My Birth Story
Whilst riding high at 40 + 3, I was lying down at my weekly acupuncture appointment doing a guided visualisation and wondering if I had packed a snack for the way home (I had). During this appointment was the first time I experienced labour-esque symptoms. I didn’t experience Braxton Hicks at any time throughout my pregnancy, however whilst lying there with many a needle in me, I started experiencing what felt like mild period cramps. They weren’t painful, but I did feel the need to rock my body gently to feel my way through them.
I went home and had a very disrupted nights sleep that evening - on/off cramping, lots of thoughts; I was very alert the whole night. The next morning I woke feeling tired but somewhat normal, and the cramping had stopped. My belly had definitely dropped overnight and was looking low low low. It was a Friday and I told my plus one Les to go to work and assured him that I would call if anything interesting happened. The day panned out quite uneventfully, until about around 1pm when the cramps gently started up again and appeared cyclical in nature, around every 20 - 30 minutes or so. I messaged Les who decided to make his way to me and arrived home in the early afternoon.
It was a divine February day in Sydney, and I was very keen to take my big ol’ belly for a swim. Les thought we should stay home in case things progressed but I was adamant and wouldn’t be convinced otherwise! We drove down to our secret swim spot in South Coogee (not so secret - Ivor Rowe rock pool), and lay in the sun and floated in the pool. By this time it was clear that the cramps were contractions as they felt slightly uncomfortable and were becoming more frequent. I had to focus on deep breathing and rocking my body to shake through them. I contracted in the water, with Les supporting the weight of my body (which felt amazing - highly recommend!), and after a rather strong one on my towel we decided to head home. I took a final photos of Les and I, feeling this was likely our last ocean swim as a duo, and also took one last photo of my belly. By the time we were walking back to the car I had to stop and really concentrate for each contraction, so we suspected things were beginning to escalate…
On the way home we decided to pick up our favourite Japanese takeaway for dinner. In my mind it was going to be a long, sleepless night/few days ahead, so I wanted to eat well and preserve my energy levels. We called the hospital to let them know where we were at, and were told to pace ourselves as we likely had a day or two of this to go. Little did we know that was so far from our reality!
We then had dinner - raw fish for Les and yet another cooked salmon dish for me - and put on one of my favourite films from my youth (Garden State, I still adore). I messaged our Doula Janine with updates, and she said things were sounding like early labour and encouraged us to start timing the contractions. They were between 3 - 7 minutes apart by this stage, and lasting from 40 - 60 seconds. A little while later I popped the TENS machine on to help me focus during the surges. I found this to be a fabulous tool, and highly recommend it if you’re interested in options to support your labour experience. The machine doesn’t take the pain away, but it diverts all of your focus and attention to the alternate sensation it provides.
With the TENS on I then moved to the bed to try to preserve energy, but lying down felt awful and much more intense for me, so I went into the bathroom on all fours and swayed through most of the contractions there. I think I was in this all fours position or leaning on the bathroom counter for an hour or two. Les was on timing-the-contractions duty and by 9pm they were a steady 2 - 3 minutes apart. We called the hospital again to let them know where we were at, and to discuss our preference for a bath or pool to give birth in. Side note - my midwife encouraged me to remind the hospital of this as water birthing facilities tend to be limited.
After this phone call I had the most fierce, colossal contraction of them all, with wild amounts of pressure and intensity, and then my waters broke while I was standing in the bathroom. Les and I lost it laughing because it felt so overly dramatic. We then called Janine again to provide updates and see what she might recommend about heading to the hospital. Our rough plan going into labour was to spend as much time at home as we could, and leave for the hospital as late as possible. The idea here was to keep me feeling safe and calm in my preferred environment to encourage oxytocin levels, and therefore dilation. Janine listened to a few of my contractions on the phone and then made her way straight to us. I can only assume my sounds were quite vigorous and dramatic at this point!
After my waters breaking the contractions felt different - more intense, faster, quicker, shorter. In a small amount of time there was an innate urge to push that I felt I almost couldn’t control. The noises I was making morphed from heavy, loud breaths and gentle moans to animalistic grunting, pushing, ‘bearing down’ sounds. I am positive we would have given birth on the bathroom floor if Janine didn’t arrive to encourage us into the car quickly to drive to the hospital. I was so resistant to movement by this stage and walking didn’t feel good at all, so it took some decent effort from Les and Janine to get me going! I had to stop and have contractions on my neighbours fence (sorry Amelia & Jesse!), holding onto the car door, in reception at hospital, and again in the lift up to the birthing suite before I could keep moving. Having late stage contractions in a car is something I do not recommend! I think Les drove at about 10km an hour as I ungratefully complained about every bump in the road.
