The Amazing Natural Birth of Ayva Jaide!!
I apologise in advance for its length! Lol! Make sure you grab some coffee, or chocolate or something before you start!
Well, it all started on Sunday night/Monday morning, I was waking through the night with light contractions, nothing too painful, but I was used to it, as I had been having contractions on and off for awhile, and they just ended up petering out after a few hours.
It wasn't until it got to about 5.30am that they started keeping me awake and had me excited that possibly this might be it! The contractions just started to feel different than any of the other ones. I decided to let DH sleep in more though, thinking that if this IS labour, the poor bugger will need his sleep :lol:, besides, he had to go to work that day, and I thought there's no sense getting him excited just yet, as they might fade off again.
Anyway, 6am rocks around and DH wakes up for work, and I decide to get up and go to the toilet and get a drink, when as soon as I got up the contractions started getting ALOT worse! I mentioned to DH that I may be calling him home sometime today as I'm getting strong contractions, but didn’t know if it would just fade out again, SO KEEP YOUR PHONE ON YOU!! Lol!
At about 6.30am I messaged DH saying that the contractions were getting stronger, but don’t come home yet, as it may be awhile, because at this stage they were still about 7 mins apart. I messaged our doula, telling her I've been having contractions, and they felt very different to my previous ones, and that I may be in labour. She rings back about 5 minutes later and tells me to take a walk and go have a shower, and if things pick up, then its real labour, and if she doesn’t hear from me within about 3 hours, she'll give me a ring back.
So off I trot and start pacing the house, back and forth, back and forth, for about 30 minutes and sure enough, the contractions got ALOT stronger and became alot more regular. When I was walking the contractions started coming every 1.5-2 minutes apart, and I would have to stop and lean over something and breathe through them, however, I could still talk through them. I went and sat down a couple times, and that slowed down the contractions to about every 5 minutes again, I felt very relieved! I was worried that it was all going to happen then and there by myself!!
By this time I messaged DH to come home when he can, but it’s not OVERLY urgent, like it's getting really bad, but I wanted him there with me, and so we can leave whenever we needed to. So, DH rings me back straight away saying "How far apart are the contractions? Are you sure it's labour?" me answering "every 1.5-2mins if I walk around, but about every 5 mins if I sit down, so yeah, I'm pretty sure it's labour, the pains are getting very bad and I can't move through them anymore!" So, after being at work a whole 50 minutes, DH jumped back on his motorbike and casually rode home (he got home about 10 minutes before he said he would, and he only works about 20 minutes away! :rofl:) He says he left earlier than he said he would.
After I finished talking to DH, I went in the shower and stood under the warm water, letting it hit my back, and again, that intensified the pains, so I decided to message back the doula and let her know that things are beginning to pick up, but I will give her a ring in about half hour/hour and let her know how things are going and if it stays the same.
DH gets home to find me in the shower, and immediately knew I was in labour, so he starts getting some last minute things ready, like food and water and putting the car seat back in the car (which I had to help with as he had no idea! I tell you what; it must've been a sight to see this labouring woman on the front lawn helping her husband put a baby capsule in the car! :rofl:)
By this time it was about 9am and the doula rang back to check how it was going, and she decided to make her way down, as she lives about an hour away, and had to get her boys ready, so she told me she'd be here in about an hour, and not to leave for the hospital until she got there, but if I start getting panicky to ring her and she will assess then how I am whether I do actually need to go in.
So anyway, now we had everything ready for when we were going to leave, all I had to do was keep contracting and wait for the doula to arrive. So DH decides to start playing the playstation (*sigh* lol) while I’m kneeling over the couch and rocking to help with contractions, pausing his game whenever I needed something to get me it. Lol. For majority of the time he was getting things ready and offering help though.
So the doula arrives at around 10.30am, and I was in the shower again trying to help with the pain, so I jump out, and she suggests we go for a walk again outside seeing as it's not hot to try and speed things up a little, so we go for a nice long walk up and down and around the neighbourhood for a good 45 mins to an hour, and by the time we got back the contractions were definitely getting alot stronger again, and I could no longer talk through contractions, and was rocking and leaning over the couch with every one. The doula started timing them and told me they were now coming about every 4 minutes apart.
