I’d been having a lot of cramping and loss of mucous in the previous weeks, felt this was a good sign of cervical activity and might mean an eventual shorter/easier labor, and was very excited about this. I’d been very careful about staying off my back and not sitting in reclining positions, in the hopes of avoiding back labor (as I’d had with all my other births,) and the baby was pretty obviously LOA. I’d also been feeling very good about my life, my body, and the pregnancy, so I felt like I was in a really ideal place for having a good birth. I’d had some fantastic dreams and visualizations about the baby and the birth, and the birth was always easy and sometimes even pleasurable. There were a few days that I was suddenly and strangely overcome with fear about death and pain, but then I was gratefully back to feeling confident and positive.
My husband and I had some wonderful intimate time together throughout the weekend that made me feel very sensually powerful and connected to him. Saturday night I had sporadic contractions throughout the night that stopped with the day, same thing Sunday night though they were more painful. After raining all weekend, Monday morning dawned with a golden light in the sky, which intensified my positive mood. It felt like a perfect day to give birth. I had my husband stay home from work, but again the contractions ceased. I was happy to have him there anyway, as I felt that I was in an important transitional period and it felt right to have my family around me.
About 4:30 pm Monday afternoon the contractions started back up again. My husband took the boys to play basketball, at which point the contractions began to get harder and I began to feel emotionally fragile and upset about his absence. When he got home he was tired, which in my mind meant that he wouldn’t be able to be there fully for me, and I felt very sorry for myself and got a little weepy and pouty, but I felt better after a little dinner and some mindless television – basically, settling back into our routine, with him just being there with me. We then set the kids up in their playroom with a bunch of videos and pillows and blankets, hoping they would fall asleep there (they usually sleep downstairs with me.)
The contractions continued to come steadily. Around 10:30 pm I went to bed, and shortly after that my kids joined me. About midnight the contractions were so intense that I couldn’t continue to lie down through them, so I got up, lit some candles, put on some music, and set up a birthing spot in the living room in front of the recliner, which is where my third child was born, and leaned over it for many of the contractions, making low moaning sounds through them. I also did a lot of walking around, and waving my hips around in belly-dance fashion. The contractions hurt, but I felt relaxed and accepting of them. I had contractions also that were painless, and started to think this labor night be different from the others, and this thought really buoyed me up.
I ran a bath, and set up some more candles. Except for that, I was in darkness, and eventually I even moved the candles out of the room so there would be no more than a faint glow to see by. Suddenly I just knew that I would be giving birth in the bathroom (literally a bath-room, with just a bathtub in it, and floor space of about 3 by 5 feet,) so I got some sofa cushions and blankets and made a little nest for myself on the floor by the bathtub. This worked just great, as it felt more private than the living room, and I could kneel on the cushions comfortably while leaning over the tub through contractions.
I was still alternating between my nest and wandering around the house. I have a vivid memory of walking through the dark kitchen, looking at the LED clock display on the stove, and thinking to myself that the baby was probably going to be born in the next couple of hours, and that I could do this easy.
More and more I found myself kneeling and draped over the side of the tub, or on hands-and-knees in my nest. I told myself if I was still going at it in the morning that I would call Pam to give me some moral support. Around 3 am I began to have serious back labor, meaning that my back felt like it was going to split apart. Unlike with my previous labors, these contractions also gripped me painfully in the abdomen, so it was a kind of double whammy that I hadn’t expected and didn’t like at all. The low moaning was no longer helping to keep me focused and calm, and my voice took on a life of its own and rose higher and higher until I was shrieking at the peaks of the contractions. Familiar territory, unfortunately. I started praying, “please, please, make the pain go away, it’s not necessary, I don’t need it, please make it stop!”
And quite suddenly and unexpectedly, it did. The pain was entirely gone. I couldn’t tell if I was still contracting, and I didn’t care. I thought, maybe this is the “rest and be thankful stage” that sometimes comes at full dilation. I waited and waited for the contractions to start back up again, and when they didn’t I began to think that maybe I would get my sweet, easy birth after all. My “butter birth” as my friends and I had been referring to it, my due after all the hard ones. I reclined back against the cool wall with my legs flopped open and felt up inside myself, and was swollen as if sexually aroused. I had been naked and hot, but began to cool off with the lack of exertion and wrapped myself in my robe. After a while I became so relaxed that I fell asleep, sitting hunched over, with my head cupped in my hand. It felt so wonderful, like lying down in a warm, clean, soft bed after a day of good physical work.
I dozed for a while (I estimate about an hour) and then, like a bolt of lightening, I was hit with an intense, fast building contraction that had me again shrieking and propelled out of my reclining posture and onto my hands and knees. As soon as it was over I stood up, walked purposefully to the bedroom, and said, “I need your help.” My husband had been sleeping peacefully throughout all the noise I was making (as were the kids) but at the sound of his name he leapt up and into action. We went back to the bathroom, I got on hands and knees facing the tub, and he put pressure on my hips and back. In the seconds between contractions I rested against him and felt very comforted by his presence. He was the best support I could have hoped for, and totally calm.
