Friday night, September 21st, I was lying in bed
after a long week at work, reading the third book in the Mistborn Trilogy. All of a sudden, I felt a pop and a small
gush. Oh crap! My water broke! My little mistborn was on her way – two weeks early. So I quickly rolled out of bed and took the
two steps into our ensuite bathroom. I
threw a towel on the floor while fluid continued to leak, eventually sitting on
the toilet for a bit. I realized my
heavy-duty pads for such an occasion were packed in my hospital bag in the
nursery. So I fashioned a loincloth out
of a towel and waddled to the baby’s room to get supplies. Once that was taken care of, I started
randomly throwing things into a backpack since I hadn’t fully packed for the
hospital yet, never expecting that this baby would arrive early.
I called my midwife first.
She was a student midwife so once I explained everything to her (water
had broken but no contractions – AKA PROM – Premature Rupture of Membranes) she
had to confer with her supervisor.
Unfortunately, my regular midwife wasn’t on duty for the weekend, so the
student conferred with another senior midwife.
She called me and we decided to relax until the morning, then possibly
head in to the hospital. We’d head in
sooner if contractions started. Since
this was my third baby, there was some concern that things could happen
fast. I’d unfortunately tested group B
strep positive a few weeks prior, so I knew I’d have to get a round of
antibiotics while in labour. Once the
water breaks, there’s an increased risk of infection so I was on the clock to
get the baby out.
My next phone call was to my mom to let her know what had
happened and that she was on standby to come over to watch my other two
children. The funny thing is that I
talked to her earlier that evening and mentioned that I had felt some minor
contraction-like twinges while on the bus to and from work that day. But I figured it was nothing. After the phone call to let her know my
water had broken, she called me back a few minutes later to let me know that
she and my dad decided they’d just come to stay over right away rather than
waiting for a phone call. This made a
lot of sense since it was around 11:30 and a foggy night so it would be better
to not have to wake them up with a frantic phone call at some point during the
night.
The next call was to my husband. He was working security at the Russell Peters show at a local
venue. I called his work first but he’d
already left. Turns out he’d gone for
drinks with some coworkers, so I called his cell phone. When I told him my water had broken he said,
“You’re kidding, right?” Neither of us
was prepared for an early baby. I told
him to relax and enjoy his beer and nachos since there was no rush for him to
come home.
I finished packing my hospital bag and waited for my parents
to arrive. They got to the house and
settled in and my husband was home not too long after. We went to bed and I was woken up at around
3 a.m. with contractions. They were
very mild but I started timing them with the contraction timer app on my
iPad. I did that from about 3 until
4:30, at which point my husband woke up and realized what I was doing. He looked at the app and said, “We should
probably get moving.” Contractions were
anywhere from 10 to 4 minutes apart. So
we got up, showered, got the car packed.
I called the midwives and we decided to meet at the hospital at 6. I had a snack (peanut butter and jam
sandwich and a glass of milk) and then we were off. My parents slept in our bed so that the kids wouldn’t find our
bedroom empty when they woke up.
The ride to the hospital wasn’t too bad since contractions
were still pretty mild. We stopped at
Tim Horton’s on the way so that my husband could get a coffee. It was very quiet out on the roads since it
was so early on a Saturday morning. The
hospital was very quiet too and we got checked in quickly. My midwife met us at reception and we got
settled in our room. Her student had
already set the room up. We talked some
more about the risk of infection due to PROM and the student checked to see how
much I had progressed. Only 3 cm, but
it was a start. My husband and I went
for a walk to try and get things going and I was contracting every 3 to 5
minutes. Again, contractions were very
mild, so I would just stop walking and breathe through each one.
When we got back to the room after our walk, the midwives
were really pushing to have my labour augmented with synthetic oxytocin because
of the infection risk. I was sort of
surprised by this approach since I thought the midwives would have more of a
“wait and see” attitude. They called in
the obstetrician on duty because they needed him to sign off on the synthetic
oxytocin. He explained the reasons for
the augmentation and the risks. My
husband and I are pretty risk-averse and since both the ob and the midwives
were pushing for the augmentation, I agreed to it. I was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t be able to handle
contractions with the synthetic oxytocin because I’d had the same stuff when my
labour was induced with my son. I found
the contractions excruciatingly painful and hard to manage that time. I really wanted to have a natural, drug-free
birth this time around. The senior
midwife didn’t seem to think it would be that bad, so I decided to roll with
it.
And she was right.
The oxytocin drip was started at around 9 in the morning, which got the
contractions going more regularly. I
had practiced hypnobirthing techniques during my pregnancy and done some
relaxation exercises, so I felt more prepared to cope with the pain and
pressure of contractions. I did get a
bit teary soon after the drip was started, but not because I was in pain. I was just so shocked that everything was
happening so fast. My husband’s the
only one who noticed, though. My labour
passed in a relatively boring fashion.
I didn’t really want anyone touching me or talking during contractions. I would just close my eyes and visualize the
baby moving down or a flower blooming and reframe the pain as pressure. I was able to relax my whole body with some
of the techniques I’d practiced. I took
deep breaths and imagined that I was breathing the baby down. It worked fabulously, much to my shock (and
I think everyone else’s too). We talked
in between contractions and I drank juice and had some ice chips too. Thankfully, transition only lasted for about
5 or 6 intense contractions, which I was still able to calmly breathe through. Then something changed and I felt like I was
ready to push.
With hypnobirthing, they teach you to breathe the baby down,
not push. I should mention that I was
too cheap to pay for hypnobirthing classes ($500 – ouch!) so I just read the
book twice and practiced the exercises.
The actual delivery phase is where I probably would have benefited from
classes, because I couldn’t quite figure out how to breathe the baby out. After trying to just breathe through a few
of the contractions at this point, I realized I wasn’t being all that
productive, so I decided to just push, with some urging from the student
midwife. All of my calm, zen behaviour
during labour went out the window and I essentially roared her out in 15
minutes. Feeling her crowning was a
shock and intense. But it made me feel so powerful and Grace was out in a
flash. The student midwife put her
right on my chest as soon as she was out.
I couldn’t believe she was here and so perfect! We delayed cord clamping until it stopped
pulsing and I got to clean the thick layer of vernix off her body. I delivered the placenta not long after and
just held Grace close to me while the midwives stitched up some minor
tearing. Interestingly (and this is
actually a bit scary) there was a true knot in her umbilical cord. Thankfully it never tightened. The student midwife gave me a detailed
lesson on all the parts of the placenta, which was really neat. She asked me if I wanted to take the
placenta home with me but I declined.
Life with Grace has been great. Overall, she's very mellow and she nurses like a champ. She gets a bit cranky during baths and diaper changes, or if I'm too slow when she wants to be fed, but she's already sleeping for at least a 6 hour stretch at night. Life is good.