We stuck around at home for awhile longer, with DH helping out by giving me massages, and sacrum pressure and using trigger points to help relieve my sore back (OMG... HEAVEN btw!) and ended up heading to the hospital at around 1.15pm, as I didn’t care how dilated I was, even if it was only about 2cm (I knew they'd want to do an initial VE, which was ok with me, as it also gave me an idea of where I was at) because I wanted the bath, and ours is too shallow (thus useless lol) plus, they were now 3 minutes apart, and starting to get very nasty and didn’t like the idea of having to drive to the hospital once the contractions got much worse.
So we got to the hospital at around 1.30pm, and the nurses put a trace on bubs and myself, and found the contractions to still be about 3-4 minutes apart, then took me off, and I decided I wanted my heat pack back, so DH went and asked the nurses to heat up the one that we had, because it was nice and soft and worked REALLY well. The nurse (I think?) we initially asked said to try theirs first as it was MUCH better than ours, so he said alright, we'll give it a go, and I tell you what, when I got it, it felt like they put a brick on my back! It was so heavy and solid! And not to mention barely held heat!!! so we (I lol) demanded to have my one heat up, which the nurse REALLY didn't like, but did it anyway, and I was made to sign a consent form that I would take full responsibility if anything happened, yadda yadda, yeah I don’t care I’ll sign gimme my damn heat pack! Lol! The whole time she had folded arms & really negative body language...
Anyway, the midwife came in and could see the contractions were still sticking around and rather nasty, so she did a VE to see how far I was. and it was around 2-3cm but VERY stretchy apparently, and said while she's sure I’m in labour, she wanted to wait til I was officially 3cm before they put me in a room, so she told me to go and go for a walk or go to the cafe for an hour, and to come back at 4pm. so off we went, I went and got a sandwich (at much persuading, I just wasn’t hungry and barely ate half of it! lol) and DH had some lunch and my mum got a tea and some banana bread, and we sat around for about an hour chatting (well they were, not me so much lol, it’s a good thing I wasn't very vocal as I’m sure that they would have been very worried by this stage at a screaming pregnant lady in the cafe! lol!)
So 4pm rolls around and we head back to the delivery suite and informed the midwife my contractions were getting worse still, so she heads off to get me a room WITH A BATH (I made sure I had that very clear, :lol:) and they did another quick heart rate check on bubs for a minute to make sure she was still ok, and all was good.
So into the bath I went and O-M-G!! It was absolute, PURE relief I tell you!! As soon as I hit that warm water it was instant relief!! Sure the contractions were still bad, but it felt like they were barely there by comparison!
Just after I got into the bath, I felt a pop down below, but I wasn’t sure if it was my waters, as I thought it could just be air escaping from my swimmers when I was getting into the water, so I didn’t say anything. Whenever people asked if my waters had broken, I said no, not realising that the pop was actually them! (After all, when I felt it, I didn’t see any water discoloration or anything, so I assumed that it was just air)
anyhoo, this is where I lose complete track of time I’m just going by what DH & our doula told me, all I know is that we went into the delivery room at around 4.30pm. And I hopped in the bath maybe 5 minutes after that.
The contractions started increasing in intensity very rapidly, and I was beginning to vocalise through them, and was having trouble maintaining the breathing, and had to constantly be reminded to focus on my breathing, and if I had to vocalise, to make low sounds, as I was starting to go higher pitched, and by using a lower voice, it would help bring bubs down further.
Around 2 hours after I hopped into the back, my contractions started rolling on top of each other, and I was beginning to scream and moan through them, and had moved to be on all fours in the bath. The doula told DH (half unknown to me) that it seems I’m beginning transition, and it shouldn't be too much longer. The contractions kept rolling and rolling and getting worse and worse, and by this time they were having trouble keeping me calm, and had to constantly tell me to keep breathing, and use lower voices and not scream.
THEN my doula had the most amazing idea... COUNT TO 6 DURING CONTRACTIONS!! I started doing this, but it was taking my mind off breathing, so they had the idea that they would count, and I follow in my head. My my my, that was a lifesaver! I was able to breathe better for awhile, and lower my voice to help bring bubba down more. at around this time, I started needing to constantly move, I could not find anywhere comfortable in the bath, and realised I felt very sick, so DH quickly got me a vomit back, and just in the nick of time, I vomited into it and missed the bath. Or so we thought... as DH lifted part of the back out of the water, we then found out that the bag was broken!! OMG!! They had to drain the bath (to my utter mortification as you can imagine!!) and re-fill it. So, that's what they did, and I stayed in the bath while it was draining, but ran the shower head to keep the water going over me to help while it filled.
honestly, it must've looked so funny, I was pleading with them to make the bath hurry and fill (like they can control it? lol!) so they had the shower running over me to help fill the bath, had the tap going to fill it, and were using jugs and filling from the sink to make it fill faster! Lol!
