Veronica Róisín's birthday, Monday 27 April 2009
I went to bed on Saturday night and woke up at about 2.30 on Sunday morning with gentle contractions and dozed at intervals until the morning. The pains were calm, evenly but widely spaced, just a little gasping. DP cleared the dining room, moved the piano and the dining table, and we blew up the pool, tidied up, watched a couple of episodes of The Wire, had some lunch and I ate two bowls of kettle chips. My godmother aunt called and my mother called and I told her I might have a baby tomorrow. The sun was hot. I called the labour ward at about 2 and when the midwife called me back I told her pains were every 10 minutes and manageable; she said she would wait to hear more and we had a brief chat about the logistics of the pool. I knelt on the floor beside the sofa and I was sweating and rolling a little, and then I called the midwife again at about 5 to say that the pains were every 5 minutes and she said she would come over. She examined me on the bed upstairs and said I was 5 cm dilated and I was pleased that I wasn't going to be told I was imagining things were moving on, as so many people seemed to be. She sat on the sofa downstairs with a cup of tea and started on what was to become an immense portfolio of paperwork ? I had no idea how much. DP started filling the pool. I knelt on a cushion in front of the sofa again, and then I was really rocking with the contractions. I had a TENS machine which I think was pretty distracting rather than actually effective, but that is something, and I don't know what it would have been like without it. The pains were growing but I was coping; but then then I wanted to go into the pool. The MW had said a little while before that any time from then it would be fine to go into the pool, but I didn't want to slow things and I had heard from many people that their labour had stalled in the pool. But I had to do something suddenly and I asked to get in the pool; and we moved next door and I took my clothes off and tore off the irritating buzzing TENS insect and got in and was given entenox and it was incredible. The only times I have ever felt anything comparable to this have been in a field at 6 in the morning ? deep complicated perfection. I asked MW if things were carrying on alright and if I should be in the pool as it felt so calm, and said, ?don't worry, I'll soon get you out of there if things slow down?. I completely believed her, as always throughout I had absolute trust and confidence in her that she knew exactly what was happening all the time.
Soon the contractions were building again and I couldn't keep on top of them with entenox. I couldn't breathe through the mouthpiece when they were at their peak and I was kicking out behind me struggling to cope, shouting strange non verbal noises. DP was holding me together at this point. They seemed to come very close together and I was wondering what would happen if the spaces between them stopped. I was aware that MW was using her phone and I wondered if that meant she was calling another midwife and if this meant that the baby was close, and that allowed me to stay in control. She said that she thought I might be in transition and I took that to mean that things might not get too much worse, so that, and being in the water, and DP keeping me calm (now from outside the pool) with massage and water and juice and lots of encouragement, meant that I was actually consciously lying when I said (repeatedly) ?I can't?. Each time, at the peak of contraction, I said this, I felt a little guilty for being melodramatic because I knew I could, and that was what I really meant, and the sarcastic part of my brain was telling me to just shut up and do it in that case, and part of me was smiling inside at that. Between contractions I was resting my head on the side of the pool and very quiet, and then there was someone else there and I heard Josie introduce the new midwife and I said ?hello? feeling that it was very rude that I couldn't turn my head when I said this and I had no idea what she looked like. and then I was pushing. The gaps between the pushing contractions felt very long and I had no idea how many times I was going to have to push; the baby felt very hard and bony and it seemed not to fit in the birth canal. Gas and air was long abandoned now. I could feel the baby trying to go down and I could feel it jamming and filling me up and it was sore inside in a fleshy way that was different from before. MW asked me to put my belly out of the water to check the heartbeat but I couldn't do it so she just said to carry on pushing, and I can remember these long tense moments of deep silence in between while I rested and pulled myself together. Then Josie said that the baby wasn't moving back as far each time and I started to think I might see it soon. I was pushing harder then and then my voice changed and the roar of the pushing ended differently, I could hear it going higher for some reason, and then there was a head, and I reached down and touched it, and it was bony and fluffy with lovely downy hair floating in the water. There was another long pause and in that pause I looked at MWwhile she told me how the baby was going to come down between my legs and in front, and that I was to catch it and bring it up and put its face out of the water, leaving its body in. I understood and nodded but it was all very theoretical. Then a contraction appeared on the horizon at last, and this one I welcomed completely and I rolled into it and pushed all through it with my feet leaving the floor all froggy and then the baby was released and it came up in one movement into my arms and I looked at her face and she looked right back at me with clear direct blue eyes and I recognised this gorgeous solid round body from inside me, I knew it was the baby that I had been living with all this time, and immediately she opened her mouth and cried and she was glossy and wet and sticky and downy and completely perfect. It was 18 minutes past midnight. DP cut the cord and I came out of the pool and lay on my back on the floor with Veronica in a towel on my chest and finally managed to push out the placenta, and then that moment with Veronica and DP before the ambulance came was one of the longest loveliest moments ever.
I was taken to hospital for repairs to a 3rd degree tear and had to wait all night bleeding and freezing while occasional harassed staff members popped in to say that they were sorry, there was another emergency Caesarian, I would be seen to soon. I was glad I was not trying to have a baby under those conditions. DP and the baby were with me and we just waited, starving and thirsty, till 7 in the morning when I was taken into theatre. I spent all day in hospital and I hated it, and DP had to go home and deal with the hellacious shark attack tank on the dining room and a thousand bloody towels etc, immediately on no food and no sleep, because my mother was already on her way. But I was allowed home that evening (earlier than they said, because my brilliant MW who had delivered the baby came in and told them to let me go) and that night DP, Veronica and I all slept together.