(Birth pics on @myrnr.space Instagram – too tired to deal with the trickiness of WordPress website on my iPad, may add later…)
The one who made us a four – a three year old birth story:
“Dreamy but intense” is how I described my son’s birth and still do.
Our Valentines-due-date baby birth announcement & the never-before-shared planned home birth story in all its glorious & gory details:
(The Anonymous Edit)
The announcement:
…& then Daddy whispered to his daughter what to tell Mum & she said… “It’s a boy!” 😄 An early Valentine’s Day present for us! ♥️🌹🎁 Introducing…💙 Born Wednesday, 10/02/21, 4:51am, 3.6kg (7.9lb), 53cm. Midwives: Julie & Jess, Doulas: Nadia/ Brooke 🙇🏻♀️👸🏻, Location: Birth pool in our dining room 🏊🏻♀️🥳 We’re over the moon as we fall in love with our darling son and adjust to life as a family of four ♥️👨👩👧👦🥰 #bestvalentinesever #yesahomebirthWASplanned (this time) lol @snugglehunnykids
The story:
(Short version)
After being in early labour since the morning before, exactly how my daughter’s birth day started with mild period cramps, loose bowels & on/ off contractions (& she was born before 7:30pm), it petered out to nothing by bedtime ☹️
Woke up at 2am with stronger contractions, Miss 3 woke at 3am, birth team arrived between 3:30 & 4am & he was born by 4:50am in the birthpool, on all fours, en caul! (Inside the sac)
From my Sprout pregnancy app journal:
Tuesday, 9 February 2021
5:30am – Cramp? Low down period cramp type heaviness, like how labour with my first started?
Or maybe not…could be gas.
But had the best sleep I’ve had in a week so would be great if Baby came today! 🌺
6:15am Diarrhoea 4 times in an hour
Breakfast, Light yoga
7:40am Miss 3 up
Put away washing, did dishes
Texted doulas
9:15am took Miss 3 to T’s (family daycare), walked Christies Beach, texted midwife
10:17am Dull backache pretty consistent
8:07pm Nothing 😒 so disappointed. Baby still in here. Trying to trust my body, I know it’s innate wisdom knows better than my overthinking mind… obviously nothing is the same as my first labour. Of course. I logically knew to expect that but emotionally couldn’t help but want it. Feels pretty shitty to have called my hubby home from work and set up the birth pool for nothing today 😞
(Long version – the kind I like, but I know those who read on belong to a niche audience 😉
Hubby went to work as normal on the Tuesday but in bed, after his alarm went off, I asked where he was working & he said Flagstaff Hill (not far) in the morning but then north, city & all over after that so I told him to call me after Flagstaff Hill as I thought things were happening and didn’t want him to be too far away.
I got Miss 3 & myself ready and took her to T’s (family daycare) then went for a big beach walk, from Christies Beach’s southern end to O’Sullies northern end, including every set of stairs – up & down! (Which I later regretted because my hammies were tight & sore & was worried I’d need my legs for birth). H called while I was on the sand & I excitedly confirmed I could feel contractions on & off so we agreed he should leave work & come home.
I drove back from the beach & did some yoga for birth (from Nadia’s Yoga Mama Yoga Baby by Margo Shapiro Bachman) while waiting for H & then we enjoyed a beautiful, peaceful lunch date at Agatha’s in Port Noarlunga. My lamb & freekah salad & pot of chai was sensational. I was experiencing irregular contractions but more fairly painless tightenings as we ate but also feeling very normal and good the rest of the time.
We got home and started prepping hard – full mama/ papa nesting mode!
H vacuumed & mopped the floors then inflated & filled the birth pool while I cleaned & tidied the house & finished setting up my birthspace. My crystals, the shells & rock I collected on my beach walks, ruby frangipani from our back garden, Seacliff lime & coconut Etikette candle on window sill (already had birth affirmations hanging on fairy lights with rose gold pegs on our dining room wall for the last 4 weeks), all the homebirth items & equipment out on the dining & changeroom tables.
Contractions on & off still, sometimes feeling stronger but sometimes feeling lighter…my head & heart feeling very unsure!
We picked up Miss 3 around 4pmish , still having only told my primary midwife, Marie, & my doulas, Brooke & Nadia. Slowly but surely my sensations went away & by bedtime we both felt disappointed & confused that baby wasn’t coming today.
Still, just before midnight, I had H siphon, drain & bucket out water from the birth pool because it was too full for warming up & I knew there wouldn’t be time if I went into active labour overnight.
Then I woke at 2am with stronger contractions, this time I was actually needing to deep breathe through them and started sweating. Before telling H & getting out of bed at about 2:20am, I sent a happy birthday message to my friend in Sweden for her two year old son, saying I thought my baby and him shared a connection about this day because I was feeling “very contracty!” We’d been conversing and commiserating about our pregnancies nearly the whole time as we were 1.5 weeks apart so I couldn’t think of a better person to tell at that ungodly time.
I texted my doula Brooke at 2:53am & called the Flinders Hospital Southern Midwifery Group Practice switchboard at 2:56am. I called Brooke at 3am & had 2 contractions in that 7 minute phone call, then Julie Schiller, the on call midwife (my primary & backup were not rostered on/ attending a birth at the hospital, respectively) rang me back at 3:10am & confirmed she would leave Panorama & be here within 30 minutes, then I called Brooke back to let her know what was happening & she also then said she would leave & be here within 20 minutes. At first Julie said that I was sounding pretty ok and didn’t think she would needed urgently but then she read my file about my precipitous labour and accidental home birth for number one and I repeated that I felt like it was happening soon and she was convinced, thankfully!
