The first of the contractions ‘with a difference’ took place at 2:57pm on Sunday February 14th.
Don’t ask what they felt like, because I’ve taken so long to write this that I can’t remember.
I know they were more intense; they felt like they were gripping me more than the Braxton Hicks contractions had.
Earlier in the afternoon, I had started playing around with the labour-inducing pressure points that I’d written about months ago, in addition to focusing really intently on getting the labour going.
If it didn’t kick in, I knew that I’d have to go to work on the next day, and everything in me was telling me that I’d not be going back to work for a while.
Frank had spent the day working in the upstairs bathroom, and when he finished around 5:30, I finally told him that I was pretty sure labour had begun.
My contractions were rather erratic – running from 20 minutes down to 5 or 6 … and not always in the same direction!
At 5:55pm my mucous membrane separated and I had my ‘bloody show’.
My contractions continued, gaining intensity, but seemed to still be very erratic – they’d drop down to 5 or 6 minutes for a while, and then jump up to 20!
I stopped logging the contractions at 3am on the 15th, as the contractions finally started showing a less eratic downwards trend.
It’s all a bit of a blur thereafter, and shame on me for not recording the events earlier than I am now.
At some point early in the morning on the 15th (maybe 2 or 3am), I was around 4-5 cm dilated. My cervix seemed rather high, but I could feel the hardness of Eliza’s skull through my skin, so knew that she was in position.
By 9am that morning, there had been no real progress with dilation.
My contractions, though becoming very intense, were erratic again (jumping up to 17 minutes), and worst of all, it felt like Eliza had totally disengaged from the birth canal, as I could feel her in a very high position. It was all very discouraging.
Thinking back, it felt like her head wasn’t pushing down on my cervix, rather to the side. So because her head wasn’t pushing down on the cervix, I perhaps wasn’t dilating as I should have. Looking at the anatomical area, it’s hard to explain what I felt … the canal is pretty tubular, so I don’t see how she could have pressed to the side … maybe her neck was flexed so that her head was coming in with the widest possible girth … but whatever was going on, she disengaged and tried again.
I hadn’t had anything to eat (I didn’t want to find myself pushing out a baby with a full intestine, if you get my drift!!) but hadn’t felt thirsty either.
I was tired from being awake for well over 24 hours, so by 10 am Maria (who had come to the house some 12 hours earlier) suggested that we all try to get some rest.
Frank and I went up to our bedroom, Frank’s mother went to hers, and Maria lay down on the futon matress that we had up in the Mezzanine.
It was a very disturbed 2 hour nap.
By this time, my contractions had become extremely intense, and my lower back (the pressure points of which provided the best relief from the discomfort) was feeling a bit bruised from being pressed.
We went back up to the mezzanine shortly after midday. I was feeling discouraged.
Maria told me that it seemed like my body was fighting the delivery, and that I needed to decide from my core whether I was going to have Eliza that day, or wait for another day.
She had to be born that day – I knew it.
I drank some Raspberry Leaf tea, and continued to labour.
One contraction just melded into another.
Then on top of the contractions, I started to get a searing cramp across my lower abdomen (it felt like I had a red-hot iron across me.)
That’s when I started groaning with each contraction!!
I was in something of a stupor from lack of fluids and food (I had no apetite or thirst), the exhaustion from being awake for so long, and the birthing hormones that were pumping around my body.
I remember feeling concerned that if Eliza wasn’t born soon, I might have to go to the hospital. It just wasn’t fair on her to be going through this for so long. But then again, I thought, would it be fair for her to go through a hospital birth?
I remember Eliza moving between contractions like she had done in the past, so I instinctively knew that she was fine – that there were no complications such as a cord around her neck. Unfortunately, being drugged up on my own hormones, I didn’t think to tell Frank, Ferne or Maria that Eliza was still moving ok – so they were doing a lot of worrying that something was very wrong, and that Eliza and/or my body didn’t have the strength to go through with this.
Once I eventually told them that she was moving fine, their stress was relieved.
