We're havin' a baby... part one!

Returning to the kitchen from a trip to the bathroom, I stood at the sink barefoot and 8 months pregnant rinsing a few dishes. Zol had just come home from work, and as usual we chatted about the many idiots that had cut him off in traffic that day. As he ranted and raved I felt something strange happen ‘down below’.

Now I’m not sure if you have ever peed your pants, but my last recollection of doing so involved having to use the toilet madly and holding myself like a 5 year old for at least a half hour. I stood there staring at Zol, underwear wet, holding a dish in my hand.

“Ummm sweety? I - I think I just peed myself…” He looked at me blankly. “I JUST went to the bathroom! Weird…” It wasn’t enough pee to have it running down my leg, but a change of underwear was definitely in need. With a fresh pair on I continued with the dishes. A minute later my underwear was just as wet as before. I started laughing, as did Zol…

“Oh my GOD I’m PEEING myself and I can’t control it! How annoying is THAT?” We sat down to dinner, and upon standing up the whole back of my dress was soaked. OK, this isn’t pee, this is something else. This ‘leaking’ continued for an hour or so and I started to piece together the earlier part of my day.

A tad tired from the wonderful baby shower my friends had thrown for me the day before, I decided to venture out in search of a baby car seat. My hunt was futile; there was NO WAY I was going to drop $300 on something that we didn’t really need. Our friends had already given us their perfectly good used one. I was on my way to another store when my tummy seized up into a Braxton Hicks contraction. Pulling the van over to the roadside I touched my rock-hard stomach. This contraction was lasting longer than they usually did. Several more followed and I decided it was best to just go home. I called Zol and told him to check up on me in few hours, saying the contractions felt a little different today. Upon getting home I napped and when I woke up I felt fine again and started to make dinner.

After dinner that night the leaking continued and in my soggy underwear I sat at the computer and searched ‘water breaking + pregnancy’. Thanks to Hollywood my ‘idea’ of my water breaking was a massive gush that left me standing in a pool of fluids - turns out this rarely the case. If your water breaks at all, it sometimes comes out in small leak… much like a slight pee in your panties! I called my midwife and told her what was happening.

“I thought you’d be an early one!” she said. “Get to sleep early and your contractions will probably start around midnight.” My due date was still 11 days away and we were 11 days unprepared for our home water birth… VERY typical of us of course. This week we had planned to get the living room ready; take down the table, blow up the portable bed and the birthing pool… lay down the tarp… you know, home birthing stuff?! Zol was anxious to get started, but still in denial I said NO, lets just wait and see if this is for real. Around 9pm I started to have a slight pink hue in the ‘leakage’ and that’s when I knew it was the real thing.
A strange calm fell over me as I sat on the couch flipping through channels and watching my husband take down our massive dining room table.

I’m going to have a baby.

I AM GOING TO HAVE A BABY TOMORROW.

Holy SHIT, it’s happening.

With the table finally taken down we decided to go to bed at 10:30pm. I laid there, becoming more uncomfortable with every tick of the clock. By 11pm it went from uncomfortable to something else.

12:00am… “Hun, I think I’m having contractions…”
It’s really hard to explain a contraction. The closest thing I can compare it to is the feeling that you have just before you have to puke violently, but without the nausea if that makes any sense? Imaging the uncontrollable feeling that your body has JUST before you blow major chunks. Your body becomes engulfed in itself and there is NO stopping what’s about to happen… and then a minute long surge that coats every fiber within you ------------------------- and then its over. That was a contraction for me.

We were half way through our prenatal classes at this point and had yet to learn how to time contractions. Rolling out of bed and into my office I sat at the computer and searched ‘timing contractions + pregnancy’. The pain was speratic and ununiform, but they were contractions, no doubt about it! Every 2 to 5 minutes Zol could hear my grunts and groans as I sat at my computer timing each surge. By midnight I’d had it and told Zol to get up and blow up the pool.

As preparations for the homebirth commenced I called my midwife. It was great to hear her clam voice on the other end of the line. She listened to me as I went through several contractions, telling me I was doing a great job. She told us to call her back when the contractions were 2 minutes apart, over a minute long and steady for 3 hours. I hung up the phone and focusing on a small nub of fabric on the blanket at my feet, this carried on for around two and half hours. Zol did his best to ‘time’ the contractions. They were all over the board and the only thing that was remotely consistent was the fact that they were getting closer and closer together. I puked up my dinner into a bowl, laughing as I did it. I couldn’t bring myself to walk around or take a hot shower as recommended, I just sat there on the couch and rocking and moaning. Zol sat across the room, notebook in hand, writing down the events as they happened… we’d previously decided that I didn’t want ANY kind of coddling or touching while going through a contraction, it would be much too annoying!