Miss 3 woke up after these calls & before anyone arrived (unusual for her – it was like she sensed it!), and came out to me in the pool in the dining room, then Doula Brooke arrived first, followed by first midwife Julie at 4am then the second midwife Jess.
They think my “active labour” began while they were watching on but I feel it started before that. I didn’t have any vaginal/ cervical examinations so don’t know dilation progression, which was exactly how I wanted it. The only check was Julie putting the Doppler on my belly while I was in the water, on all fours, to see if baby’s heart rate sounded good – “Baby’s happy”, she said. In that same position, I started to feel Baby crowning & couldn’t even muster the strength or coordination to pull off my bikini bottoms so I yelled for H to pull them off & I think Brooke & one of the midwives did, after it took all my concentration to mumble “Don’t pull the strings, they’re double knotted, just pull them down.” They told me they could see the head by putting my handheld mirror (from the bathroom vanity) on the bottom of the pool and Midwife Jess using her phone torch. Julie coached me through this pushing stage to help me slow it down so I could prevent tearing, my main goal, by saying things like, ‘Keep your bottom down’, ‘Drop your shoulders’, and after a few fairly quick but really intense contractions, Baby was born *en caul* at 4:51am. I didn’t get to see him in his sac as I had zero energy or strength to even look down once he came out & then it broke as he dropped down or Julie caught him – not actually sure! But she picked up my membranes off the bottom of the pool to show me once I’d sat down. Once again I had a super short umbilical cord which makes sitting very awkward and uncomfortable and holding my precious newborn baby impossible. I assertively, ok maybe aggressively, instructed H into the pool fully clothed so he could sit on the inflatable seat and I could sit on him giving me the extra height to hold Bub on my lap above water. As Julie said, and I had heard and read before, a labouring woman knows exactly what she does and does not need! I even achieved my goal of keeping my perineum intact! Though I still got a first degree vaginal wall tear but no stitches & am still sooooo bloody sore.
A total dream come true – the birth & my baby boy! 💫 ☀️
Still dreaming cos I’m not really sleeping! 🥱
Third stage of labour (placenta): This section of the story was only just finally completed on this eve of his third birthday, because this note “<need to review SLR camera photos & videos to complete this section> “ had been in my phone for almost as long as his time earth-side!
My Birth Preferences (2-page form given by homebirth midwife towards later pregnancy)listed:
“Physiological (no synthetic oxytocin). If practical, hands-off please. Cord cut after (I had it pulled while I pushed out last time + would prefer not to do again). Please leave here – we’ll be burying/ planting it.”
I got all my wishes!
But I did need some assistance as I experienced tachycardia (irregularly fast heart rate) for longer than my main midwife, Julie, felt comfortable with – I swear my body and brain goes into this insane, incredible high that lasts like a fucking week thanks to the incredible natural drug cocktail labor and birth doses me with (mortal enemy of sleep though!) – so she suggested I move from my reclined position on the lounge giving Baby his first suckle to a squat on the edge of it for gravity to help make the placenta move down. My beautiful doula Brooke held Baby while I held myself up and this did the trick.
Looking at the timing of the photographs that I am so grateful my husband took, totally unprompted and not requested in advance from me, I delivered my placenta 55 minutes after Baby was born. One of my favourite moments and images from this part was when our cat, Sachi, came and curled up on my lap, right below her new baby brother on the boob, as I sat on the floor chatting with the midwives and accepting my doula’s offer of tea and toast, with our three year old daughter sitting on the lounge behind me giving her favourite baby doll a bottle. Despite the agonising after pains (I found these worse than all contractions and pushing) and fear I had prolapsed that followed (all normal; it was the back wall of my vagina protruding out after the intense, quick birth of fairly big baby but healed within weeks *thank Goddess* – SO scary feeling THAT bulge in the shower the first time!), despite all of that, I would give anything and everything to relive that magic. I don’t think life can ever top that for me.
After I had showered and laid back down, was when I received confirmation my goal and hope that I had not torn my perineum like my super fast crouching squat birth did with my first! I was soooo relieved to hear this news. Although disappointed and later on even tearful that I had torn slightly internally, I don’t know why this upset me so much but I guess it was that imperfection that flawed a near perfect birth story. Regardless, another fucking beautiful dream come true birth that I would sleep for forever to relive again.
And to hear my husband regale the tale of his son’s birth and listen to the pride he had for his wife’s instincts and abilities was like sprinkling glitter over all the remarkable details. These memories will sparkle brightest forever for me. I am elated and extremely grateful this was my last birth. Yet quietly sad it was too. I’ve said to my husband before, this is my peak. Planning and preparing for and surrendering to the physical and spiritual powers of birth fascinated, obsessed and intoxicated me. It sounds crazy but I often think if only my labours had lasted longer so I could have had more time using all the tools and feeling all the feels. And, yep, I do wish I had a birth photographer/ videographer to be able to replay it all over and over in full high definition watching me play the part of a lifetime. I am deeply thankful to my beautiful doula Brooke Hilton for filming the little videos I do have of the birth, first hold and gender announcement on her phone. Totally treasured.
Happy third birthing night to me. Happy third birthday to our baby, who will always be our baby, for tomorrow.
