(Erin used Hypnobabies... which was undermined by a very negative midwife and poor position of the baby. This story makes me wish Erin had a doula to help give added support to her desires.)
When I awoke just after midnight on Friday night, I knew that this was it. Clearly the acupuncture I had had that afternoon had worked its magic: Bubba Grubb was on her way at last. While some of my Braxton Hicks contractions over the past five weeks had been really intense, they hadn’t been really regular. These were joined up together: about every ten minutes by my estimation. I was delighted to be able to put my hypnosis techniques to the test at last!
Figuring this would take some time yet, I elected not to wake Grubby. I thought at least one of us should get a good night’s sleep. Instead I put my headphones on and used my MP3 player to listen to my Birthing Affirmations, Birth Guide and Deepening CDs. The waves kept coming and going as I listened, and I visualized my body opening up to release my baby. Time wore on and soon it was daybreak. To my disappointment, the surges had spaced out to every half hour or so, but they were still really strong. Even though they were further apart, I knew this was still my birthing time, so I decided to spend the morning in bed, trying to get as much rest as I could to prepare for later.
Grubby’s parents rang to invite us to afternoon tea with his grandmother at 3pm, and not wanting anybody to suspect anything, I agreed to go. After all, Gran’s house is halfway along the five minute drive from home to the hospital. Besides, she makes great scones. Shortly before we left the house, I discovered I had lost my mucous plug, and the pressure waves suddenly switched back on. Still, I was doing fabulously, and if I was a little quiet over tea, nobody noticed! I couldn’t wait to get out of there an hour later though.
I surprised myself with my own control during these intense sensations which were gripping my body. Ever logical, I knew we needed a decent meal to get us through, so I whipped up some fettuccine carbonara, although I had to keep pausing to lean over the kitchen bench and go limp and loose and completely relaxed. I even started on the washing up after dinner, but fortunately Grubby took over so I could lie on the couch, half-heartedly watching The Simpsons and timing some contractions. To my surprise, they were three to seven minutes apart and varying in length from 30 seconds to a minute and a half. Suddenly the phone rang, and even through my deep relaxation, I heard Grubby say, ‘Oh hi, Angela.’ Bugger. It was Mum, ringing on some spurious pretext, but mainly to ask was I in labour yet. ‘I’ll just put her on.’ Bugger. This would have been a great time to take a message. Fortunately the current wave was receding, so I counted myself up and took the phone. ‘Hi, Mum. No, no sign yet. Yes, of course I’ll let you know. Hey, I’m just in the middle of something, so I’d better go. Talk to you soon.’
My Hypnobabies materials suggested that I go to hospital when my surges were 5 or 6 minutes apart, but I didn’t feel ready yet. I rang Calvary to let them know I would be in in a couple of hours, packed up a few last minute things to take and then stopped for a big bubble bath with my Birth Guide playing. I had intended to soak for an hour or more, but after one run through of the CD, I had the sudden desire to get out of the bath. My legs were trembling, my ears roaring and I was almost overwhelmed by nausea. ‘Honey, I think we need to go now. Can you please take my case to the car?’ Could I already be in transition? I wondered hopefully. How wrong I was!
As it was 9.30pm by this time, a security officer admitted us to the hospital. Between the carpark and the maternity unit on the third floor, I had three pressure waves, so I just leaned on the nearest surface and breathed through them. Upstairs, we were shown immediately to the birthing suite, where our midwife Helen asked if she could monitor me and the baby to get a baseline heart rate. This involved strapping two really tight elastic bands around my belly with plastic sensors and ultrasound gel underneath them. One was for Bubba Grubb’s heartbeat, the other to measure the strength of my contractions. ‘You’re still smiling,’ Helen said. ‘That’s a good sign.’ She left the room while I lay on my side with my headphones on, listening to my Birthing Affirmations.