We arrived at the hospital around 12.40am, where the loveliest midwife Kathie was on duty. She said I looked to be quite far along but needed to do an internal check before I could start pushing. I was very resistant to having this internal exam, not because it’s invasive, but because I found it so difficult to sit or lie down at this stage. I remember apologising for being difficult but asking if it could be done standing up or squatting, however eventually after a lot of encouragement I was able to lie flat on the bed, briefly. Kathie did the quickest internal that I hardly felt, and confirmed that I was fully dilated at 10cm. Around this time I was offered gas that I took two breaths of and quickly neglected. I personally didn’t like the experience at all and found it difficult to breathe in and out in the way I wanted.
Whilst this was happening Janine had run off to organise a bath, and I made my way down the hall to a beautiful birthing suite. It had dim lights, music playing, and the calmest atmosphere. There wasn’t really time to ‘set up’ as such, but Janine and Les did an amazing and hasty job of making the room quiet, calm, and dark. I jumped in the bath and started bearing down instantly, as my body had been trying to do for a while now. It felt like such a relief to be able to let my body finally let go without having to hold back.
In the first big motion, Pearl’s head came out and I vividly remember for the first time voicing the feeling of pain. Crowning was a strong, stinging, prolonged sensation. It felt so different to the intensity of the contractions which were strong but relatively short. I remember consciously deciding - and Les says he saw this on my face too - that I was not having any more of this stinging sensation than necessary, and I pushed her out in two or three more big pushes. Her body fluttered out into the water and Kathie encouraged me to lean down and pull her out and onto my chest. Pearl entered the world at 1am, 3.4kg and 53cm.
There is nothing more surreal to me than holding a human that you created in your arms, for the first time. It felt like a hallucination, except I then heard Les crying and Pearl started crying and then it all felt real. I felt very ‘in’ that moment, I wasn’t emotional, I wasn’t relieved, I was just staring at this babe in awe. I didn’t realise at the time, but the tub had begun to turn a deep red hue, as the umbilical cord had snapped somewhere along the way. This was probably the only mildly stressful part of the birth, however Kathie realised this quickly and clamped it, and we ensured Pearl was breathing. We hung out in the bath for a little while which was so relaxing, and again, just wildly surreal. We wanted to see if I could deliver the placenta there, which didn’t happen, and after some time moved to the bed and then eventually using a footstool my placenta came out. This took some effort on my behalf and it was a relief once done!
Afterwards I jumped back onto the bed to be assessed, and we decided to have my first degree tear stitched. Whilst this was happening, I was having skin-to-skin with Pearl and we watched her do the breast crawl. This is absolutely amazing to witness happen in real life. She latched on quickly and seemed very content there, like she’d been doing it already for months. The next few hours are a bit of a blur to be honest, I remember chatting with the nurse doing my stitches about her Masters (we are doing the same degree!) and how she was being a perfectionist with my stitches which I thought was hilarious. I ate a banana, Les had skin-to-skin time with Pearl, and we laughed at how much she loved sucking her thumb, as we saw in-utero from ultrasound pictures. Janine was with us the whole time helping, supporting and educating us every step of the way. I will be forever grateful to her for making our birthing experience everything we wanted and more.
We eventually went to bed around 4am, and both had a restless few hours of (non) sleep. In the morning we woke up to recount in whispers (unnecessary, in hindsight!) what had happened in the last few hours, watch Pearl sleep, look at the photos Janine had taken, and importantly, to source a big ol’ breakfast. With bleary-eyes and the Uber app open, we were ready to start the incredible new direction our lives had taken.
Below I have listed support systems, education, and resources I found helpful throughout my pregnancy and labour. Feel free to ask me any Q’s about pregnancy, labour or birth in the comments below. And thank you for reading my long-winded birth novella if you made it this far!
Support:
Doula - Janine Armsfield
Acupuncturist - Simone Stolmack
Womens health physio - Anna Scammell
Resources:
Jaclyn is a qualified Naturopath who supports women of all ages in hormonal health, fertility, skin, and nervous system function.
Author
Jaclyn Cave
BHSc (Nat), BComm (Soc)
Masters Womens Health Med (UNSW - completing)