The weekend before my Monday "due" date we were very busy. We went for a walk at the lake, did the tour of the local playgrounds, and went fishing at the river. All weekend I was having "real" contractions, but they were very irregular. Sunday afternoon they got a little more frequent but then they more or less stopped Sunday night. When we went to bed Sunday night, I mentioned to Brian that he shouldn't be surprised if I woke him up that night but of course we didn't really expect that to happen.
We went to bed around 10:30 and I woke up at about 2am having a contraction. I got up and went to the bathroom and walked around a little bit to see what would happen. They kept
coming about 5 to 8 minutes apart. So around 3am, I woke Brian up to let him know this might be it. He got up and started setting up the birth pool while I got in the shower. My contractions stayed more or less regular through the next hour, so at 4am, I called Debbie, my midwife. Once I got on the phone with her, she told me she wanted to hear me breathe through a contraction so that she could get a feel for how things were progressing. Wouldn't you know - I stayed on the phone with her for 12 minutes waiting for a contraction that never came. I started to feel like I was one of "those" women that think every early contraction is the real thing. I couldn't believe this was happening. After all, this was not my first baby! She was so nice and reassured me that it happens all the time and reminded me that when women feel "monitored" it can affect the progress of labor. She told me to call her back when things started back up.
After we hung up I went 40 minutes with ZERO contractions. I got to the point that I believed that I had just had a false alarm and I told Brian we should probably just go back to sleep and get some rest in case it started back up later in the day. As I sat down on the bed to go back to sleep, I had a really strong contraction and then we were off! I started having them about every 3 minutes and after I did that for about 30 minutes, Brian started calling everyone. He called Debbie back to let her know and she said it seemed like a good time for her to head over. He also called his sister Jenny and our friends Megan and Misti who were planning to be our photographer and videographer for the birth. While he was doing this and filling the pool, I labored on my knees leaning over the side of the bed.
After what felt like a long time to me, but was only about an hour, I decided to go ahead and try out the pool. I wasn't sure if it was too soon to get in, but it looked really appealing so I did it anyway. Wow - the relief was immense and immediate! It felt SO much better that I thought maybe I really had gotten in too soon and it was slowing or stopping my labor. I felt that I was still having contractions but they were a little farther apart and they felt SO much less intense. I had only been in the pool for a few minutes when Debbie arrived. I got out to go to the bathroom and she checked my dilation while I was out. I was already at 7cm with a bulging bag! I kept asking her if she was just telling me that to make me feel better for waking her up. I didn't think it was possible that I was that far already. She assured me that I really was and that I was more than welcome to get back in the pool. She didn't have to tell me that twice! I jumped back in. Very soon after that Misti, Megan, and Jenny showed up. I was SO happy to see everyone! That was a pleasant surprise since I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about having that many people at the birth. Once everyone was here, I pretty much stayed in the pool. I’d jump out once in a while to run to the bathroom, but then I’d get back in as fast as I could. I was trying so hard not to have a contraction out of the water because it hurt so much more. Debbie’s apprentice/assistant Audrey arrived about an hour after everyone else. We all just sat around a talked. It was great. I would just stop talking each time I had a contraction and put my head down on the side of the pool and breathe.
Several times they asked me if their talking bothered me and I told them it didn’t at all. Neither did the flash of the camera. I would just go into my “zone” and breathe through them. As things started to progress it turned into breathe in, moan softly out just like I did with Reese’s labor. I kept reminding myself to keep everything relaxed and to avoid tensing any part of my body, including my face and mouth. Sometimes, I would close my eyes through the contraction and sometimes I used a spot in the bottom of the pool as my focus spot. I really just tried to focus on doing what my body wanted me to do and what felt good. I labored in the pool for about four hours total and I was kneeling almost the entire time leaning over the edge of the pool. Sometimes, between contractions, I would sit back and lean into the side of the pool and stretch out my legs to let them get a little bit of circulation back. They were starting to go numb after a while, but it was the only position that I really liked. At one point, Debbie asked if I wanted to drink anything other than water and I really didn’t but I tried some Gatorade. Big mistake! I immediately felt like I was going to vomit, so I ended up with a big bowl in front of me and a cold cloth on my neck. Thankfully, I never did vomit, and after that I pretty much just stuck with the water.
