For a few days around the baby’s due date (20/04/17), I began to feel tiredness so strong that I couldn’t do my usual and push against it. I couldn’t trap it and I couldn’t poke it with a shot of adrenaline to disguise it to myself. I woke up on one of these mornings and asked my mother-in-law, Michelle, to look after my 2 year old daughter, Elma and I went straight back to bed I was so tired.
Something was different; admitting I need help happens far more rarely than it should. Due date came and perhaps symbolically, I’d organised for my partner, Pip, and I to finally write our wills at a Cardigan solicitors’ on this very day. Not being married but now owning property together and having children together was weighing on our minds in terms of guardianship and legacy were anything to happen to either of us. And I had been musing over this particularly as the veil thinned between life and death with birth imminent. Thursday came and Thursday went and we then organised to pop into the solicitors the next day (Friday) to finalise our wills and have them signed and witnessed.
Friday morning – Pip worked in our polytunnel and I popped out alone to the agricultural store near New Quay to buy some fencing wire for stringing up tomatoes etc. Revelling in some lone time, I took my time on this little trip and popped into the honey farm to get some honey, chatted to my brother on the phone, etc. Then, some friends came over late morning to play and I began to feel that particular strain of tiredness that had knocked me a few days earlier, as Elma and her friend battled over what they didn’t want to share. Our friends left and we got ready to go into Cardigan again for will signing. Just before we got into the car, I did an outside wee, looked in my knickers and saw I’d had an almighty show. ‘Ok’, I thought, ‘the baby is coming soon – but it could still be a week or two like it was with Elma, right?’.
We got to Cardigan and Elma was being really tricky; did she sense something was about to change her life forever?! Pip pushed her on ahead in the buggy to give me space as I was struggling to cope/ be patient with her volatility. I struggled to keep up, and found I had to hold the bottom of my belly as I walked- as if the baby needed to be held there and everything felt like it was all low down- a new sensation. I got upset as I thought Pip was being rude and not slowing down, he thought he was doing me a favour by giving me some space! Pip went to the shop with Elma to get her some bananas to calm her down, which miraculously did the trick, then we met at the solicitors, signed wills and went to the playground. I started to feel a tightening sensation on the top of my bump and was feeling ever so very tired, but just thought to myself, ‘Braxton hicks?’. We got back in the car and as we arrived home I realised my knickers were wet…
I went to the bathroom, saw I had another huge show and at that moment, my waters broke, so I hopped into the empty bath while it dripped out, circa 4pm, smelling sweet. I admitted to myself finally that I was actually about to have this baby!
I phoned Mel, our neighbour, to let her know the birth was imminent and to look out for Elma and Michelle for us and we explained to Elma that mummy was going to go to the hospital to have the baby tonight, so when she woke up, it would be Omi next to her, not mummy or daddy (I have a rare blood clotting disorder called ‘Factor IX deficiency’ so felt I was too much at risk of haemorrhaging to try for a home birth). It all felt very civilised; we had dinner, Pip put Elma to bed and I started to experience very low level contractions, spaced around 10 or 15 minutes apart.
We spoke to the midwives first at about 7pm and I told a white lie that the waters had only just broken around 6pm to bide us a bit more time. I spoke to them again about an hour later as the contractions seemed to be (still weak but) getting more regular, who said just to come in and they wouldn’t send us away again even if I wasn’t in established labour, as I was a high risk person due to factor 11 deficiency. Factor IX turned out to be a strange advantage in the end!
39 weeks pregnant. Vita arrived at 40 weeks plus 2 days.
The car journey was again very civilised – very dealable with contractions and we marvelled at having the chance to chat with one another with the only interruptions being mild contractions!
We arrived at the hospital at about 9pm and were shown our own room in the maternity ward, including an en-suite bathroom. This was once again thanks to factor IX and I was over the moon about this as pooing tended to happen at most contractions and we’d expected to be in a 3-bed bay. Still very mild at this point. We turned down the lights and got out the lavender oil and were monitored and all seemed well and we joked about how it has taken being in labour to have a holiday together in this strange twilight hotel!
