26 March 2011 - The birth of our final bub.
Gee where do I start? It probably won't be as long as my birth story with Eden, so perhaps no coffee or tea is needed (err and reading it back, yup grab a cuppa).
I had prelabour signs for a few weeks leading up to birth, nothing to get too excited about, just random contractions here and there. I knew I would go overdue - had hoped that I wouldn't but of course - I did. I got to 10 days over and I started to get pretty emotional about why my body was keeping my baby in there and after Ahurani's sad news, I just wanted my baby out so I could make sure she was ok. I ended up venting on facebook to a few special people about being overdue and that my body sucks, and spent much of Friday in bed crying about it all. Mum told me that I needed to get out and get some fresh air, so she put the kids to bed on Friday night for us, and DH and I went for a long walk. About 3kms. Up and down a hill. We spent a lot of time looking at the stars and just chilling out, and then came back home, had a few pistachios with my mum and then went to bed. I felt really sick when I went to bed and made DH stroke my hair until I fell asleep. This was around midnight.
I then woke up from a very pleasurable dream (haha) but I wasn't having what I thought I was having in the dream, it was a contraction. Very mild, and nothing to get excited about, but it was one. This was at 5am. I got up and went to the toilet, then crawled back into bed. Had a few more mild ones, could barely feel them.
At 6.40 I sent Anna (my midwife) a text message (yes i do take my iphone to bed with me) which said "hmm don't get too excited, but we might be having a baby today, hope you are free". She replied that yes she was free and that it was great! I told her that the pains were 10 minutes apart, lasting for about 20-30 seconds, so nothing too serious. I was still in bed, with Eden and DH (who were still sleeping) so just chilling.
We then got out of bed around 7.00ish - I went into mum and told her what was going on. So she jumped out of bed, and started getting breakfast for everyone, and tried to make me eat a piece of toast. Which I ate a bite out of but wasn't really interested. I then walked around the house a bit until I got Jakabella's text that she had had her bub, so I posted on BB since I was her PIG. I was so excited and sent her a text back congratulating her and telling her that I was also having contractions, so we might actually have our babies on the same day - like we had joked all along!!!
I continued to walk around the house, contractions were still about 6 minutes apart, not lasting very long, and not very intense. I thought that we should get into town pretty early though, Anna had warned me that things could get serious very quickly and since I live 30 minutes away from the birth centre, its probably best to get there early. I figured that if everything died off, then I would hang out at Sterla's house for the morning to see if anything came back, so I sent Anna a text at 9am (after a very blissful shower) telling her we were leaving.
Arrived at the birth centre at 9.30. Told Anna that I had had 3 contractions in the car, but they were super easy to breathe through, and I wasn't in very much pain, and that I felt really silly for coming in.
Then the contractions started coming 2-3 minutes apart and quickly intensified. I was handling them pretty easily, rocking back and forth on the four poster bed and doing my squats to bring the baby down (her head was still floating high and very mobile at this stage). The male midwife arrived at 10am.
By 10.15 I was on the toilet because I felt a lot of pressure on my bowel. I think at this time I released some gas and poop haha.
10.30 - I moved back to the bedroom and was kneeling by the bed. I was breathing through my contractions, and starting to moan through them as well. I would have a really super intense one which took my breath away, so I would be swearing once it had gone. Things like "Now that wasn't very effing nice, that was bloody painful.. geeeez!!" I was much less frightened through these contractions though, I kept reminding myself to breathe, that I can do it, this was a normal pain etc - everything that I had been studying during pregnancy was coming back to me. I let out a big moan at one point and DH told me to do it louder - he could sense that I was about to lose it - and I got louder. I remember saying "gee that really does work" - to get myself back under control and focused. I was using chinese stress balls as well and distracting myself with their chiming and rolling them around in my hand.
10.45 - Contractions still every 2-3 minutes, getting stronger in intensity. I'm squatting by the bed again, using the end post as support. DH was rubbing my back with each contraction and also had his hand against my pubic bone - which was bloody awesome. I pushed against his hand to relieve some of the pressure that I felt there. I had an intense contraction and asked (jokingly) if we could go to the hospital. They asked what for - I said a c-section and laughed my head off. Ahh so funny whilst in pain. All I felt was a lot of pressure mostly.
11.00 - I moved back to the toilet. Had a few intense contractions and I couldn't decide whether I wanted to stand up and move or sit down and try to focus, so I did a funny stand up/sit down routine for about 20 seconds. Baby was going crazy inside, and it felt so bloody strange to feel her going off like a frog in a sock and know that she would be out soon. I used my stress balls against the bathroom tiles for a few contractions, and swore through one of them repeatedly with "eff eff eff eff" which ended up sounding like I was quacking like a duck - they didn't even know I was swearing, they thought I was quacking!!!! I turned around to Anna afterwards and said "I so totally sounded like a duck then!" to which she agreed. I changed position a few times, trying different things. At one stage I was rocking back and forth on my hands and knees, and rolling the chinese balls in one hand, holding Anna's super cold hand with my other hand and DH was rubbing my back. It was an awesome technique to get me through it.
11.35 - I felt the urge to push. So I tried to push a little with the contraction but couldn't really feel anything, it felt very different to pushing Eden out. I found out later that since bubs was really high, when she moved down into the birth canal she went in posterior and with her head tilted, so not in a very good position. At 11.40 I had a show, and kept pushing with each contraction. I just didn't think I would ever get the bloody thing out, it just wasn't moving. I tried pushing kneeling on the floor. I tried pushing with one knee up and one knee on the floor like how I birthed Eden - no good. I tried pushing whilst squatting and leaning against DH. Still nothing. I remarked that this baby must have the biggest head in the world, I just couldn't budge it. I began to doubt myself, and told Anna and Gary off cos they told me it was easier to push out a baby the second time round, and this was much much harder.
11.45 - I had pushed out the start of my waters, so Anna decided to break them for me (dang there goes my natural birth I thought!!) and they remarked on the birth notes that the floor got very wet - hahaha. I was still pushing with no signs of getting her out, so they suggested I move into the bedroom and get ANGRY. So I was kneeling by the bed, with my fists holding the sheets and screaming into the bed whilst pushing with everything I had. I was angry and swearing and screaming - all whilst trying to get this bloody thing out of me.. she felt so big!! (err no, not big, just bad position!)
Finally at 12.02, I got her head out. Anna told me to breathe during the contraction because she had to turn her head before her shoulders came out. I had great difficulty doing this, everything was telling me to push, and I couldn't help it. So I pushed. She flew out and landed on the floor, nobody was ready to catch her (poor thing!) I couldn't believe that I had finally got her out, it was so hard and I really thought I would be going to the hospital to get her cut out of me. I sat back and bawled my eyes out cos I just amazed myself with what I did. I was much more proud of myself this time round, even though it was my second VB.
Not so interesting information:
Stage 1 - 4 hours, 35 minutes
Stage 2 - 27 minutes (shorter time than eden's but a hell of a lot harder)
Stage 3 - 33 minutes - with a 800ml loss.
Sustained a first degree tear to my peri - which wasn't stitched, I just have to keep my legs together.
Bub information:
Gestation - 41 + 4
Weight - 3510g (7 pound 12 oz)
Length - 55cm
Head circ - 35.5cm
Apgars - 10, 10.
And most importantly - her name.
We are pleased to introduce our fourth and final bub, our third little princess as:
Sahti Lillian Audrey
