Our bubba was due on the 14th February however she had other ideas.. On Wednesday 6th Feb at approximately 1am my waters broke - a call to the hospital confirmed it was ok to stay at home until morning. Slightly in shock that our baby would be arriving in the next 24 hours or so we promptly finished packing our hospital bags and did our best to get back to sleep! No labour by morning, but a trip to the hospital was necessary to check that all was ok. So we went to the Doctor and the Doctor said - sorry love but the cervix is not ripe yet! So back home for us with fingers crossed that my body would wise up and that labour would commence!
Sleep was broken at 1.45am that night when the surges (contractions) began.. nothing major, so I just went back to sleep.. by 4.15am the surges were 10 minutes apart. I was surprisingly calm and breathed through the surges as I had practiced and we began to get ready to go, I had a shower and some breakfast and then by 7am we were back at the hospital as per the Doctor's orders - surges 6 minutes apart.. Yaaay - it was all happening no need for intervention! However our bubble was burst when we learnt that my cervix had still not begun to dilate. We had a good chat to our Doctor and given that 36 hrs had passed it was agreed that a little helping hand would be the best option for the bubz - so a small dose of oxytocin was administered to augment the labour.. Not ideal, as I was attached to a drip, but we put the baby's health first as we didn't want to risk infection.
Our Doctor left us with our midwife and we immediately took a liking to her. We explained that we had been learning ‘relaxation techniques'; she asked if the course we had done was hypnobirthing, and was very encouraging of the practice and of our preparation to assist a natural and hopefully intervention free birth. We then discussed our birth preferences with her, which including using the words ‘surge' instead of ‘contractions' and ‘sensation' instead of ‘pain'. We also highlighted that we preferred that no offers or suggestions for interventions such as gas, epidural or pethidine were to be made unless requested by me. The midwife was very respectful of our wishes and I proceeded to get comfortable in our new environment as the surges increased over time.
Within 20 minutes of the augmentation surges were only a few minutes apart and the real deal of labour was underway... during that 20 minutes we had established that our midwife liked to travel - a favourite past time of ours as well. So we chatted about our experiences of Turkey and Egypt and other countries during the 1st stage of my labour. It was pretty relaxed and calm - I breathed through the surges, standing, leaning over the bed and looking out the window and the three of us talked travel. As the surges got closer Danny and the midwife talked while I gazed silently out the window, listening to their voices and breathing as necessitated, and of course interrupting Danny if there was an important travel detail he had missed!
As the surges became more intense I changed positions as suggested by our midwife. We had set up a playlist of the affirmations and relaxation music we had received during the course and played this in the background, along with other music we had. Everything was under control, and Danny and I were coping well so the midwife left us alone. We worked together as a team, Danny providing supportive words and encouragement, and practicing a bit of light touch massage during the surges. I was getting closer to transition - the surges were becoming more intense. I worked on remaining focused despite that there was a woman in the next room screaming as if being tortured, which to be honest, started to make me feel nervous. I was getting tired due to lack of sleep over the past two nights and the labour was becoming more intense. With encouragement from Danny, I breathed slow, deep breaths. Tears started to roll down my face at that stage, although I remained very quiet and still focused, I tried to block out the other woman's voice and concentrated on not letting the fear of the unknown creep in. Danny thought it was time to call the midwife back. After a quick assessment from her, she informed us that 1st stage labour was over and that I was in transition. No wonder things were getting a little tough! She told me not to worry about the other woman, she too was in transition, and her way of coping was to yell! AWESOME! My tool was going to be focused, slow breathing! Apparently I had gotten through 1st stage very quickly and the midwife congratulated us on how calm we had remained. I was doing brilliantly she assured me and suggested a hot bath might help me relax through the next stage.
It is amazing where your mind goes when you are in labour. I can clearly remember thinking about what Andy had told us about transition. The common thoughts shared by women in labour about ‘wanting to go home', ‘I've had enough' etc often occur during that stage. I also remembered her telling us that once in transition you were on the home stretch and that the baby would be coming very soon. These thoughts cemented my determination to focus.
The hot bath worked for me.. I felt more relaxed, I held Danny's arm and the side of the bath, and in my head I began a mantra - ‘pressure not pain' - ‘pressure not pain'. I am not sure where that came from, but remember thinking how my cervix was opening and I was visualising the picture we were shown during the course of the cervix dilating and about what I had learnt about how the muscles work during dilation. I wanted to work with my body, which I knew I could do as I was equipped with the understanding about what was happening physiologically to my body. At one stage I turned to my midwife and said, "I don't think I can do this for much longer, I want to go home" - I was getting tired, and she calmly replied to me "we can talk about it after this next surge, just keeping breathing like you have been, you are doing really well'". and then I would breath through the surge, thinking of that bell shaped curve - intensity rising - peak - and then declining - over.. max 1 minute.. and then another surge, and another.. I don't know how many there were, I remember saying ‘this sux' at one stage, which, for some reason is what I had previously (during pregnancy) visualised that I would say instead of swearing! (goes to show how strong visualisation is!) and then I felt this incredible need to push. "I want to push", I said. "Good", replied midwife, "that's your baby wanting to be born, go ahead and push". So I did and as I did I felt a strong sense of relief. I had something new to focus on. I had got through 1st stage and transition with help of Danny and my supportive midwife encouraging me to relax and breath; no intervention had been asked for, nor had any been suggested.
Although I always found it hard to believe that the delivery stage would be easier than transition I soon learned it was. We moved from the bath onto the bed and the midwife paged my Doctor. I had 1cm more to dilate, and got through that in no time, it was time to deliver my baby. My Doctor came back on the scene, he congratulated us on getting through the labour so well; the augmentation can make things intense, and given it was also my 1st baby, he was impressed that we had managed without intervention and that the labour has progressed in such a short amount of time. It was around 1pm and he said he hadn't expected to deliver our baby until around 4pm that day. The pep talk was over, time to concentrate and push for delivery, as Andy had described it, it felt like a massive Chinese burn, I told my Doctor this and he commented that the best way to stop all that was ‘to not be pregnant anymore!' Good and valid point, I thought, and with one last strong, determined push our baby girl was born!
Our baby gasped for air and with a loud cry before her body had even emerged! It was amazing... my Doctor put my hands on her little body as he guided her out and onto my chest.. There she was - 7 days early - alert and so alive and well!
The whole thing (from augmentation) took 5 hours so I consider myself lucky..! No stitches required as only a small graze had occurred - luckier still.. !!
Zarah is now 3 months old and is the most precious person in our lives. We are truly in love!
On a side note - I also used the epi-no - which my doctor had recommended, I found it to be a great tool to prepare myself mentally and physically for the birth. I experienced no tearing either so I feel it was a good investment, coupled with the hypnobirthing training. Good luck to all you mum-to-bes out there.
