I admire this woman for writing her birth story.  A birth that she found difficult , when I read the story I feel the raw energy I felt on the day of the birth.  I also feel the need to justify my actions in the story.  Not because I was at another birth initially but because I actually manipulated the baby a little after being asked.  It’s not something that I regret as I am happy that births are always decisions made by women and their midwives but because it is not something that I would advocate.  Would I do it again?  Of course I would if it were important to the woman.

Thanks for this amazing birth story.

The Birth of Brydda

Soon after Luke and I got together we knew we wanted to marry and have kids. We got pregnant sooner than expected, but were both cautiously happy.

Pregnancy wasn’t what I expected. I had moments of calm and peaceful expectation, but there were also moments of severe self doubt and something like despair. I liked the feel of my growing belly, but I didn’t like the lack of sleep or heartburn that it caused. And although I felt excited at the baby moving inside me, I often felt detached, even resentful. Looking back, I didn’t feel really comfortable with pregnancy until very late into it (about 38 weeks!), when I went to a second birthday party at the wonderful light-filled home of my friends in the hills. That day I was suddenly struck by the love they had created: by the patience and tenderness with which they held their little boy, and the way he shone just to be near them. I remember thinking, ‘I want this. I want to experience this love.’

I had been to the hospital early in the pregnancy on the urging of my mother and GP, but knew in my core all along that I wanted to birth at home, and Luke supported me wholeheartedly. After several unpleasant antenatal visits during which I was informed that I would be preventatively ‘treated’ with dangerous anticoagulants for a blood disorder I didn’t have (and their own tests proved it), patronised like a stubborn schoolgirl for declining routine ultrasounds and Dopplers, and told the birthing centre was simply full, I bit the bullet and left without making another appointment. We had already been in touch with Lisa and come to know her as a passionate, wise, experienced midwife, and I felt relieved to be in her care, which was amply more caring than that of the hospital.

The baby’s head descended fairly early on, and throughout the pregnancy both Luke and I had intuitively felt that she or he would come earlier than 40 weeks. I had prepared all my labour essentials: oils, altar, exercise balls, tambourine, placenta bag, birthing necklace, mental imagery and affirmations by 36 weeks. But it wasn’t to be. And in hindsight, as impatient as I was at the time, I wasn’t ready. Can one ever be ready?

When the birth did happen, it definitely wasn’t what I expected. I woke early on my birthday (the day before 41 weeks) with mild cramps, and a fervent hope that this would be ‘it’. I’d had very little sleep and was still resurfacing from a bad cold, but was buoyed by the idea that I would soon meet the precious soul inside me. Twelve hours later the excitement was starting to wear off; I knew I was in labour, but things were taking a long time. The contractions were painful but I could still breathe through them. Strangely, they were much stronger when I lay down, which I did as much as I could, hoping to speed things up. Luke had spoken to Lisa on the phone on and off, and she thought it would take a while, but told me that she would come whenever I felt I needed her.

I had been dodging birthday phone calls all day, with the excuse that we were ‘about to head out to a movie’, so we decided to do just that. We went to a nine o’clock session, but I found that it did little to distract me, and it was hard not being able to move much. We left halfway through, and were home by 11pm. After a long walk by the river, the contractions were still painful, but not strong enough for me to feel like I was close to birthing. When we arrived home something inside me gave way, and I remember standing in the back yard crying to the near-full moon, begging for her to help me because it was getting too much.

I lay down in the bedroom to try to get some rest, and that’s when the contractions really hit. They hit like a tsunami. I suddenly understood what women meant when they talked about the pain of labour. I needed Lisa. We called her, only to find that she had been called to another birth. I was intensely disappointed, but she assured us that she would be there soon. Meanwhile, she offered to send Rose, another midwife who lived nearby, around to sit with me.
Rose arrived shortly. She set about quietly and respectfully offering words of encouragement and filling the birth pool. By then the contractions were beginning to blow my mind. As each one hit, I fell to my hands and knees and roared. Luke had spent time learning acupressure points for pain relief, but I found I didn’t want any touch. It helped to have Rose there, but it was still very difficult not having Lisa, who had been with me for the whole pregnancy. I knew Rose socially though prenatal yoga (she was also very pregnant, poor thing!), but Lisa I knew and trusted as a woman knows and trusts her midwife.
Rose asked if I was feeling any ‘pressure’. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I felt that perhaps by now I should be feeling the urge to push, so tentatively I tried to push. The more I pushed, the more I felt I needed to push. My body took over; I got in the pool and my body pushed for me, with every contraction. Between contractions I was so mentally and physically exhausted that I just sat back and fell asleep. I hated each contraction because it pulled me back to consciousness.

