At about 5am I started to feel really overwhelmed. I started to wail more through the contractions and then started retching violently before every contraction. I thought to myself – "I wonder if this is transition". Then I had this long period (perhaps 5 mins) of lying quietly with no contractions and I thought perhaps this was that ‘calm before the storm’ that I'd read about.

When I got off the bed for the next contraction, things felt different. I felt a heaviness in my hips, and an urge to squat quite low. The contraction had lost it’s ‘pinch’ and instead felt weighty and hard and … well, different. I decided that this meant that I had moved into second stage. I decided that feeling ‘different’ meant feeling like I needed to push. Looking back, I didn’t feel that overwhelming urge to push that women describe. I just felt an overwhelming urge to squat. To get into a position that I just couldn’t quite attain (I think this was actually my body telling me that baby had turned into an awkward position and that I needed to move a certain way to shift her). I started to groan and grunt more than moan, and each time a contraction started I would try to find the position my body was asking for. I tried squatting but my legs wouldn’t hold me in the position I needed to be. I tried hanging off the bed and hanging off Andrew but still couldn’t get there. Every time I started to freak out, I’d just look at the clock and tell myself that stage 2 takes 1-2 hours and that I’d be meeting my baby before 8am. I kept on pushing away, but in the back of my mind, I started to question what I was doing. Was it working? Why didn’t I feel baby moving? After what felt like an hour of pushing, I said to Felicity: ‘she’s not moving’. Felicity suggested that I check myself to see if I could feel the head. When I put my fingers there I still mostly expected to feel a little hard scalp not too far away but all I could feel was me and my heart sank. Felicity encouraged me to get up on the bed and she examined me herself and said ‘I’m really sorry but you have to stop pushing. You’re only 6cm dilated'. I almost cried. Maybe I did. I couldn't believe that I had only progressed 1cm when I thought I was about to meet my baby. My confidence drained away and I just thought "I don’t have the energy to work through all the contractions that it’s going to take to get to 10cm, and then to push". I looked at Andrew and he looked stunned and ‘flattened’ as well.

This is the point that everything changed. I lost my determination and my courage and my energy all at once. The ‘I can’t’ voice got so much louder, and the ‘I can’ voice faded to the background. My willingness was gone and I just lay on the bed terrified of what was to come. I did not believe that I had the mental or physical energy to keep on breathing and moaning my way through each contraction. I didn’t believe I could make it to the end. My mind went crazy with fear and doubt and utter exhaustion and all of a sudden, I just wanted out. At first, it wasn’t a specific plan for ‘out’, I just wanted it to stop. I stopped trying to cope with the contractions and started to resist them. Instead of moaning, I started yelling. Instead of feeling myself opening up, I felt myself closing… almost crossing my legs to try and push back the pain. I don’t remember the sequence of things at this point and I’ve got no idea of the passage of time. I just remember screaming. Making sounds that I’ve never heard anyone make, and were terrifying to hear coming out of me. I started trying to persuade Felicity and Andrew that I couldn’t do it any more. At first hoping that they would see my predicament and suggest something, and then when they kept being encouraging (in spite of the fear I could see in Andrew’s eyes) I started trying to manipulate them. Looking them in the eyes and pleading. Begging. At first, just saying ‘help me’. And after a while, saying ‘I just want a caesarean. I just want this to stop’. Felicity said lightly ‘well you really don’t want me to do that… I’d make a terrible mess!’. I pretty much missed that she was joking and just became more frustrated. Couldn’t she see that I really, really couldn’t do any more?? At one stage I remember saying to her "what’s the safe word? Surely there’s something I can say to you that will make you know that I mean it. That I really really want to stop". She just looked at me calmly and said "no, there’s nothing you can say". Poor Andrew was crying. I can’t believe that he managed to hold out with me screaming and crying and begging him. He just kept looking at me and saying "you don’t want that". Poor thing. I’m almost as traumatised by his experience as I am by mine. I feel so awful for putting him through that.

For a while, Felicity persuaded me to focus really hard on breathing through the pain. I found that each contraction was between 10 and 12 breaths long and if I could get myself to 6, I could cope, knowing the end was in sight. I managed for a while, still screaming, like this. Maybe it was hours, I’m not sure. But it was taking every ounce of mental energy I had and I was fighting the pain and each contraction, just as hard as I was working through them.

I remember desperately searching my mind for the determination to go on. I needed to find a reserve of energy. I needed to find a little bit of belief that I could manage, and that I’d make it to the end. There was a part of me that was still aware that I'd had had a massive shift in my state of mind and that I needed to get back on track, but I couldn’t get back to that place of confidence. I remember thinking to myself ‘remember this place… remember how exhausted and horrible you feel… remember that you have nothing left to give and don’t look back and hate yourself for giving up’. I gave myself permission to give up and I can’t quite get past this. I remember what it felt like, but I wish I’d moved past it. I wish I’d known that it was temporary and found something beyond it. But I gave up. And I screamed.