Birth centre water birth
On Monday 26th June, I came home rather knackered and uncomfortable having just finished our final NCT course, rounding off a busy 3 day streak of birth prep courses (NCT breastfeeding on the Saturday followed by Hypnobirthing on Sunday). At 1 day shy of 38 weeks, I was ready for a few weeks of switching my brain off and letting everything I’d learnt up to that point sink in and gently percolate whilst I relaxed and waited for my babe.
Increasingly at those courses I’d found it difficult to get comfy and needed to stand up, often with a hand fan constantly pointed at my face. It just felt like there was no room left for the baby, but then I assume most people feel like that towards the end. I had a foot kicking against my ribs on the right hand side (still sore after 3 months post-birth) and couldn’t believe he still had potentially 4 weeks growing left! As it turns out, he didn’t!
After getting back from NCT late, feeling very puffy and uncomfortable - it was a warm week - I got into bed around midnight and read my book. I turned the lights off around 1am and was trying to get comfy when I felt a period pain. It wasn’t overly painful but it did build like a surge and then when the pain released I felt my waters break. I was pretty sure that was what had happened but part of me thought I may have wet myself. I told Dom that I thought my waters had broken and I think he was pretty shocked; after all, you hear about the latent labour phase lasting for ages and I’d had visions of me furiously bouncing on my ball watching back to back Harry Potters in a candlelit room, sniffing clary sage oil and sipping raspberry tea. Needless to say, I had bought all of those oxytocin-boosting bits and bobs, which Dom lugged around hospital and inevitably remain unopened in our wardrobe.
We called the midwife and they asked us to go in to check that my waters definitely had gone, as I didn’t really have any contractions at that point. We drove to the hospital and went up to the delivery suite - I wanted to take the stairs cause I don’t like lifts and I thought that may slow the oxytocin. We were ushered into the first room on the right - I remember thinking it wouldn’t be so bad giving birth in here, even though it’s small they have a Dyson fan (it’s hot on the birthing unit). There was a big picture of Sennen/Lands end I think?! Or maybe Marazion.
The midwife checked me and confirmed my waters had broken. I had my coral leopard print dungarees on, which she liked and asked where I’d bought them. I told her and remember thinking ‘this is great - I can have normal conversations whilst in labour’. By the time we left the hospital an hour later, my contractions had started but I was only 1cm dilated so we were happy to head home and come back in when labour was established.
As soon as we got in the door I ran a bath and put all my candles out. Dom panic read the TENS machine instructions - we thought we’d have more time for that! I asked him to put some clary sage oil on a flannel, which I immediately recoiled at and asked him to get it away from me (I’m pretty sure the oil is used to bring on labour, so I’m not totally sure why in that moment I wanted to try it). The bath water didn’t cover my bump or boobs so it wasn’t very soothing. I had imagined myself spending a lot of time in the bath in the latent phase of labour but that wasn’t to be! I got out of the bath and tried the TENS machine - hated it - I think I was too far gone at that point. We’d probably been home for an hour by that point and the contractions were now really intense and frequent. I remember thinking that I couldn’t be in established labour yet as it hadn’t been long enough. But I couldn’t talk through them anymore so we decided to head back to hospital. I was over the back of the back car seats all the way biting and gripping the head rest. Dom had told me it was the only time when riding without a seatbelt is legal, so I think about 5% of me wanted to use the opportunity.
When we got back I didn’t even care about taking the lift - stairs were out of the question. We went to the delivery suite to the same room where I was initially checked and was told I was now 5cm dilated. I’d only been home an hour. I had my blood taken because of my weird antibodies, something I was worried about during my midwife appointments, but barely noticed at the time when the contractions were coming thick and fast. I wanted to be on the floor, kneeling on all fours seemed the only place I wanted to be, to feel grounded.
We were taken over to the birth centre at 5am, the pool was filled - it felt really warm, warmer than I’d expected. I whipped off my grey button down nighty and between contractions got into the pool. It was an instant relief. Water has always been very soothing for me - throughout pregnancy, the bath and shower were always my happy place - so I just knew the birth pool was going to be the best place for me to labour in. I always imagined I’d be on my knees in the pool with my arms over the side but I kept trying it and it wasn’t working for me, I was comfiest on my back with my hands on the bottom of the pool with my bum floating. I gave myself a bruise on the back of my head where I rested it on the edge.
By this point I was very much in my ‘monkey brain’, I don’t think I was consciously doing ‘hypno-breathing’, I was just breathing as I needed to: very slow rhythmic breathing in through the mouth and out through the mouth with a low ‘Oooh’ that I remember sounding fairly sing-songy going from high to low on each out-breath. My birth reflection notes mention ‘excellent breathing’ - I’m pretty proud of that actually.
Dom was positioned behind my head with a hand fan (best buy ever) pointed at my face and my 1L water bottle (second best buy ever) at the side of me so I could just turn to have sips from the straw. I drank a lot throughout which was great except from the fact that my bladder forgot how to wee. When the new midwife (Kimberly) took over in the morning shift, I assume around 8am she asked when I’d last weed. I couldn’t remember, but I hadn’t been to the loo in hospital, so it must have been a good 4hrs. So in between contractions, she helped me out of the pool and onto the floor bed and put in an ‘in/out catheter’ which essentially drains your bladder. It was a bit tricky and confusing to have to come out of the zone briefly but once I was back in the pool I got back into it and I felt kind of spurred on cause I knew nothing was now obstructing the baby.
I remember asking for some Fruitella. Dom gave me a raspberry one and I hated it but I was dimly aware that I needed some energy from somewhere, so I forced down a banana. I think instinctively I knew I was getting close and I was preparing myself for the battle. Around this time I started to regret not choosing an elective C-section and I started to feel a bit panicky that I couldn’t do it and needed help. I guess this was my transition moment. I don’t think I really understood that at the time, I was mainly busy regretting all my life decisions that had led me to this point. I remember thinking I didn’t want to do this any more and wondering if there was an option to just not have my baby and go back to how things were before. I said I needed some help so I was given gas and air. Dom guided me through the breathing of the gas and air, counting down the contractions and giving me the mouth piece each time - at one point I felt dizzy as I’d forgotten to break during the ‘rest’ phase.
At 9:15am I started ‘involuntary pushing’, so my notes say. The midwife did one check on me at this point and said I was at 10cm. She then said that I had a choice: either keep going with the contractions and see where my body takes me, or to properly start to push. The latter meant this would be over sooner so I chose that one! She told me to internalise the noise I’d been making on the out breath and focus that energy down to my bum. It felt utterly wrong, like I was voluntarily trying to push my organs out of my bum. The midwife told me that it was natural to feel ‘wrong’ pushing and this really helped me go for it. So I pushed.
When the baby’s head was out she invited me to feel it a few times but I didn’t want to, I think it would have freaked me out. I just wanted to focus on breathing and stay in my zone. I was dimly aware of people coming into the room, the baby’s heart rate had dropped so the resuscitation table was bought in, but Dom shielded me from everyone and told me everything was fine and to keep going, so I did. It was the best thing he could have done. A few minutes later Eider was born into the water. He cried immediately and was given to me to cradle in my arms in the water. The people behind me left quietly.
Dom was crying which I think I focused on more than the baby in my arms. I was in shock, it had all happened so quickly and I had got into the zone so deeply right from the start that coming out of it was bewildering. It was incredibly surreal,I’m trying to reflect on what I felt in that moment, but I actually don’t know what I was feeling. Eider was covered in vernix, he was noisy, he was scrunched up, he had a cone head, he was unhappy to be in this bright new world and he was utterly perfect.
