Now, be warned, this is a very long post. I was going to split it, but I figured having it all in one spot was going to end up being the better option.
It was Sunday and I was grumpy. Nearly 2 weeks since I had started to lose my mucus plug and nothing seemed to be happening. I had had an appointment with the OB’s (not my lovely midwives, sniff) the Friday before and all she could tell me was to go home and have sex.
Heh.
Isaac dropped right down into my pelvis while I was in the shower at lunchtime (don’t argue with my showering at lunchtime technique. It works on a Sunday) and I was having lots of pressure and some contractions that were more crampy than anything else. He had been engaged for over a fortnight now and was really low anyway. To feel him get even lower was weird, to say the least.
I wandered around the house, alternately doing things that needed to be done – dishes, polishing off the chocolate biscuits, drinking coffee – and sitting on the couch with my laptop and book. I wasn’t the most patient person with Amy or Nathan. Then again, Nathan probably deserved it as he was drinking DESPITE me telling him not to in case we needed to head to the hospital.
I don’t think he actually believed that I would have Isaac early. It was still another 4 days until my due date (LMP and ovulation charting) and another week/8 days until the hospitals due date (scan results).
About 5pm I rang Mum to let her know that I was having contractions, even though they weren’t painful enough to really be anything yet, nor were they regular. They just felt like prelabour, but I figured Mum would appreciate the chance to pack her bags just in case.
42 minutes later, I went to the toilet, had a contraction, stood up and my water broke.
Pop! Just like that I was wet to my knees and standing in a puddle of amniotic fluid.
I waddled inside, leaving a trail all the way and yelled for Nat.
‘My water just broke’
‘You sure?’
‘Honey! It’s running down my legs and my pants are soaked. I AM SURE.’
He grabbed me a towel and I held it between my legs while I waddled about finding clean underwear and a pad.
I rang Mum and relayed the water breakage to her. She said she would be around as soon as possible to watch Amy so we could head to the hospital.
30 seconds later hard labour hit. No build up, nothing just instant HARD labour. My contractions were one on top of another and it was all I could do to remember to breathe through them.I did manage however to get up a quick blog post JUST FOR YOU. I don’t think anyone realised that I was actually in hard labour when I wrote it though. Somehow ‘water broke, headed to hospital now’ doesn’t really convey the urgency, does it?
Nathan rang his boss to let them know he wouldn’t be in to work for the week and then he rang his parents? I think? I don’t know, I was too busy breathing, trying to stay upright and swearing that I had forgotten just how bad this was.
I rang the hospital to let them know what had happened. I must have sounded quite calm, as the midwife on duty asked if I wanted to come in. Well YES!? I spent less than 5 minutes on the phone with her and had had 2 hard contractions.
My water breaking upset my stomach I think and I spent the 10 minutes in the toilet. Not much fun as I was having contractions the whole time.
Mum arrived just as I got out of the loo, while I was having another contraction. I remember her saying hello, but I couldn’t respond. I was much too busy hugging the bag of pink batts (roof insulation) and breathing.
I got Nathan to wet some face washers for the drive down to town and flapped my hands at Mum when she tried to talk to me.
I remember swearing at Nathan as he was telling me to hurry up and I was holding onto the door of the car having (yet another) contraction. I yelled some more once I got into the car and he drove too fast over the bumps and I may possibly have yelled some more when he was getting stressed at the amount of traffic on the highway. Admittedly, he wasn’t very nice at this point. He could see just how close together my contractions were and he was getting just a touch stressed.
We headed down the highway, much faster than our car was ever meant to drive at. My contractions were non-stop now and double peaking.
Transition had hit.
If we had of stuck to the speed limit, we were still 50 minutes from the hospital at this point.
7 minutes later and 25km from home, Nathan remarked how fast we had made this leg of the trip. I remember simply being astounded at the fact it had only been 7 minutes. My contractions had started to slow down and I was feeling dozy between them. I remember thinking ‘oh fuck, I’m feeling sleepy. Oh fuck, I remember this from Amy, this is what happens just before I need to push’.
Sure enough, the contractions changed shortly afterwards and I started to feel lots of pressure. My body was trying to push Isaac down, as much as I was trying to breathe through them and not push.
It was scary as hell.
About 5 minutes away from the hospital, I started to need to push for real. There was NO way I was stopping this, Isaac wanted out. I breathed. Lots and lots and swore in my head. I remembered to relax and to breathe and to try not to push.