After a couple of hours of pushing in the pool, nothing much had happened. Luke was bucketing water out because he could see my head dipping towards the waterline. I remember hoping that I would pass out because it would give me some relief. I knew from all my research that the ‘pushing’ stage shouldn’t take this long; I could just feel the top of the baby’s head deep inside, but it didn’t seem to be moving any further down for all my pushing. I started to fear that something was wrong. I told Rose and Luke that I couldn’t do it anymore. I had the crazy idea that if I went to the hospital they could give me something to stop labour for a few hours so I could sleep. Of course I knew that hospital would probably mean a caesarean, but I honestly couldn’t see any other way to proceed. I felt completely hollowed out; I had nothing left.

Somewhere around sunrise, Lisa arrived. Every time I looked up she was there with a glass of water and rehydration salts, and a spoonful of honey. The day was heading towards 42 degrees, and apparently I was very dehydrated. Luke and Rose had offered me water, but they weren’t as forceful as Lisa, and I had mostly ignored them. Lisa suggested I get on the toilet to help move things along. I asked her to do an internal, and she found that there was a lip at the front of my cervix that wasn’t fully dilated. The baby was coming down at an angle, with one shoulder against my bowel—the reason I had felt like pushing—but the baby’s head was stuck against my cervix. I needed to lie on my side and ‘not push’, to relieve the pressure. For anyone who hasn’t experienced it, ‘not pushing’ is like holding back the tsunami with a sieve, and after an hour of it, I was back on the toilet. The lip was smaller, but it was still there.

I looked at Lisa. I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and I think she finally believed me.
‘There are a few things we can try before we go to hospital,’ she said.
I nodded. Anything.

So with the next contraction, Lisa reached into me and pushed as I did. When she told me the cervix was now out of the way and I could push my baby out, I was scared to believe her, so I asked her to check again.  It was. Then she warned me that it could still take half an hour or more to push the baby out after this point. My most vivid memory of labour is sitting on the toilet gripping Luke’s arm, him omming, low and strong, to help me through the waves. It made me think of cherry blossoms.
About an hour later I was in the bedroom, squatting on a bolster, pushing pushing pushing with every skerrick of my being.   She listened for the baby’s heartbeat, and couldn’t hear it. She reassured me, saying that it was most likely because the baby was too far down. To be honest I didn’t care. I just wanted the pain to end. All thought had gone from my mind.

Then I felt the head and it all changed. I said to the baby, ‘come on, beautiful boy, come on little man,’ and he came, alive and slippery into his daddy’s arms. He was covered in blood (mine) and poo (his) and his head was squashed but he was perfect, and tiny, and alive. I blew on his face to kick-start his breathing, and he began to wail. I was shocked that we were both alive.

It was about 11am and the day was well and truly heating up when I climbed up on the bed and pushed out a round, beautiful placenta, which we left attached until Brydda let go of it on day 5. Luke passed Brydda to me and we had our first attempt at breastfeeding, which was a bit of a muddle. Everything seemed surreal and hazy, we were all so exhausted. I had a second degree tear, but it was straight and held together well. I decided not to have it stitched because I couldn’t bear the thought of any more pain (and with the aid of seaweed and time it did heal very well). Lisa left the three of us in bed together.

I think I got about 20 minutes of sleep before being thrust onto the wonderful, rocky road of motherhood, which wasn’t what I expected, but that’s another story…
Looking back at labour, it was the most harrowing, shocking experience of my life. I honestly believed at the time that I could not do it, and that I would die. I’m sure that it was equally as difficult for Brydda, though I may never know for sure. On the tough days, looking back, I’m sometimes disappointed in myself, or resentful that the birth was so hard for us both, and so different from what I’d hoped. But most days I’m deeply grateful that I was able to stay at home, and that we have a healthy, beautiful baby boy. If you ask me, any day, would I do it again, at home, drug-free? The answer is, in a heartbeat. I can’t really describe why, but it has to do with love: love for my child, and myself, and my body. On this journey, the three of us are teaching each other so much about love. I’m looking forward to the day Brydda asks about that stain on the carpet in our bedroom.

Since this birth story was written here is a brief update to Brydda’s birth.

Related posts:

1. Lilly’s Homebirth – A Dad’s Story
2. Caleb’s Homebirth Story
3. India’s Homebirth Story
4. Post Script for Brydda’s birth
5. A Homebirth Love Story