I looked forward to my prenatal exam on Wednesday: it would be part of a day-long party/event my midwife throws at her office every so often. There would be food, other pregnant moms, and a special guest; so lots of fun pre and post exam. But shortly after the midwife felt around my belly, figuring out the baby’s position, I got some bad news. The baby was breech! I was stunned. Things had been going so well: I felt super healthy and capable, I had the best midwife ever, and everything was perfect (well, almost everything: Chris stubbornly refused to get a birthing pool despite my pleas). This breech thing was impossible - it shouldn’t be happening to me. Just to confirm her findings and to see if there was anything else we should know about (such as the cord being wrapped around the baby’s neck), the midwife sent me to the hospital for a sonogram. Chris met me there, loving the high drama we were suddenly in. His glee was contagious, and soon we were frolicking about while filling out forms and getting coffee at the hospital shop. The sonogram confirmed our midwife’s findings: our baby boy was breech.
That night, we made arrangements for me to see an acupuncturist and we went to Applewood for dinner. This was to be our last one as a carefree couple…
I worked from home on Thursday, taking breaks to lay with my feet up the wall and in the afternoon went for acupuncture, all attempts to turn the baby head down. The midwife would see me on Friday or Monday to do it manually if the natural way didn’t work out.
After my appointment, I went to yoga though I was planning to skip it. Thursdays are Chris’ rehearsal nights so it would have been a long and lonely evening at home otherwise. On the way back from yoga, just as the F train was approaching my station, I felt a pretty serious cramp that made me arch my back. I chuckled to myself, thinking how the man across from me probably thought I was about to give birth right there, but, ha ha ha, I still had more than a week to go. People can be so dramatic, making such assumptions…
At home, I watched The Office and 30 Rock and still felt an occasional cramp, still not thinking them to be anything serious. I did voicemail Chris with the “I’m sure it’s nothing but I’ve been feeling some pains, wondering when you’ll be home” message. Then for kicks, I decided to track the timings, as these pains did appear to come at intervals. They were also getting stronger and, to me, more hateful: if this was labor then these pains meant a c-section because of the breech. Around that time, I got a strong urge to wash the dishes that were piled up in the sink, even though I had felt very tired just moments ago.
Chris showed up around midnight. I was rinsing the dishes pausing for, let’s face it, contractions.
- Hon, we need to move the washer out of the bathroom - I tell him.
- OK, will you help me?
In answer, a contraction sends me to my hands and knees. He grabs the washer and takes it away. I’m back on my feet, rinsing the final glass. I have it in mind to tackle the bathroom next. Chris comes back, and soon I’m back on the floor.
- Can I do something? Tell me what can I do… — he asks and attempts to massage my lower back as we were taught in our birth class.
- No, there isn’t anything you can do, I don’t have any back pain. — I wonder if he’ll think I’m crazy if I ask him this but then he reads my mind…
- Should I vacuum?
- YES! Vacuum!
And so passeth our early labor time, my contractions at 10 minutes apart on average.
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Even though I’d been in labor since probably 8:30pm on Thursday night, both Chris and I were in denial about it. All we ever heard is that first time moms usually go later than the due date, they can labor for days before giving birth and there exists something (so-)called “false” labor. We had every right to be suspect of whatever was going on. Since we didn’t want to be the kind of couple that would go to the hospital only to be sent back home, we held off calling our doula and the midwife until about 1am on Friday.
It was actually pretty comical: here I was, in very serious labor pains, but Chris and I are evaluating and re-evaluating if this is IT and is it really the time to make the phone calls. No surprise that his call to the doula went something like this: “Hi, it’s Chris of Chris and Alisa. We’re sure it’s nothing but Alisa is experiencing pretty regular pains. I wouldn’t be calling, as I’m sure it’s nothing, but the baby is breech and we thought we needed to let you know.” The doula was less unsure, “Call the midwife!”
“Aye, aye, aye” said the midwife. She’d try and turn the baby (the procedure called external version) but was missing some information from the hospital. Hoping these 10 minute contractions would last until tomorrow, she directed us to have some wine and try to sleep. Oh, and to call her if anything changes. Chris was super excited with these directions, sleepy as he was. We had our wine and went to bed. As with all best laid plans, ours went awry. The pesky contractions decided to speed up to about 4 minutes apart. True to our modus operandi, we let those go on for 2 hours before calling her again. During that time, the pain was getting stronger and I vomited, once in the toilet, the second time, overtaken by the pain, into the folds of my robe.
- Hi, it’s Chris of Chris and Alisa. It looks like the contractions are now at 4 minutes apart, for quite some time now.
- Well that’s a change! I’m coming over and we’ll try to turn him.
Twenty minutes later, she was here. I was 3cm dilated. She set me up on pillows and, between my contractions, proceeded to maneuver the baby from the outside. Let’s just be clear on one thing: this external version was not a painless procedure and I was almost relieved when in the middle of it my waters broke.