Unfortunately the readings were not as clear as Helen had hoped. It seemed that Bubba Grubb was not quite posterior, but turned side on. She was moving back and forth, trying to get into an anterior position, so she kept slipping out from underneath the monitor, leaving worrying gaps on the graph paper spewing forth from the machine. Meanwhile, my surges were somewhat erratic – I would have one or two very powerful ones, followed by a sort of half one. I began to vomit during the really strong ones, but in between I was relaxed, comfortable and felt in control. Helen went to get another midwife for a second opinion on the readouts. ‘That looks like a perfectly normal CTG to me,’ said the other midwife cheerfully. ‘Gee, you are doing well with your relaxation, aren’t you? So calm!’ Grubby gave me a big kiss and whispered how proud he was of me. This is great, I thought. My hypnosis is working really well, apart from the fact that I keep getting interrupted to have my blood pressure taken and a thermometer stuck in my ear. I can do this! I am doing it!
Changeover happened at 10pm and sadly I knew I wasn’t in synch with Rebecca, the next midwife, from the moment she walked in and didn’t introduce herself. I eventually had to ask her name after two hours. Grubby tried to crack a couple of jokes, but Rebecca just looked a bit confused. Though I had already been monitored for half an hour, she wanted to leave the monitors on so that she could confirm what the first two midwives had already established. ‘I’ll just leave them on you for a few minutes,’ she promised. Then she went away for three quarters of an hour. I lay there listening to my CD, sending peace and anaesthesia to my full bladder, which I feared might burst with each wave. My whole body was rebelling at being required to lie still, and at the tight elastic squeezing around my tummy. I wanted to get up and walk, or roll on to my hands and knees, or at the very least change sides, but the cords to the monitors were too short. Every time I shifted even slightly, Bubba would slip out from under the disc and my pulse would be recorded instead of hers.
Finally Rebecca returned. ‘Please, can I have these monitors off now? I need to use the loo,’ I asked politely.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘I did stick my head in before, but you looked so peaceful I didn’t want to disturb you.’ She took the discs out from under the bands, but left them strapped tightly around me. ‘We’ll leave these on, because I just want to monitor you for a bit longer,’ she explained. Oh, for crying out loud! After my loo break, I was strapped straight back down to the bed. I wanted to yell in frustration, but I kept being polite and conciliatory. I put my Birth Guide back on, but this time Rebecca elected to check on me every five minutes, so I had to keep counting myself back up to deal with her. ‘Hang on a sec,’ I said, as a pressure wave rose just as she was about to strap the blood pressure monitor around my arm.
‘Pardon?’ she asked, grabbing my arm more tightly.
‘Hang on, please,’ I said more clearly, trying to focus on switching off my mental lightswitch and send anesthesia down to the base of my abdomen, where the powerful squeezing sensation was almost more than I could manage. She paused for about a second, then just went on ahead and took my blood pressure anyway.
‘Oh, you’re having a pain, are you?’ she said in her irritating nasal voice, finally looking at the monitor which she was so insistent on hooking me to. ‘We’ll do this in a moment then.’ Yes, I am having a pain. In the arse. And her name’s Rebecca. Rebecca is quite sincerely the first medical professional I have ever heard refer to a contraction as a ‘pain’. I didn’t expect her to be right on board with the Hypnobabies terminology of ‘pressure waves’ or ‘surges,’ but ‘pains’ is undeniably negative. ‘How are your pains?’ she would ask me each time she came in. ‘My CONTRACTIONS are fine, thank you. They are strong and progressing well,’ I would tell her, still smiling and polite.
Finally I began to get frustrated with the interruptions to my CD, so for some strange reason, the best solution to this seemed to be to turn it off entirely, just until I got off this bloody monitor, I told myself. I didn’t realize that I would be on the monitor more often than not for the rest of my birthing. I was still using my lightswitch and breathing deeply and gently through each wave, spewing intermittently, but largely staying happy and relaxed. The waves got ever stronger, and I repeated to myself that each one was bringing my baby closer. Ten deep breaths would get me through each one. I tried to imagine big bear hugs around my middle, and to direct anaesthesia down to the base of my uterus, where the stretching sensations were most intense, but I found it increasingly difficult to stay focused. I wanted to tear the monitor off my body and pace the halls, but it seemed too hard to make a fuss and I didn’t want to cause any trouble.
