No one has been pregnant forever… right? / Peta

My contractions started Friday morning, pretty mild in discomfort but regular enough that it was ON! Excited, nervous, but mainly excited!

I spent the day tracking contractions, symptoms, playing with the TENs machine and wondering when to call the midwife.

Turns out, apparently no one really knows when to call the midwife. I come from a family of women who birth FAST like my mum said all three of us were out within the hour 😆 and both my sisters birthed their babies in under 6 hours… so yeah, I thought my birth was likely to follow the same trend! I was scared my birth team wouldn’t make it in time… how wrong I was!

 7:55PM my midwife arrived, I was having 2 contractions in every 10 minutes and they were pretty intense. As soon as she arrived I realised I probably should have waited a little longer before calling the birth team 😅 my contractions spaced out as soon as she arrived. I’m not someone who likes to be observed and I felt like I was exiting my body and entering my head… not where I wanted to be in labour! I turned the music up, kicked the midwife and photographer out of my birth space and started to sing, move and get primal. It worked! My contractions ramped right back up and I kept working on drawing energy from the earth and visualising my cervix opening and my baby moving down with each contraction.

 9.45pm At this point I wouldn’t call birth painful, I was surprised my midwife made the call for me to jump into the pool. The relief though, fucking amazing! Any pregnant woman at 41 +2 would say you feel HEAVY, it ain’t comfy peeps. I was a bit nervous that the water would slow my contractions but it didn’t! As the hours passed, nothing changed.

 1.35AM Things weren’t progressing, I was wondering where my baby was. Expecting a less then 6 hour birth, this baby was taking its sweet time! I jumped out of the pool to use gravity and movement to get this baby engaging and moving. Squatting, asymmetrical walking, walking up and down the stairs sideways, squatting on the toilet, asymmetrical squatting on the toilet… you name it, I did it. Still NOTHING!

 I was getting frustrated, upset, in my head, angry at myself for calling everyone out to support me in labour anddddd nothing.

 2:00AM sobbing ‘I just want my baby’ ‘I just want to birth my baby’

 3:30AM vomiting… still no baby

 6AM I requested a vaginal exam, baby was still high. I was crushed… I was angry, frustrated and felt like i was failing, like my body was failing me. I knew that with the sunrise my contractions would slow and I broke down. I felt so defeated…  

I spent the next couple hours crying before I surrendered to the fact my baby wasn’t ready to be born… Surrender was the theme for my pregnancy and it definitely was for our birth too.

 I’m someone who likes to be in control or at least have the illusion of control so I can completely understand women’s choice around being induced and accepting intervention but this was not what I wanted for my birth so being a women’s health chiropractor and optimal maternal positioning ambassador, I was committed to doing everything within my power to birth this baby at home on my terms using the tools I had learned over the years.

 Rhys and I climbed back into bed, exhausted, defeated and just wanting to meet our little babe….

 We both managed a good 5 hours of sleep… SO surprised but now that I look back on our birth I’m not so surprised! Of course our bodies are so bloody intelligent that it would us rest knowing there was still days ahead of us before we’d meet our little love.

 I remember waking up early afternoon feeling rested and fabulous! I said to Rhys, ‘I’m not going to give up. As long as our baby and I am okay I’ll keep going… day after day after day. Remind me of that if I need it’

 It didn’t feel like our baby was going to be born any time soon. My contractions weren’t regular or strong… I just accepted it and welcomed the rest knowing it wasn’t going to be long until we met our baby. No one has been pregnant forever… right?

 Saturday night… fuuuucccckkkkkkk.

 At this point my poor uterus had been contracting for DAYS! So it was sore. Its a muscle, so my uterus had DOMs.

 My contractions were a good 10-15 mins apart but they were now not so comfortable. They were intense! Like 100 burpee over bar in a row kind of intense. At this point the TENs machine was annoying me, it felt weird and tingly but not in a good way! So I started using water to be able to get some relief. The shower was amazing! But we have a hot water tank and I was scared the hot water would run out, so we filled the bath. Note to self: install instant hot water system before next child….

 Trying to sleep in the bath between contractions… wouldn’t recommend.

 I was tired, these contractions were now painful.

 3AM we called the midwife and updated her. ‘I’ll be over first thing in the morning’

 8AM midwife arrived. Still hadn’t slept, didn’t want to eat, totally wondering when the fuck our baby was going to exit my vagina. I was getting signs things were really happening now! But still contractions a good 5+mins apart…

 Hot tip for birthing mamas build yourself a birth nest! (Pillows everywhere to support you in an upright position while making you comfy so that you don’t need to move every time a contraction starts) 

9.45AM I didn’t want a heap of vaginal exams so instead I had a feel to see if I could feel a head… I could!!!! Actually I said to my midwife ‘pretty sure there’s nothing else hard up there so it must be a head’

 Sooo Sunday went like this… every 4-10 mins I’d have a contraction that would last anywhere from 90 seconds to 230 seconds… I couldn’t rest, I was bleeding, I was tired, I felt sick…. But I was determined. My baby and I were healthy and that was all that mattered to me to keep soldiering on…

 By 2PM I needed some relief so got back into the pool. I was going to be PISSED if we had to empty the birth pool for a second time without a baby in my arms…

 3PM backup midwife and photographer arrived

 3.30PM my sister arrived… I stayed out of the ‘calling the birth team back’ so when they all arrived I knew our baby was getting closer.