The girls woke up around 7am and Jenny and Misti kept them entertained downstairs eating breakfast and watching a movie in the basement. Sienna came up to the bedroom a couple of times to check on me. She was so cute and you could tell she was excited even though she wasn’t saying much. I asked her if she was going to come back when it was time for the baby to come out and she said yes.
Around 9am, Debbie asked me if I wanted to have my membranes ruptured. I really didn’t, but once you have been in labor, you start to bargain with yourself in order for it to be over. So I considered it for a few minutes and finally asked Debbie what she thought. I loved her answer. She told me that she thought I was doing a wonderful job and that I didn’t need to have any intervention at this point. I was so relieved because I knew that after the baby was born, I would be glad to have had no interventions. Shortly after that, things really started to get intense. My moaning got much louder and I really NEEDED to moan at this point. I also asked Brian to come over by me and let me hold his hand during contractions. I felt like this lasted a while, but Brian told me later it was only maybe 20 minutes. I think the perception that it was so long was because there was very little break in between contractions and they were seriously intense. Clearly, this was transition, and in true natural birth fashion, it was the one time I started to feel like I COULDN’T possibly handle it much longer. And even though my conscious mind realized that’s what it was, it was such an intense, overwhelming feeling for that short time that I remember thinking, “oh, please, let this end – I’m done, I can’t do it anymore.”
Just like Reese’s birth, I don’t recall an actual physical “urge” to push. It was more of a mental urge to make that overwhelming feeling go away with Reese. I suppose that is the “urge”, but I always expect it to be a physical urge, like needing to go to the bathroom. This time, I don’t recall any urge. I was just suddenly pushing with a contraction and I find it so funny that I felt the need to announce it to the room. As I pushed, I said, “I’m pushing!” I think that was pretty obvious to the rest of the room as the video shows, but in my little world I was the only one who knew it and I guess I felt like I needed to notify Debbie. I pushed one good long time and about midway through it my water broke, which I also announced. Immediately after the water breaking, her head was out. At that time, I stopped pushing for a moment and Debbie reminded me that if I wanted to catch her myself I would need to reach down now and do that. So I moved from my forward leaning kneeling position to a sitting upright position. I reached down into the water and put both of my hands on her head. Wow – what a surreal feeling. Her little head fit right into both of my hands and I could feel that she had so much hair – just like her sisters. I tried to push a little to push out her body and I couldn’t bear down very well while leaning forward holding her head. I yelled, “help me!” Debbie said okay and I leaned back so that I could push against the back of the pool better and pushed and yelled twice. After the first one, Debbie told me to push HARD and I sort of moaned, “I’m trying!” So with the second one, Debbie helped just a little and out she came. I said, “there it is!!!” I reached down and pulled her up out of the water to my chest. SO AMAZING!
At first when I looked to see what sex the baby was, I had that same experience that we had had when
Reese was born. I though for a second that the umbilical cord was a penis, but then realized what it was and that she was actually a girl. After I sat and recovered for a minute or two, I said, “oh, Brian, it’s another girl…” and the whole room reacted in disbelief. I hadn’t realized it, but Sienna JUST missed the actual birth. When I said I was pushing, Megan jumped up and ran down to the basement to get her, but the whole thing was less than one minute and they didn’t get back in time. In the video you can see that she comes in right as I bring the baby up out of the water. Sienna told me later that she was coming up the stairs and heard me yelling. She said, “mommy, you were one of those yelling ladies like we saw in the videos!” I was a little disappointed about that because we had talked so much about it, but she was okay with it. A few minutes later, someone went and got Reese so that she could meet her sister, too. Shortly later I delivered the placenta while still in the pool and then I got out and took a quick shower and got into my own bed with the baby and the other two girls. I nursed her for probably about an hour before Debbie did her newborn exam.
The ONLY thing I would change or do differently if we have another baby is that when it is time to catch the baby and push out the body, I will squat instead of sitting. I think that if I had done that it would have been much easier to push out her body while holding on to her head. However, that one fact alone doesn’t take anything away from this amazing home/water birth. I loved everything about it and would do it again in a minute. Welcome Evangeline Brielle Brigance, 7 pounds, 9 ounces, 10:14am, 4/4/11.
The link to the video - it's about 12 minutes. Make sure your volume is up if you want to hear the videos. They are a little on the quiet side.