‘Would you like me to check you now?’ Rebecca offered around 11.30pm. ‘I wasn’t going to do it for a while longer, but I think we could do it now.’ I hesitated for a moment, but then agreed. Hypnosis worked beautifully for the internal examination – I didn’t experience any discomfort, but only pressure. ‘You have done a lot of work today,’ Rebecca said. ‘Your cervix is only about ¼ of a centimetre deep and 4cm dilated.’ This was reasonably heartening. As I lay there, I could feel liquid coming out of me, and Rebecca confirmed that my waters had broken. ‘Doesn’t really change anything,’ she said, but at least I felt I was making progress.
Time zipped past. Poor Grubby had very little to do at this point but keep my water glass filled and change the music CD every now and again. He looked bored and exhausted, sitting up in an uncomfortable chair. I felt terrible for him, but there wasn’t much I could do. At length Rebecca brought in a camp bed for him to sleep on, and finally she consented to let me off the monitors for a while. She also brought me a big vinyl bean bag to lean forward on to. For some reason I declined a birth ball, but later I wished I had asked for it. I wanted to sit upright with my feet flat on the floor, but the bed was way too high. I tried going in to sit on the loo instead, but that was too high too. I’m 5’9”, hardly a short person, but only my toes touched the floor as I sat on the toilet. It had one of those narrow, angled, porcelain seats instead of a flat plastic one, which made it really uncomfortable. To top it all off, the room was really, really cold and the bathroom even colder. Grubby had to keep his jacket on for almost the entire birth, so it wasn’t just me being hormonal.
All of a sudden, I was gripped by overwhelming nausea. I managed to turn around and lose my guts to the loo, but I continued to vomit long after I thought I had finished. My diaphragm and stomach ached each time I retched and I became convinced I was turning myself inside out. I limped back to bed, only to be overcome by another bout. Grubby jumped out of bed, handed me a sick bag. Then another, and another, and another. I had nothing more to bring up, but my body was still racked with convulsive retching. Grubby buzzed for Rebecca and for once she came relatively quickly. ‘Are you feeling pressure?’ Rebecca asked me.
‘Yep, about every two or three minutes, and it’s really, really intense,’ I answered, too vague and scattered to connect that Rebecca and I were having a communication problem.
‘No, I don’t mean pains, I mean are you feeling pressure in your bottom?’ she asked me.
‘Actually, yes, I am.’
I think she thought something was happening at last, because she began rapidly washing her hands and firing questions at me as I tried desperately to cope. ‘Do you consent to a Vitamin K injection for your baby? Does your partner wish to cut the cord? Do you understand about the syntocinon injection we give in the thigh after delivery?’ Oh, thank God, I thought. Maybe I really am in transition this time.
Then, ‘Would you like to get in the shower?’ Rebecca suggested. This seemed like a great idea, but it was a marathon effort to get as far as the bathroom. She went ahead of me and started the hot water running. I was shaking with cold, but I took my clothes off and got under the water. There was a jet about half way up the wall and another attached to a hose so I could direct the flow. I sat on a plastic stool and let the jet run over my back, but the water was still cold. My feet were like icicles and my entire abdomen was aching as if I had done 100 situps. I could feel each pressure wave low down, like a menstrual cramp, and I had to really concentrate to relax through them. There was nowhere comfortable to lean in the shower: every surface was icy cold and the bars were all in the wrong places.
‘What would you like to do?’ Rebecca asked me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I don’t know what I want any more. I don’t know what would help.’
She suggested that I turn around and face the wall and get Grubby to hold the hose over my back. ‘I love you, baby,’ he kept telling me. ‘You are doing so well and I am so proud of you.’ Finally the shower was warming up and I stopped shivering so much, but I was still freezing wherever the water was not touching me. The water really did feel like an ‘aquadural,’ but the cold was so distracting. I was aware that poor Grubby would be getting a dead arm from holding the shower nozzle, so eventually I decided that the difficulties were outweighing the benefits and it was time to get out. To my dismay, the stack of towels the hospital had provided were the size of postage stamps, barely reaching across my shoulders, and I am not a very wide girl. There was no way I could wrap one all the way around my bulging pregnant belly. I held one towel awkwardly around my neck while Grubby used another to rub me dry. I leaned forward on to the toilet each time I had a wave during the process. I decided at this point to abandon my own clothes, and got Grubby to help me put on one of the hospital gowns: a fetching floral muumuu like the enormous Aboriginal ladies wear up in Far North Queensland. ‘Well, at least you don’t have to wear the brown trousers again,’ Grubby joked, referring to my most hated maternity pants. I burst out laughing.
