I am sure I am not the first mother or the last who would wake up at night when pregnant spiking with anxiety about child birth. It didn’t happen every night and it happened more the further along in the pregnancy I got. Thankfully it usually just took me getting a hug or even holding my partners hand to settle me and then I went back to sleep or we would talk about it a little and then I would calm. I am glad I didn’t obsessively read about child birth and about all of the things that could go wrong but I knew enough of what ‘could happen’ most to-be mothers do. Childbirth is one experience where you are in very little control of the situation. It is natural to fear an experience that we are not in control of, at least a little bit.

On Tuesday the 24th of June 2014 just before midnight my back started to ache, it was familiar as I had some Braxton hicks a couple of weeks before and they had been pretty consistent with the back pain. Our baby was sitting on my spine due to my tummy scaring which I had from surgery at birth, so my back pains weren’t unusual. Then the pain started to get worse and started to come in waves. I dealt with it for 5 hours and then woke my boyfriend letting him know that I was in pain and that today may be the day that we have our little one. He woke at 7am and made the decision to work from home as much as he could and see how I went.

The pain subsided a little by 10am so I had a shower and then went for a walk around the neighbourhood trying to get little baby to get ‘engaged’. Lucky for me it is Summer so it was a good day to get some exercise. I also tried having a bath for the back pain.

It worked, at approximately 2.30pm I was in real pain having what I hoped were contractions and not just more Braxton Hicks. The contractions were about 6 min apart and we went to the hospital. When I was seen we I found out that I was only 1 cm dilated and was given some techniques to cope with the contractions from a lovely nurse and an option for drugs (I said no) and then was sent home and told to come back when my water broke or my contractions were closer together and stronger and I couldn’t handle the pain any more.

We went and got some lunch while I talked to my Dad all the while having contractions. At home I just had to keep riding the waves while playing a game with myself, first I would try and get to 6pm then to 6.30pm etc knowing that the longer I waited the further along I would be. I was able to do this until about 8pm when I couldn’t take the pain any more and we went back to the hospital.

 

We went straight back to the birthing rooms and they checked me and I was only 3cm dilated. They couldn’t keep me still and offered to give me some drugs so that I could sleep as there was no telling how long this stage of labour would last and I had not had any sleep. My wonderful boyfriend went down to get some paper work and the nurse who was taking care of us Jill gave me an injection of morphine. Our little guy had other plans and with the next contraction my water broke. It was a shame that my boyfriend missed the look on my face. Jill then confirmed that I wasn’t going anywhere and they were going to move me to a birthing room. We got the big room 🙂 So much for the pain relief, it was going to take 45 min for the medication to kick in so it didn’t ever take effect in my body.

Trying to lay down while having contractions for me was the worst. I was scissor kicking and my back was in agony so I walked most of my contractions and my boyfriend and I would dance a little as rocking helped me too. Not to mention holding (or slightly crushing) his hand also helped. So I rocked and danced and walked for the next few hours with my boyfriend in the room with me.

I tried staying off the drugs as long as I could but I really wanted to have something for the pain around 11pm when things were really getting close together and very intense. I tried the gas which I wasn’t really good at sucking down, it just made me feel dizzy and suffocated so I ended up throwing it away from my face most of the time. My boyfriend had to keep reminding me that my amazing animal noises were not in fact the correct breathing. For the most part I remembered to breathe.

The Dr who was on call was in the operating theatre giving a C section so I was going to have to wait at least 20 min for any pain relief. The nurses were prepping me to get some drugs when I had a sudden urge to want to poo (sorry folks that is what it feels like, you want to poo, to push) and I really wanted to push. I told the nurse Jill and she checked me again and I was fully dilated. No drugs for me, I was ready to start pushing and was in total disbelief.

I was already laying down but before I knew it my feet were in the stirrups and we were getting ready to push. It was sweet relief. Being able to put your energy somewhere is so much better than just having to ride the waves of contractions. I spent the majority of my time with my eyes closed focusing. When our baby’s head was crowning I was in such disbelief nurse Jill grabbed my hand and put it on his little head so that I knew it was happening. I asked for a mirror to see it and that was pretty great. It sunk in in that moment that I needed to work to get this little baby out. I asked for the mirror to be taken away so that I didn’t get my ‘if I can see it it hurts more’ thing going and I just grabbed on to my boyfriends hands (forsaking the grips on the bed, the poor man) and pushed when they told me to and held it when I was instructed. Jill our nurse pretty much delivered our baby with another Dr coming in to guide the cord off from around the neck and stitching me up. She was an amazing nurse.

 

Another nurse had to strip my gown off to put baby skin to skin and they were pretty great with letting us have hours with baby before they started to do anything like weighing etc. It also took us about a min to find out if he was a boy or a girl, we waited until the birth to find out but baby was all curled up and not facing Dad so we had to wait to find out that we had a beautiful baby boy.

Little Dominic was born at 11.59pm on the Wednesday night. He arrived within 30min of me being fully dilated. Which is pretty quick and I was not complaining. So there I was quicker than I ever thought it was going to happen laying with my little new born baby on my chest. It took Dad a couple of goes with the scissors to cut the cord, it was a thick cord. I was still out of it a bit it took me some time to realise how much I had sweated while pushing etc and everything else was happening. My afterbirth was out, I was getting a couple of small stitches. Thankfully I had no big tears.

I told my boyfriend I could do it again and was up going to the bathroom in under and hour after baby was born while Joel had skin to skin time and I also got some food. The nurses were surprised I was up and about and that I didn’t faint. Thanks to the time differences I was also able to talk to family in Australia as well which was so lovely. We were wheeled down to our room at 4am and 30 hours later we headed home with our little Dominic Kenneth Todd.

We had a pretty great birth experience. The hospital was great, the nurses were great and helpful when it came to learn how to breastfeed. Which took me over a week to get the hang of and we are both still learning. Yes giving birth hurts there is pain but it was also one of the most empowering experiences of my life. I felt strong and capable and very close to the Divine while giving birth. I am extremely thankful to my boyfriend for being the most amazing support and to all of the staff at the hospital.

So that is our birth story.

Blessings