The birth story series. Part 1.

I’ve come through it. It’s over, never to be repeated again. Thank God!
Birth number 2 is over with, and now I have a lifetime of enjoying our second daughter, Willow Alannah Hamilton.

I start out the birth story this way just to try to warn you. This is not a pretty piece of writing. 10 days into her little life and I’m already forgetting the sheer overwhelming ‘sensations’ of birth. Stupid hormones! No wonder we do this multiple times. We can thank God for his creation of oxytocin and other such blissful hormones created for us women in abundance during and following labour. Because I know that if I ever remembered the pain fully, then I’d definitely be reconsidering my “4 children, no less” policy that Craig is warming to. But I write this as a reminder to myself for next time to NEVER attempt this again without the most potent form of permissible drug administered by hospital staff and known to man.

See, my other two friends who birthed their second children just recently had some pretty decent birth experiences, as far as births go, anyway. So I was allowing myself to be hopeful, which is really all you can resign yourself to anyway, given that your body is again going to be thrown into the unrelenting and ever increasing pains of birth.

Unfortunately, even though this second child came faster than Avalon (8 instead of 16 hours of full-on labour) it was just as hard, and I think just as painful.

So- here’s the story from the start.

The days leading up to the birth were really difficult to live with. I felt as though my body was slowly shutting itself down, and with an active toddler now in my life, I felt that if Willow didn’t arrive soon, Craig would be off from work anyway, and I’d need bedrest until her arrival. My pelvis was in constant pain and my hip joints the same. I would get up from sitting down for no more than 5 minutes, and just breathe through the pain in my joints. Even though it was painful to stand, it was almost not worth having a rest to sit down, because of the agony that followed.

So I made a bold move. At my 39 week, 6 day appointment, I asked to be given a ‘cervical sweep’. This procedure was known to trigger labour by releasing natural hormones into your body to start it off. I won't go into details...

The midwife looked at me like I was crazy, but I begged her really and said that it worked for a friend of mine, and that I was in so much pain now, with constant prelabour and now this pelvis thing, that I wanted this precious gift out NOW (please). This was crazy painful for me, and I had to ask Craig to take the rest of the day off work, because I was useless to look after Avalon. I just wanted to collapse in a heap and moan softly to myself in self pity. Which I totally would have done, if I wasn't such a proud person.

The birth story series. Part 2.

It was 7am the following morning that my waters broke. No huge gush, but definitely unmistakenably, my waters broke. Every time I changed sitting position, I would gush again. It was more comfortable now to remain as upright as possible. I couldn’t have had a little “sleep” without flooding our bed, so, this was the most sleep I was now going to have until the baby arrived. And I got 2 ½ hours of it in between painful contractions that night, so I was already running on vapours.

We called my parents, and they came to look after Avalon. The morning was filled with me doing last minute cleaning and hospital bag packing, and Avalon squealing with delight at my parent’s play. I wish I could have stayed there until the birth itself. Unfortunately, I had a strep b infection, which 20% of women have, and it causes no harm to us, but to an unborn child can kill them if antibiotics are not administered throughout the labour. I’m just one of these unlucky women whose waters break at the start of labour instead of in the heat of the action.

So upon calling the hospital, I still had to be admitted even though labour hadn’t properly started. My contractions were 10-15 apart, some intense, some unnoticeable. This was prelabour. Again. Avy’s prelabour lasted 31 hours. I prayed for a faster one this time, and God was merciful. Only 16 hours with Willow!

I was cannulated, injected a couple of times with antibiotics, and left to my own devices to get this labour happening. We spent our time equally reading books, walking stairs and staying active to try to get the show on the road. Nothing exhausting, but enough just to jiggle this bub into the right position if something wasn’t aligned properly.

Craig was sent home once visiting hours were over for an early night, and I had a sleepless night ahead of me. Craig was woken at 11pm that night by a phonecall.

“Craig, it’s started”

“Oh ok, should I come now?”

The midwives didn’t believe me that labour had started. They’d told me to have a shower. I was all emotional. I wanted Craig with me, and I didn’t want to birth this baby alone in the shower. I’ve heard storied of how fast it can all happen, and having only 16 months between births, you just never know what your body’s going to do second time round.

“They won’t send me to labour ward. I don’t think they believe me. But I need you here, they’re really painful to get through without massage.”

Craig reassured me it’d be ok, to have the shower and then tell them again.

So I did. Instead of the shower helping them, they were now 8 minutes apart and QUITE painful. I had to breathe through the wave and use all my techniques I’d learnt to cope without collapsing in a heap.