Anyway, by the time the bath filled I was starting to get extremely tired, and very weak, and very upset. I didn’t know how far along I was, I didn’t know I was in transition, and I didn’t know how long I had left to go. I started to BEG for an epidural, first I only asked here and there, then I started crying and pleading for one with every contraction, meanwhile my mum, DH and doula were trying to tell me I didn’t have long left and I’ve come SO far, and not to give up yet.
But I had, I was too tired to keep going, I’d been having rolling contractions for about 1.5 hours by this point and I was absolutely exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to go any further, so DH & our doula went and had a chat, while mum stayed with me, constantly telling me how proud she is of me, and counting for me, and being with me. DH & the doula come back and ask me that if I have a VE, and I’m over 8-9cm, do I still want one, to which I replied, "I don’t know, I don’t know, please, just give me an epidural!!"
So DH goes off and grabs the midwife, who comes back and feels my belly for a minute until I pleaded her to stop as I was in an uncomfortable position for her to keep feeling, and I was then told to get out of the bath so I could have a VE and get the epidural (absolute shock horror! I didn’t realise that would have to happen! But I thought, it's for an epidural, so ok ok, I’ll get out) and after a couple contractions, I managed to make it out of the bath and to the bed so they could check me out.
During the exam, I had an urge to push, that's when I was told I was 8cm dilated and NOT to start pushing. I started crying and said I need the epidural, I can’t go another 2cm AND push, I just can’t. So they offered me the gas, and I said fine ok, but get that doctor down here NOW! I want that epidural! So the gas was turned on, and changed to 50% gas, and 50% oxygen, and away I was sucking! No sooner had I said that I still wanted the epidural, that the urge to push was just unbearable, I could not stop it, and there was no way I could or would. I started freaking out and crying saying I need to push! I need to push! I can't stop it! I was so scared I would get a lip on the cervix, and that would delay things even more and cause problems, but the midwife said, that's ok, if you need to push, push! (During this time, between contractions I heard the midwife say to the doula, when I ask you to, I need you to push this button, yup ok, no worries) so I pushed a couple times (which was also while they were saying that comment about pushing the button) and the doula was then told "OK, push the button now!" (Which was around a minute after she said that! lol!) and found it was wayy too uncomfortable on my back, so I said, I need to go on my side, and with the help of DH, the midwife and my mum and doula, they rolled me onto my side, and I held my mum’s hand, while the doula was talking to me in front of me, and DH held up my leg.
I then informed the midwife I wanted DH to deliver her, so she and DH swapped positions, and she held my leg while DH stood down at the business end of things, and I began pushing. While I was pushing, they tried to take the gas away from me, they were screamed at not to touch it, and I began biting the tube to not let them take it! Lol!! After I was told repeatedly to stop sucking when I wasn’t having a contraction, I finally listened, and realised just how dizzy I was from the gas... it was truly awesome. LOL!
Anyway, after no more than about 5-6 pushes, she was out!!! Delivered straight into Daddy's arms!!! With only a little bit of help from the midwife to turn her slightly and make sure I didn’t tear. She came straight up onto my chest, and went straight on my skin, and decided to wee on me. Lol, I was concerned she had just pooped on me!
We then waited for the cord to stop pulsating and then daddy clamped and cut the cord too!
I delivered the placenta within about 10 minutes with no syntocin injection.
Apparently, from the time I was told I was about 8cm dilated, to the time she was fully born was only about half an hour! And unbeknownst to me, I was in transition for about 2 hours, not including the pushing time!!
So, at 7.18pm on the 7th February 2011, Ayva Jaide made her grand entrance into the world!
Weight: 3240g (7lb 3oz)
Height: 50cm
Head Circumference: 34cm
APGARS: 9 & 9
I had a minor Labia tear, which required about 7 stitches, it was only minor but it was in an awkward position that they were concerned it wouldn't heal symmetrically, and could possibly cause problems with tightness, etc.
Apart from that I was completely unscathed! Just exhausted. Bubs too lol.
Now we are thoroughly enjoying having our baby girl at home, and I am SO SO proud I managed to do it all naturally!!!
If you managed to get through all of that, Good on ya! Lol!
