N's Birth

As my last post stated, I'm currently on maternity leave. That is thanks to the sweet little addition to our family that was born in March.

In 2009 as part of Cesarean Awareness month (April) I created this post to tell my story about an unnecessary c-section and my subsequent vaginal birth. As a continuation, here's how my third birth transpired.

As my children had proven in the past, this little baby had decided that fashionably late was the best way to enter the world. At 9 days past my guess date, I had a non-stress test to check that things were healthy and I decided that a membrane sweep might be just the trick to encourage babe along. My childcare (my mom) lives 45 minutes away, and with the sweep, I decided to have her come stay the night with us.

During the night I had contractions on and off but they were irregular and not painful. I had a good night's rest. Around 4am (at 10 days past my guess date), I decided to get up to time the random contractions and hang out on the internet a bit. Shortly after, they were easily every 2-3 minutes, but the intense part of the contraction was only 10-15 seconds, so I was unsure if it was too early to pick up our doula and head to the hospital.

My husband has a history of deciding whether or not labour is "real", so I woke him for his experienced opinion. He thought we should likely go and therefore I called my doula to give her a head's up that we would be arriving. This was at approximately 5:30am.

Our doctor, who we love, and the hospital where he catches babies is about a 75 minute drive from our house. So after my husband packed the van (slowly might I add!), I walked outside and things instantly changed. (This happened with my second birth as well. I apparently need to physically leave my other children before labour kicks into gear). Standing outside the van as my husband removed the carseats, I had the overwhelming feeling that my water was going to break. The pressure was insane.

With my other births I can honestly say that labour was not necessarily painful, but at this point with N, it was overwhelming. I felt like I was already in transition and I was having difficulty coping. We made it to our doula's house in about 15 minutes. She sat beside me, rubbed my back and we discussed going to the local hospital rather than our chosen hospital. I was not digging the car ride, and decided to go to the closer hospital to have a cervical check before continuing.

At 6:30am we arrived on the local labour and delivery unit. They were none too happy to see me as I did not have my prenatal care done by those physicians and my care record was kept at the other hospital after my non-stress test the previous day. I was feeling a little "pushy", but knew in my head that it was due to my water still being intact and bulging. They laughably asked me to "pee in a cup", and as I tried, my water exploded (seriously. like a tsunami.). The sweet relief after was wonderful, but as the nurse checked the baby's heart rate, it was quite low (around 80 beats per minute) and she asked me to move to the bed so they could use the continuous monitor.

The movement to bed quickly abolished the relief I had and it was declared that I was 5-6cm dilated. The feeling of despair was intense. I felt like I was in transition since leaving home and I couldn't believe I still had 4-6cm to go. This feeling was short-lived as I started pushing with the next contraction and 20 minutes later, at 7:21am, my beautiful son saw the light of day.

So only a few-ish hours of labour and 20 minutes of pushing. I so wish more Mamas were encouraged and motivated to have a vaginal birth after a cesarean. My unmedicated, natural births were so amazing and empowering. I can't wait to do it again. ;)

Darling baby boy
8 pounds 6 ounces
March 22, 2011, 7:21am