This blog needs no name

Here’s the story of how Ingrid Johanna came to the world.
There are some gory details here and there; don’t read this unless you really want to know what labour and childbirth can be like. It’s also quite a long story, but as with my blog posts, I’ve written it more for myself than for anyone else.

I woke up on the morning of Saturday, October 14th, at 5:25. This was not particularly surprising per se – I’d been waking in the middle of the night for weeks now, for a trip to the loo. But this was the second time for that night, and the discomfort felt different. 5 minutes later my stomach cramped painfully again, and lying down felt very uncomfortable. The same happened again 5 minutes after that, at which point I concluded it had to be contractions. So I gave up trying to go back to sleep and got up. Eric asked if something was wrong; I told him I thought the baby was on its way, but not urgently yet, so he went back to sleep.

This was several days before the official due date (which was Wednesday, October 18th) , and we were very pleased about that. We had planned for a home birth, and the midwives had no objections. Their main caveat was that they would give me 10 days’ margin after the due date, and if the baby hadn’t arrived by then, I’d be induced and that would mean a hospital birth. I had no desire for either induction or hospital and was very keen to see the baby come out in good time before that 10-day limit. And the baby obliged by arriving a few days early.

During the morning the contractions were not strong at all: hovering somewhere on the threshold between strong discomfort and actual pain. I just needed to adopt a comfortable position and breathe deeply to let them pass. But they were frequent enough and distracting enough to keep me from doing anything – I think all I managed to do that morning was to water the plants, and unpack the birth pool. Other than that I just sat and wandered around, and out of pure boredom timed the contractions (they settled down into a rhythm of approximately 30 seconds, every 3 to 4 minutes).

Around 9 I decided to call and warn the midwives that things were happening, to give them a chance to fit in my home birth in their planning. By this time Eric had gotten up as well and started organising practical matters – most importantly, stocking up on fruit juice and assembling the pool.

Midwife Lisa came by to check on me at 10:30. She said I was 1 to 2 cm dilated, gave us her phone number, told to call if anything happened (such as my waters breaking, or contractions becoming more intense) and promised to be back in 4 hours’ time again.

For the next 5 hours, nothing much happened. The contractions changed in neither intensity nor frequency. My lack of sleep started to catch up with me, so I spent 2 hours dozing, leaning over the back of a kitchen chair, waking up for each contraction. These two hours were refreshing (which may be difficult to imagine) but did nothing to advance the labour process, unfortunately. When the midwife came by again at 4:30, she confirmed what I had suspected – nothing much had changed – and suggested that I move around more to make things move forwards. In particular, "you have such nice stairs", she said.

So I walked, through the rest of the afternoon / evening.
I walked up and down the stairs (42 steps from top floor to bottom); three trips down and up – which was all I had the energy for, it was hard work getting up!
Then I walked circles around the living room.
Then I walked the stairs again.
Then the living room.
And the stairs.
And the living room.
And the stairs.
And the living room.
And the stairs.
And the living room.

I was imagining paths worn into stone-paved yards in medieval castles, after centuries’ worth of prisoners have walked round and round forever... not that I felt like a prisoner; it was just very boring!

Then a hot shower (wonderful).
Then the stairs again – this time, strengthened by my shower, all of 4 down-and-up trips!
And the living room.
And the stairs.
And the living room.

After every stair session I felt the contractions getting stronger. But then I had to rest my legs, and they weakened again. Still, after the sixth and final round of stairs, at about 9 in the evening, I felt pretty sure that the contractions had gotten permanently stronger, and decided that simple walking would be sufficient from then on. I was getting quite tired then – I had been in labour for 16 hours, sustained only by fruit juice and a few Dextrosol. (I did try to eat a bit but the food didn’t stay down more than a few hours.)

At 11 Eric called the midwife team and told them that the contractions were stronger now, and getting more so. I was now huffing and puffing through each one, rather than managing with just deep breathing.

Things continued to intensify slowly over the next two hours, and I was getting more and more anxious for a midwife to come. I was starting to find the contractions painful. We had hired a birth pool, and I could see it waiting for me in the kitchen, warm and welcoming – but I wasn’t allowed to get in until I was at least 5 cm dilated, so I needed a midwife to examine me.

Then, 1 o’clock at night, 18 hours after I woke up, the waters finally broke. Suddenly the labour sped up a lot, and the contractions started to really hurt. No more walking; I got down on my hands and knees on a mattress and huffed and puffed and groaned there.