The midwives finally listened to me, and one of them came to time them. By this time, they were now 5 minutes apart and growing in intensity with every one.

They told me to pack up, they were moving me down to the birthing suites.

Finally! How do you convince someone that you’re really labouring, when you’re not screaming in agony but breathing through the contractions? To an outsider, I must have looked too calm, so she dismissed me. I forgive her, even though at the time, this midwife was my mortal enemy, a barrier between myself and craig being together at this birth.

They transferred me to a lovely big room at about 12.30am Easter Saturday, so I called Craig again and told him to tally ho over, that we were now ready. He called my doula (birth assistant) on the way, and Willow was to be born that morning.

The birth story series. Part 4.

This consoled me for a while and I focused on nothing but surviving. It’s a well known fact that in birth, women shut down to their primal brain, and all their higher functions of reasoning switch off. This makes entire sense to me. Because as I went through this experience, all I could focus on was survival. My body was doing everything it could to SURVIVE. Why would it need the higher thought of reason when the whole body is convulsing from within to expel this creature which has now reached the point where it is sucking the life out of it’s Mother, rather than her ‘supporting’ it? The baby can’t stay in there forever. And the body knows that.

The birth once it begins has to reach it’s conclusion. And the person inside that body is totally encompassed by it’s motions, that they can only accept the pain and go with it and try not to fight it. If you fight the pain, the body clamps up even more and the pain gets even stronger. We have to accept the labour pain for it to go away faster. How counterintuitive is that! Even when everything within you is telling you that this pain is wrong. Because in every other bodily experience, if we feel pain, it IS because something is terribly wrong.

It makes sense to me that pain is a fitting result of our rejection of God in the garden of Eden. Our response to God’s rule and authority is totally wrong, and consequently, pain now exists in his creation. And more intensely so in birth; the very act of his creatures creating! Creation itself is stuffed from our sin. And no more do I feel this truth than in the process of my babies’ births. And moreover, how fitting that I experience this trauma than on Easter Friday and Saturday. The days we set apart to mourn for our sin and the depths our Saviour Lord Jesus went through to release us of it.

The birth story series. Part 5.

As much as I hated the gas and it’s effects, I also loved it for the same reason. It helped me to not perceive reality. And during the most painful experience of my life, I actually don’t want to really comprehend the pain.

So I drifted in and out of dreamland while on the gas, all the time feeling every bit of the pain, but not perceiving that the feeling was “pain” because it made my mind so murky that my thoughts were also jumbled.

I hallucinated throughout the end of the birth. I drifted into consciousness and the pain of reality to breathe out the words “epidural please” several times, because when I stopped breathing the gas, I could tell that a lot of time had passed, and this epidural was still “on it’s way”. I thought Craig and my doula needed more convincing. Apparently, it was really just a staffing issue. In the wee hours of Easter Saturday, 3 other women were labouring, and one needed an emergency c section. So she obviously took precedence over my needs right then. I’m a little disappointed now that even though I asked for the epidural at least 4 hours before I birthed, it still didn’t arrive in time. Next time I’ll hire my own anaesthetist, too!

In my hallucinations I was dying. I saw shapes in black and white. This must have been during the peak of a contraction. The darkness (the pain) would cover all of the white, until the white was just a pin prick in my vision. I would stop sucking the gas, because I thought, that’s it, I’m dead. I should walk towards the light… And then the reality would set in, and the bathroom would become clear again, and I realised that I was experiencing such extreme pain, that I had stopped breathing and instead, had been waiting for death to take hold of me. The dawning of this reality made the pain even worse, so I grabbed back the gas and would suck it down again until I could no longer think clearly again. So it was in this dreamland that I indulged in. I sucked the gas as much as I could before passing out (tip: keep a small amount of light around), then I’d regulate my breathing so that I could stay with the visions and not come out of it. Because coming out of the haze into reality was too overwhelming.

I had fallen to the floor during this time, and my doula found me a birthing ball to hang over. They diligently dug their glorious hands into my back with every wave. In my hazy dreamland, I said “thankyou for my cloud” which was the last phrase I muttered before delivery.

The birth story series. Part 6.

The hallucinations changed at points, sometimes the white was only around the gas mask covering my mouth, and sometimes I visualised the white radiating around my back like I was having an outer body experience. All I knew was, that if I chased the light, the pain didn’t overtake me and I could keep surviving. I wanted to survive. I wanted to see my baby and not leave Craig alone with two children (yes- I had these thoughts during the labour somehow while still hallucinating on the gas. My mind just doesn’t ever want to shut down completely!)

