I wished I’d never told anyone that due date, as the days passed I realised how arbitrary such a concept was, how futile. How can we bind nature to a precise and human time-frame? When I turned inward, I felt Dante in his perfection. His slow, methodical process, his reluctance. I realised it wasn’t so much reluctance – he simply wasn’t ready yet.
It was difficult welcoming parents waiting to be grandparents, and then having to bid them farewell again, my belly still huge and round with life. I felt their ache, though they hid it well, and I felt my own ache too. My lover waited with such easy patience, such trust. Though he too ached, with the longing to hold his child, he was unfailingly open to the process, to the mystery of it all.
Visiting the hospital for the scans and CTGS was a big lesson for me in giving up expectations. Walking in I had checked myself and noticed I expected to be treated with contempt or suspicion or something like that. I stopped and let that one go, imagining that everyone I came across would do their best to help me with compassion. That is exactly how it was. The women in the Pregnancy day-care unit were simply lovely, and when they heard I was 42 weeks pregnant they’d say ‘Oh! Someone normal coming in, good on you love.’ I was to visit there 4 times in the next week, and each time I felt their support, their hope that I would have the birth I had worked and planned so carefully for.
The questions, the doubts. Instinct and intuition, caution and the feeling of not knowing. Weighing up these things put a weight on my heart, but I had many sure hands that kept me focused, balanced. Jan our darling midwife calling twice daily to chart my progress. Rowena, our wonderful birth attendant who travelled many times to spend afternoons with me, calming and preparing my body and mind. My mum attending to all the little tasks that I was beyond, who offered us the nourishment of great food and a wealth of experience. Bibby, our student midwife who came with us to each doctor’s visit, who gave me the space to air my feelings and who responded with compassion and practicality. Our doctor Peter, a gentle rock, instilling confidence and dispensing just enough advice, always in the form of options and choices.
I tried everything to help Dante along. Spicy food, sex, the ingestion of all array of natural prostaglandins, bumpy car rides, hobbles down the street, nipple stimulation, visualisation, cumin seed tea, multiple sessions of acupuncture, gentle words to the child within, homeopathics and two big doses of castor oil.
Eventually we decided that at 43 weeks, it would be time to try something more formal. The choice wasn’t arrived at with ease, but once it was made, it was made peacefully. Two days before the induction date, we headed down to the beach to watch the lunar eclipse, a last date as lovers before we became a family. We gazed up at the clearing clouds and the strange reddish globe in the sky, and felt ready. Ready to begin, ready to birth.
We headed to the hospital around 6.30am. I felt no trepidation. My mind was focused on thoughts of birth, of all the women in all the ages who had birthed before me. They called for us to head down to the day care center. Four other women and their partners headed down in a group, Ry and I hung back. There was plenty of time. Soon after we arrived Jan met us and then it began.
The midwife decided to give me the maximum dose of gel. All the monitoring confirmed what my body knew already – our little baby was strong and sure in the womb. After the gel we sat out in the waiting area and Jan stimulated my poor little nipples to within an inch of their young tender lives. Bibby helped to pass the time. Soon a deep dull period-type pain started, what they call ‘prostin-pain’, a pain that would frame the rest of the birth journey. The gel or the pain left me feeling edgy, as if on some cheap stimulant. Ry and I headed out into the brilliant day and sat in a park taking pictures and recording little videos for our child.
I wasn’t able to sit still and yet the walking intensified the ache. We hopped along Lygon st, a café here, a book shop there, me always pushing to the next location, very uncomfortable in my skin. Eventually we headed back to the day center an hour before the next dose. The other women I saw from the morning looked equally as uncomfortable. I thought about speaking with them, but I sensed a big fear emanating and wanted to hold my space.
Very soon after the next dose of gel things started happening. The prostin pains were stronger and more insistent. I couldn’t say whether they were contractions, seeing as I had never had a single practice contraction to use as a measure. The pain didn’t seem to come and go, it was just there. I worked at smiling and paced the floor. I felt very frowny indeed. When Jan and Bibby returned they looked at me with broad grins. ‘That’s more like it’ said Jan. I couldn’t place this as labour, but their looks made me feel as if I was on the way, so I resolved to start opening to it all.
While all this was unfolding, all around Australia women were holding me in their thoughts, lighting candles, writing about me on various forums. I was being held by the compassion of almost perfect strangers, and the way events happened was so positive and lucky as to be almost magical.
