An "Express Delivery" - DS Unexpected Homebirth 26th Oct 2012

Well, my beautiful son made his way into the world on the 26th of October and was in a hurry to meet his family it would seem!

And like many others I must warn you, this is long!

It really all started a few days before when I (just like with DD2) came down with a horrendous vomiting bug and spent the night in hospital on a drip vomiting into a bag whilst sitting on a toilet wishing I was unconcious. (yaaaay), of course (just like with DD2) this irritated my uterus and I started getting contractions, prelabour type painful braxton hicks every few minutes, quite bearable, enough to curl your toes, but not enough for me or anyone else to call it 'labour'. But, since the same thing happenned with DD2 and culminated with her birth 12 hrs labour I thought, here we go again, I'm going to be exhaused, dehydrated and having to push a baby out soon. DS was a couple of days shy of 39 weeks, so term wise not a problem, mentally I thought - "BOLLOCKS!"

So, once they'd poured a couple of litres of fluid into me and stopped the vomiting, I pushed to go home, signed the release and went home to await the impending birth, only to find that the minute I got home and lay down everything slowed down and stopped altogether. What the? Talk about an anticlimax. So whilst I was relieved at first, I was disappointed a few hours later once I'd recovered some energy that I was still indeed very pregnant.

That was Sunday night/Monday morning. From then on, every afternoon/evening from 4/5ish this would all start again, and once I'd gotten the girls to bed and all my housework done and lay down on the couch around 8, everything would stop. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evenings- same thing. It may not have been extremely painful, but it sure messed with my mind, not to mention how hard it is to carry kids around and get housework done, sit through church etc with these damned painful 'braxton hicks'. Occasionally I would try timing them when they got toe-curling, but they never got less than 5 minutes apart and always slowed down and stopped.

My mother insisted (straight off a night shift too) on coming with me to my OB appointment on the Wednsday as she didn't want me driving down the freeway on my own as she wasn't buying this false labour business, I thought she was being paranoid "Seriously ma, if my waters break or I have a hard contraction, I will pull over and call someone straight away - relax" Little did I know. Anyhow, obstetrician assured me this was all very normal, same thing happened with a few of his children to his wife, had my usual in and out appointment. (Wow, I was worried the ob would be all hands-on and interfering - in fact he was the least hands-on carer I've ever had, as long as the heartbeat was good, my blood pressure was good etc, he never had me pee in a cup, did an internal, weighed me, suggested interfering with natures course etc . . was a real pleasant surprise), and went home.

So Thursday night I ended up in tears as I'd been BBQing with damned painful braxton Hicks, my 2 yr old was driving me nuts, my haemarhoids were the size of freaking grapes (ah, pregnancy) and it was all for nothing. So I geared up to go to work again the next day, braxton hicks stopped at around 9 and I went to bed.

I woke up Friday morning at 4:30am, felt my waters pop, got up and ran to the loo so I wouldn't get the bed wet and it was most definately my forewaters this time, lots of clear fluid. I put on a pad to soak some fluid up to give the midwives to test and went back to bed to see if I had any contractions to report before disturbing my DH or the hospital, I noted a little braxton hick at that time, but it wasn't until 10 minutes later than I was hit by a whopping huge contraction that had me writhing and took my willpower to not roll on DD2 who was sleeping between us. that was at 4:41, (I was timing them using the Sprout Lite Contracton App), peak lasted well over a minute, and I thought - great, this is most definately it. Went to the bathroom, was hit by another one instantly, peak for about 2 minutes - I could not believe the pain I was in for the beginning of labour, all I could do was make strange throat noises and stand on my tiptoes trying to get away from the pain. (Don't know where the logic was in that?)

Practicality set in, so I pulled my hair into pigtails (because you know, one needs to look tolerable for post birth photos and have the hair out of the way for the shower cap) and was hit by a well over 2 minute contraction that was so bad I literally did not know how I was going to get to the car let alone sit in it for 40 minutes to North Gosford Hospy. At this point, I thought, I think I'm gonna have to call an ambulance to get me there. I finished moaning, pulled my knickers down to check the pad and noted that not only was there fluid there but it was quite red - I thought, alright I need to ring the midwives now and let them know theres colour to my fluids and high tail it to hospital, I'll go to the toilet ring them and wake DH.

Went to the toilet, huge, huge contraction, oh hell the pain I couldn't move, thought the peak ended, leaned forward stopped the timer on my phone (it was 4:53am) and was surely mistaken as that was not the end of the peak it was followed by a worse peak, worse than any contraction I'd experienced before, I couldn't even wipe myself I just couldn't move, then I felt the head at the top of the birth canal!

