Where we get to hold her not so mini-petons

Our Minipetons is almost six months already. We started writing this when she was two weeks old and already I was saying that I couldn't remember things as clearly, that they felt way less intense. Now, five month later, I may have some insight that weren't obvious for me at the time when I think back on the day, but a lot of it is in fact pretty blurry.

We went with a natural birth, in a birthing house, with midwifes. Why we made that choice is a story in itself but suffice to say that, when you put them next to each other, the pretty, quiet, comfy room at the birthing house seemed a much, much better choice than the noisy, full or germs and barely comfy even for mom hospital room. Plus, the more we read about possible consequences of epidural and Kitty remembering how things were in the hospital with BigSis, it just made more sense for us to be with mid-wifes.

Yet, I'm not sure I was ready for a natural birth. In my head, there was always a possibility that, if it became too much, I could just ask to go to the hospital and get the epidural anyway. This makes this story a real proof that with an amazing birth partner who believes in you and your ability to do it, and with guidance from a great mid-wife, anyone can achieve natural birth (provided there are no complications).

I want to say too, before getting in the gist of the story, that time is a tricky thing during labour. It is often one of the first things you get asked (how long was it?), but when you are in the midst of it, it doesn’t really exist and some of the times below are more guesses than anything else as we had both lost track a while back.

Sunday the 14th, I woke up at 6am to use the bathroom, feeling completely normal. I hadn’t had any contraction before, only a couple of instances where I felt like I was “wearing a belt”, menstrual-type pain around my lower belly and back - I was even wondering if I would be able to recognise contractions when they would come!

At 6h15, I started feeling that belt once again, and I told Kit it felt like a really large one this time. By 6h30 though, the pain was coming and going and definitely felt like rushes. Right away, they were a little less than 5 minutes apart and lasting 45 to 60 seconds, so at 7h30 we paged the mid-wife (France) to let her know. There was no hurry to get to the birthing center as we were only 15 minutes away, although I can say now that I didn't want to labor at home too long - I didn't want to associate the slight panicky feeling I had with our home and prefered to be somewhere else. I was losing a little bit of blood at that time and I mentioned it to the mid-wife on the phone, but she reassured me that it was normal and just to wear a pad.

For the next couple of hours, I laboured alternatively in bed, standing up, or sitting on the toilet. Kit tried to make me eat breakfast, but pain tends to make me throw up so I didn’t manage to keep it down. I was still losing some blood and because it was pale red rather than brown (as was mentioned in the paperwork i was given) I started to get a bit worried and called my mom. During the 18 minutes of our conversation, I had 5 rushes - including two I couldn’t talk through - so I called France back around 10h30 and she said to come in, just so we could check where the bleeding was coming from.

The car ride brought contractions to every 2 and a half minutes. Upon admission, France told us that I was dilated at 4 with bulging membranes. “All good news,” she said, “the longest is done!”

She offered to run me a bath but I wanted to keep the bath for a more painful time. She got me the ball, but I didn't like the feeling of it at all. I decided to lie in bed and try to sleep, to relax and keep my strength for what was to come. It worked so well that it actually slowed contractions down to every 5 minutes again! Not a good sign for a fast labor.

Around 2h45 pm, my waters broke, propelling me from the bed to the bathroom. I asked Kit to get the mid-wife in, as there was blood and meconium in the fluid. France wasn't worried at all though, and explained that the meconium wasn't thick enough to be problematic. Water gushed for the next couple of contraction and then stopped. France examined me again and that’s where I started to lose faith – I was less dilated than before now that the water bag wasn’t pressing the cervix open. From 10 am to almost 3 pm and no progress to show for it! I was so upset about the news that the rest of the sentence did not register at all. Lucky for me, Kitty did the exact opposite and focused only on that part: "it’s progressing well, the baby has come further down".

