When I had my first daughter, it was a nightmare… the only good part was that I was handed a baby. Seriously.
I totally could relate to this artwork: http://birthlove.cyclzone.com/pages/csec_vbac/meghan.html
Then I met Rebecca Francis, a doula from Seattle. I told her my birth story… in tears. She told me it sounded like I could have used a doula. I learnt what a doula was… what they do… and how to become one. I thought that women should have the option of professional labour support, should they choose it. The outcomes show that there is a serious benefit. Then one morning, not long after, I woke up and thought that while I still wanted to be a doula, why not be part of the movement to give women a completely different choice of care provider…?
I decided to become a midwife…
Within a month of midwifery education… I wanted a baby!
I THOUGHT I WAS INSANE… but nevertheless!!!!
(I have been told this happens a lot… My first daughter had weaned‘officially’ in September, at age two… so I maybe it was biological in more ways than one….)
Needless to say I wanted my care to come from a midwife, and if I qualified, I wanted to have a homebirth.
I found an amazing midwife… Her partner midwife IRONICALLY had lived up the STREET from us when I had my first daughter. (MAJOR kick in the stomach.)
I had a fantastic pregnancy, I felt really healthy, and very pro-active. I received informed choice and consent on EVERY aspect of my pregnancy. I chose to have an initial blood work up for type, Rh factor, Rubella immunity, HIV, and HBV. I had one ultrasound at about 20 weeks. I qualified for homebirth, but was unable to have it in MY home due to the distance and current legislation. For this reason, Neil and I decided to have the baby in my doula's house.
My Mom arrived on July 15th. When I’m close to having a baby, it’s like I wait for her… I ALSO was waiting on newborn sized baby diapers…. They came on the 18th, at that point I knew I was ready to have a baby. All systems were a go… I just lovingly looked at my birth supplies… it was a weird time.
Throughout the 20th and 21st, I had ‘Pre Labour Symptoms’… sometimes referred to as ‘False Labour Symptoms’ by the Medical Model. It is not that stage of labour which is ‘actively’ dilating the cervix… and is therefore not true active labour… but it is preparing and toning the uterus, effacing the cervix, preparing and toning the mother… It’s the jog before the marathon. On the night of the 21st I knew I’d have a baby soon. I felt a lot more pressure, and was moving into the zone… I called my doula for a heads up. She was planning on going out, and was like ‘Eileen, should I be going out?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, go out… just don’t paint the town red because I’m pretty sure I’ll be in tomorrow.’
By midnight on (the 22nd) I was waking up to a contraction every 20 minutes… they were getting stronger, but not closer together. I’d get a good grip for about 15-20 seconds. This was my first experience with normal labour, as last time I had back labour… I would roll out of bed; get onto all fours, and think to myself, ‘this is bizarre, the sensation goes away between contractions.’ I’d then roll back into bed, and literally fall asleep.
At 4am I woke my Mom up, and told her that we needed to get organized to go to the city, I was 10 minutes apart. She was a bit stressed… we didn’t even have our bags packed… we packed… and ate…I had a bath… and then we waited for Neil and our daughter to wake up. At about 7am our daughter was up… so within 15 minutes I went in and said to Neil, ‘You better get up, we need to head into the city, I’m in labour.’
You should have seen the LEAP he did.
It was so ER… get the woman to the hospital… change your pants… like.
Only… we weren’t going to the hospital… and he needed to calm down.
I was like, ‘Relax, just get dressed and get organized, so you can help me with Ais.’
At 8am we were in the truck, ready…
I asked if we had the tubs…
Neil said, ‘What tubs?’
I said… ‘The ones with the birth supplies….?’
Back in the house he went…
PHEW! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD!!!!!!!!! (NOT!)
We made it to Rosetown, and we stopped for me to go to the washroom, and get something to eat… the man who was pumping the gas and washing the windows asked Neil if ‘his wife was in labour.’ Neil’s like ‘yep.’ And buddy proceeds to say ‘OH, my girlfriend did that a few weeks ago…’ and tell him the story!!!!
