Leila's Birth - 02/09/07

I woke up on Saturday morning (1st of September) NEEDING to dig up the front garden bed and plant a billion plants. Being 38 weeks pregnant at the time I was a sight for sore eyes and one of my neighbours passed by and asked me if I needed help with the digging! :D I guess I should have taken this as a sign that little Leila had decided that enough was enough and it was time to get a move on. I on the other hand was completely unaware. My DH left the house around 10.30am that morning and drove to a country town 3 hours from Canberra where we lived at the time to referee soccer. I remember as he got in the car thinking that maybe it wasn't such a good idea, so just before he pulled away I made sure I had his assistant referees mobile number (just in case...).

ANYWAY, there I was sitting on my couch watching a terrible Liz Taylor film (hey it was a midday movie and I was pooped from all that digging!), my dog Stella was at my feet; she suddenly got up and looked at me and about 2 seconds later I felt this 'popping' sensation and some trickling down my legs...hhmmmm. I waddle to the bathroom to investigate and realise that my waters have broken. Go into total shock (aren't first pregnancies meant to be late? LOL!). So there I am standing in the middle of the loungeroom floor doing my best to emulate niagra falls, my dog going beserk beside me and I have no idea of what I am suppoused to do next. So I call the hospital and the delivery MW asks if it is in fact my waters or have I just had a wee accident...an emphatic NO! i had no idea that there could be so much amniotic fluid! She told me to relax have a shower and come in in an hour or so...ok....my DH is STILL a 3 hour car ride away and I have NO CAR! So i leave frantic messages for him to get home and I call my friend Jo and she takes me in at 5pm and holds my hand as I am introduced to my M/W and the delivery room. At this point I am still having major water action (having walked into the hospital during visiting hours with 3 towels wrapped around me, I am feeling glamorous!!). The fetal monitor beeps away nicely and shows that I am only having really mild contractions. I couldn't feel them at this stage. I have some dinner and am transferred back to my room. My OB comes in around 7pm (still no DH in sight!) and starts getting really serious with me and actually ruins the moment a bit as here I am all excited that MY BABY IS COMING! and he tells me that more than likely she won't be born before Monday and that he is pretty sure that he will have to induce me...aarrrghhh! Being Saturday night, I felt this was waaay to long a time to be sitting in hospital waiting for 'it' to happen.

DH FINALLY arrives (8.30 pm) looking flustered and exhausted by the crazy landspeed record drive home, so when he finds out that the baby may take until Monday, he is a bit disappointed (as am I). anyway, the M/W convinces him that it is best if he goes home for the night as 'most likely she will not go into labour for at least another 14 hours....'. I was a bit bummed, but I could see her point that we may get too tired with anticipation and needed energy for the big event.
He leaves at 9.30pm and 20 minutes later I am having massive contractions that are 2-3 minutes apart. But because I was told that my baby wasn't going to come tonight, I actually doubted myself and the contractions!!! So I got around the room and rocked at the end of the bed (doing the pelvic twists made so famous by elvis! LOL!), but after an hour I decided to ask the M/W if I was in active labour (yes, I know, denial is an interesting thing!). She takes one look at me and sends me walking down to delivery telling everyone in sight as we go down the hall 'we've got an active one here'. oh yeah get the microphone out while you're at it love!

The contractions were coming on thick and fast, there was no build up and i found it quite surreal to be having them only 2 minutes apart so fast. But I am on top of them so no worries there. At about 11pm the M/W examines me and asks if I want to have pethidine. I said no. the contractions weren't really bothering me and I was feeling very relaxed in the darkened room. However, she just didn't take my answer seriously and told me that it would allow me to sleep and rest a bit (fat chance!). I still said no, but then she asked me halfway through a contraction and I just wanted her out of the room so I said yes. Darn it. I immediately start to feel spaced out, and for the first time, not entirely comfortable. I felt mentally disengaged from the contractions, the pain was there, but my coping mechanisms were shot. At about 12 midnight M/W calls DH to come in. When he arrives he immediately notices that I am looking spacey. I felt very light headed from the Pethidine.
At about 1am M/W does an internal examination...no one told me how much they hurt! next time I'll only let them do it when i know I am close to the end. She tells me that I am 6cm dilated. uffa long way to go. She tells me that bubba will probably be born at 7.30am.
At about 3am I get up and give up on trying to 'sleep' (DH is snoring away on the couch - one for the team babe!) and hop into the shower, using one of the chairs as support through contractions. I think I am in there for about an hour.
I continue with the pelvic rocking and it proves to be the most beneficial through the contractions at this point.
At about 5amish I ask to have gas. DH is still snoring away and I felt I needed some kind of distraction that didnt require me to ask for too much help (strange but I just wanted to be in my own space, totally different from what i imagined what with having DH doing the whole massage thing and all). I sat on the bed and when the contraction started I had the gas. sitting on the bed was really uncomfortable so when they came over I would roll up onto my knees and lean into the bed rail (bent under the exertion!!).
At 6amish (by this stage I have no idea or concept of time except for the feeling that my pelvis feels about to burst in half) I ask DH for some apple juice (I figured the sugar would give me a boost and the water some hydration), little did I know that 10 seconds later transition would hit me like a train and I would throw it all up. M/W does some amazing 'jackie chan' move across the room and manages to get the bucket to me just in time. It was weird throwing up and having a contraction at the same time as my body didn't know what to do first! LOL!
I really surprised myself at the noises that I made during transition (loud gutteral moaning), at this point the M/W called the OB.
At about 6.50am I told everyone that I needed to push (I didnt care who heard who was there for that matter), they told me to go right ahead (2 M/W at this point as change in shift, but 1st M/W wanted to hang around and see the bubba, which I thought was really nice). I sit up with my arms holding my shins and drawing my legs up towards my belly. with each contraction I felt the need to push 3 times. the first urge was fairly mild, the second was really really strong and the third was somewhere in between. Between pushes there was no pain and it was nice to actually have that time (first in hours) to contemplate the fact that here I was birthing our baby and that she was going to be born any push now!
M/W asks if I want to see my baby coming out and i say yes and she gets the mirror (again I shock myself as this was something I thought I would NEVER want to see). It was the best thing. I was able to see what each push was doing and how far along it would take my baby. the OB arrived around 7.15am in shorts and laughing that I had proved him wrong and that he was missing breakfast in bed for father's day (yes! leila was born on father's day - DH was stoked). So off I went pushing two more times with the mirror. the burning sensation was intense but i knew that it meant that leila was really close...and then phew, no pain. her head was out and everyone was yelling at me to stop pushing...i did but unfortunately this did not stop Leila and she shot out like a bullet.
The OB held her up and laughed saying that she didnt have time to get a squashed head; and she was put on my chest. I have to say that I don't remember what I said or what was said for a few minutes after that. all i could think of was my little girl. luckily the M/W raided my labour bag and got out the camera otherwise we wouldn't have any photos!
DH cut the cord (OB told him it was just like cutting calamari...gross). and she was eventually weighed...all that pushing for 2.7kgs (just under 6lbs!).
And just like the midwife said all those hours before she was born on the 2nd of September at 7.28am. I watched the sun come up through the window and warm the world that my daughter had just entered and it was beautiful.

* I thought that it would be fair to update this birth story to reflect more accurately the circumstances of being given pethidine. It took me a long time (over a year) to accept that the pethidine was actually given without my consent and against my will. It was administered mid contraction but i was held down by the care-provider. Unfortunately, these actions and subsequent effects led to a PTSD that took a long time to overcome. However, I am proud of the birth journey that Leila and I took, and especially proud that despite the circumstances we did such an amazing job! *