3am… “Call Beth Zol…. ZOL!!!!! CALL BETH!!!!” He dialed our midwife. He spoke briefly with her but she could hear me in the background. I must have sounded like a demon straight out of hell… such a deep guttural grunting sound was all I could muster. “I NEED TO PUSH! IIIIII NEEEED TO PUUUSH!!!!!” Beth hearing me, told Zol to make me STOP! NOT to push and she’d be there in 15 minutes. Zol then called my best friend Jess, who I wanted at the birth and he hopped in a taxi. Like she said she would be, our midwife Beth was there in less than 15 minutes… and Jess shortly there after.

“OK Dalyn, I’m just going to check you out, but your going to have to spread your legs a bit OK?”
“OH GOD, no no no… I can’t I CAN’T!” but I guess I did, or she pried them open! Her head popped up with a look of surprise.
“WOW, OK, your fully dilated! Lets get you into the pool!” The birthing pool was now full of warm water sitting in front of me. I don’t remember my PJ’s being taken off or Zol and Beth lifting me into the pool, but once that warm buoyant water surrounded me I felt a world of relief!

Jess arrived shortly after I was lowered into the pool, calmly walking in with an air of comic relief to him.
“Hey guys????? ????” He took a seat on the couch beside the pool. I felt a slight sense of relief now that he’d arrived.

Zol seemed tense yet supportive to me, but in a way needed his own support… turns out Jess would be JUST what he would require on the near horizon!

3:20am… “OK Dalyn, don’t push yet… look me in the eyes… Dalyn? Dalyn? LOOK at me… OK you’re doing great! You’re doing an amazing job! Dalyn? Dalyn? OK, LOOK at me… Keep looking at me… OK PUSH!!!” I pushed with everything that was in me. The contraction passed. It was an out of body expierience that I can’t compare to anything! The pain was gone, but now it basically felt like I was taking the biggest shit of my life! In between the contractions my body felt normal – painless as I floated in the warm water. Then I smelt something… like someone had placed a piece of burning toast RIGHT in front of my face! Zol appeared at my side with a pot of hot water, releasing it into the pool to warm it up.

“TURN IT OFF!! WHAT IIIIS THAT??? TURN IT OFF!!!!!” The smell was incredibly intense and obtrusive, breaking my process of traveling into the ‘birthing side’ of my brain. By heating up water in a pot something we’d previously cooked had spilled onto the heating element and the smoke (that nobody else could smell) was permeating the room and driving me insane!

3:30am… “OK Dalyn, with this next contraction you can push OK? But when I say stop, you need to hold off alright?” I stared at Beth’s warm eyes, so calm, so knowing. It’s rare that one looks deep into the eyes of someone she trusts that knows what is best for ones self. I don’t know that I’ve ever trusted someone as much as I did at that very moment. The need to push fell over me in a wave, Beth keeping my crazed stare aline with hers. The wave passed but quickly came back. I PUSHED….

“Do you want to see the head?! The heads right there Dalyn! Do you want to see it??” This meant somehow spreading my legs, so I passed on the new view of what was happening below. I felt nothing… NO PAIN. Amazing… but JEEZ LUOIS JUST GET IT OUT OF ME!!!!

3:50am… “Alright Zoltan, do you want to catch the baby?” In a blur I saw his face, apprehensive and sweet and scared. It makes me cry while I write this. In a hospital this situation would never have come to past… my husband kneeled on the floor in front of the pool, looking me in the eyes as my last contraction released our daughter into her new world… with the help of Beth he pulled her from the water and onto my breast and then wrapped his arms around the both of us. AMAZING. Our baby girl was alive and breathing, floating in the warmth of the water. Covered in vernix, cheesy from day one! Graye made sweet baby sounds and laid softly at my heart. Jess smiled at my side, looking down at his new goddaughter and Beth conversed with the second midwife who had just barely made it in the door before the birth…

Life was sweet and amazing and in our arms… we laid floating in it for what seemed like forever…

“OK Dalyn, now we just have to get you to push out the placenta, OK?” WHAT? Push out what? Still holding my baby they had me push… and push and push…. and PUSH. nothing. PUSH PUSH PULL PULL… the embolic cord was short. “OK, push HARD!... HARDER…”

To be continued…