I, on the other hand, was ready to go to the hospital and get the epidural, even surgery would be fine if it only meant that I didn’t have to do this anymore. I cried out for help, I cried out that I couldn’t do it, I cried out my husband’s name over and over. I thought several times about telling him to get the car running and just take me. At the same time I knew I must be very close to the end, and that there would be no time for interventions anyway – if we got in the car at this point, the baby would probably be born on the side of the road.
I finally thought to check for the baby’s head, and was surprised to feel it at the very top of the birth canal. I was only partly reassured by this, as it seemed wedged in there pretty tight and I didn’t know how long it would take for it to descend. For some reason I began to feel doubtful that I would have a spontaneous “fetus ejection reflex” as I had had with my last birth, and I was really ready for the labor to be over, so I made a conscious decision to begin bearing down to see what would happen. It didn’t feel wrong, in fact it felt like it was okay to do so, but my body was clearly not pushing the baby down of its own accord, either. I decided to go ahead with it anyway, as I was so desperate for it to be over.
My husband says that it was four contractions total from when I started pushing, three to move the head down and one for the body, but to me it seems like it was a lot longer. There was so much resistance, the head felt like it was straining so hard against me. My tissues felt stretched to their limit. It was awful in its intensity and it was the hardest thing I’d ever done, that I could ever imagine doing. Still I pushed as hard as I could, and I felt her head moving down very slowly. The water sac broke, pouring warm out of me. Then her head eased out, and we said at the same time, “there’s the head,” and I put my hand on it. It felt huge, and warm, and soft. I waited for the next contraction – which seemed to take an eternity, and during which I received a vision of her body turning to admit the shoulders – and then again bore down as hard as I could.
There was a fantastic feeling of release as the rest of her body sloshed out of me, and my husband guided her body down to the blanket. I lifted my leg over her and sat back, and he and I picked her up together as I gathered her into my arms. She was crying. I rubbed her back and talked to her, and my husband got me some towels and a blanket. The time was 6:00 am.
It was the most wonderful thing to sit there naked and unselfconscious and just be, talking in low tones happily with each other and knowing it was all over and no one would bother us, we could just be with each other as a family and be fully in the moment with nothing to take us out of it, nothing out of place, in complete harmony. I felt incredibly awake, alert, and aware, and there was a stillness of time and clarity and a feeling of utter rightness that was present for the first time for me after a birth.
It was so very hard, yet now that it is all over I feel infused with emotional strength. No depression this time, no weird feelings. There has been nothing wrong to set them off. Everything about this emergence feels different -- it feels like it was finally the way it was supposed to be.
My husband and I had some wonderful intimate time together throughout the weekend that made me feel very sensually powerful and connected to him. Saturday night I had sporadic contractions throughout the night that stopped with the day, same thing Sunday night though they were more painful. After raining all weekend, Monday morning dawned with a golden light in the sky, which intensified my positive mood. It felt like a perfect day to give birth. I had my husband stay home from work, but again the contractions ceased. I was happy to have him there anyway, as I felt that I was in an important transitional period and it felt right to have my family around me.
About 4:30 pm Monday afternoon the contractions started back up again. My husband took the boys to play basketball, at which point the contractions began to get harder and I began to feel emotionally fragile and upset about his absence. When he got home he was tired, which in my mind meant that he wouldn’t be able to be there fully for me, and I felt very sorry for myself and got a little weepy and pouty, but I felt better after a little dinner and some mindless television – basically, settling back into our routine, with him just being there with me. We then set the kids up in their playroom with a bunch of videos and pillows and blankets, hoping they would fall asleep there (they usually sleep downstairs with me.)
The contractions continued to come steadily. Around 10:30 pm I went to bed, and shortly after that my kids joined me. About midnight the contractions were so intense that I couldn’t continue to lie down through them, so I got up, lit some candles, put on some music, and set up a birthing spot in the living room in front of the recliner, which is where my third child was born, and leaned over it for many of the contractions, making low moaning sounds through them. I also did a lot of walking around, and waving my hips around in belly-dance fashion. The contractions hurt, but I felt relaxed and accepting of them. I had contractions also that were painless, and started to think this labor night be different from the others, and this thought really buoyed me up.
I ran a bath, and set up some more candles. Except for that, I was in darkness, and eventually I even moved the candles out of the room so there would be no more than a faint glow to see by. Suddenly I just knew that I would be giving birth in the bathroom (literally a bath-room, with just a bathtub in it, and floor space of about 3 by 5 feet,) so I got some sofa cushions and blankets and made a little nest for myself on the floor by the bathtub. This worked just great, as it felt more private than the living room, and I could kneel on the cushions comfortably while leaning over the tub through contractions.