By the time I made it back to bed, Rebecca was ready and waiting to shackle me to the monitor again. I stayed standing, leaning against the bed for a while as a diversionary tactic. ‘Would you like me to check you again?’ she offered.
‘Is it going to be depressing?’ I countered.
‘There’s no real way of telling without checking.’ This was true. By this point, each wave was overwhelming me. I felt that my hypnosis techniques were not working: I couldn’t see, feel or imagine the anaesthesia flowing through my body, I couldn’t turn my lightswitch to off, I still felt like I’d been punched in the guts from all the vomiting and the peak of each wave was downright painful, much as I tried to convince myself otherwise. My Mum had given me two pieces of advice about childbirth. The first was, ‘Don’t beat yourself up if you end up needing pain relief.’ The second was, ‘Don’t think about the whole thing, just try and get through the next contraction.’ As I had another contraction, it occurred to me that I couldn’t even get through this one, let alone the next.
Making a decision was almost beyond me. ‘Do you want something for your pains?’ Rebecca suggested. No. Yes. I don’t know. I just want a rest. Agonised with indecision, I looked at Grubby. ‘We can give you some pethidine and you can get a couple of hours’ sleep,’ Rebecca went on. I felt wretched. What should I do? I was so tired, I couldn’t envision myself having enough energy to push out the baby when I was finally sufficiently dilated. By now it was 4am. ‘If you check me, can you give me an estimate of how far I have to go?’ I asked.
So we went ahead with the internal. Once again, hypnosis was great for this procedure. ‘You’re about 8cm,’ Rebecca informed me. ‘I’d estimate you have maybe another four hours to go. Baby’s not exactly posterior, but she’s in a position where she can’t get her chin tucked to get out, so that’s probably why it’s taking so long. Also, your bag of waters didn’t break completely before. There’s another lot of it in front of the baby’s head. I know that pethidine is not everyone’s drug of choice, but we can give you a low dose so it will be out of your system before you deliver. Just be aware that your pains have slowed, and the pethidine may cause them to slow down again.’ The lure of a couple of hours’ sleep was more than I could resist, and the idea of having a few minutes without contractions? Bliss. ‘OK then. Let’s do it,’ I agreed.
It seemed to take forever for Rebecca to get the necessary authority and return with another midwife to administer the shot to my arm, but it was only half an hour. The other midwife smiled and introduced herself, so I smiled back. ‘Still smiling! Well, that’s a good sign.’ She applied a tourniquet around my right arm and explained that she had put a dose of an anti-emetic in with the pethidine. I could have kissed her. Just then, another surge came. ‘Would you like me to wait?’ she offered. I nodded and focused on breathing through it. It took me twelve deep, slow breaths, but I was gasping in between each one with the intensity. ‘Gosh, she’s very controlled, isn’t she?’ she said. I was simultaneously pleased with the compliment and ashamed of accepting the pethidine, but I went ahead anyway. ‘There, that should take the edge off,’ she said.
The needle didn’t hurt, but I felt the drug travelling through my veins and up to my head. I was pleased that I still felt clear and calm and I felt more relaxation in my limbs than I had for ages. However, it seemed to have no effect on my pressure waves. I was still catching my breath as I worked through each one. ‘How long does it take to take the edge off?’ I asked. I was told to give it two or three. Nup. After half an hour, there was no improvement. Rebecca set up a nitrous oxide canister next to the bed. ‘You can take four or five deep breaths of this with each pain,’ she said. Desperate for relief, I gave it a go. Sticking the tube in my mouth was like biting on to a regulator for scuba diving. I hated it. Having a chunk of plastic in my mouth made me feel nauseous again and the gas left me jumble-headed and panicky. ‘Keep trying for a few more,’ Rebecca said. ‘I’ll just turn it up a little more.’ I persisted for three or four contractions, but it was no good. Plus I was back on the monitor by this stage, apparently a constant feature of my birthing, and something I had so much trouble dealing with.
