The much anticipated birth of Ariya Temperance Joy
Sorry if this post is a litttle long ;-)
After being told we would be lucky to make it to 34wks with this bubba due to problems with my heart and blood pressure and then being plagued with braxton hicks at 28weeks we were all prepared for the early arrival of Miss Ariya. So it was a strange feeling to pass the 34wk mark, then the 36wk mark – the time our son was born. We found out at 34wks that bubba had moved from her breech position to be head down and posterior. After weeks of pre-labour I found it so frustrating to be still pregnant at 38wks however I made a resolution to enjoy these last few weeks of being pregnant despite how huge and uncomfortable I was, knowing that this would be our last little baby. I was actually enjoying the waiting game, wondering if each day would be THE DAY in amongst the chiro appointments and standing on my head to try and turn bubba around however when I went to my 39wk appointment we were ready to set a date for induction. My OB did s stretch and sweep on the 5th of March and we were excited to hear that we were already 3-4cm dilated. (At least all that pre-labour had been doing something!) The dr expected us to be meeting at the hospital sometime soon, however we still set a date for Friday the 9th if nothing had happened.
My due date came and I was sure it was d day but yet again the contractions we’d been having stopped after a couple of hours of being 15 min apart. I was really looking forward to the whole spontaneous start to labour and the excitement of doing the midnight hospital run, but as each day passed I began to wonder if maybe my body was incapable of going into labour by itself. On Thursday night I was still holding out hope of going into labour myself, but when I woke at 6am still not in labour I was a little disappointed that apparently that was one of things I was not going to experience. It was a rainy and overcast day and I spent that magic time before anyone else wakes up just sitting and mentally prepare myself for this journey. It was a strange feeling knowing that our bubba was going to be born today but without the stress of something being wrong, like we had with DS.
We got to the hospital late due to DH’s desire to try a different way of getting to there (don’t ask me why he chose today of all days) and spent some time sitting in the waiting room. Around 8am our midwife Rebecca got us hooked up to a ctg ready to start. It was nice to spend some time with DH just listening to bubbas heartbeat together and it was interesting to see I was still getting BH every ten minutes. At 8:30am the dr arrived to break our waters. Bubba was sitting very high and he had some trouble telling if they had ruptured or not as there was no big gush, but 5 minutes later I had my first contraction and was ready to get off that bed! Unfortunately I had to stay hooked up for another 10 minutes or so just to make sure bubba wasn’t distressed by all that poking. With the first contraction I could feel her trying to turn and we kept losing her heartbeat on the machine because of her movements. By 9am I was up and pacing trying to get the contractions to become a little more regular. It didn’t take long for the contractions to intensify although they were still irregular and about 10 min apart and the whole time my pelvis was aching from bubba trying to turn around. Around 10am they suddenly got closer together, about every 2-3min and DH suggested we use the shower. God, how blissful the feeling of hot water is. I never believed that hot water could be a pain relief but OMG – it works. Dh stayed with me and held the shower head on my back. The contractions were so strong and I started to wonder if I could really do this again. I couldn’t imagine trying to push this baby out, it seemed to hard. I just wanted it to stop and seriously considered asking for a caesarean, I just didn’t want to go through anymore. In the back of my head I knew I was probably going through transition however when the midwife checked me I was only 6cm. That was depressing as I thought I was further along then that and wondered how much longer this was going to continue for. We headed back to the shower and the contractions started coming one on top of the other and I started to feel a lot of pressure. I sent Bob to get the midwife and had an unbelievable urge to push. Rebecca and Bob were trying to convince me to get back to the bed as our dr was very strict on where he would deliver bubba (no shower deliveries that’s for sure) however I wasn;t being very cooperative.
The midwife checked me again and yet again I was only about 9cm with a lip of cervix left. We flipped over to all fours, knee to chest position and tried to pant through the contractions. We started to use the gas to try and help pant through which was fantastic! DH was in charge of taking the mouth piece away from me after each contraction but they were coming so close I had to fight to keep it for the next one . I’m sure DH thought I was a mad woman addicted to my little mouth piece
Around 12pm the urge to push was getting stronger and they called the dr back, we were 10cm and started pushing. Thankfully the contractions slowed down so I could rest between and we stayed on all fours as it was too much effort to move. After pushing through 5 contractions I felt her head start to crown, what an awesome feeling that was. Her head was born and to my surprise she stopped. I kept expecting to hear her cry but nothing. I heard the dr say that we would just wait for the next contraction and that it was perfectly fine. It seemed to take forever for that next contraction to start so we could birth our little girl. In the next push her body was born. And after afew seconds I heard that beautiful cry.
We had a short cord so the dr held her until the cord stopped pulsating and DH could cut it then they passed her through to me and I got to met our beautiful little girl. She was soft and precious and so alert. She was looking at us with her big dark eyes and checking everything out. She had apgars of 10 and 10. The placenta was delivered straight away which I hardly even noticed, I was so in love with our little girl. I had two grazes and got 1 stitch which I was very proud of after my huge episiotomy with DS. We spent over an hour just marvelling at her before we went and got cleaned up and DH gave her her first bath. I had so much energy after the birth and felt fantastic.
I was so happy with how our final birth went, even though I didn’t get to do the whole spontaneous labour thing, in fact considering how fast things happened in the end I couldn’t imagine having to travel in the car for 30mins with those contractions on top of one another and after all my apprehension about our OB, he turned out to be fantastic during the birth.
