G’s Birth
Had been having very strong Braxton hicks since 35 weeks and sporadic bouts of contractions but despite being told by Aida (my luffly IM) not to ignore any contractions….naturally I kinda did!!! So at 38weeks the babe’s head engaged – much merriment as this had never happened in either of my other pregnancies as they didn’t engage until I was well into labour. By 39 weeks the merriment was wearing a little thin as having a baby's head fully entrenched in your pelvis does not make for happy hips….it makes for very, very sore hips and crappy nights. I had 3 possible due dates. My scan put me at 40weeks on the 7th of July, my LMP put my due date on the 9th of July and add 2 days to that to accommodate my cycle and we got the 11th of July…..I always stated that given my previous history of going to 40+ weeks that I would be very surprised to see the babe before the 18th….so colour me surprised!!! My Mum had come down on the 7th but had a wedding on the 12th an hour away. SO Fri 11th and the BH are still very strong, pushing the baby’s head against my cervix and I was getting a lot of pressure in my lower back, down my bum and once when I went to the loo I was rather surprised to find things down there…rather open, shall we say!! I had one contraction on the way out to the allotment which made me pause and then a few more that evening but nothing major and it had all settled by bedtime. Sat Morning I send Mum off to the wedding….where she has no signal. By Sat lunchtime I was having very strong BH/contractions the lines were definitely blurring but having spent early labour with L doubled up, anything that didn’t pull me up short was not going to be paid attention to! The contractions continued and got a little more regular but were nowhere near painful….not even uncomfortable, I just noticed they were happening. At 2pm I decided to time them and by 5 pm they were every 8-10 mins but still very mild and short so I sent a text to my Mum to let her know as well as Aida and Berny who was to film the birth, however, I also sent Dan off to work. I still hadn’t heard from Mum so I texted the number of a random person (turned out to be Jason , my Mum’s partner’s son) whose number I had been given in the event of my Mum not having signal. I texted “Did you give my Mum the message” I got back “I will do in a sec they are doing the speeches” Clearly a man who didn’t understand how quickly things can develop. I then called Dan to tell him I might need him to come home and put on my TENS. I then put the boys to bed and the contractions were getting more noticeable and I was having to pause and concentrate a bit more on them. As I was putting L to bed my neighbour came round as she had been in hospital having sympathy pains for me and demanded (very nicely) that I get on with it as she hadn’t slept properly since Thurs!!! The hospital had agreed that she was having contractions despite being 63 and very unpregnant and had suggested she come round to see me in the hope that they went away. By this time my Mum had texted to say she was on her way home. She got to me by 8ish and about 20 mins later Dan walked through the door having decided that I probably was in labour and he should fill the pool. Aida rang and asked if I wanted her, I said I probably didn’t need her yet (despite regular contractions every 8 mins) but she said she would come anyways as my house was probably quieter than hers. I then called Berny to tell her Aida was coming out and she said she would mosey on over too. Spot the similarity? All these people knew I was in labour, the one person who didn’t? ME!!!!! So by 9.30 Barbara (my neighbour) had gone home, Dan has begun to fill the pool and is doing some work on the laptop, T has come downstairs to see what’s going on and is now watching Pirates of the Caribbean and me Mum, Aida and Berny are all chatting whilst I make comments about me probably being in latent labour which should be re-named boring labour. Aida points out that my contractions are now 6-7 mins apart but I declare that they are only lasting 30 secs max and are mild and can’t possibly be doing anything. Aida smiles in a knowing way but goes along with me! By 12 I’m still pootling along, by now having to stand up and rock whilst leaning on the back of a chair but still utterly convinced I’m not in labour. I even ask Aida if its sado-masochistic to want the contractions to be more painful….she points out that it really is!! So then I send everyone to bed, including myself. Dan re-arranges the bed so I can sleep on my left but facing the edge of the bed (coz changing sides of the bed would be far too easy??!) and allocate Berny and Aida their beds. I last all of 12 minutes in bed where I have 2 contractions which I can’t lay down for so I get up and join Dan downstairs, followed 20 mins later by Aida then my Mum. I’m still telling Aida that I think I’ve got a hell of a long time to go as the contractions are too short to be doing anything. She tells me of a client whose contractions only lasted for 20 secs and she had the babe very quickly. She also suggests that I’m not realising it’s a contraction till its peak and she’s been timing them from when I start to wince and fidget!! I also go to the loo and have a show which I find slightly more encouraging although with L I had the show on the Wed morning and had him on the Thurs afternoon so, if I’m honest….not that encouraging, to me it just meant I may have the baby in the next few days!! I was also farting like a trooper, seriously I was just one gianormous bag of wind especially when Aida had to listen in, I just farted sooooooo much! By 1ish I was hungry but didn’t want to chew anything so Dan made me a protein shake. Then the contractions began to get a little stronger but nothing on L’s early labour so I still wasn’t convinced. By 2.30am Berny joined us downstairs and there was much chuckling as I kept having to bring my knees together during a contraction due to the pressure in my bum which I apparently kept telling Aida was because the baby was posterior?!?! I think by this time Aida was adopting the mantra of “Just smile and nod at the crazy lady who thinks she’s not in labour!!” She also suggested I might want to get in the pool but I didn’t think I was anywhere near that yet and was worried it might slow things down and as I was already shattered I didn’t want that. Another hour passed and I was still waiting to feel overwhelmed by the labour or in that weird birth zone you go into but I was still very lucid, joking, gutted when I had to pause in conversation due to a contraction, generally feeling not in labour! However by 3.30 a couple of the contractions got a bit harder and I announced that the pool was beginning to look like a good idea now and I’d give it 4 more contractions ( not 3, had to be 4??!) So finally at 10 to 4 I got in the pool which was lovely! The contractions didn’t stop or particularly intensify at first. I