Kitty was getting worried by then that my glucose was getting low. He had brought some candy for me to suck on, but they made me feel slightly sick. He had also brought some chilled tea with honey but that actually left me more thirsty than anything. (In hindsight, what would have been really good was some orange slices for me to bite on.. Noted for next time!) France offered me some juice but by then I was in a “terrible two” frame of mind – every question was being answered by a “No!”.

Kitty kind of took control and despite my answers, asked the mid-wife to run me a bath and bring the juice anyway) and for the next hour (it seemed a lot longer to me but Kit disagrees) I laboured in the dark bathroom, vocalising at different pitch as the rushes got stronger.

Ina May’s book that we had read in preparation for the birth mentions making horse and cow sounds, and letting the monkey do it, etc so Kitty and I had been joking about having a whole menagerie in there. Turns out, I’m definitely more of a wolf ... Well, it was a full moon that weekend!

After about an hour, I was feeling uncomfortable in the bath and Kitty helped me out. I realised then that standing up and holding on to his hands made the rushes a lot easier. Being so tired from lack of food and from the endorphins made it tricky though, as I couldn’t really rest in-between. I tried lying on the bed again, but that made the rushes really painful, especially when on my back. I felt pressure in my rectum with each rush and started feeling concerned about peeing or worst, pooing during one. So I started bouncing back and forth between the toilet (unable to sit as it felt too low and compressing) and the room. Cue whinging about hospitals and being too tired to go on!
The mid-wife asked me to lie on my side on the bed so she could examine me, but warned me that she would not tell me how far along I was. I agreed, and yet as soon as she was done I demanded to be told how much. I don’t know what number would have pleased me, but 6 wasn't it!

I tried to convince her that I couldn't do it. After trying to argue that I was doing fine and that "I had all the right impulses, I just needed to keep trusting them", she made a deal with me that she would run me another bath, let me lie in it for an hour and examine me again – if I wasn’t happy with the number then, we would go to the hospital. I knew Kitty and her were dragging things out, but the bath was helping me rest. After a while I felt I had to get out and tried to labour a bit longer standing up. I finally begged Kitty to get her to come back. I had lasted somewhere around 75 minutes but oh surprise! I was now at 8+! The mid-wife offered to try to stretch the cervix on the next rush as the baby’s head was just being held now by a little ‘flap’. On the next rush, she told me, I had to push and she would see if the ‘flap’ could be moved. We tried, twice, with me lying on my side on the bed, but even though I felt like I was pushing as much as I could, she told me I wasn’t pushing at all!

I was now in transition and too hot then cold then nauseous and couldn't settle anywhere. Uncomfortable, tired, restless, I wanted to go to the hospital anyway, despite the major improvement in the last hour. The mid-wife had to convince me that going to the hospital wouldn't fix anything as they would have to admit me, then get the anesthesist to come around and do all the prep for the epidural. Chances are, by then I will be pushing and it will be too late for the epidural!
So, back to the bath for a third time. Not for very long though; I felt my water break for a second time, shot out of the bath and there was still more meconium. Back to the bed, and the mid-wife asked me to sit up placing all the pillows behind me to try to push again. That didn’t work, the pillows were too soft to offer a good support, but it did make me think of that position in the book and I asked Kitty to sit behind me instead of all the pillows. The rushes weren’t as bad sitting like that and I wish we would have thought about it earlier. When I pushed however, I could feel huge gushes of lumpy liquid. The mid-wife confirmed that there was so much meconium, my waters had the consistency of pea-soup. She therefore needed to call an ambulance to transfer me to LaSalle (to have the inhalation team on stand-by at the moment of birth).

At this point of course, despite asking many more times in the last few hours, I now didn't want to go to the hospital!
The mid-wife was very reassuring, saying that we would have the baby whichever way, that it wasn’t my fault, that the whole thing was only for prevention, that the baby’s heart beat was strong and still constant at 140. Kitty packed everything while I stood over the toilet so as not to make too much of a mess until the ambulance arrived (can you picture a better time to have a toilet backing up? Yeah, me neither!).