It was the time to transfer to the hospital and the midwife called for a pow-wow. I was at 7cm.
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-Alright - we need to talk, she said, making eye contact with each of us individually. We need to make a decision and we need to move quickly.
We both knew what was coming - we were going to the hospital. Earlier that evening, Chris and I had a tiny conversation and had come to terms with hospital transfer, and even I was surprised how calmly I accepted the idea.
- What are our options?, Chris said.
- You don’t want a section, right, she said
- No… I can’t imagine moving right now. And it’s so nice here.
After a moment or two of quiet contemplation…
- Well, we can proceed with home birth, if you’d like, and see how things develop. I can call a colleague of mine to come over and assist.
There were a lot of factors that were in our favor for proceeding with our plan for birth at home - the labor was moving VERY quickly. We knew the cord wasn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck and she would be monitoring the baby’s heart rate for any signs of distress.
- I’d like to stay.
I looked at Chris expectantly.
- Then we’ll stay here, he said. I wanted to kiss him.
My contractions continued and the midwife talked me through them, stroking my belly gently when they happened. In the meantime, she had phoned her colleague and our doula came as well. We found our way to the bathroom, my favorite room in the house at this time, and I sat on toilet. Through haze I heard the midwife say “She’s in transition.” I should say now that I was full of doubt. Breech births are stigmatized and I was afraid of the pain and of the possibility of it. Additionally, the midwife told me not to push even if I felt like it. This seemed impossible. The prescription was to have Chris coach me in breathing air through my mouth instead of pushing. This worked, to my surprise, and he was a great focal point for me.
Of course, I had a small panic attack when suddenly my body started pushing. I made a low but loud grunting sound, scared. Then from the kitchen I heard “Beautiful!” from the second midwife and miraculously most of my fear dissipated. So this is right, it’s how I should feel and react! It made so much difference that from then on I didn’t really worry about anything anymore.
We soon moved to the bedroom, around 7am on Friday morning and daylight. This was clearly the time to push and that I did. I was leaning over the bottom edge of bed, Chris on the bed, and we were facing each other holding hands. The baby’s bottom crowned but that gave me very little hope, knowing that the worst was yet to come. The midwives had me change positions a few times (standing, squatting, sitting - depending on the progress of the baby) only to have me end up on my back, holding onto Chris sitting above me. I worked really hard for a long time but there were no results: the baby was not budging. One midwife told me to stop grunting and put that vocal energy to work instead. After that I was quiet, but still nothing. I started to lose hope. The thing was not moving. Chris, on the other hand, was full of life and hope and encouragement and kept telling me nice things. It was encouraging to see one bright face in the room: the midwives weren’t happy with the progress either. And so they said: “We may have to transfer. We’ll try for another 20 minutes, and if we don’t see a change, we’ll be going.” They also sent our doula to rummage through our mess and pack a hospital bag for me.
The thought of going to the hospital gave me a sense of relief, but at the same time, I could not picture it happening, not now, not after all of this and not with this baby sticking out of me. I now realized that I had been holding back a little, probably because initially I was told not to push. With this “threat” of hospital in the air, I entered a trance-like state where nothing but this purely physical thing of pushing mattered. Consequently, before the doula could find her way around our stuff, the midwives excitedly announced that they saw our baby’s sacrum and we were good now. This could happen. I forgot to mention that through the whole labor, the midwife would intermittently listen to baby’s heart with this handheld doppler machine. It was like the sound of a galloping horse and it was strong throughout. Once the sacrum showed and they knew for sure that the head could come as well, the galloping horse wasn’t as strong and I could tell that my midwife worried a tad. But at this point, it was just up to me and the work ahead. I can’t recall how many more pushes it took. I could hear them encouraging and advising me and I did heed what I heard. There wasn’t much more to worry about. With every pushing contraction I would hear excited midwives. It was going well, but I still had very little hope, only my trust in them. And then it happened, I was bearing down like never before, longer than ever before and I felt this huge enormous thing pressing downward and moving and finally out of me. I could hardly believe it but it was over, I gave birth to my son! Friday, November 21, 2008, 9:41am.
CK here - What an expereience! I’m not sure what I was expecting when it came to the big day. When would it happen? How would it actually happen? I can be squeamish when it comes to blood - would I pass out? Would I be any help at all? In the end, all I can say is that it happened the way it did. It was exhilarating! What a joy bringing this crazy being into the world- in our home with the morning light beaming through the windows of the 4th floor. While Alisa got examined post birth, I got the chance to take the boy through the house, show him where he’d be staying and introduce him to the cats. I’d look him in the eye and ask him where he’d come from? What was it like there? I’m your dad and we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together. Winter just looked up at me with those brand new eyes. What a joy!