The first lucky thing was that the second dose of gel set me on my way. The second was that all the labour wards were full, so they sent us to the antenatal ward. Jan in all her wisdom saw the opportunity in that and told me we had to try and stay there as long as possible, as we’d have far more freedom to labour in the way we’d planned. She told me to tell the nurses that the pains were just prostin pain and not contractions. She asked if I could do that. ‘Well, I’ll actually get a chance to use my theatre degree’ I replied, with the weakest of smiles…
They wanted to give me a wheelchair up to the antenatal ward. I strongly declined and Jan laughed as she helped me up. It was on the way I entered the birthing space. Things got very far away and my body spoke very loudly. Things are hazy from this point. The ward was full and we had a tiny cubicle. It was dim and a woman in another bed was speaking loudly on the phone. Bibby was so attentive, making sure I had everything I needed. Ryan offered me his arms and his soft words. I still couldn’t feel the pains as contractions…I remembered that when I used to have period pains, sitting on the loo was total bliss. I kept trying this again and it was no relief at all, in fact it intensified it! I remember sitting there going ‘ok, this is how it is. You’re not gonna get comfy and you’re not gonna get a break, so that’s that.’ It was a simple realisation and I quickly integrated it. It didn’t stop me moving into a myriad of different positions just in case though!
Jan gave me the TENS machine to use – it was an excellent distraction, something else to focus on. I wouldn’t say it relieved the pain at all, but it was a good strong sensation I could redirect excess energy towards. Eventually the contractions settled into being about three minutes apart, with that prostin pain singing loudly in every gap. I felt so nauseous and threw up a lot…I knew that was going to happen so it didn’t worry me too much, however the nausea was another challenge to contend with.
Getting in the shower was magic. I started blowing horse lips the way Ina May talks about in her books. It was magic, I could feel how much that helped as well as keeping my moans low and deep. I chanted 'oooopen, open, OOOOPPPEN' quite a lot. I became monosyllabic. I remember thinking ‘how will I get out of the shower’ and then when I wanted to go back in I would think ‘how on earth will I get back in?’ But I managed somehow with lots of help.
Jan wanted me to walk, and I did so. It was tough going. Visiting hours were on and there were kids running around. I remember being stared at by three small kids and one saying to another ‘what’s wrong with that lady?’ The little girl answered ‘She’s having a baby!’ Both Bibby and Jan walked me around the halls, guiding me through the rushes.
There were also visitors back in the ward I was in – a large Italian family. I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear my horse lip deep moans, my monosyllabic grunts. They probably wondered why on earth I hadn’t been fixed up yet. I barely registered them at all.
By this time the nurse had figured out I was really in labour, but she’d also discovered my doctor attended the birth of her son 18 years ago, and she was on the wavelength. She kept the other nurses away and let me do my thing. Eventually the registrar came along to check me out. Another lovely flash of wonderful luck, she was Dutch and totally supportive and delighted by the approach we were taking. She asked to check my dilation and I somehow managed to get on the bed. Jan said ‘Tell us she’s 3cm and I’ll call you a honey’ and the woman said ‘Call me a honey, she’s 7cm!’ Everyone was really chuffed about that. I remember hearing that but I was too far in the zone to respond. Jan asked if I could crack a smile, but I don’t think I really managed it.
Soon after that my membranes ruptured, as I was squatting on the floor wrapped in a piece of material I’d bought in the town where we made this baby, and we had to head up to the labour ward. The liquid was clear and that was another marvellous and positive thing. They tried to put me in a wheelchair, but again I refused, and Jan said ‘great we’ll load all the bags on it, thanks’. The nurses were horrified, but off I went. It’s hazy but I remember a bunch of shocked looking labour ward staff staring as I dragged myself in.
It’s hard to recall the order of things from here. They wanted me hooked up to the monitors straight away, and Jan had to step in to get me on the portable waterproof monitors. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought, I was just not in any position to even think about that, I was just totally in birth mode. Somehow Jan got them to let me in the shower, again it was amazing to connect with water. The pain started to feel different, and I was saying to Ry ‘I don’t like this pain, this kind of pain isn’t nice.’ A little while later I said ‘I think this is transition, but I can do it, I can do this.’ He was just there for me, completely and utterly. I felt completely supported by my team.
