My second time giving birth was a positive experience. Not easy, enjoyable nor pain-free (I wish!!) but positive nonetheless. I was not afraid, I didn’t doubt my ability to cope, and in the end I achieved to have the perfectly natural and unmedicated labour I had hoped for, without any interventions or even examinations. Was I a calm Mother Earth who “breathed her baby out”? Haha, no. I probably sounded like a lioness roaring the baby out. But that’s irrelevant. I felt like it truly was my body, my baby and my birthing, with no one meddling in, and it felt incredibly empowering.
When my daughter was born two years ago, I was lucky enough to have an uncomplicated vaginal delivery with a quick recovery and a healthy baby. And yet I felt a bit traumatised by the process. I felt a “victim” of labour and the pain and felt scared and powerless (read: my first birth story). Having gone through the experience of giving birth once and having survived it of course gave me confidence in my body as I knew it could do it, but I was concerned about my ability to keep my head in the game. I didn’t want to panic and to be scared again, and I did not want to rely on pain relief to stay calm. So this time I had been practicing hypnobirthing techniques (see my previous post) in the hope that they would help. My second labour was quicker than the first (6h vs. 20h) which of course made the process easier as I wasn’t nearly as exhausted, but I truly believe this was not a coincidence and that being able to cope better with the first stage of labour helped things to progress quicker. Also my second baby was 0.5kg heavier and 7cm longer than my first which you’d think would have made giving birth to him harder but this didn’t seem to be the case!
But now I’m jumping ahead of myself. I want to share with you my second birth story and this time I can do it without a guilty conscience because I don’t think my story should make any mum-to-be feel more nervous or worried about their approaching labour (and if my first story did, I’m sorry!). I really hope that my story will be encouraging to pregnant mums because to me the experience was so empowering!
The birth story of Noah Oliver – first stage of labour
Our son, little Noah Oliver, was born last Monday, January 20th 2020 at 5.50pm, when I was 39-weeks and 4-days pregnant. My daughter Maia was born at 39+2 and since I had read about a theory of every woman having a length of pregnancy typical to them (similar to an individual monthly cycle), I had been anxiously waiting for the labour to start for the last couple of days. I was feeling well overall, but admittedly I was quite uncomfortable with the big belly and constant Braxton Hicks contractions and I felt “done” with the pregnancy (my husband complained I was getting very snappy with him, poor guy…). That being said, I was determined to stay patient and didn’t resort to any tricks to try and induce labour and kept repeating to myself “The baby will come when the baby is ready. The baby knows best.”
The weekend had been quiet. I had managed to sleep a bit better and had spent some quality time with my husband Oli and Maia. On Saturday afternoon Maia and I went to our neighbourhood’s charming little delicatessen for some hot chocolate and babyccino. I was feeling emotional thinking we were living Maia’s last days of being the only child. Oli and I took Maia to the park and we had Sunday roast at a pub nearby, and got little jobs done around the house. My hospital bag was ready to go by the door. On Sunday evening I went to a pregnancy yoga class which helped to calm my mind and to stretch the aching body. Evening on the sofa with my husband and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Netflix didn’t hurt either!
On Monday morning I played with Maia as usual and got her dressed and ready for the day. At 9.30am she went out with her nanny to go to the park and then to her soft play class at Gymboree. I went back to bed for a little lie down and responded to my husband’s text “any sign of baby?” with a “no”. By 11am though I felt something change. The contractions had changed in nature. Instead of full belly tightenings and ache, I now felt a sharp pain in the middle of my lower abdomen. I had also a dull lower back pain which I initially thought was a result of something I did in the yoga class the night before. After a few contractions like this I knew the labour had started. It was noon on Monday and the contractions were coming regularly but not very frequently – about 10-minutes apart. I was supposed to have a hair appointment at 1pm and I laughed out loud thinking “ah, how typical 😅”. I decided I had enough time though. The hair salon was in the right direction anyway and closer to the hospital than our home, so in the worst case scenario I’d just go there directly. I put a maternity pad in my handbag in case my waters would break – it would be pretty awkward to be leaking amniotic fluid on the bus! But to be honest, I didn’t consider this scenario very likely. After all, my first labour had lasted for 20-hours from the first proper labour contraction. Interestingly enough I wasn’t worried or nervous, I was just thinking about my hair appointment, haha! I decided to walk to the salon – a lovely half an hour walk on the Regent’s Canal – since it was a nice day and I was listening to my labour soundtrack adding new songs to it as I walked. The contractions were definitely regular but I could keep walking through them which I took as a sign of very early stage of labour. The “up breathing” technique was helping me to keep walking.