The mid-wife gave me the ok to push during the ambulance ride if I felt like it. The ride wasn’t so much fun (I felt like the baby was riding back up every time the driver pressed the brakes) but I coped with it by staring in France’s eyes, something else I remembered from Ina May’s book and found it really helpful (Kitty was driving the car to the hospital at that point so was not with me.) (Kitty’s note: Find out where the hospital is before you have to go there ... its not a good moment to get lost in Lasalle!).

Once there, it took a while to get used to the hospital room. The worst would have been the huge clock staring me in the face, taking me out of the hazy timeless dream I had been in all day - that is, if I had had my glasses on. As it was, I was half blind so was able not to focus on it.

The amount of people walking in an out of the room though, that was hard for me, and I remember asking the mid-wife who they were and could they go away now? They asked me lots of questions about this and that to which I answered “No!” (of course). France explained to them that this was kind of my ‘standard’ answer and then we got down to the business of pushing. For two hours.

I never really felt an ‘urge’ to push, or that my body was doing it on its own, but it did feel good to do something about the pain. I would get confused about what was a rush and what wasn’t – often, I would take a deep breath and lock it to push, only to realise there was no rush to help me. In the same way, I probably let some rushes go by without pushing at all. In my defence, I hadn’t eaten for nearly 24 hours by then!

It hurt all the time by then, but it wasn't as bad as before when I couldn't get a comfortable position. The mid-wife had told me that I would get a regain of energy at this point and it was true, but as time passed and everyone kept telling me it wouldn't be long now, I started to think they were lying and every time they said it meant it would be at least another hour, maybe two! And then with a little encouragement, I did a little exploring and found the top of the head just inside, barely a finger tip away. I was amazed at how close she was and this gave me a new determination! Eventually, when the doctor asked me if I wanted to catch her, I did not even realise she meant that the next push was it. I said "no" by reflex, but I honestly thought I was doing enough work there, someone else could do something for a change! I didn't even catch on when one of the nurse said to Kitty that the next few minutes would be intense, or when I started seeing people standing around in the corner of the room (the inhalation team) or even when I started to feel the ring of fire - at that point, it was just once more thing that was painful; it hurt more than anything else, but I had given up having any say in the level of pain I could stand! I knew I would tear, but it was not even a concern. (Ok, apparently I am more than fuzzy on this as Kitty clearly remembers me telling him to "Get it out, get it out NOW!" at this point. I have not recollection of that. At all.)

And then that was it. The doctor was holding her and telling me to take her. I remember her wide open eyes, and how she didn't want to feed as much as she wanted to quietly shout her displeasure at the whole ordeal (she still loves to vocalise her day back to you whenever we've been somewhere or done something different). I remember, after a couple of minutes, having to tell Kitty to get the bloody camera and take pictures already, and later still asking confirmation that she was, indeed, a girl as I hadn't thought to look. I remember how beautiful she was, how perfect and gorgeous and how impossible it seemed to me that she ever fitted in my belly.

We went back to the birthing house an hour and a half later, nursed and cuddled into the big bed all together for our first night.

I was rather disappointed in myself for a while after that. I felt like Kitty had done all the work to get to the result we wanted, and I had just stood in our way the whole time. I remember thinking many times over that I needed to make him and the mid-wife understand that I needed to be at the hospital, that if I could just find the right wording and intonation they would agree to it. I remember thinking that I would never, ever do that again - ever. I remember that I couldn't connect the pain and the hardship together with the fact that it was the baby making her way - it was just hard and painful and I didn't want to get through it but I didn't have a choice.

Now though. I know that by now, any anesthesia I could have taken would not be in her system anymore and would have no impact on who she is, but I cannot help but be reminded of the so very awake and responsive little baby I was holding in the hospital bed whenever I see her discovering new abilities and being so clever. I don't know if I will ever do it again, but if I do, it will be without drugs again, and outside of the hospital - because I know that I wouldn't have the willpower to refuse pain relief if it was readily available, but I also know that I can cope without and once it is over, I'm glad that I didn't take it.