We pulled up to the hospital at 6.54pm. We were lucky enough to get a park right outside the front. Unfortunately it was a disabled park, but we figured that I wasn’t able to walk anyway.
Nathan left me in the car (pushing) while he ran inside and stole a wheelchair. Apparently some guy yelled at him as Nathan ran away with it, but he was as far past caring as I was. (In case anyone is worried, there are a stock of wheelchairs just inside the door of the hospital, you are however, meant to wait for a hospital aide to come and get you, which wasn’t happening.) Nathan brought the wheelchair back to the car just as I started to push again.
I swore at him, as he swore at me to get out of the car.
We practically ran up to Maternity. When we got there, PAC (Pregnancy Assessment Centre. Or Triage in the US) was closed.
Oh dear.
We headed on around to the Maternity Wing and luckily the midwife assigned to us met us there.
Nathan: ‘How are you?’
Midwife: ‘I’m good. Probably a lot better than Veronica is right now. Now, Veronica, do you really need that wheelchair?’
I looked at her and said ‘I need to push!’ as another contraction hit.
Midwife: ‘Right then, just down the hallway on the left…’ as she gave Nathan directions to the birth suite. It was probably about 7pm at this stage. We skipped triage altogether.
Once I was in the birth suite I stripped off my t-shirt and bra, swapping them for a hospital gown. I know a lot of people complain about the hospital gown, but honestly my thoughts are why bleed on my clothes when I can bleed on theirs?
I was so thankful to not be sitting down anymore. I climbed up onto the bed and got into a hands and knees position without thinking about it too much. I was simply trying to do what was most comfortable for me at the time and hands and knees was it.
My contractions were still coming strong. The Midwife popped her hand on my stomach as I had a contraction and pushed to feel how long they were lasting. I think she was a little shocked to feel that they were well over 2 minutes long as she remarked how long they were lasting.
One more contraction and I could feel Isaac’s head. I told the midwife this and she promptly enlisted Nathan to help her remove my pants and underwear. I offered the helpful comment that they could cut them off if they wanted but no one took me up on it and I was forced to actually wiggle to help Nathan take my pants off.
I breathed and I pushed and I felt his head moving down steadily. I also vomited all over the bed with each contraction. That whole ‘ring of fire’ thing that they talk about? That’s not a myth. I remember the midwife saying that if I wanted to take a contraction off and just breathe instead of pushing, I was allowed. I responded by saying ‘Yes, but the sooner he is out, the sooner it stops hurting’. I put my hand down at this point and could feel Isaac’s head. I kept my hand there.
It was probably only 5 contractions since I got onto the bed that Isaac crowned. The midwife coached me through it, telling me when to push and when to pant. I held his head in the palm of my hand and pushed and out came his head. He started to cry instantly, despite not having his body born yet. Nathan put his hands down too (he had been sitting at my head the whole time, giving me drinks and watching), I gave one last push and Isaac was born into our hands at 7.17pm.
I wrapped him in a towel and brought him straight up to my chest. The midwife helped me take my hospital gown off and I sat there, skin to skin with our brand new baby boy. The midwife got me to check and make sure that the cord wasn’t being stretched overly and then I got to lay back, still holding Isaac.
Another midwife had appeared at some point and she helped my midwife to clean up the room and do Isaac’s APGAR scores. She wanted to give him 10, but his feet and hands were just a little bit slow to come pink and so we had to settle for 9.
He spent the first hour skin to skin on my chest with me, having his first feed when he was about 20 minutes old. I cut his cord myself. Nathan and I gazed at him and decided on his name. After that first hour and another feed, the midwife handed him, naked and crying to Nathan to dress and cuddle.
While Nathan dressed Isaac and got to know his son, I went and had a shower. I came back to a freshly made bed (no vomit! woo!) and a room that I didn’t have to leave. I had a double bed and lots of room. It was lovely. Isaac fed again and that was it. My son was born.
No drugs.
No interventions.
No stitches, no tears. A little grazing (which still, more painful than the word ‘grazing’ suggests.)
Nathan must have broken every single road law in order to get us to the hospital, he was amazing. 17 minutes after he wheeled me into Maternity, I was holding my son. It was shocking and scary as hell, but in the end, I had one of the best births I could have imagined.
Taken at 7.39pm