I actually slept between Rosetown and Saskatoon. I was already tired, I told myself ‘YOU NEED TO SLEEP.’ I don’t actually recall any more than ONE contraction between Rosetown and Saskatoon… weird eh?
By 10:30am, we were at my doula’s house.
I had two contractions 10 minutes apart, and then they moved to 8 minutes.
We settled in…
Neil ran to Tim’s to grab me an egg salad sandwich, and then to Booster Juice for a Very Berry Juice, with GO GIRL booster.
While we ate, my midwife arrived to do my blood pressure, take my temperature, and remind me to eat lots, pee on the hour or more, and to just see how I was doing. She also said that she would do a vaginal exam only at my request (I had previously said no VEs in labour), and that she’d stick around, but would only come into my room to check heart tones… Otherwise, she understood I wanted privacy, and would be in the main part of the doulas house, holler if I wanted her.
While we ate, I moved to 5 minutes apart…
We’d all eat, and then I’d hop off the chair…
Mom would hop up, and do the double-hip squeeze, my doula would talk me through the stretch, Neil would encourage me, and our daughter would inform everyone that “her Mom needed to have a baby.”
I ate most of the sandwich, and then we went back upstairs.
That was at 12:30 pm, my midwife and doula told Mom that I’d have a baby by suppertime. I was thinking that while I adored them, they could kiss it!!! I was NOT waiting until suppertime!!!!!
This is when my ability to tell time goes to hell.
I just remember walking… a lot.
We filled the tub, I got into it… I had two contractions, during which nobody could reach me to do the double-hip squeeze… I asked them to help me out… SO MUCH FOR THE WATER. I hated it… it was not an ideal set-up. Lesson learnt.
It was bizarre, when I had a contraction, and after one… I HAD to move. And moving would bring on another one. Bizarre, totally bizarre… I usually was leaning forward but sometimes I leaned back. After one contraction I hit the floor and went into Childs Pose. Everyone was like ‘oh yeah….’ Totally do not know what I was doing… or why, but it worked! There was no slowing me down, or speeding me up… I was completely at the whims of nature and my body.
Nobody told me how to be, where to be… They held the space, and let me labour.
Within a couple contractions my midwife was in the room to check heart tones… I looked at her and asked her to get me a bucket because I thought I might be sick.
She grabbed me the bucket, but it was like I couldn’t vomit up and out… it was just gurgling under the surface, making it to my mouth, and then sliding back down.
^Needless to say, I’m off egg salad and booster juice!
I looked at her and Mom and said that I needed to go to the bathroom.
I sat on the toilet, and BAM, that was when I hit the wall that everyone talks about…
You get that ‘Oh my God, I can’t do this anymore’ and then you start wanting to push… and you are back in charge. I just needed to make it to wanting to push….
I was just glad I knew it was coming… I’d hit the wall, and now I had to scale it… I have no idea how long this part was... to me it’s like a minute of memory, but everyone else assures me it was longer than that!
I sat on the toilet and cried… And then soon after I felt like ‘I give up… I surrender’ and then shortly after I got a sensation that caused me to do a little 3 second grunty push. I looked at my Mom and said, “Mommy help me…” and she started to get upset.
She bent down to hug me… and I literally tried to crawl her. She thought I was giving up… and she didn’t know what to do.
I needed her to get me off the damn toilet.
Communication was obviously breaking down… and I had about 5 seconds of time to speak between urges. It was cryptic.
My doula came into the bathroom and she squatted down to look at my perineum, and then she helped my Mom pull me up off the toilet. She then hollered to my midwife, who was coming into the suite that “we had show,” and that I was starting to push a bit. I was standing in the doorway arms around my Mom, face in her chest… and someone asked if I thought I could move to the couch, so I could rest on it…. I couldn’t talk so I just shook my head ‘no’ and my Mom spoke for me.