Rowena had been waiting all day to come in. At first it seemed kind of pointless as I was just wandering the streets, and by the time things started happening we were in the tiny cubicle and it would have been near impossible to fit another person in. I was thinking of Rowena a lot during the labour, I could feel her sending energy and it felt really psychic. Jan was mindful hat Rowena was meant to be present, but when she asked me about calling her, once we arrived in the labour ward, all I could say was ‘I don’t know.’ I think what I meant was I couldn’t think of anything at all. My spirit felt her so close so I was fine with that. Now I really wish I had managed to say ‘call her’ and I hope she doesn’t feel disappointed, because she was instrumental in getting me to the point of this birth. More than once in those three weeks she swooped down and gathered my pieces up, spent long hours completely focused on my balance and well-being. The most important thing Rowena did was to show me how to hold my birthing space within, that it wasn’t an exterior place but an interior position. That was so integral to how I was able to birth at a hospital.
Back to the labour ward and somehow Jan got me in the bath. They basically don’t let people use the tub at all, especially not women 43 weeks’ pregnant! But amazing Jan managed to work her magic and soon I was relaxing in a gorgeous warm tub.
I was able to get a little rest, and dilated to 10cm in the glorious water. I felt all my dreams were unfolding, and the bath was just perfection! A young doctor came in and checked my dilation and I helped her to push the cervical lip out of the way.The contractions had changed by now, they were very deep but didn’t contain much power; I had no urge to push. Jan got me out of the water and onto the toilet. That helped, but I could feel that there was little power in those rushes. Soon the ward midwife said we had to move out of the toilet as it was too small in there, which was strange and created some friction, but in the end we all piled back into the big birthing suite. Someone had set up a lovely birthing nest on the floor, and I was just trying to get into push mode. I tried so many different positions, on the nest, leaning over the bed, sitting on the birth stool. That was pretty effective, but they were very worried about the state of my bum, so they got me off that stool pretty quick. By this time Peter had arrived again and he and Ryan supported me on either side while I tried pushing that way. Time was ticking by.
I found it so hard to get into the feel of how to push, because I had to find that power within, it wasn’t innate and it didn’t come with each rush. I thought I could feel frustrated by the lack of progress, but that would have taken too much energy, energy that was currently being channelled into trying to nail this pushing gig.
In the end I got up on the bed and Jan and Peter held my legs back, while I reached forward and grasped Bibby’s hands, roaring and working. The hospital has a two hour limit for pushing and Jan was very aware of this so she came and spoke to me gently saying I needed to push this baby out or there may be some interventions on the horizon…that really spurred me on! I remember someone saying the baby was getting tired, that also really helped me…
Eventually there was progress and they got a mirror and showed me the head, it was just there, I was so amazed by that…more work, more roaring and labouring and channelling all the power. Things were happening and I could see this amazing being beginning to emerge. Jan took the monitoring straps off and she said ‘do you know why I am taking these off’ and I said I didn’t and she said ‘so you can hold your baby’. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening! Before long the midwife was helping to support the perineum and saying ‘wow you have loads of room there’ and I was saying ‘HUUUGE, HUUUGE’ and then Jan was showing me how to blow, blow, blow….It was a timeless moment, so many sensations and just when I thought ‘gosh this is too intense’ Peter said ‘well great, the head is out’ and I was like ‘Really’ and then they showed me in the mirror and there are just no words to describe how it felt to see that…I couldn’t believe I was so close to meeting my baby and I realised I had done it! I’d birthed this baby.
The next thing I knew the midwife lifted him out as his shoulders emerged and then he was on my chest, so slippery and warm and real. 2.02am 31st August, pushing for 2 hours and 12 minutes. Touching him and feeling his beautiful wholeness was indescribably beautiful. He didn’t cry, he just looked around with wide eyes. Ry was to my left, holding us close. We had become a family at last.
Jan, Pete and Bibby cleared out soon after, bleary eyed and flushed with good feelings after a great birth encounter. The midwife took special care of us, and she said to me ‘It was an honour to be at this birth. I hope that if I have a baby I can do it just like this.’ That was such a wonderful thing to hear, and Jan had also said she thought some of those young doctors were left pretty inspired seeing a natural birth in that setting…I had no room for anything but a bursting heart that night, but now a little down the track I feel full of pride that I was able to access and hold my birthing power, immense gratitude for all the energy that was sent my way by so many, some near perfect strangers, and also for the amazing team that were wholly focused on guiding me through the birth.
Blessed be life! Welcome earthside Dante my child – Papa-bear and I are here to hold your hands as you explore this marvellous world. We’ll try not to hold you too tight, to remember you are on your own journey, to let you express and explore. We’ll be here for you every step.
