Emma’s Baby

by Emma, Australia

I was awoken around midnight with a discomfort and then after feeling it again about 10 minutes later, remembered that a girlfriend had told me that walking will help bring on the contractions and speed up labour so up I went to the other end of the house to start recording the times and also to keep DH sleeping b/c one of may as well be 🙂

That kept going until 4.30am until the back pain was too much (bub was posterior) so I got into the shower. I was in there for a half hour which was lovely but then got out and kept walking. By 6.30am, they were slowing down instead of speeding up so I sat down on my rocker with some breakfast for a much needed break.

DH awoke, took a shower and got ready for work when I told him about what had happened. Seeing as though it was all over, I was all for him going – it was going to be easy enough to call him if things changed. I did, however, call my birth back-up and she came in once taking her children to school. By 10am, she arrived, I woke up and they started all over again so we took a small walk around the block which helped. There aren’t too many things funnier than having a contraction in front of a new house being built and the labourers all panicking about what to do. I knew that if I got to the hospital, they wouldn’t allow me to have any food incase a C-section was required so I made my girlfriend take me down for some delicious beer-battered wedges 🙂

By 1.30pm, things really picked up and we called my husband to come home. He got home around 2.00pm and then after a half hour, I made the call to the hospital and they advised that even though my waters hadn’t broken, I should come in and they’d check me out. It took them until about 4.15pm to put me on the monitor and of course, it was uncomfortable with bub being posterior and me being stuck on my back. As well as that, with every contraction, all of that extra pressure made me feel like I just needed to poop (no one tells you that part…). After having me on the monitor for 45minutes, they discovered that bub’s heartbeat was irregular, as were the strength of my contractions. They said they’ll probably be sending me home because I was so alert during the contractions but they wanted to do an internal just to make sure.

Internal done and they found out that I’d dilated 6cm so I wasn’t going anywhere 🙂 At that stage, they had to break my waters to see if it would speed things up and you bet your bottom dollar it did!! Aye carumba… it all picked up in a big way. There was thick meconium in the waters so they wanted to get me around to birth suite quick smart. By the time they wheeled me around there, I’d had 2 massive contractions and dilated another 2.5cm. As soon as my waters broke, I kept telling everyone that all I just felt like doing was pushing but of course, wasn’t allowed to do that.

I was wheeled into birth suite and the previous mum was being wheeled out and the new linens brought in so I was told to strip off and get into the shower so the mid-wife could get the bed ready and the birth-plan read. My Midwife, husband and girlfriend were all yelling at me that I’m not ready to push when I kept telling them I needed to and finally the MW came over to check me out by which time she starts yelling at everyone to get me on the bed to start pushing.

I had enough time to get onto the bed and into my favoured position, have 2 contractions and out came my gorgeously BLUE daughter who’d been rap-dancing inside and gotten the cord wrapped around her neck 3 times. Between that and the thick meconium, the 2 midwifes were calling for the doctor but then she started to cry and so Doc was no longer necessary.

Throughout the whole time, there wasn’t even any thought of pethedine, gas or anything else which was fabulous until it was time for the stitches. I almost wish my daughter tore me just a little bit more on the way down because I was only 4 stitches away from needing to be put under to have them. That was far worse than the labour!