Birth Story

Sixteen day old Rose is asleep in her bassinet and life has completely changed for the best possible reason. Being a mother is an absolute joy, but before I get too caught up in it I wanted to record the birth story before it all becomes a blur.

Sixteen days ago (Sunday August 9th) I had spent the morning tidying and feeling very pregnant. My bump was making it difficult to sleep and I kept waking myself up because I was on my back. On the Saturday, we had enjoyed a walk along the river and spent the evening clearing and organizing the basement. I apparently wasn't happy to just sit on the couch. (I was planing to do that in the last two weeks of my pregnancy!) Sunday rolled around. Lunchtime rolled around and I saw an afternoon was lazing ahead of me, lay down on the couch and felt liquid coming out of me - liquid I apparently couldn't control. I sprang up. Running up the stairs, desperately clenching my pelvic floor, Brent called out "there's some on the couch." I immediately thought - or wanted to believe - that it was just pee. More kept coming and I made a hilarious attempt to collect it in a new contact lens case.

We both sat in the bedroom and nervously discussed our choices. Both of us were sure it was just pee - though I was pretty sue it was coming out of the wrong hole. The doc also was sure it was just pee, but sent us to the hospital anyway. Just in case. Cue some desperate bag packing and deep breathes. At the hospital, I was examined and immediately told I was in labour. What. My mind just kept repeating oh shit oh shit oh shit. There's no way you can be ready, but I certainly wasn't ready.

Because my water had broken, or membrane had ruptured in doctor speak, it was important to get things moving quickly. My doc gave me three options for induction which I couldn't really take in. I ended up with the drug pitocin and a catheter I was sure they were calling a volleyball - turned out to be a Folley Bulb. Five hours in and nothing was hurting too badly. My doc arrived andchecked me - I think I was three cm. He upped the pitocin and removed the bulb, things began to hurt. They kept asking me one scale of 1 - 10 where is your pain. I had no idea as I hadn't really experienced much pain before. The contractions felt like period pain intensified. I found bending over, warm rice on my lower back and my darling husband counting one thousand and one one thousand and two, one thousand and three helped a lot. It got pretty bad - I wanted to get a taste of what it could feel like - and I asked for the epidural. That magical thing came and for the next 10 hours I read and slept. Nobody had told me that was possible. Our calm nurse, Vanessa, kept coming in and checking vitals, moving the monitors, asking if I wanted anything. I was calm and happy, something I really did not expect.

At 4. 45am on August 10th 2009, the beautiful resident came in checked me. She could not feel my cervix, my doc came to double check and confirmed. It was time to push. I started to shake. This was real. There were some tears. The pushing scared me, with the epidural I could feel a growing sensation of the contraction, but struggled to know exactly when to push. Pushing itself was hard because I really wasn't sure where I was pushing. I felt relieved when I was told that was an "awesome push, whatever you did there do it again" or "great job". I was lying there clueless. Unfortunately this experience went on for three hours. About two hours in I was told another 15 minutes. That gave me a goal that quickly went and I started to get frustrated and tired. Turns out that the baby was the wrong way up and had got stuck on my pelvic bone. I don;t know how close I was to being taken for a C Section. There was a lot of discussions happening out in the hallway. Finally, however, a few huge pushes and some help from the vacuum, Rose popped out.

She was immediately laid out on my stomach. She was slimy with white and red liquid, but I started stroking and talking to my little girl. She started to cry and for a few moments the whole family was crying. At the moment of her birth four or five extra people entered the room and she was whisked away for her tests and tidy. She came back bundled and beautiful. We had a perfect, healthy daughter.

I look back on my labour with fond memories! The pushing was, without doubt, the most uncomfortable, frustrating part, but I certainly didn't hate any moment of the nineteen hour epic. The following two days were spent on the post-partum floor. Breastfeeding was tough, but we had a super nurse who got us going - at least while in the hospital. It is clear that labour is really not the difficult part - the hard stuff comes after. You have a baby to look after.