A potted account of birth a second time around…
On an airless, sultry day last August I resorted to literally sticking my head in the fridge and weeping. I was heavily pregnant, had just bitten my DaddyO’s head off about some petty annoyance and was craving white chocolate magnums.
The next day I gave birth. “The second one will be much quicker” everyone had kept telling me until I began to worry she would suddenly drop out of me. Chance would be a fine thing.
I was awoken early that morning by mild contractions. Luckily Tinytoes was at nursery and DaddyO had decided to work from home. I decided a brisk walk was in order to get things moving and asked DaddyO to accompany me.
Our walk, through a farmyard, took a perilous turn when a large rat darted out in front of us. Moments later we had to walk through a field of curious horses, only to find the metal gate was tied shut on the other side. After clambering over the gate mid-contraction, we found ourselves in a field of cows, only partially certain they were not bulls…
Safely back home, the contractions continued apace and DaddyO announced he was going back to the home office to make some work calls. I looked at him aghast. “Can’t they wait?” I wailed. I had been on the brink of calling the birthing centre but I knew that when I called my mother to ask if she could pick up Tinytoes from nursery it would become ‘official’. What if the contractions stopped? And then Granny would go to pick up Tinytoes and explain what was happening and DaddyO would cancel his calls all for nothing.
At the Birthing Centre
I ended up standing my ground and very soon we were on our way to the birthing centre. The midwife looked at me suspiciously. “You’re very smiley for someone in labour,” she proffered. She agreed to examine me, then told me: “You’re only 2cm, would you like a sweep?” As I mulled this over, conscious I needed to decide quickly since she was already ‘there’ so as to speak, she said “how about we go for a partial sweep?”. “OWWW..” was all I could reply.
To my dismay, I was then told to go back home or go for a coffee in the local town. Home was an uncomfortably bumpy twisting drive away and besides we couldn’t go back without more explanations and confusion for our toddler. Anyway, I knew that birth was near. I just knew it. I felt dreadful and wanted to stay put. Coffee was the last thing on my mind. So they agreed to let us have a room to rest in.
So it was that DaddyO sat in a comfy nursing chair munching on his snacks while I gyrated on all fours, moaning in discomfort. In fact, that only happened once. Thereafter he was banned from munching on any snack and watching like he was in the cinema while I was going through the contractions themselves.
When the midwife came to see how I was doing I made sure I wasn’t smiling this time. I could have just about mustered up a smile but I was terrified she was going to send me back home. When she confirmed I was ok to stay I began sobbing, such was my relief that they seemed to believe I was legitimately there now.
Barely four hours after my previous examination, I was examined again. 8 cm now. I could scarcely believe it. Midwives scurried around to fill the birthing pool. I was still in denial. “So I’m really going to stay and to give birth then? I don’t need to go home?” I asked in amazement. They looked at me curiously.
In the Birthing Pool
In the pool everything slowed down. The contractions seemed to peter out. DaddyO began chatting with the assistant midwife about her upcoming trip to his hometown Barcelona. When he began to detail which tourist bus she should catch – the red one – I almost started laughing at the ludicrousness of the situation. Hello?! Here I was naked in a pool and my husband was making small talk over my head to the student midwife! I soon shut them up with a big contraction.
When DaddyO tried to resume the conversation, I was glad the student realised that now was not the best time. She shot me a sympathetic look when the older midwife started asking me about my profession. So much for getting into the zone. “Investor Relations,” I replied curtly. “Ooh what does that entail?” she asked. I groaned. My job is hard enough to explain succinctly in the best of social occasions and this was the last thing I wanted to be talking about. “Can I tell you later please?” I shouted before contracting again.
Despite the chitchat and the questions, I felt in safe hands. So I felt alarmed when, after only 40 minutes of being in the pool, the midwife and the student midwife’s shift ended and they were replaced with two new faces.
It wasn’t long before I felt in safe, if not delicate, hands again. With each painful contraction, I was unable to squeeze the midwife’s hand as I was worried I would break it: she was semi-retired and looked too frail. So DaddyO got his hand crushed instead.
In water births, the mother needs to avoid raising her body when the head appears to prevent the baby from breathing in air and then drowning if it is lowered back into the water. I asked if people instinctively stood up when the head was out and the midwives reassured me that no, this didn’t happen.
My waters still hadn’t broken and I felt fretful. There was talk of getting me ‘out’ for a while. I was adamant I wanted to stay put so they examined me again, in the water this time, and in doing so they broke my waters.
Ten minutes (I’m glad I have my birthing notes) and a lot of shouting later a head emerged. Instinctively I went to stand up. I recall the midwives apologising for shouting loudly and pushing down hard on my shoulders, but I was too out of it to really realise. Precisely two minutes after this, the rest of her tiny body followed and I immediately fell head over heels in love with her.
I didn’t sleep a wink that night because my adrenalin was still pumping from all the excitement. And the next day I ended up driving us all home. That wasn’t the plan, but I couldn’t physically fit between the two baby seats in the back. As silly as it sounds I didn’t want my precious bundle to have no one sitting next to her in case she stopped breathing or something dreadful.
I had opted for no stitches as they were only borderline necessary, and felt primly indignant when I was told to ‘keep my legs together’ so I would heal. What did they think?! Moments later I found myself painfully straddling one of the baby seats and actually managed to get in, before realising that being wedged between 2 hard plastic seats on a boiling hot August day hours after giving birth was not the best idea.
I realised that, sod it, I would have to repeat the painful process to get out and then drive us home, with DaddyO neatly squeezed into the back. And so it was that we became a family of four.
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Calamitous Mummy 