The midwives said that we should do whatever we wanted – rest, walk around, have a bath and that they would pop in every now and then. Contractions got stronger and seemed like they were becoming more regular but then would become irregular again and didn’t do as we had imagined they might, which was to be super quick, as it had been with Elma. We spent the night with me resting on the bed, Pip sitting on a chair next to me and me holding Pip’s hand for each contraction whilst in a very peaceful half sleep, half awake state. Time lost its boundaries and sped away.
At about 5am the midwives examined me and I was still in pre-labour – 3cm and cervix still thick. I was surprised by this. They then monitored me and pretty soon became worried about the heart rate showing ‘deceleration’ when/ after I contracted. We didn’t really know what was going on at this point except that there was concern and before we knew it, the head midwife had been called, looked at the readings and said ’right – upstairs to the labour ward NOW!’. Lights were flicked onto bright and a wheelchair appeared, and I was pulled backwards watching Pip struggle with our massive amounts of luggage, including placenta pot and walking rucksack stuffed with wholesome foods!
Up in the labour suite, it was morning by now and very light and uncosy – we were totally out of our comfortable space by now. Ina May would have sighed deeply and frustratedly witnessing the scene at this point. We were assigned one midwife but there were 2 working with us and we were advised that I stay lying down so they could monitor me. Contractions steadily became more difficult to deal with. Deceleration was still happening – and the midwives advised me to move me into various different positions to see if this helped to stop it. I was strapped up to i.v. fluid now as this can help improve deceleration, becoming more and more immobile. Increasingly midwives suspected it was a cord issue. It kept feeling like we were about to be sent to theatre for a c-section as it felt like the baby was in quite serious trouble. It took a while to be really explained as to what was happening – we really were not clear.
A registrar came in at 7am, I was checked and was still only 3 cm and she explained that she wasn’t overly concerned as aside from the deceleration, the rest of the baby’s readings were very healthy, but she needed my contractions to ‘progress’ and offered me the synthetic contraction inducer, syntometrin, to bring it on. I explained I wanted to avoid intervention as much as possible and asked if we could be given some time to try to get labour to progress ourselves and she said she would come back in 2 hours to see how we were getting on. She also gave me the tranexamic acid at this time (coagulating medication advised for Factor XI, administered when active labour begins). I started to feel a bit low as the readings still seemed to be a big issue with the midwives, and Pip realised that he needed to help me re-focus and stop looking at the machine and get in the zone.
The midwives changed over at this time and we were assigned Laura, who looked about 18 and made us both go ‘really?!’ but turned out to be brilliant and full of beginner’s mind. Pip pulled the blinds down and got me to focus on my breath and relaxing my jaw as I was starting to get tight and was clenching my teeth to deal with the pain whilst lying down. Making the sound of a horse through my lips really helped with this, though I was increasingly feeling at the very edge of my capacity to deal with the pain but still felt determined not to use pain relief if possible.
We managed to discover that there was a wireless monitoring machine which would enable me to stand up, which the midwives seemed quite unfamiliar with and it took a while for them to work out how to use it. But when they finally did – there was a miraculous change in my birth experience. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I could manage the contractions far better!
They were still concerned about the machine readings so kept asking me to stand or lie or lean in various different positions so I wasn’t totally free, but it was much better. At one point I needed the loo and Pip came with me, helping me drag the iv fluid and other machinery with me. For the first time in a while, we were alone and just stood and hugged one another in the toilet cubicle, enjoying the space and quiet, not wanting to go back.
There was this constant feeling of the absurdity of the machine with comments such as ‘the machine can’t read your contractions’ (I can assure you I just had one), or ‘the machine said the baby’s heart rate disappeared, but it could be because you went to the toilet’ (which is just what happened). Pip gave me gelsinium from the homeopathy kit.
The new registrar arrived along with a million others who had their morning meeting in my room which felt very invasive. However, surprisingly, the registrar said she was happy with how the labour was progressing. She felt that they would rather I give birth naturally, rather than have any intervention due to factor IX, and that as I had had a quick vaginal delivery with Elma, she felt a vaginal birth was totally possible this time, despite the deceleration, which was exactly what we wanted to hear. The hoards of staff left and it was just Laura and another more experienced midwife when Laura needed her.