Somehow the clock had ticked on to 6am and light was making its way around the blinds. Grubby had been an absolute star, applying warm gel packs to my tummy, cold face washers to my forehead, refilling my water jug, kissing me, telling me he loved me every time I caught his eye. By now he was reaching the end of his tether. ‘Should I go home and try and rest?’ he asked. ‘Maybe I need to let the dogs out and feed them. I just don’t know what to do here – I don’t feel like I’m helping.’ I could sympathise with his discomfort, but I did feel a little bit narky. After all, I was just as bored, frustrated and tired, if not more so. I wouldn’t mind going home for a nap myself. Still, there was no point in me getting cross with anyone – it wasn’t their fault.
‘We could call my sister to go and feed the dogs,’ I suggested. ‘But if you really need to go, please do. Of course, Murphy’s Law says as soon as you do, I will actually have the baby.’
He decided to stay.
Rebecca came in and advised me to go for a walk down the stairs and back up again, to try and get things moving along and to help the baby reposition. ‘Go down one step at a time and come back two at a time,’ she suggested. I waddled along the hallway in my floral muumuu, down the stairs and straight back up again. By the time I reached the landing, Rebecca had wandered off. I found her filling in some paperwork at her desk. ‘Oh, back so soon?’ She was genuinely surprised.
‘Well, you said to go two at a time,’ I laughed. Last year I climbed the highest mountain in south east Asia for fun – did she really think I was going to falter at the first sign of a staircase?
By this time, Grubby had found the tearoom and was fortifying himself with enough instant coffee to see a truck driver across the Nullarbor Plain. The caffeine got him over the hump and he got his second wind. Meanwhile, I was reaching the abyss. My breath was catching as I sought to breathe gently and deeply through each contraction. Inside my head, I was panicking, but I was trying really hard to be calm and peaceful and relaxed. Rebecca came in to see how I was going. ‘I think maybe we need to break your waters to get things going again,’ she advised.
‘But I’m not coping right now!’ I protested. ‘How will I manage if it gets any worse?’
At this point what I really needed was a crystal ball, or an amazing hypnodoula, to tell me that actually, this was as bad as it was going to get, that I was doing incredibly well and all I had to do was wait it out and I would get there in the end. As it was, I had to draw on my own resources, which were sorely depleted. I was too afraid to let Rebecca perform the AROM in case I lost the little control I felt I had left. She went out of the room to let me decide. Grubby came over to put a cold cloth on my steaming forehead. ‘Don’t let her talk you into anything, baby,’ he said. ‘She told me her shift finishes at 7am, so she’s just trying to hurry you along a bit. You take your time and do what you need to do.’ I love him so much!!
Sure enough, Rebecca didn’t come back and I had a new midwife by 7am. Suzie was pleasant and kind and I instantly felt at my ease with her. ‘How are you?’ she asked me.
‘Actually, I’m just contemplating the merits of an epidural,’ I said, as if I were thinking of having a cup of tea. ‘I’m really hanging by a thread here.’
‘Well, how about you get back into the shower and we’ll see how you go from there,’ she said kindly. ‘You’re still smiling, so that’s good.’
‘Yes, but I am going to cry in a minute,’ I insisted politely. ‘This is really, really hard and I’m not sure how much more I can get through.’
‘You are so close!’
‘Yes, that’s what they’ve been telling me for the last three hours, but I’m stalled at 8cm and I’m losing faith.’
Still, I took her advice and got back in the shower. Unfortunately this time the shower didn’t have the same effect as previously. My frustration was palpable.
‘I really, really can’t do this any more,’ I kept repeating. ‘I’m not just saying this while I’m having contractions, it’s in between as well. I just can’t do any more. I need a rest.’
Grubby and Suzie stood there looking at me with worried frowns. In retrospect, I must have seemed mental – most women who are not coping are probably screaming their heads off and hurling abuse at their husbands. I was just asking for help in a quiet, tired voice and taking lots of deep breaths.