Still no sign of the midwife. Eric called the labour ward again to inform them, and all I could think about was the pool.

15 minutes later, finally, a midwife came. Not the one who had visited me before, as she was busy with another home birth – which may be why it took a while for someone to get here. All sorts of frustrating examinations followed (blood pressure, pulse, position of the baby, baby’s heart rate etc). Frustrating not only because they kept me from the pool (which was topmost in my mind) but also because I had to stay still through them, and for some of them, lie down on my back. I found that the most painful position to be in through a contraction! (Possibly standing on my head would have felt worse, but I didn’t try it.)

The midwife then pronounced me 6 cm dilated. I had been hoping for more, but didn’t really care about the details. I could now get into the pool!

The pool was just as great as it seemed. Not only did it make the contractions more manageable, which was my main goal. It also relieved my knees, which were very tired by now and had been supporting much of my weight, off and on, for hours.

Once I was in the pool, I could finally focus on giving birth, instead of getting through labour – which may sound like the same thing, but was psychologically completely different. I could feel labour speeding up, and it now took all my attention, all of the time. My world narrowed to one corner of the pool, and I was barely aware of what was going on elsewhere. From now to the moment of birth, I had no perception of time passing.

While the contractions were getting more and more intense, they now felt useful and not just painful. And indeed, quite soon (or at least it felt quite soon) after getting in the pool I got a strong urge to push. In fact, I couldn’t NOT push: the pushing happened completely instinctively and independently of me. All I could do was to not hinder it. It is an impressive mechanism – even if I knew nothing about labour or birth, I couldn’t have failed to push the baby out.

Along with the pushing came the noise. I think I was groaning and screaming loud enough to wake the entire building. The screaming was as instinctive as the pushing – and equally important and productive. I wasn’t making noise primarily because of the pain, but because it helped the pushing. It felt as if the screams were doing at least half the work.

I realised afterwards that I had given birth effectively without pain relief, other than an hour or two in the pool. This wasn’t really what I had planned: the midwives had brought Entonox cylinders, and I had been willing to consider using them. But somehow there was never a moment when I thought I wanted it. I was too busy, and had more important things to think about than pain relief.

Various sources describe labour pain as one of the worst pain experiences, comparable to amputating a finger. While I have never tried the latter, I definitely wouldn’t rate my labour pain as bad as that!

Still, it must have been a singularly unpleasant experience for Eric. Imagine watching your wife scream with pain, for hours, while you stand there and can do nothing about it. All you can do is give her a glass of water when she asks. On the whole, I don’t think I would have liked to swap places with him.

While I was busy in the pool, the midwife kept an eye on the baby’s heart rate. It turned out that the heart rate wasn’t recovering quickly enough after each contraction, possibly because the pool was too warm, so I was ordered (and helped) out of the pool. I wasn’t going to move more than the bare minimum necessary, so I stayed just by the pool, leaning and bracing against the pool edge. I was now so busy with pushing, and felt that the baby was going to come out any moment, that I didn’t even notice whether the contractions hurt more without the help of the pool. The pool had done its job, getting me almost to the finishing line. (The pool hire was expensive per hour of use, but not per baby delivered.)

After a few more pushes (no idea how many) I vaguely overheard that the others could see the baby’s head. A few more, and the head was out; one more push for the body, and at 3:16 the baby was born. I couldn’t see any of that (all the action was behind and below me on the mattress) but I could hear a tiny baby scream almost instantly.

Totally exhausted, I sat down and was given a slimy bloody little baby to hold, wrapped in a bath towel. It felt completely unreal. I couldn’t really believe that it was over, that this was my baby, that I now had a baby.

The rest was uninteresting. After another unknown period of time the cord was clamped and cut; I delivered the placenta. I handed over the baby to Eric and went off for a hot shower. I imagine the baby was examined and cleaned slightly; I don’t really know what they did with her. When I came back I nursed her for a short while, then she got a nappy, was weighed, dressed, and then we both went to sleep. The time was 5:40 – almost exactly 24 hours after I went into labour.

Recovering from the birth took about two days. I was told I had bled very little, and not torn at all, so there were no real injuries to recover from, just tiredness and a generally sore body, like I would feel after any major physical exertion. Although most physical exertions wouldn’t leave me with a bruised forehead! I guess I must have been bracing myself against the pool edge with my forehead as well as my forearms.