!
I drove home, discussed how things went with DH. We talked a little about the induction they had booked me in for and the implications of that. I then needed to pee, so went about my business. As soon as I sat down, I felt a weird kind of pop and a small, uncontrollable gush. It was 3.15pm. I shouted down to dh, who cheered and I could hear the boys excited shouting that the baby was coming, it was very sweet and exciting. I was actually not sure what to do after that, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to call if my waters went or not, so I left it a little bit, but the contractions started almost immediately, although not regularly. It went something like this, 3.30, 3.40, 3.47 ect. I knew better than to leave it too long, so called the hospital at 3.45pm, told them that my last labour was only 89 minutes (was longer than that, but that is what my notes said). I was told she would call the on call midwives and get them to call me. At 4pm, the doorbell went and it was Janet and the student midwife that I had only seen just over an hour ago. Janet just grinned at me, said she knew I would go straight away and that she would wait with me until the 2 on call midwives arrived. The contractions by this time were already 4 minutes apart, but I was not to the point where I couldn't talk through them. We took ourselves off upstairs to my bedroom to prepare the room and bed.
Once the room & bed were prepared, I just sat on the side of the bed, the midwives sat on the floor and we just chatted while waiting for the 2 proper on call midwives to arrive. By about 5pm the first of the on call midwives arrived, Debbie. By this time I was starting to get the urge to bear down a little with each contraction, not full out pushing, but could feel the downward movement and my body was telling me to help out. Maybe 10 minutes later the other on call midwife arrived, Kate. Kate is an amazing midwife, I felt secure and confident in her presence. It must have been apparent to Kate that I was well into transition by this point as she said that it was finally time for my first internal exam. I think it may have been about 5.30pm. I was complete with just a tiny bit of lip and a huge bulging bag of waters. We talked over the options of either leaving the membranes to go naturally or they said they could break them. We decided that it was so close that to be more natural it would be better to wait. We didn't have to wait long. 10 minutes later, they waters went while I was bearing down a little. It was quite the comedic moment, not one of us was expecting it and all 4 midwives got wet and the waters flooded out everywhere. We were all having a good laugh over it.
After that, there seemed to be a tiny bit of a lull in the contractions, almost like my body was giving me time to rest for a few minutes before gearing up for the real hard work. At 6pm Janet had to leave as she was driving up to her brothers for a bonfire party and said she would let some fireworks up for the baby, which was very sweet. At this point, the contractions were continuous, Mark was called upstairs as the top of the baby's head was visable. However, the contractions were making checking on the baby quite hard as lying back enough to pick up the heartbeat was really uncomfy. In the end, I opted for being propped up with lots of pillows to make tracing him easier. As I laid back, more fluid leaked out, but the colour was changing, even I could see. It looked a little yellowish and was noticed straight away by Kate. For 10 minutes the 3 midwives were umming and ahhing as they were not entirely sure if there was meconium in the waters or not. I then changed position slightly and as I moved, it became more obvious that the fluid was turning green/grey and then a hard decision had to be made. Kate was talking me through the reasons why transfer was the best option, while the student midwife held my hand and mopped my forehead. Unfortunately I am the kind of woman who goes right inside myself while labouring and for anyone watching, they would think I was pretty non responsive. In my head, I answered Kate, I told her I was all for transfering for the safety of my baby, but it obviously never left my lips as Kate told me I HAD to make a choice and quickly. The best I could manage was a curt nod. Things from there happened very quickly and got a little blurred. I could hear the student telling Mark to call someone to come and sit with the boys, I could hear Kate on the phone asking for an ambulance and to hurry as they baby could still arrive before the ambulance and it was an emergency. This scared me a little, but the 3 midwives, were fantastic. Once they were off their phones, once was holding my hand and trying to talk me through the contractions to distract me from pushing, the other was tidying up the room as best she could and Kate kept talking to me and giving me updates. I just kept my eyes shut as I was trying to consentrate on going against my body for the first time that day. It seemed to only be a matter of seconds that 2 ambulance crew arrived at my bedroom door. I was helped onto the chair to be carried down the stairs and then bundled into the ambulance. It didn't occur to me until later that night that it must have been a right show for my neighbours, lol!
Kate came in the ambulance with me and asked the crew if I could have gas & air. I hadn't asked for it, but the idea was that it should help with the journey as I was not far from crowning, plus it was imperative that I did NOT push until we arrived at the hospital. This was honestly the hardest part of the whole labour, trying to fight against mother nature, but aparrently I did a stellar job and aside from some involentary pushing, I didn't push on purpose and we made it to the hospital in a record 10 minutes, at just past 6.55pm. I was wheeled into room 1 on delivery suite and was asked if I could move from the stretcher to the bed. The was the first time I came close to losing my temper as I could barely move as was basically in the middle of 1 huge contraction as there was no break between them. The next several minutes were spent getting the bed to the right height, bringing the resucitaire into the room and making sure the paed was present. Then I was told by Kate that I couldn't wait for Mark (who had to follow the ambulance in the car) and had tp push like crazy, contraction or not. So I start pushing, can feel his head moving down very quickly. As the head was starting to crown, 2 other midwives, not 1 of the 3 I had, pushed my knees right up by my ears. This was the only time I felt I had been violated, it was so uncomfortable. A few pushes later saw the head out, followed by a giant push for the body and then it was over.
Zack William was born at 7.11pm on 7th November. I looked down as Zack slid out and have to admit that he was a complete mess, my poor little lamb emptied his entire bowel contients and was thickly coated in it. The cord was cut immediately, which I didn't want, but I can let it go. He was rushed over to the paed who after cleaning him up and doing a tiny bit of precautionary suctioning, deemed him absolutely healthy and happy with amazing apgar scores of 9 & 10, better than both my other boys scores! Kate then informed me that Zack became distressed because the cord was tight around his neck. He would have been very happy until my waters broke fully and the the cord tightened as he moved down. I feel very pleased with the whole experience and outcome, especially as I know that there was nothing I could have done differently. I almost feel like I gave birth at home as I did it all there except for the last 15 minutes. I did ened up with a 2nd degree tear and had to be stitched, but my gorgeous little bundle is more than worth it. Now, if only I didn't have roids on my roids, lol!
Zack & I had to stay in overnight so they could observe Zack's health (resps, heart rate and temp) for the night. He did have a little trouble maintaining his temp at first and was on the cool side, but it is not uncommom in babies who arrived fast. After some snuggling in the bed with me, his temp jumped up from 35.7 to 37 degrees. As for the length of labour, it seems the midwives and I disagree. I said just sort of 4 hours from the time my hind waters went and the midwives have the first stage as being 1 hr 35 min and the second stage as 1 hr 6 min, so 2 hr 41 mins.
Zack is now 6 days old and absolutely beautiful and really completes our family. So far, he has been a very good baby and we are all in love. I am not sure if he seems so easy because he is, or because I am older, more experienced and relaxed. Either way, we are so very blessed, I just wish time would slow down, I can't believe he is nearly a week old already. I will add another pic of Zack to my profile in a moment.
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