They grabbed everything and started hauling it into the bathroom…
Neil came in at some point, and I ended up with my right hand in his hand…
A contraction would hit, I would let out a quick shriek, I would then feel the urge to push for about 3 seconds, and then I’d just stand and moan, and slide side to side.
And then it would happen again.
According to the attendants I only pushed 3 times, but I know it was more like 6 times, they just weren’t there yet!
My midwife told me that the baby was still in the membranes, head out, but that there was a nuchal cord (cord around neck), so she asked permission to AROM (break the waters.) I shook my head ‘yes’ and my Mom spoke for me.
They couldn’t rupture the membranes, they were THAT tough
She then told me that on my next urge, give a push, and have a baby.
I could feel that one shoulder was still in… I shrieked, pushed, and felt the shoulder slide slowly out, and then this wet slippery baby slide out of me, totally ‘in the caul’.
It was so cool.
They then sat me back, and handed her to me between my legs… Ais informed me she was a girl.
A beautiful 8 lbs, 22 inch baby GIRL! (Who felt like birthing a watermelon.)
In a few minutes, I have no idea of time lapse, the placenta was birthed, and my doula said she missed the bin, the midwife said that was ok. Everything sort of became sepia, and I thought ‘wow, I don’t feel very good.’
And then, I was at Cirque do Soleil… watching acrobats in green costumes.
And then I felt movement, I opened my eyes and I could see my midwife over me… everything was still in sepia, but I knew my doulas shirt was turquoise… not grey… so something wasn’t right somewhere.
They rolled me on my side, and I started to see colour again, my doulas shirt was back to being its normal shade.
My midwife asked my permission to give me an injection of artificial oxytocin.
I said ‘yes’ and she gave me a shot in the thigh.
And talk about ouch…. Literally spawned a muscle contraction… which I guess I should have known, but OUCH all the same.
That was when I knew I was hemorrhaging. And that I was scaring the crap out of my husband.
I could see the book ‘Spiritual Midwifery’ and I remembered Ina May teaching her midwifery students to tell the mother to ‘stop bleeding’ in an authoritarian tone.
I told myself to stop bleeding, or I know where I’d be heading….
She massaged my uterus, and they re-latched the baby…
It seems to me that within a minute or so she asked my permission to give me another injection of artificial oxytocin. I said yes… although less enthusiastically!
(It was actually 30 minutes later.)
They made me lay on the floor for what seemed like forever… (think half naked, and wet on a bathroom floor…) then they did a lift, and four of them carried me to the bed.
I lay on the bed through the placenta inspection, and newborn exam…which they did all right beside me so I could partake.
I then ate. Traverna Raviolli. (Now if THAT doesn’t beat hospital food, I don’t know what does!)
And then they put in 6 sutures… ironically on the other side from my last tear! (Proof that comfrey kicks butt.)
The next morning I had breakfast, my midwife came, and I felt like I was coming around.
They got me up to take me to the bathroom, up until this point I had been using a potty in the bed! I sat on the toilet, and I was at Cirque de Soleil, again…. Repeat performance in more ways then one.
I woke up, on the bathroom floor, AGAIN, with my head against the toilet bowl, AGAIN.
And I literally said, “Fuck Around.”
Back into bed, back to using the potty, and just eating and drinking…
Later that day we tried again, this time I told them I was going to pass out, and they hauled me off and onto the floor.
So, the deal was… when I could get up, use the washroom, and NOT see Cirque… I could go home. BUT I had to take it easy for a minimum of 5 days.
That took till the next morning.
We’re fantastic though… She has not a mark on her, and came out rooting and feisty.
I didn’t feel polluted, or groggy.
And I feel like I have had this amazing experience… not the romantic waterbirth, by all means. But I did give birth on MY terms. I have found something in myself that I didn’t know was there… at this point I can’t even explain it, but when I can, I will fill you all in.
I have this bumper sticker that says “Women of the Earth, Take Back Your Birth.”
And I keep looking at it….
That’s what I did….
On some level, something that was injured at my first daughter’s birth has healed.
You can heal too….
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