Contractions were really progressing now but the midwives started noticing that deceleration was increasing again so got me to lie down again. They examined me and I was 6 cms dilated as they wanted to make sure that my waters had definitely broken. I asked if I could stand up again and as soon as I did, I started to feel like pushing and the deceleration stopped seeming to be such a problem on the readings too. Soon enough I climbed onto the bed on all fours, leaning against the back of the bed and started pushing, finding myself using enormous low mooing/ ohming/ singing sounds to help push the baby out. Suddenly there was a problem with deceleration again, so I moved into the same position I birthed Elma in – on my side, legs bent, holding my upper leg as a lever.
Vita was delivered in about 5 pushes and active labour was noted as taking 41 minutes on my notes. She opened her eyes as she was poking out, closed them again, turned and then made the rest of her way out, with the cord wrapped around her arm. She slipped out and was handed to us and as she lay on my tummy we looked and discovered she was a girl and we felt just astounded that we had managed to birth her without intervention in the end and that she was alive and well. She was very purple but this colour disappeared as the hours and days went by. She cried a little but was generally calm. I struggled to get her to latch and later discovered that she had tongue tie, which was cut two days later and improved the latch enormously.
Pip cut the cord when it stopped pulsating and the placenta came out with syntometrin (advised because of factor IX) and with a small tug from the midwife.
When Laura came back from the sluice room with the placenta she was very excited and exclaimed what a lucky little girl we had as her placenta had a rare thing where the sack had a big vein growing around it which would have cut off Vita’s life source had the membranes burst over the vein rather than elsewhere (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velamentous_cord_insertion). The risk of her having died before being born was scarily high. I was increasingly obsessed with her being a stillbirth towards the end of the pregnancy. I wonder if deep down, I knew this? This is when I knew I wanted her to be called’ Vita’; LIFE. Laura was very excited about the birth as it had gone so well in the end and she hadn’t seen an actual birth for a few shifts.
Partner's perspective
Pip found the birth quite a rollercoaster and quite stressful as the team seemed to be very concerned but not concerned enough to intervene with the advice of a c-section. He had to work quite hard at hiding from me what the team or the machine were saying most of the time and he really didn’t want me to watch the machine. So it was much better when I started focussing on my breath so he could tell me everything was ok, even though he could see the readings were ‘deceleration’.
By the time Vita came out, Pip felt quite exhausted and surprised that she had come out vaginally as it had felt at any moment whilst we were on the labour ward that we’d be sent for a c-section. This is why Pip took it on to change how I was feeling emotionally about it all as I was getting sucked into the concern and this is when the labour turned around and became what we’d hoped it would be.
This birth felt very different to Elma’s birth where everything flowed smoothly from one stage to another and we could get into the zone – with Vita we had to constantly fight to try and be in the zone. However – we are incredibly grateful to all involved with bringing her into our lives, alive and well. Bloody miracle.
A poem from the other side
Holding this newness in my arms again
I am dumbfounded by the breath-taking drama of it all.
Spoilt by these heady hormones, I gaze at this New Life,
The second child I have borne. And I marvel at the genius riddle.
Of both how she entered my body and how she exited my body.
So radical - it could be a fiction. So quotidien - I could quite forget.
The miracle. Of birth unfolding around us silently.
In every breathing moment we take.
As I birthed her I found myself singing as deeply and loudly as
My voice box could throw out sound.
As her head delved down and burnt into my flesh; she crowned.
I bellowed again and her head emerged, eyes open, as she bore witness
To this beautiful, cruel world. Old hat, she swivelled 90 degrees then to
Pass the rest of her body through mine as I devoured us all with one
Final almighty rhapsodic bovine OOOOOHHHHMMMMMMMMM.
Out she slipped then and flew to my belly
And we laughed and we cried at the
Outrageousness of her entrance and at
The depths and heights of intensity that
We'd danced all night through in order
To see her here before our very eyes.
Naomi Glass 2017
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