Birth Story: Birthing in the Water - Nurtured Postpartum by Sarah Wallace

Not long after having my first (about 9 months to be exact actually), a very good friend of ours had her second home birth. I must say that I have learned a lot from Sam over the years, and I am so grateful for all of it. Through her I have learned more about home birth, about holistic healing, and about placenta encapsulation than I have anywhere else. Her story only increased my desire for a home birth for my next baby.

i wanted a home birth

We started trying for baby #2 a couple of months later, and after months and months and months of trying, finally conceived. We had talked about home birth and had agreed that it was the route we wanted to take for this baby, so the moment I saw that little plus sign, I started calling midwives. In Alberta, it is extremely hard to get into a midwife. The government only began covering midwifery care a couple of years prior, and there were still not enough midwives for the demand. I managed to get on with one group of midwives, but they were a half hour drive from my house. I took the spot anyway as I was so determined for a home birth. About a week later, a different midwife group called and offered me a spot with them. Their office was only five minutes from my house, so I cancelled with the first group and accepted the second group’s offer!

Midwifery care is so different from the typical OB/GYN care. I was blown away by the personal and consistent care that was given to me. My appointments were 45 minutes long, and I rarely waited past my appointment time. I felt like my midwife genuinely cared about me and my health. We chatted about life, my health, and pregnancy. It felt like I was visiting with a friend instead of a rushed medical professional. I looked forward to appointments, and so did my toddler.

Time passed. And passed. Soon, I was 37 weeks. Both of my fabulous doulas (and friends) and my midwife were gone for the weekend, and I was a little afraid labour would start. I had been having cramping, which I didn’t have at all with my first. Luckily, he held off.

And I waited again.

And waited. And waited. For four more weeks. Four weeks of cramping, of on-and-off contractions, of being “torpedo belly” huge and uncomfortable, of expecting him to join us anytime since my first had come early. It was awful waiting. I became grouchy and irritable. I went to two induction massages and nothing happened. Short of castor oil and acupuncture, I tried almost every natural induction technique in the book. Nothing worked. I was still pregnant and getting bigger by the day.

At 40 weeks and 6 days I asked my midwife to check my cervix to see if I was dilated. I had debated about asking for a stretch and sweep, but I was so conflicted so I decided against it. I wanted to do this completely naturally without any “help” to get things started. I also hadn’t had a single internal exam up until this point, but I needed to know! Surely the four weeks of cramping and on-and-off contractions had been doing something! After a quick check, my midwife told me I was only 1-2 cm dilated, but that my cervix was soft and about 50% effaced. She wasn’t expecting anything to happen soon, but assured me that my body was doing what it was supposed to do. I left feeling a sense of relief and we headed to our planned play date.

I had booked a chiropractor appointment for that afternoon to deal with some intense hip pain I was having, so we stayed longer at our play date (which just happened to be my at my doula’s house). Prior to leaving, my doula handed me the pads that she had for me and had been meaning to give me for months. As she gave them to me, she joked that now I was all ready and had everything so baby could come.

Little did she know.

I headed to my appointment where I got a much needed adjustment, and then headed home.

Later that night at 9:45, I had a contraction. I thought nothing of it, but did look at the clock. Ten minutes later, I had another contraction. At 10:15, we headed to bed. By 10:30, I had had five contractions. I texted my doulas (J and K) and told them, and decided to head out for a walk. My partner went to sleep and I took our dog out, all the while texting with J & K.

Within 5 minutes of walking, I had a contraction that I had to stop for. I walked for an hour, did some “curb walking”, and by the time I got home my contractions were only three or four minutes apart. At this point, I was still unsure if it was “the real thing” due to the stop-start labour I had had before. On advice of my doulas, I woke up my partner and told him to start setting up the pool. I texted my mom to tell her to start making her way here, but insisted she could take her time since it was still early labour and my toddler was sleeping anyway. Ha! Even if she had left immediately and sped the whole way, she likely would have missed it anyway!

Soon, contractions started to require my focus. I quickly found that the only way I could cope through them was on the birth ball. I found myself moaning through the contractions as J & K provided counter pressure. It was fabulous having them there. We were laughing between contractions as my partner cut up vegetables for snacks for everyone.

It wasn’t long before my contractions felt like they were never ending. I vaguely remember my partner timing contractions and J & K suggesting to call our midwife to come. At that point, I decided I wanted to go in the birth pool, but the water was way too hot. It was an agonizing couple of contractions as my partner added cold water to cool down the water. Finally, I was able to get in.

Bliss!

But not for long. The water didn’t really ease the pain of the contractions, but it did enable me to relax between them. Shortly after my midwife arrived, I started to feel “pushy.” She quickly checked the baby’s heart rate, mentioned that I was sounding “pushy” and let me continue on my journey in labour land. She didn’t once ask to do a cervical check. And when I said, “I think I’m pushing” she told me to go ahead. How different than my hospital experience of checks every couple of hours!

So I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. At some point during the pushing, my water broke. That was different from my first’s birth, and my partner was so surprised that it hadn’t broken yet. I found that I was very vocal. I kept saying that I couldn’t do it. Every time I pushed, I would say, “No, no, no, no. I can’t do it!” Often there were curse words in addition to that. I told my midwife to just “pull him out” and to “cut me open, I can’t do it!” I can’t remember everything I said, but I do remember feeling like he would never come. I felt an intense need to know if he was right there. I was so afraid that he would be stuck behind my pubic bone like my first. Looking back, I now know that I needed to work through that before I could push him out.

It took an hour.

An hour of doubting myself. An hour of hard work. An hour of squeezing my partner’s arm. An hour of refusing to let J & K get up. An hour of fabulous support from my doulas, midwives, and most importantly, my husband. An hour of working through my issues from my first birth.

At some point, my support team suggested that maybe I needed to get out of the pool to try a different position. I knew that I did not want to do that, but they tried to help me stand up. I kept telling them to wait. In the process, I came to a squatting position, still in the water. And then, I decided that I wanted that baby out. I may have even said something like “Get the F out of me baby!” And I pushed hard. HARD. I felt him move down. It was the oddest feeling ever.

I was told to keep pushing. I did. Soon, part of his head was out. Then, his whole head. My midwife had to help with his shoulders because they were a little tight. And he was out. I caught him between my legs as my midwife helped me to bring him to me. She noticed his cord was a little short, and ensured that I didn’t pull him all the way out of the water. I looked down and was overcome with emotion.

He was here! I did it!

After only 6.5 hours of labour, one hour and two minutes of pushing, he was here!

My partner went and woke up my toddler (who slept through all of my yelling), and I snuggled my new baby in the water. We cut the cord after it turned white. My toddler seemed pretty enthralled with the whole thing . After about a half an hour, I handed the baby over to my partner for some skin to skin so that we could focus on the placenta. I was so afraid to push. They helped me to my bedroom where they ended up having to give me oxytocin to help since I had started to pass blood clots. Soon, my small tear was repaired and they did the newborn exams, an hour and a half after A was born. We were all amazed when the scale said he was 10 lbs, 5 oz! Even more so with his 15 inch head circumference!

I felt like a warrior!

It was an amazing and wonderful experience to birth a baby in my own home, surrounded by people who care about me. Surrounded by love itself. That’s how every baby should come into this world: surrounded by love. Love made A, and love got him out.