‘Jamie will be here soon,’ Suzie said. ‘He’s filling in for your OB. Just hold out until then, sweetie.’
Sure enough, around 8am Jamie arrived. He swept into the room in a cloud of aftershave and Rivers clothing and chatted to me as though everything was perfectly fine, which I suddenly realized it probably was. ‘What we’re going to do,’ he said authoritatively, ‘is just get rid of the rest of those waters so we can check that they’re clear and the baby’s OK, and see where she’s at.’ In spite of my fear, this process was quick and painless and actually helped me feel a lot better: perhaps things were moving along after all. Unfortunately Bubba’s position had got worse instead of better. Somehow, in spite of her posterior positioning, I wasn’t feeling any back pain, but just strong pressure in my bottom and intense stretching in my lower abdomen. ‘Now, Suzie mentioned you were having trouble coping with the pain,’ Jamie went on. ‘You’ve had one shot of pethidine, but you can keep having that low dosage once an hour and it will be OK for you and the baby. Don’t let the pain get on top of you.’ This gave me an extraordinary sense of relief and at last I was able to relax between surges. I accepted more pethidine and although it still didn’t help with the actual contractions, I was able to rest and regroup in between – a blessed relief after such a long haul.
Through the window, I could see that a cold front had swept in. There were barely a few feet of visibility through thick, misty rainclouds which obscured the view of the Valley. Apparently this sudden drop in barometric pressure had brought three other women into Calvary Hospital the same night, and two of the others were in the same predicament I was: a poorly positioned baby and hours and hours of childbirth. This meant that the midwives were a bit overstretched, so they called in Vicky, an on-call midwife, to take care of me. At first I was disappointed to lose Suzie, since we’d bonded so nicely, but Vicky and I got along really well. We had a chat and a joke in between pressure waves and I believed her when she predicted the baby would be born by lunch time. I loved her even more when she didn’t make me lie down to be monitored – she actually let me stand next to the bed while she held the Doppler over Bubba’s heartbeat. ‘Gee, she’s as steady as a rock, isn’t she?’ Vicky said, allaying any fears I had that the baby wasn’t coping.
Still the contractions threatened to swamp me each time they arrived. ‘I really think I want an epidural,’ I told Vicky and Grubby. ‘I’m just not managing.’ Vicky tried to get me to use the nitrous oxide again, but I insisted that it freaked me out too much and I didn’t want it. ‘Maybe hop back in the shower again,’ she suggested. I complied, but every contraction seemed to grip me really hard all around the abdomen in spite of the hot water. ‘I’m really cold, and it’s not helping, and I want to get out,’ I complained.
‘But you’re so close! You’re already at 8cm.’
‘That’s what everyone has been telling me for the last five and a half hours.’
‘Well, maybe we should think about that epidural,’ she said. Thank God, someone was finally taking me seriously! Vicky went to phone Jamie to get authorization, and I got out of the shower and into a clean floral muumuu.
Getting in and out of bed was harder and harder. Why did they have to make it so high up? You’d have to be an Olympic pole vaulter to cope. I hunched over a beanbag on the bed, trying to relax my stomach so the baby could turn. I was losing control of my relaxation with each contraction. I forced myself to take 12 deep breaths with each one, but I could feel my abdomen tensing up and there was strong pressure in my bottom. I waddled back to the toilet, cursing the fact that my feet barely touched the ground and sat there for another couple of waves. Vicky came back in. ‘He doesn’t think it’s a good idea,’ she informed me. ‘He said, “No, talk her out of it.”’ I just looked at her in dismay. I didn’t have time to speak before I had another contraction. Relax, relax, relax, I told myself, breathing deeply. ‘You’re pushing!’ said Vicky, half surprised, half accusingly. With horror, I realized that I was, and tried desperately to stop myself. ‘It’s just happening! I can’t help it!’ I protested.