I was still alternating between my nest and wandering around the house. I have a vivid memory of walking through the dark kitchen, looking at the LED clock display on the stove, and thinking to myself that the baby was probably going to be born in the next couple of hours, and that I could do this easy.
More and more I found myself kneeling and draped over the side of the tub, or on hands-and-knees in my nest. I told myself if I was still going at it in the morning that I would call Pam to give me some moral support. Around 3 am I began to have serious back labor, meaning that my back felt like it was going to split apart. Unlike with my previous labors, these contractions also gripped me painfully in the abdomen, so it was a kind of double whammy that I hadn’t expected and didn’t like at all. The low moaning was no longer helping to keep me focused and calm, and my voice took on a life of its own and rose higher and higher until I was shrieking at the peaks of the contractions. Familiar territory, unfortunately. I started praying, “please, please, make the pain go away, it’s not necessary, I don’t need it, please make it stop!”
And quite suddenly and unexpectedly, it did. The pain was entirely gone. I couldn’t tell if I was still contracting, and I didn’t care. I thought, maybe this is the “rest and be thankful stage” that sometimes comes at full dilation. I waited and waited for the contractions to start back up again, and when they didn’t I began to think that maybe I would get my sweet, easy birth after all. My “butter birth” as my friends and I had been referring to it, my due after all the hard ones. I reclined back against the cool wall with my legs flopped open and felt up inside myself, and was swollen as if sexually aroused. I had been naked and hot, but began to cool off with the lack of exertion and wrapped myself in my robe. After a while I became so relaxed that I fell asleep, sitting hunched over, with my head cupped in my hand. It felt so wonderful, like lying down in a warm, clean, soft bed after a day of good physical work.
I dozed for a while (I estimate about an hour) and then, like a bolt of lightening, I was hit with an intense, fast building contraction that had me again shrieking and propelled out of my reclining posture and onto my hands and knees. As soon as it was over I stood up, walked purposefully to the bedroom, and said, “I need your help.” My husband had been sleeping peacefully throughout all the noise I was making (as were the kids) but at the sound of his name he leapt up and into action. We went back to the bathroom, I got on hands and knees facing the tub, and he put pressure on my hips and back. In the seconds between contractions I rested against him and felt very comforted by his presence. He was the best support I could have hoped for, and totally calm.
I, on the other hand, was ready to go to the hospital and get the epidural, even surgery would be fine if it only meant that I didn’t have to do this anymore. I cried out for help, I cried out that I couldn’t do it, I cried out my husband’s name over and over. I thought several times about telling him to get the car running and just take me. At the same time I knew I must be very close to the end, and that there would be no time for interventions anyway – if we got in the car at this point, the baby would probably be born on the side of the road.
I finally thought to check for the baby’s head, and was surprised to feel it at the very top of the birth canal. I was only partly reassured by this, as it seemed wedged in there pretty tight and I didn’t know how long it would take for it to descend. For some reason I began to feel doubtful that I would have a spontaneous “fetus ejection reflex” as I had had with my last birth, and I was really ready for the labor to be over, so I made a conscious decision to begin bearing down to see what would happen. It didn’t feel wrong, in fact it felt like it was okay to do so, but my body was clearly not pushing the baby down of its own accord, either. I decided to go ahead with it anyway, as I was so desperate for it to be over.
My husband says that it was four contractions total from when I started pushing, three to move the head down and one for the body, but to me it seems like it was a lot longer. There was so much resistance, the head felt like it was straining so hard against me. My tissues felt stretched to their limit. It was awful in its intensity and it was the hardest thing I’d ever done, that I could ever imagine doing. Still I pushed as hard as I could, and I felt her head moving down very slowly. The water sac broke, pouring warm out of me. Then her head eased out, and we said at the same time, “there’s the head,” and I put my hand on it. It felt huge, and warm, and soft. I waited for the next contraction – which seemed to take an eternity, and during which I received a vision of her body turning to admit the shoulders – and then again bore down as hard as I could.
There was a fantastic feeling of release as the rest of her body sloshed out of me, and my husband guided her body down to the blanket. I lifted my leg over her and sat back, and he and I picked her up together as I gathered her into my arms. She was crying. I rubbed her back and talked to her, and my husband got me some towels and a blanket. The time was 6:00 am.
It was the most wonderful thing to sit there naked and unselfconscious and just be, talking in low tones happily with each other and knowing it was all over and no one would bother us, we could just be with each other as a family and be fully in the moment with nothing to take us out of it, nothing out of place, in complete harmony. I felt incredibly awake, alert, and aware, and there was a stillness of time and clarity and a feeling of utter rightness that was present for the first time for me after a birth.
It was so very hard, yet now that it is all over I feel infused with emotional strength. No depression this time, no weird feelings. There has been nothing wrong to set them off. Everything about this emergence feels different -- it feels like it was finally the way it was supposed to be.
you. lots.
Well done!
