Abby's birth story - part 1
This is long overdue. Many of the details are fuzzy now. I have the midwives' notes from my birth but I haven't read them all the way through to be exact about times and events.
June 7th 37 weeks + 3 days 9:33 am
I'm a bit crampy today, and baby feels soooo low in my pelvis and against my cervix.
June 7th 37 weeks + 3 days 11:30 pm
Feeling very neglected and ignored by my family. “Don't they realize how close I am to having this baby!?” Jack is too tired to rub my aching feet and back. We still haven't decided on a name.
June 8th 37 weeks + 4 days
I'm taking a day to rest in bed. I'll get up to eat, drink and pee but no errands, no housework, no cleaning, and no laundry. I'm tired of limping around, watching my feet swell and wedging my belly in behind the steering wheel just to make sure all the "mom" things get done. So I'm staying in my pj's, reading until I get sleepy, dozing off between Julia's visits to my room, and drinking lots of water. For today, and possibly for the rest of my pregnancy, I'm looking out for myself and this baby *first*.
June 8th 37 weeks + 4 days 5:40 pm
I've been contracting and cramping a lot today; not regular at all and they last only 30 seconds but they are strong enough that I really don't want to continue to walk or talk through them. I'm trying to ignore them because I can't believe that this could be early labour. I feel a bit anxious knowing that Jack will be leaving tomorrow morning for the whole weekend. Hopefully these contractions will ease up. I had previously planned to bake cookies, wash and wax my floors this weekend but now.....
June 8th 37 weeks + 4 days 10:08 pm
Cramps and contractions seem to have eased now, finally. They were very irregular, anywhere from every 5-30 minutes, but quite strong and painful. Took some cal/mag and RRL tea around suppertime and I'm drinking lots of water. Streaks of bloody mucous twice tonight but I had "show" for a week before I went into labour with Julia. Now that things have settled down, I helped Jack pack for his fishing trip but I have really mixed feelings about it. For my own selfish reasons, I don't want him to go. I want him here to rub my back, be close by in case I go into labour, and help keep the girls from driving me mad. Instead, he'll be in the middle of a lake 6 hours away. I should be just fine. It's only three days.....what can happen in three days, right?
June 9th 37 weeks + 5 days 5:54 am
Contractions eased up by the time I went to bed, up every hour to pee and each time I changed position they came back. Throughout the night and early this morning, Jack reached over and rubbed my back when I would squirm or moan. The heat and strength from his hands is like nothing else, and I'm hoping that all of this isn't the start of labour because I need him here with me. I don't want to ask him to stay, not enough signs of true labour for me, but I feel very needy nonetheless. Kim can stay home from school today; I just don't want to be alone today. A hot bath while I drink my tea sounds like a good idea.
June 9th 6 am - noon
Contractions continue. Sitting, rocking, and dozing in the recliner, waking for contractions. Jack and I discuss whether he should leave for his fishing trip or not. We get his stuff loaded in the car and agree that he'll call before he leaves Saskatoon to see what's happening. As soon as he leaves, I decide to make up my bed with the fitted plastic sheet and I call Kim to help. As we make up the bed, I see that Jack has forgotten his entire bag of clothes and toiletries for his trip. I call him on his cell, he is about 20 minutes from home. He comes back home, sees that I have made up the bed, and after watching me through several contractions he decides to stay home from his fishing trip. Good call.
Julia goes to a friend's house for the day (and eventually overnight), Kim is quietly doing chores around the house. Jack is restless and not sure what to do with himself. He finally settles himself in the basement with the spindles for our new back step and begins staining them. The house is quiet. I sit in the recliner for a while and then I go lay down in bed. Jack brings me the mail and Lucy's birth announcement is there. I prop it up against my alarm clock and look at it while I have contractions.My nephew drops in and I can hear him and Jack talking quietly in the living room. When a contraction comes I grip my pillow and moan when it peaks. I wonder what my nephew is thinking and I find it odd that I am in my room laboring alone while they visit in the living room.
I keep in touch with Ros (my midwife) throughout the morning. Around lunchtime I'm still not convinced that the contractions won't stop but we agree that they should come anyway to check on me. I worry that they will make the long drive for nothing if my contractions quit.
June 9th Afternoon and early evening
Debbie (midwife) is the first to arrive just as I am in the bathroom throwing up and shaking. This has come on so suddenly but after I throw up, I feel a bit better. Contractions are so intense. Ros arrives just a few minutes later. I find standing with my hands on my hips help. I can't sit through a contraction. I kneel on the living room floor leaning on the seat of a kitchen chair. I can move my hips a bit and it's easy for someone to rub my back.