I screamed out to DH, and practicality took over "DH, DH get up, I need help, call an ambulance and bring me towels, the baby is coming NOW!" Thinking I need to catch this baby, make sure he doesn't hit the floor and have something warm to wrap him in and rub him down with if he's not responding (amazing how much can go through your mind in a split second) My poor dazed DH, leaped out of bed and tells me the first thought that ran through his head was 'I am woefully unprepared for this'. Bypassed both my instructions and ran into the granny flat (funny, I had totally forgotten my parents lived there duh), reefed the sliding door off its tracks in the process yelling for my parents who came pelting in to my by now primal loud groan/screaming as I was trying NOT to push, my mother (who is a nurse) came in to the toilet where I still was, DH threw a stack of towells on the floor in front of me and I got on all fours on top of them, ma grabbed one of the towells and took up position behind me like a baseball short stop crouched down on the ready.

Meanwhile DH rings on my phone 000 which takes longer than you expect to as you have to go through 2 operators, identify yourself, your address, your phone number you're calling from (which was a problem as he couldn't remember my number) and eventually what your problem is, which they couldn't here because I was being very loud. At which point I noticed DD2 come out of our bedroom and stand in the hallway looking very confused as to what I was doing, "DD2's out" I yelled, and Dad (who had naturally made himself out of sight, came and got her walked her around, turned the light on and unlocked the door for the ambo's and then proceeded to boil the kettle because apparently this is the 1920's and hot water comes from kettles as opposed to taps?).

So meanwhile I'm not really pushing, but did apply just some constant, slight pressure downwards and DS's head crowned and was out, Mum held it in a towell, the ambulance asked if any part of the baby was visible DH said "Heads out!" .... "So's the rest of him!" as his shoulders swiftly followed. I asked instantly "Is he breathing" but fortunately he spat out the amniotic fluid straight away and let out a little cry and was pink and beautiful, and so clean looking, couldn't see any vernix or blood on him, he was here!. Dad still in the kitchen minding DD2 and his precious boiled kettle said it was 5am fairly well exactly. So all in all...

Stats till birth:
Less than 30 minutes from waters breaking.
Less than 20 minutes from start of first contraction.
4 Contractions before pushing.
Around 5 minutes of pushing.

I thought the placenta was going to follow fairly quickly as it felt really awful in there, and asked for a bowl, DH brought me some tuppeware and I squatted over it while Mum held the baby just behind me wrapped in towels. When I realized that it wasn't coming any time soon I asked her to pass him between my legs to me, I took my tshirt off so was just wearing my gym crop top I was sleeping in and held him against my tummy, and hobbled over to the lounge with us both wrapped in towells to wait for ambo's.

Ambulance arrived about 10 minutes after the birth. In that time DD2 who was very smiley and impressed that there was a baby right there came over to meet him, DD1 who was awake but hadn't come out of her room because she wasn't sure she was allowed to (so cute), I sent mum to get her and she came out, and was very unsurprised that her baby brother had come out of mummy's tummy in the toilet hallway, she just said "Oh mummy, you had my boy baby, he's very cute!".

The ambo's took there time getting me into the ambulance, they clamped and cut the chord (it had well stopped pulsating which I was happy about) and as they were nearing end of shift, quiet night, so not rush - I had plenty of time to say goodbye, get into a paper gown, and begin the most uncomfortable trip of my life heading down the freeway in an ambulance with bub breastfeeding beautifully. Ech, that placenta felt really, really, really awful, I just could not wait to get it out.

They gave me the Oxytocin at the hospital and thankfully almost immediately the placenta came away with a bit of chord traction and I pushed it out in a few pushes at around 6:30 - instant relief. I'd only torn a little on my scars, 1st degree only, and OB arrived at around 7 to stitch me up. I was rather famous in hospital, and I LOVED my hospital stay, wow, it was like being in a 5 star resort with caring nurses and room service. Girls came and visited every day and were happy as lambs the whole time I was in, really made that first week so much less draining all in all a wonderful experience, and we were more importantly blessed with our new beautiful baby boy who weighed in at 7lb 5oz, (I think that's around 3.3kg) was 50cm with a head circumference of 36cm.

Thanks to all who bared through reading my 'short novel' birth story. :)

wow! thats a job well done! and i giggled at the "hot water came from kettles not taps in the 1920s"

What a story! Congrats.... I laughed out loud at the kettle bit!

Great birth story, made me lol a few times also. Congratulations!

What an amazing story, you are a star!! I love reading positive birth stories!!!

Wow your little dude was in a hurry! Congratulations and LOL at your dad, such a dad thing to do hehe.

Amazing! Congratulations on the arrival of your DS :)

what a fantastic birth journey for your family! I love that in the time it took to boil a kettle you had a baby :)

Congratulations!

What a great story! You write so well, I laughed a lot, especially at your dad and DD1! So cute. And that's the kind of thing my dad would do - likes to feel useful!! Huge congrats! Wonderful job!

Congrats! Awesome story!

what an amazing birth!! well done =) thanks for sharing

congratulations!

What a wonderful birth story! I birthed at home in a similar situation only few weeks ago too. Will share our story too as soon As I get myself organised!
Congratulations!!

Wow congrats! You did an amazing job!

All that pre-labour obviously did something! What an awesome birth. Congratulations

awesome birth story!!! congratulations on the happy arrival of your bubba boy! :happyforyou:

Wow what a birth!

Congratulations, what a great story! Xx