My husband was at work and I didn’t want to alert him too early because it would make it harder for him to focus on work, but at 2pm I texted one of my best friends for some moral support and to get a second opinion of how much time I still had. (Just writing this makes me giggle in disbelief! I honestly can’t believe how quickly it all went!)
So I was sat at the salon having a cup of peppermint tea and biscuits listening to my labour music and texting with my friend with updates on how frequent the contractions were. Around 3pm I had had three contractions while the hairdresser washed my hair. I wasn’t timing them but I didn’t need to to know this was probably a good time to text my husband. When we had talked about the labour day he had said he could be at home in half an hour and in case of a false alarm, he could always just work from home remotely for the rest of the day. I knew I was in labour but because I was still able to sit and smile through the contractions I kept thinking I still had loads of time! Just in case though, I also texted Maia’s nanny giving her the heads up that we might need her to stay overnight. During the blow dry I was getting a bit restless- I texted my friend “oh dear god how long can this take?! I might have to leave soon”. She replied “yes maybe a blow dry at home 🤣”. I didn’t leave though (I like getting my money’s worth!). Finally at 3.45pm my hair was done (why it took so damn long I’ll never understand!). As I was leaving one of the hairdressers asked “so you think the baby will come next week?” to which I answered “umm I think it’ll be tonight actually.” You should have seen their faces!
I left the salon to go home but decided to stop by a sandwich shop because I was hungry. The guy at the till made some jokes about my vast selection of snacks – I basically bought one of everything at Pret. At that point I was starting to lose my sense of humour though and just smiled weakly… I had promised my husband I’d take a taxi home but since I saw a bus approaching I hopped on it instead and ate my sandwich. As I walked home from the bus stop the contractions were coming at 4-minutes apart but I figured the quick walking pace surely contributed to it and they would calm down when I would get home and lie down. At 4.15pm I got home and quickly climbed up to the bathroom as I felt pressure “down there” as though I needed the loo. I sat down and swooosh, my waters broke. “Ah interesting! So this is what it’s like” I thought. In my first labour my waters broke only just before Maia was born so I wasn’t really paying attention to it as I was struggling to cope with the contractions and was hazy with diamorphine. This time I never saw the mucus plug come out and I have a theory that it got flushed into the toilet by the amniotic fluid at such speed that I missed it (that’s possible right?).
My husband got home soon after. He asked me if he could just very quickly take a 20-minute work call (lol). I said ok but that we should probably ring the midwife first. And that’s when I had the first contraction which would make me let out an oh-so-familiar and completely involuntary moaning sound. I could hear the nanny turn up the volume on nursery rhymes in the downstairs playroom. My husband panicked, forgot which number he was meant to call and what to say and what my hospital number was (all information which I had specifically given him in advance). I managed to mutter through my grit teeth “second baby, regular contractions for four hours, waters gone, contractions 1-minute long and 3/4-minutes apart”. We were asked to come to the birth centre straight away. My husband called a taxi and started rushing me out the door. I made him run back for our family photo because I wanted to have it in the birth room for me to look at and get the oxytocin levels up. The taxi ride took about 20-30 minutes and the pain was real – but I was coping ok! I was on my knees on the back seat facing the rear of the car and squeezing the head support and focusing on my breathing, like the hypnobirthing teacher had told me to do. I also had the hypnobirthing tracks playing positive affirmations in the taxi. I asked my husband to call the midwife again to say I want the birthing pool if available. I hoped they’d have the sense to start filling it already. Later my husband told me he didn’t realise the labour was so advanced because I was doing so well in the taxi. I felt proud.
We got to the hospital at 5.10pm. Just in time.
To be continued…
xoxoxo,
Sini