But several times, I’m ashamed to say, I did stop chasing the light, and I let the darkness black out my dreams, because I wanted to be dead. I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore and I would stop fighting to survive. What happened at these points must have been that I sucked so hard on the gas that I passed out briefly, only to be jolted back to reality in the peak of the contraction, fully aware that this "sensation" was in fact, the pain of birth.

Then there was a lull. Contractions changed instantly to be less painful. They were there, but something different was happening. It was birthing time.

My body had a brief rest. I remember wishing it was all over because I was totally ready to go to sleep by then. I'd had enough. And I think my body knew that. It gave me about an hour of 'rest' where I just recovered and lay over my birth ball with only small urges to push her out. I put in a minimal amount of effort here. They may have even checked me somewhere and given me the green light to push. But I wasn't ready. I needed a break.

When my bodily urges kicked in hard enough to give her the heave-ho outta me, I welcomed them. But I didn’t want anyone screaming “push” at me like last time. So, I wrote in my birth plan for the midwives to leave me to my own devices. Let my body get her out on it’s own.

What I learnt from this is that my body takes A LOT OF TIME! What should have been only 15 minutes of pushing was actually just under 2 hours. (I checked the midwives notes later). I just waited until I was entirely at the mercy of my body to force her out. The 2 hours noted must have included that recovery time part, I think.

But psychologically, it felt good. At least if I was destroying myself, it was through no decision of my own...

The pain felt better too. It was a tangible pain. Contractions are all internal pain. This new pain was like a pin prick- external pain. It was truer, more real pain. And, who knows why, but I preferred this pain to contraction pain. And I didn’t need or want the gas during this time. Many, many, many efforts later, but mainly from the force of my own body's will, my second girl was born.

And so, Willow Alannah welcomed Craig and I at 7.38am Easter Saturday. She arrived with her hand curled up beside her head and as she was awkwardly passed through my legs to me by my midwife, Wills let out a hearty cry. I looked at her and said "hi", and informed her that she was a hell of a lot of work, but that it’s all over now. I think I was consoling myself more than her. She just looked like she was grumpy from being been woken up from a nice dream. Craig and I looked at eachother for the first time since the birth began and beamed relieved smiles at one another. Praise God that we only birth them once!

Posterior babies

Not a lot is said or heard of optimum baby positioning. Pregnant Mums have heard of breach babies (babies that are feet first instead of head first out the chute) or transverse babies (ones that prefer to lie perpendicular to your waist than parallel) but there are other ways that babies can sit which can cause drawn-out births.

I know this now, because I did a lot of research after Avalon's 47 hour labour. 

Your uterus turns a baby clockwise around in your belly until it fits perfectly in your pelvis, at which time, usually your body will respond by opening up and pushing it out (I'm trying for an intermediate level of detail for the male friend readers out there).

So If a baby sits with it's head down, but it's back lies on your right side, not on your left, it needs to undergo almost a full 360 degree rotation until it can be birthed well, where it's back can lie straight down your belly button. Most babies prefer to lie in a good birthing position, on a mother's left hand side. But some want to cause trouble, and for various speculated reasons, aren't positioned this way.

The births that are explained in books are those who follow the rules and whose baby lies in that optimal birthing position. According to those books, first births take a maximum of 17 hours. That's like, less than a day! And according to those books, contractions are regular and get closer together whereas posterior births are often preluded by days of 10 minute and then 3 minute contractions.

So my friend Sarah and I were quite unprepared for our births, which both went on for days. Unlike Sarah, whose little Noah was actually born posterior, Avalon eventually turned all the way.

But this word posterior is what I dread now. Because it means a more intense labour, stronger contractions for a much longer period of time than a common labour, crazy back pain along with the regular muscle tightenings and a feeling of being in transition from an earlier point in the labour.

All of which leads to an exhausted Mum and Dad and a long, long labour until the baby eventually turns past your back (hence backpain as their spine scrapes yours on the way through) so it can be birthed.

All I can say is that I've read up on it A LOT. If my midwives can find out if I'm posterior, I'm going straight for the epidural. There's no way I'm deliberately planning on going through 6 hours of transition like pain again (unless God has other ideas of course).

I also know that this baby I carry prefers to be in a posterior position now. All of her kicks come out the front of my belly. So I'm praying that she moves a little to my left sometime soon and gets nice and comfortable there. Because there's so much appeal to me in experiencing a regular, run of the mill type birth.

Is there anything wrong with just wanting to be normal and not always the exception to the rule?