Monique shares the story of Isaac’s birth
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The biggest thing that’s happened in my life in recent times is pushing out a 10lb12oz (4890g) baby boy with no drugs! His head was 39cm, & he was 58cm long.
On the Friday morning I had a show and thought for sure it would all start. After I got a show with my first, labour started up immediately. However, I waited all day Friday, agonising over every little thing happening in my body, wondering if this back pain, or that abdomen cramp, or baby’s stillness was all indicators or not. By 10.30pm that night I gave up in disgust, and instead began planning the assault on my midwife on Tues morning to do a stretch-n-sweep cos I was not wanting a HUGE baby by any stretch. (After they hit term, they can put on 250g per week!)
Had the best sleep I’ve had in ages on Friday night, and woke on Sat determined to try not to think about it and just get on with it. Well of course, that is easier said than done! What the hell could I do to fill my time? Baby’s room is ready, Sam’s curtains are sewed and up, house is pretty tidy, piles of junk around the place have been sorted out, I’ve cleaned all baby’s clothes sheets & linen, I’ve completed the cross-stitch for my niece’s 1st birthday and laced it ready for framing, I’ve bought all my June birthday gifts… I think you’re starting to get the picture. Grumpy, fat pregnant, nervous wife. After all, when was the dreaded pain going to hit?!?!
So I go to bed all prepared to be doing this for another few days, when I woke at 1.40am with my waters starting to break. Made it to loo without getting any on bed or floor – nice effort I thought! Then had period pain for 20mins. Then those pains started getting much stronger where I was starting to feel the baby moving down. FREAKY fast. So we rang my Mum to come in (an hour drive away), rang my cousin who was attending the birth, and the midwife, who said we could go direct to Papakura.
However, we were still waiting for Justin’s Dad to get here from Whitford (20min trip) to look after Sammy. Towards 2.15am, I began to feel like I could start pushing. That was freaky, knowing I was in limbo, couldn’t leave Sammy on his own, but didn’t want to bring him with us where he would hear me screaming in the car etc etc. Justin loaded car with baby capsule, bags etc, and then 2mins later his father arrived. Phew! Outa here. Was struggling to walk at this point. I started pushing in the car on the way to Papakura (12min trip), and praying for God to give me peace, strength, and to give this baby patience it would stay up there till I was with midwife!
I couldn’t believe how quick it was going. Baring in mind Sam took 12 hours, 3 of which were pushing.
I managed to walk down to the delivery room where the pool was almost ready. Yay! Only to be told I couldn’t get in cos there was Meconium in my waters, so it adds a bit of extra risk to a waterbirth which isn’t worth it. So on the bed I got. (previously the thought freaked me that I may not get a waterbirth, but I was just relieved to be off my feet!). I was still waiting for my Mum & Carla to arrive too.
The pushing continued and I knew by then it was going quick. Carla got there about 15-20mins before he was born. He was already crowning. So she snuck in, found the video cam and started filming. Which was such a relief for me, cos in the middle of all this I was feeling gutted that I wasn’t going to get it videoed and I’d miss out on watching another of my kids be born! She had video in one hand and camera in the other, and got some brilliant shots.
This time I felt completely taken along for the ride. As each contraction hit, I hang on to my husbands arm so hard I thought it would break. I just couldn’t bear it alone. Nothing in this world feels like that tearing as a baby forces its way into the world. So my boy was born 2hrs & 14mins after my waters broke. It was unbelievably better than Sammy’s labour! I felt euphoric! I never dreamed I’d have a quick birth like that!
Afterwards tho, I had a bit of a rough time. Not that it ruined my experience or mood, but it was annoying. I had to transfer to another maternity unit cos Papakura was full. But before I’m allowed to transfer, I have to be able to walk unaided. Sigh. Not easy. So about 4 hours after (stitching had been done – LOVE the gas!!!), we had a shot. I got to loo, but then started to black out. Had midwife on one side, Mum on other and they pushed me back and lifted my legs above my head to try stop it. But it just got worse and I was really starting to go. Horrid. (am used to fainting tho – am very prone to it anyway). So they wheeled me back to bed and Irene (midwife) decided I needed to have a litre of fluids to try get my blood pressure back up to normal. She put in the lure and it went right through vein cos apparently all the periphery veins kind of collapse when someone faints to keep the blood close to the heart. So that had to come out, and she put in a butterfly (little lure) that does a really slow feed just to get the veins big enough to take the normal lure. After about 15mins, she was able to find a big enough vein and we were away laughing. I HATE needles so much so I was very brave.
I’d already had to have the jab to help the uterus contract cos the clots weren’t coming away after the placenta. She had to do quite a bit of massaging my tummy really hard to expel the clots and MAN that hurt! But she got 400g of clots from me! Huge amount.
So the fluids made a huge difference. After they’d finished, a couple of hours later I was totally able to do a short distance unaided. So my discharge was underway and we were driving to Botany around 1pm.
Got my own room at Botany so that was lovely. They (staff there) were all astonished at Isaac’s size and the fact I’d had him naturally. So I was a bit of a celeb.
Birthing Isaac was fast, and a little out of control – watch this space for a homebirth next time!