 4.45PM Still no progress, I wasn’t feeling like our baby was making its way out like it should. I jumped out of the birth pool and used gravity to speed things along. I found that my contractions were much stronger when I was sitting on the toilet so that’s where I stayed. I’d get that pressure low down with every contraction and then it would disappear. I knew our baby was just hanging out at my cervix waiting until it was fated to be born a projector 🙄 (Human Design IYKYK)

 6.15PM Requested a vaginal exam. I was TIRED by this point. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep going having not slept or eaten for most of the last 24 hours. I was starting to doubt my ability to birth without help…

 Our midwife could see I was getting desperate… the only thing I wanted to avoid was a transfer to hospital. So she used the hospital card… ‘if things aren’t ramping up in a couple hours it might be time to have a chat about transferring’ Like fuck is that happening I thought to myself 😅 (note: I was birthing during lockdown so I couldn’t have my whole birth team present if I transferred)

 We did the whole informed consent thing and then my second VE (2 more than I thought I’d have) HELLO Anterior cervical lip! The anterior (front) portion of the cervix is the last bit to pull back as the baby makes its way down. Mine was not budging! Later we attributed that to how little our babe was…

 My midwife pushed the cervical lip behind bubs head and did a good ol’ sweep! BAM ‘oh god’…

 They were hard and fast, my contractions were what felt like back to back. I needed relief NOW! I jumped into the shower, unable to stand I squatted down onto one knee. Rhys holding me up, the backup midwife holding the shower head on my uterus, my sister with the crystal sound bowl, Rhys and my sister toning with the sound bowl and encouraging me to vocalise with my contractions. It was ON! There was 6 people in my ensuite… all right in on the action! It was EPIC!

 I felt the pressure I’d been longing for! It wasn’t letting up and I could feel my baby dropping down low into my pelvis ready to be born!

 ‘How much do you want to give birth in the pool?’ My midwife asked

 ‘I don’t really care right now’ ‘will it stop things?’ I said

 ‘I fucking doubt it’ she replied

 So between the next contractions I hurried my way to the birth pool being held up by my sister and midwife… 

I got into the pool onto my hands and knees. Relief… with each contraction I beared down, vocalising and visualising my babies decent. Within a couple contractions he was crowning. ‘His head is right there! Reach down and touch it’ I COULD FEEL HIS HEAD!

 Now this ring of fire people speak of… felt more like my clitoris was being torn apart. But it was only with each contraction and would go away between… totally bearable!

 My midwife coached me through each contraction, helping me take my time to stretch to avoid tearing (which worked btw, intact perineum 👌🏼) a few contractions and Whoosh! Out swam a baby and I reached down and scooped him up into my arms… relieved, amazed, the most tremendous joy!

 22 minutes from that VE until he was in my arms. The most memorable, amazing moments of my life. I laid back into Rhys’ arms, he held us as we became a family of three. We sat in each others arms for 2 hours soaking up every little detail of our alert little babe. Avi Wilder….

 Those two hours were an oxytocin love bubble… each of our birth team meeting our son. Sharing stories, laughing, crying, hugging, there was even a little celebratory dance once he was born! We had the most beautiful golden hours… that first breastfeed 😍 what dreams are made of!

 I stood up out of the water to birth the placenta exactly 2 hours after Avi was born. The most precious organ that nourished our babe for 41 weeks and 2 days…

 What followed was everything a home birth should be… we laid on the bed next to the birth pool. My son on my chest, completely exhausted, completely in love, completely elated, complete.

 We waited for the umbilical cord to stop pulsating and turn white. Honored Avi’s placenta and severed the physical and energetic attachments…

 Once we were comfy in our bed our birth team left one by one… We laid together as a family soaking up our little man. Although I was pregnant for 41 weeks and 2 days I never truly could comprehend the fact we were having a baby… it was surreal to have our son in my arms so perfectly… I still pinch myself… It’s a dream to be his mama. He was worth it all.

 My message to all the other pregnant Mama’s out there… You are more capable than you realise, birth will push you to the edge of what you ever thought possible. You truly do go to the stars to collect your babe and although it is intense and sometimes painful, yes painful… Its a productive kind of pain that is tolerable and in birthing your baby, you too are reborn. It is the most spectacular of experiences! 

 I can tell you that if I had not put the time and effort into educating myself about physiological birth and created a plan of what my ideal birth would look and feel like, I doubt I would have persevered and I doubt I would have had the magical experience I did. It is never a wasted investment of time or money to plan for the birth of your dreams whether it goes to ‘plan’ or not. 

Photography by Fiona from Petite Exposure https://www.facebook.com/PetiteExposure/