As the contractions continued over the next few hours, I started throwing up. Maria welcomed this, as throwing up was helping me dilate.
Maria wanted me to eat, but I wasn’t hungry and didn’t fancy throwing up food- liquids were bad enough!!
We had a chocolate drink mix full of vitamins/minerals that I drank.
And the labour continued…
At 5:15pm, I needed to go to the toilet.
I felt very weak.
During the two previous trips to the toilet, I’d had to have Frank steady me walking down and back up the stairs. This trip was no different.
At 5:20pm, while I was still on the toilet, the phone rang – it was Stefanie; a colleague from the office. She was concerned, as were many others, that I still hadn’t had the baby.
I took the opportunity while Frank was on the phone to do a self exam, and found to my utter delight that I could feel the embryonic sac!
No sooner had Frank hung up the phone, than I stood up and “POP!!”, my waters broke, followed by oh so much pressure from Eliza’s head!!
Maria came downstairs and asked me if I wanted to have my baby in the downstairs WC, or if I wanted to have the waterbirth I’d been hoping for all these months.
The answer was obvious!!
That single event provided such a rush of excitement, relief and energy!!
After the pressure/urge to push had subsided, Frank half-carried, half-pushed me up the stairs, and I took my position in the tub.
I don’t remember feeling any contractions after my waters broke, but the urge to push was overwhelming.
I was able to control the second urge to push.
I could feel Eliza’s head; I could feel her scalp scrunched up as her skull was being compressed, and I could very obviously feel hair.
The third and forth urges were a lot harder to control. Her head slipped lower, but not too far.
It was around this point that I told Frank for the first and only time “this hurts so bad”.
By the fifth urge, her head was crowning and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hold off much longer.
I was trying to use my fingers to stretch my skin as much as possible, but I could feel that there was no way that I’d stretch enough, and that a tear was inevitable.
At 5:45pm, to the sound of the howling of our dogs and the cries of Maria’s son, I felt a sudden ‘burn’ and Eliza burst forth, spread-eagle across the water.
She had blood on the back of her head from where my skin had torn, but apart from that, she was clean as clean could be.
Maria pushed Eliza back towards me, and said “Pick up your baby” … and I did.
Eliza took her first breath and experienced making a sound for the first time. I cried, Frank cried … and I heard Ferne in the background say “well done, Bekki … you did it, you did it”.
… and we just sat there and lost track of time.
After a while (not too long, I’m sure), Maria recommended getting out of the pool.
When I stood up, there was a gush of blood.
I felt light-headed, and I know Maria was concerned that I might be losing too much blood.
I was given honey water to drink in case I might faint, but I was sure that everything would be fine – I just felt dizzy like you do when you’ve stood up too fast after a bath.
I lay down on the futon matress while we waited for the placenta to be delivered.
I remembered Frank speaking of pulling the placenta out, which I protested at because my mother had retained placenta due to it being prematurely pulled out.
I felt the placenta separate, and Frank helped it out.
Maria checked it to make sure that it was entire, and then she left.
Eliza was 10lbs and 20 inches long.
She had superb strength in her neck and started trying to hold her head up almost immediately.
How would my delivery have gone under conventional care?
(This is all assumption)
According to the development shown in her ultrasound at 19 weeks, she was recorded as being 1 week older than she really was.
So for starters, they (hospital) would have probably induced me a week early as they saw her as being due a week earlier than I’d calculated according to the true conception date.
Had I gone to 40 weeks under traditional care, they would have probably classed me as high-risk, because she would have been over 9lbs with a large head.
So they would have wanted to then possibly schedule a c-section due to her size.
As it happens, I went into labour at one day under 41 weeks.
After 16 hours, if you haven’t had the baby, a hospital will deem it cause for an emergency c-section for failure to progress – I find it HIGHLY unlikely that they would have permitted a vaginal birth after 26.5 hours of labour, as they would probably assume that I was too weak to push her out!!
But again, these are all just my own musings.