As soon as the wave passed, I made my way back to the bed again. ‘I just want to check you once more, if that’s OK,’ Vicky told me. I had to stop her twice to deal with surges, but the internal was surprisingly easy. ‘Your cervix is completely gone! And… and… I think the baby’s turned, from the feel of her.’ I don’t think I’d ever heard such good news in my life. ‘Now, I want you to try and get three good pushes with every contraction,’ Vicky instructed. ‘The middle one is the most important.’ I tried to do as she suggested, so I breathed out deeply as I pushed, to focus all my energies on those muscles. ‘No, no, no, you should be holding your breath. Like the way you do when you badly need to go to the toilet and you’re really constipated.’
‘I don’t do that. I go away and have a glass of water and some fruit and try again when the mood strikes me,’ I explained. ‘A friend of ours had a stroke a few months ago from straining on the toilet. It’s not a good idea.’
‘Well, have you ever lifted weights at the gym? Do it like that, really PUSH.’
‘Yes, I’ve lifted lots of weights. And I’ve always been taught to exhale with the strain. Otherwise you might pop something,’ I insisted, stubborn to the last.
‘Erin, you’ve only got a limited amount of time to get this baby out. And you’re not going to get her out the way you’re going. I just need you to get her down one more inch and it’s going to make all the difference. We can help you the rest of the way.’
‘I’m going back to the toilet,’ I said, and stomped off. It was the closest I came to losing my temper the whole way through.
Fortunately years of practice at releasing my pelvic floor muscles while sitting on the loo paid off. There, I found it easy to bear down with each contraction. Not so much easy, as irresistible. I dragged the beanbag in with me and used it as a footstool so I could get some traction for my pushing. It didn’t seem long before Vicky came in to tell me that Jamie was on his way and I should come out and get ready.
She raised the top third of the bed, removed the lower third and folded footrests out of the sides. ‘Oh God, not stirrups!’ I knew from my reading that this semi-reclining position almost guaranteed you to tear, since it pushed the tailbone upwards, closing off the birth canal. ‘Well, you’re probably going to have an episiotomy anyway. About 70% of first time mothers do,’ Vicky informed me. I was bitterly disappointed. If I hadn’t been so damn tired, I would have cried. While Vicky busied herself preparing a trolley with the venteuse, the episiotomy kit and a frightening assortment of forceps, I concentrated on continuing to push with each contraction. ‘Come and have a look at this,’ Vicky called to Grubby, who was once again mopping my forehead with a cold cloth. ‘You can just see the top of her head!’
It was a few minutes before Jamie arrived. He brought his usual air of calm and cheer with him. ‘I will explain everything to you before I do it, so you know what’s going on. I’ve just come from doing the same thing next door and the lady had a very good result – only one stitch!’ he chatted as he examined me internally. ‘Oh, that’s the fontanelle there… No, sorry, I’m afraid she hasn’t turned over. She’s still trying – very active baby, isn’t she? But you have two protruding spines in your pelvis and they are pushing her back each time she tries to turn. She’s just going to have to come out that way. Now, you work with me and keep pushing every time you feel the need. Every little bit helps.’
He gave me a local anaesthetic, ‘just in case we need the episiotomy later,’ and placed the venteuse inside me, on Bubba Grubb’s head. This was moderately uncomfortable, but probably less so than a bikini wax. ‘Tell me when you’re ready to push next,’ Jamie said. ‘Chin down to your chest, grit your teeth and push right down through your bottom.’ I did as he instructed, but I ran out of puff and a moan escaped me. ‘No noise, just pushing,’ Jamie ordered. This time I did a little better and he did whatever it is you do with a venteuse. I felt huge pressure in my nether regions, then a giant release. Had I done it? Was her head out? Nope, Jamie was putting the venteuse in me again. We tried twice more, and I swear it felt no different from when I finally did push her out. I was convinced I had had quadruplets. ‘We’re going to have to do this with forceps, so I will do the episiotomy first,’ Jamie explained. ‘She’s still moving in there, trying to turn around! This is a really active baby.’ He began placing a set of forceps inside me, but they were not appropriate for the angle of her little head, so he had to remove them and get another pair. I pushed with each contraction as it came, and in between chatted with Jamie, Grubby and Vicky. I was even laughing and made a couple of jokes.
