The Story of Us: Part 2

That first night, lying in my hospital bed with numb legs, tangled in a mess of blankets and hospital gowns while your dad slept on a pull-out couch under the window, I think I only got about two hours of sleep.  I wasn't in pain, and you weren't crying - I just couldn't stop looking at you.

I couldn't believe you were here.  Only 4% of women deliver on their actual due dates, and I imagine the percentage of those who both begin and end the entire process from first contraction to that last push within those 24 hours is even smaller.  So I just lie there, watching you sleep and trying to remember everything that happened in the past 12 hours - making sure to etch every detail into my memory so I would never, ever forget it.

Oh the cuteness to come!

The day before, once we had made it to the hospital and found our own way through the crowded and under-construction emergency room we met Bet in the Birthing Center where we got to get settled into our room.  The Birthing Center is part of the Labour & Delivery ward at Flinders Hospital, but has a focus on natural birth - no drugs and no doctors (but both are right around the corner if you find that you need extra help.)  Each room has a double bed and a spa bath, and even a lounge set where my birth team could try to ignore me stay out of my way give me the support I needed.  Toff & I put a lot of thought into who we wanted in the room with us during the birth.  Obviously the Midwife got the first ticket, than our student midwife, Jess, who became a great friend over the past several months.  We also wanted Kiki there, not for me, but as a back up for Toff - because there was about a 89% chance that, with his severe dislike of hospitals (especially needles) he wasn't going to make it through the whole birth without fainting.  And that's where we drew the line, thinking that we didn't want it to be too crowded or chaotic.  But when it came down to it, who was around me was so far from my mind that all 5 members of Grouplove could have been in the room and I wouldn't have noticed.   This meant that Mom got to stay and even hold my hand at one point, and Stephi popped in just to say hi (she didn't stay long, I think the screaming scared her away).

We got to the hospital at 3pm, and Trip was born at 6:23pm, which gives us about 3 hours of active labour, which I divided into 3 equal parts without even trying - I just did what my body wanted me to do.

A hoppin' bottom

Stage 1 (on the bed): With tips from Juju Sandin's book, Birth Skills, I knew that I had to try to send a message to my brain that was stronger than the pain signals it was already receiving.  I climbed onto the bed on my hands and knees with a stress ball in hand and Toff rubbing my back while I stared at a sign we made that said "healthy pain," the whole time letting out loud "ahh" sounds.  The stress ball was to help me focus on parts of my body that aren't in pain - like my hands - so I didn't unintentionally focus solely on the pain.  If you can think about other parts of your body that aren't in pain this can be enough to overpower the pain.  The sign helped me to remember that there was nothing actually wrong with me.  Unlike normal pain, when it's okay just to curl up and hide until it's over, this was pain that I could work with. It only hurts because the walls of my uterus were contracting over and over, and just like any other muscle during a workout, it gets tired and hurts after a while.  Each contraction only lasts about one minute, with a break between five minutes to one minute towards the end, so I only had to distract my mind from the pain in one minute sessions.  And Toff rubbing my back...well that just felt good.

We brought our computer and speakers with us, so Kiki began searching for music that she felt was suitable.  But out of our "1841, 4.8 days" worth of songs the only thing I wanted to listen to was Grouplove's new cd, which had just come out the day before.  So that is what we listened to, on repeat, about four times.  As far as background music for labor I think it's quite a fitting cd - out of the twelve tracks on the album, two of them feature lyrics about "mom & dad:"

Don't Say Oh Well:

So I kissed my mommy on her sweet cheeks
And I told my dad I'm real glad that we're friends

Itchin' on a Photograph:

Yeah I'm waiting on my mum and dad
Yeah I'm swinging on a branch that'll last
Yeah I'm going up then falling back
Yeah I'm itchin' on a photograph

And while the baby was actually being born, their track called "Naked Kids" was playing.  Also, very fitting.  (Don't ask me how Toff had enough brain power to pick up on a specific song while he was holding the leg of his screaming wife...but he made a note of it during one of the brief periods I was quiet enough to hear him.)

Stage 2 (to the shower):  After about an hour (totally guessing here - it could have been anywhere between fifteen minutes and fifteen hours, I was so focused) I realized that the pain was getting bigger, and while my "ahh's" were getting louder and my tapping of the stress ball was getting faster to try to match the pain, I realized that if I wanted to stay in control I needed to try something else.  So I climbed into the shower.

I kept doing everything I was doing before, except now I was standing, leaning against the sink while the hot water poured and pounded over my back.  Staring down at my & Toff's feet splashing against the wet tiles I thought of a post on a blog I've read about baby feet (read it HERE) and thought about how there would be another pair to join us soon.  I started chanting "toes...baby toes" and even managed to relay the story to Toff so he wouldn't wonder if maybe I had gotten into some drugs somewhere.  He started saying it with me, and helped remind me of toes, and how there wasn't any pain in my feet, so focus on them!  

Stage 3 (and finally the tub):  I guess it must have been about an hour when I felt like I couldn't be in the shower any more - my legs were just tired.  So we went over to the tub which Bet had already filled with warm water for us.  I started on my hands and knees again, like I was on the bed.  Still with stress ball in hand and Toff rubbing my back, reminding me that "toes! there is no pain in your toes!"  Grouplove was still playing, and our entire birth team was just chatting and relaxing on the couches - resting up for what was about to get a lot more interesting.   


After only a few more contractions I felt like I needed to push, but knew that with posterior babies sometimes that happens when the baby isn't actually ready to come out, so I didn't think it was actually going to be time.  Bet came over to check things out, and said, "okay!  Whenever you're ready, go ahead!"  As my cousin Gin would say "um...excusleberries???"  I couldn't believe it was going to be that simple - turns out ladies, your body really does know how to do this birthing babies business, you just have to listen to it!  


My birth team spurred into action.  Toff sat next to me in the tub, Jess sat outside the tub on my other side, Kiki held a pillow underneath my head and gave me water when I needed it, Mom hovered around (choosing, I think, to stay away from the business end, so I couldn't actually see her) and Bet stood to the side and gave me encouragement when I needed it.  That was really neat I think, throughout the whole labor it was really just Toff and I, working through it together.  No doctors to worry about or a million different nurses, just one midwife who let us know she was there if we needed her, but who also knew we could do it on our own.  And we did.  And not once did I turn to Toff and say, "you did this to me!"  (Which I am rather proud of.)   I may have let the f-bomb drop every now and then, and I think I remember saying "I'm ready to meet you baby....I'm ready for this to be over." And every now and then I thought "I can't do this anymore..." but then that contraction would end and I would get to take a break, and with the next one I would just yell a little bit louder and think of nothing other than baby toes, splashing on the tiles beside my own.   


And Naked Kids started playing over the speakers, and Bet was saying "you're doing great Cara, one more push.  Big push!"  and four other voices joined in with choruses of "you're doing great" and "you're awesome" and Mom grabbed onto my hand.  And before I knew it, Bet was saying she could see the head, and then there was this baby, and I reached down and Toff reached down and we both lifted it onto my chest...and in a fit of genius all I could say was "baby, babybaby oh baby...."  And I heard someone over my shoulder say "is it a boy or a girl?" so I looked down and got to be the first one ever to say "it's a boy!"  And he was perfect and beautiful and he squinched up his face and started to cry and ohmygoodness we have a baby!  

And then there were three.