This post will be lengthy – I want to share my whole experience, so feel free to skip it if you like!
Our little girl was due on 15th November, but as per my last post that date came and went
with no sign of impending labour. I had an appointment with my midwife
Marilyn on the 16th, who suggested making a time with my OBGYN to discuss
induction. I had that appointment on the 19th, and he was willing to
induce me the next day. I said I’d actually prefer to wait it out a
little longer, since I’d only be 5 days over my due date at that point
which I didn’t think was allowing enough time for baby to make her own
way out, plus I didn’t like the idea of induction which can lead to a
cascade of interference, and all I wanted out of my
birth experience at this point was to be able to do it on my own if I
could. So we agreed the following Monday (26th) would be induction day,
giving our little girl a total of 11 days past my due date to make her
own way.
We had Jonah’s (our nephew) birthday party on the 24th – that morning I’d
woken up with some small pains but nothing dramatic, but I did lose my
mucus plug. Upon calling the maternity ward to let them know, they said
without contractions or broken waters, labour could be within the next
24 hours or within the next 2 weeks. So we went along to Jonah’s
party and I didn’t have any further signs of anything happening until
the next morning, where I started having very mild contractions about 10
minutes apart. After a shower, the contractions eased to about 15
minutes apart, then 30 minutes apart, then disappeared almost
completely.
At 4:30 Monday morning (induction day), I woke up very uncomfortable
and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up and went to sit in the
loungeroom. Almost immediately, I had some relatively strong
contractions. The first two or three were about 7 minutes apart,
followed by the next two or three being 15 minutes apart, but then they
started hitting hard between 2-5 minutes apart. I woke up Michael and
asked him to come sit with me in the lounge as I was feeling a bit
anxious, but I didn’t even get to sitting down before the contractions
hit harder.
I called the ward, where luckily Marilyn was on duty and answered.
I told her the details and she said she’d get things ready for us. Michael called my mum (who was my second support person and our taxi!) and
she came to get us. On the half-hour drive to the hospital, my
contractions regulated out to about 4-5 minutes apart, with an
occasional “aftershock” contraction between the bigger ones.
We arrived at the hospital at about 6:30am (the exact time I’m not
sure of but I’m guessing it was about then!) and Marilyn hooked me up
to the CTG machine to measure how far apart my contractions were and
make sure baby wasn’t in any distress. Everything was good, the CTG
confirmed my contractions were about 4 minutes apart, so Marilyn
examined me to find I was 5 centimetres dilated. This made me super
happy because I knew then that I was halfway there already, and so far
I’d done it all by myself. By this point it was about 7:15am (judging
from my Facebook updates!), meaning if I hadn’t gone into labour myself,
I would have been coming into hospital for induction in 45 minutes’ time! So thankfully, our girl
was helping us out and saving me the worry and stress of induction.
I stood around and swayed, rocked, and breathed my way through my
contractions. They gradually got stronger and stronger. Around 8am I got
into the birthing tub, which initially relaxed me and helped ease the
pain of the contractions, but as they got stronger, the water didn’t
really help any. At this point I asked for some pain relief, so we
started with gas & air, which didn’t really help the pain but it did
help me catch my breath and take deeper breaths. Marilyn examined me
again and found I was 8-9 centimetres, and told me if I was going to
have baby in the tub then they’d need to up the temperature of the bath
water to 37 degrees. I was already feeling hot and almost a
little sick so I didn’t want the temperature increased – Marilyn
suggested I get up and try to empty my bladder, to help make a bit more
room for bub, but as I started to get up, the contractions just hit me
one after the other and I could barely get up out the tub. I squatted
back down in the tub before getting out and Marilyn put the back of
the birthing bed up so I could kneel on the bed and face the wall
behind, slinging my arms over the back. This was a relatively
comfortable position and let gravity help the process along too.
A few more minutes in this position with gas & air, and I found
myself needing to push. Marilyn examined me one more time and said
we’re ready to get this baby out, I was a full 10 centimetres dilated
and ready to rock’n'roll! I took a few deep breaths on the gas & air
and pushed with all my might – it was a very strange feeling: you want
to push with the contraction (and the pushing eases the pain of the
contraction), but the pain “downstairs” is pretty intense so you’re kind
of between a rock and a hard place.
I don’t remember much else at this point except pushing at least two
big pushes with every contraction – and I do recall between contractions
feeling like I’d gone two steps forward, one step back because I could
feel baby’s head coming through, but then retract back in.
Finally, when my Marilyn said, “Let’s get this baby out, Terri! You
can do it! I can see her head!”, I knew I had to do this. I bore down
and pushed with all my might, and with some pretty excruciating pain,
her head popped out. I remember screaming “Ow ow ow ow, it hurts, it
hurts!”, and Michael told me a few hours later that this was the only
point that he was really worried and scared for me, but luckily my mum
was there to give him a reassuring look.
With my next contraction, out came the rest of her (another very
strange feeling – it felt like my insides fell out!) and Marilyn
(after initially checking her over and cleaning her off just a little)
told me to sit up and passed our baby girl between my legs. When I saw
her, I just couldn’t believe it – a little person lay on the bed before
me! I immediately picked her up and held her close to my chest, just
exclaiming “Oh my god! Oh my god!” over and over again (I remember looking at her hands and thinking "Fingernails! She has fingernails! I hadn't even thought about fingernails!"). Michael cried
(as I expected him to!), and I don’t think I even looked at my mum at
all; it was all about our little girl. At about this point, there was a
knock at the door – my dad and my nan had arrived – so we just asked
them to wait about 10 minutes while we got sorted!
I had requested that the cord be allowed to stop pulsating before
clamping and cutting so about 5 minutes after her birth, Michael cut the
cord. I was given the injection to help birth the placenta (I had to
help by pushing a little as the cord was apparently quite thin), and
then handed baby over to my hubby to hold while I turned around and Marilyn and another midwife (who I didn’t even know was there for the last
part of my labour!) cleaned me and the bed up so I could sit down and
have skin-to-skin with baby.
Once I was all covered up, my dad and nan came in. They couldn’t
believe that as they’d walked through the front door, their
granddaughter and great-granddaughter had been born. Baby latched on to
my breast within about 15-20 minutes of being born – this was an amazing
bonding experience that I would not have changed for the world.
Photos were taken, and she was taken off and weighed, measured,
cleaned up and dressed. I was allowed to get up and go to have a shower,
then we were walked down to the ward where I would stay for the next
couple of days. We came home on Wednesday 28th November
So, introducing…
Lily Fae
26th November 2012
Time: 10:33am (6 hour labour!)
Weight: 7lb 9oz
Height: 52.3cm
Thank you to everyone for their well
wishes, congratulations, support and blessings – we are over the moon to
have our own little bundle of joy!
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