Finally the correct forceps were positioned, but I think they had scared my contractions into submission, because for several minutes, nothing happened at all. We all looked awkwardly around the room, trying not to make eye contact with each other. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I think you’ve frightened them away. Oh hang on, here we go!’ And with a huge groan (‘No noise, just pushing!’ ‘Come on, come on, you’re almost there!’ ‘I love you sweetie, you’re doing great!’) I felt the fourth release of pressure. ‘Give me your hand,’ Jamie said, and guided it down to feel the top of the baby’s head, and her gooey little face, already looking up at the world. The relief was incredible. I had heard it said that once the baby was out, you feel no more pain. This turned out to be along the lines of, ‘Yes, the pethidine will help you sleep,’ or, ‘Of course Santa Claus is real,’ or, ‘Try the tofu; it’s delicious.’ After all, it wasn’t the baby in my birth canal bit that hurt, it was the contractions. And we had a little way to go there.
I had considered declining the syntocinon injection for third stage, but at this point I felt it was in everybody’s best interests to get out of there as soon as possible, so I accepted it. Bubba Grubb kept kicking her legs as she slithered out of me – what a strange sensation! – and she was placed in a warm towel on my chest. Jamie began stitching me up and I breathed through the last few contractions as my baby girl looked me right in the eyes. ‘She’s got your nose,’ I said to Rob. I was surprised that he was not crying – he’s normally such a big girl’s blouse about this kind of thing. She was amazing – like one of those newborns they show on television where you say, ‘That’s not a brand new baby! That’s at least a month old.’ There was no vernix on her and she was focusing on my face, and Rob’s.
Just then, the placenta emerged and I leaned forward to have a look at the life support system which had sustained my daughter for the last nine months. Even Grubby had a look, and didn’t faint! ‘Can I borrow her for a moment?’ Vicky asked, and whisked the baby to a monitoring station thingy alongside the bed where she checked the Apgars. She scored 9/9. Grubby grabbed the camera and started taking pictures, Jamie shook everybody’s hand and said congratulations, Vicky put the baby on to my breast where she sucked like a champion and I started throwing up again. It should have been a beautiful moment. I loved my daughter instantly, but my whole body was ravaged and sore and I was still violently ill. I felt like my bottom had been hit by a bus and all of my abdominals ached. Looking at the clock, I realized it had been 38 hours since I started my labour on Friday night. No wonder I was tired. I think I was also in shock – I could hardly speak, though the pethidine had long since worn off.
It’s taken a few days to start to come to terms with all this. Thankfully, Isabel is such an easy care baby – she doesn’t cry much, took to breastfeeding like a natural and is very serene. I am in awe of how strong and beautiful she is. On the first day, she could lift her own head and was watching moving shadows on the ceiling. On the second day, I placed her on my stomach and she crawled up to my neck in search of a nipple. All of the midwives wanted to keep her.
In some respects, I feel I handled the birth very well. I never raised my voice, or swore, or turned into a sobbing mess. With different preparation or a different medical team, it is quite likely I could have ended with a c-section. I am very thankful that I didn’t have an epidural, even though I asked for it more than once! Still, I honestly believed that my birthing would be fast, easy and comfortable and to some extent I blame myself for the fact that it wasn’t. I realize that the shape of my pelvis played a big part in Isabel’s positioning and thus the length and severity of the labour, but I keep thinking, ‘What if I hadn’t taken the pethidine? Should I have done Hypnobabies at all, since it gave me unrealistically high expectations? What if I had been more active? What if I had listened to my CDs more during the birthing? What if I had stayed home for longer? Would I have been better off with a home birth? Or would that have been a complete disaster because I eventually needed so much medical intervention?’ I would really like to address these concerns before I have my next baby, because I feel as if I could have done better, but I don’t quite know how.
For now, I am choosing to believe that Hypnobabies was helpful to me. At the very least it helped me to spend the last five months of my pregnancy relaxed, comfortable and not worrying about the impending birth. World Health Organisation statistics state that about 1 in 10 births require some form of intervention, and I believe I simply fell into that 10% on this occasion.
Meanwhile, I’m doing the best I can to take care of myself and my beautiful girl and telling myself I will feel much, much better when the hormones settle down again!