was pulling away more show and we had a lovely conversation about it looking quite fibrous and like an over cooked savoy cabbage leaf!!! NICE! Then I needed yet another poo so I got out of the pool and waddled into the kitchen where I saw it was dawn and for some obscure reason Barry Manilow’s “Daybreak” came into my head??!!! Of all the soundtracks to have playing in my head it is BARRY FRIKKIN MANILOW??!!!! Whilst in the loo I had 3 contractions although tried to get away with telling Aida I only had 2 but Dan shopped me. I hadn’t counted the one when I was sitting down as it was caused by the sitting! Also thought this labour Gabe kept wiggling which kept setting off contractions….which was weird! Suddenly when I got back into the pool it all got very intense very quickly. I suddenly realised that I was very afraid of Transition as it really hurt last time and I didn’t like it. I remember telling Aida “For the record I’d still like a rest and be thankful transition!” Then I started to get a bit panicky. I was afraid of feeling fearful and clamming up so I started to vocalise my fears. “I’m frightened but I don’t know what I’m frightened of” whereas actually I didn’t want to say what I was frightened of incase I clammed up. Mum and Dan at this point started the cheerleading I had requested and I, amazingly, began to talk through my contractions saying things like “Its fine, its all fine” and “this is what is supposed to be happening” I also started to try and smile through the contractions.(what the hell I looked like I do NOT know!!!) But I manage to tell the room that I was smiling because it releases happy hormones in your brain! Then I was hit with a series of very, very strong and overwhelming contractions that came out of nowhere and were really fierce. They made me wail and my voice teacher from drama school would have been seriously impressed with the involuntary arpeggios I was producing. Then I felt a click and a whoosh and announced “That’ll be my waters gone”. Although I assumed everyone must have heard them and seen the gush in the pool. Er nooooo coz I was in water!!! Then Aida tried to listen in but I had to ask her to stop coz I couldn’t bear being touched particularly on the stomach. Weird as in my other labours I desperately needed my Mum to rub my back. My waters broke with L abour 3 hours before I birthed him so I still thought I had a while to go. Imagine my surprise when I start to feel my cervix burning as the baby moved through it! I started feeling him move down (I would like to say pushing but I pushed very little!) whilst I was on all fours. Instinctively I raised my right knee up and put my foot on the floor but promptly got cramp in my thigh (which I remember thinking was a little unfair given the pain I was already in) I also remember thinking that I like the pushing but this didn’t feel like pushing this felt like birthing! So I turned round into a squatting position with my back against the pool (which surprised my Mum a bit when she had to swap with Dan so he could support me). I had watched a programme on freebirthing a week before and had marvelled at a woman who had given a running commentary whilst birthing her baby. With L monosyllabic words were about all I could manage! But here I was saying I could feel him. Aida asked if I wanted to know if she could see the head. I said yes but then said I could feel the head! Then I felt him begin to what I thought was crown (I’d never felt crowning before as T and L had come out all in one go and I’d had a 3 rd degree tear with both of them…tear doesn’t hurt but stretching burns like a motherhubbard!!) I asked Aida if I was crowning and she said I was more than crowning, he was out to his eyebrows!! Then ever so slowly his head emerged, then his shoulders and I reached down and lifted my wee baby boy to the surface to discover that HE WAS ALSEEP! Yup, labour was such a bore that he fell asleep and didn’t deign to wake up to meet his Mummy! He was very floppy but pinking up well so I tipped him forwards in case he had fluid in his chest at which point Aida pointed out that he was fine….he just hadn’t woken up! My waters went at 4.58 and G was born at 5.09am to a very surprised Mummy who thought she still had hours to go! T had been brought downstairs when I turned round to squat and was there to watch his brother making his grand entrance. He then climbed into the pool to have a look up close! L was bought down to meet his new brother straight after the birth and was wholly unimpressed by his baby brother’s slimy head! He insisted on kissing him on the lips to avoid the offending slimy bits! When we called Dan’s parents to let them know the first thing L said was “I have a baby brother and he has dot a slimy head!!!” G made a vague attempt at rooting, still with his eyes shut and I started to get a bit stroppy so knew the placenta was on its way. I asked T to get out of the pool then gave a good push and the reached down to catch the placenta. I then went to hand it to Aida who was taken a little by surprise by her client handing her, her placenta and called for a colander!!! I then got out of the pool and went into the lounge where Gabe had two boobs…still asleep. G Murton weighed in at 8lb 2 oz and was just gorgeous
. I got a small 2nd degree tear which was stitched by Joy, my back up who hadn’t been up for 36 hours!!! T held my hand whilst I was stitched and L came upstairs to check (he was downstairs playing puzzles with Berny) and yelled to her from the top of the stairs “Its alright Berny, Mummy’s noonoo is fixted!!” We had decided on a Lotus birth but the cord was very short and Dan was unconvinced so T and L helped to cut the cord at 9.15. Very much a family affair!
