When I showed up at my yoga class 38.4 weeks pregnant the teacher looked at me and said: "Is your baby going to make it through the class?" She was joking of course, but as it turns out she wasn't that far off! Halfway through the class I felt a little pop and then a trickle... I discretely slipped into the bathroom and confirmed that I hadn't just peed in my pants... my waters had broken! That was about 7pm. I calmly drove home... I hadn't had any contractions so I was sure that I had plenty of time. My wonderful husband had just cooked a lovely dinner, so I sat down and ate with him and our 4 year old. Little did I know that our baby would be born less than 3 hours later!
By about 8pm the contractions had started, and I tried to time them but they never really stopped, just went straight from one to another, so my husband started packing things into the car and I laid down on the bed and listed to my hypnobirthing cd, with the calm, soothing voice of our dear friend Sue who is a midwife and runs calmbirth classes in Melbourne. We had arranged for Sue to come with us for the birth to help look after our son who really wanted to be present. Who better to explain to him what was going on in a way that respects his intelligence and desire to see his baby sibling being born? We called our amazing midwife Robyn and asked her to let the hospital know that we were on the way and could they please fill up the tub? We met her at the hospital just after 9pm... after a quick check of my vitals (no internal exam thank god) and a brief listen to the baby's heartbeat I hopped in the tub. The warm water brought instant relief from the non-stop contractions.
I quickly transitioned into stage 2 (pushing) and some serious screaming, or "vocalization" as I like to call it. Our son was just across the hall in the birthing room with Sue, and he peeked in periodically to see if I was ok but he handled the screaming very well and calmly went back to watching his Wolverine DVD. If I hadn't know he was in earshot I would have let some pretty severe obscenities loose at top volume, (apparently I did actually, but I was trying not to). I paused occasionally to assure my husband that I was actually fine... I just had an uncontrollable need to scream at the top of my lungs... it helps the baby come out, it really does.
Conscious of how quickly it was all happening, I wanted to make sure that I had time to stretch adequately before the baby's head popped out... so I tried to slow things down a little bit and it helped. The midwife was keeping an eye on things via a mirror on the bottom of the tub and a flashlight. I didn't see much since I had my eyes tightly closed most of the time, but I could feel with my hand where the baby's head was, and I was able to wait and not push too much until the head circumference matched the exit circumference...apparently I didn't tear until the shoulders came out, but by that point I didn't even notice and it was just a little tear, so no stitches :-)
I pulled our beautiful baby out of the water and held him to my chest. The midwifes covered us in hot towels and we relaxed in the water while with my husband while our son came in to say hello to his new Baby Brother :-)
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