Jack blows up the pool in the kitchen and begins filling it with warm water. Several times as I am standing in the living room, I look over at the pool but I just can't bring myself to get in. Ros asks me several times if I want to try it, but I just can't make myself try it. Weird.
Tonight is the night for the Canadian Cancer Society's "Relay for Life" and Kim is on one of the teams. I'm surprised that she still wants to go but I think she's feeling a bit weird about seeing me in labour. I don't think she's scared, but I can tell she wants to distance herself a bit. We promise to call her or come get her once the baby arrives. With the frequency and intensity of the contractions I feel sure that the baby will be here by suppertime or early evening.
I keep up my strength by nibbling toast, sipping Propel and water. I vomit two or three times while I'm in labor and Jack holds the ice cream pail for me, switching it out for an empty one while Debbie and Ros empty the yucky one. I hate throwing up and I hate for people to see me like that - sweaty, drooling, eyes popping out of my head while I have dry heaves. Awful.
Late evening
I've labored kneeling against the couch, on the seat of a chair, laying on my left side in bed with Jack, and lots of standing with my hands on my hips. Jack has draped a cold wet cloth across the back of my neck to keep me cool and I realize that the cloth has made my nightie very damp. Normally this would drive me crazy and I would have to change immediately but I have bigger fish to fry.
I'm very vocal. "Ssshhhh" -ing through my teeth during contractions, moaning too. I have moments where I don't think I can do it and I say that out loud. Ros is right there in my face telling me "You can!!" and Jack gets in my face too and reassures me. I try to speak positive words to myself, "I can do this.....Good baby..... One at a time ......." Oh screw it. "I can't do this anymore!! No more! No more!" The contractions dies off and I dread the next one coming. I try more positive self-talk between contractions. I look and notice that the bedroom window is shut and I'm glad - I don't want the neighbors to hear me.
I get tired of lifting my nightie every time they check fetal heart tones so I pull of my nightie and put on a pink tank top instead. I'm beyond feeling self-conscious. Jack catches me looking at the digital alarm clock beside our bed and tells me "Quit looking at the clock!" It feels like this is taking forever!!
June 9th approximately 10 pm
I don't notice, but I am aware that Ros and Debbie have set out their supplies and equipment. They've spread the shower curtain on the floor of the bedroom and I remain on the bed with Jack. I ask for a VE. Ros says she can't feel any cervix but the bulge of waters is SO BIG that my cervix could be behind it. Just as she finishes the exam, my water breaks. Such a big gush of water, splashes all the way across the bed and onto the floor at the foot of the bed! I ask, "Is it clear?" The midwife in me......it's automatic. Yes, the water is clear and lots of it! I can hear Debbie mopping up the water on the shower curtain with some chux pads.
I ask Ros how far I'm dilated. "Your cervix is very floppy" she replies. I know that means she doesn't want to give the number so I ask again. "You're a good five" she says. "Five!? Only FIVE!?" I am frustrated and annoyed that my body is taking so long to do this! I've done it twice before, it shouldn't be this hard!
So much pressure now, I'm on my hands and knees on the bed with Jack on my right. At the height of each contraction my body pushes and I try with all I have to NOT PUSH. "Huh, huh, huh" I pant as the contraction starts, and then as it peaks, my body pushes. Jack tries to tell me "Don't push! Breathe! Just breathe! Stay with me!" I can't control the urge and I push for a few seconds with each contraction but I feel no progress. I want to be checked again but don't have the energy or thoughts to speak out loud. I look down at one point and I see rivers of sweat literally pouring off of me, running between my breasts and down my legs making the bed wet. Jack mops my face and arms with a damp cloth and they turn a fan on in the room but I am working so hard. So much sweat!
Ros, Debbie and Jack try to get me to move off the bed. I know in my mind that if I do, the baby will shift enough that the birth will happen right away. My mind knows it, but my body CAN.NOT.MOVE. By the time a contraction ends, I am breathless and just need a moment to recover, but the contractions are so close together that by the time I catch my breath, another one has started. Just moving one knee an inch or two brings on a whopper of a contraction and I resist moving.
June 9th approximately 11:30 pm
Finally, in one big movement, I crawl off the bed to my left and stand through a HUGE contraction. I also feel Abby's head turn a bit and move down through my cervix. I feel relief and joy along with the pain. "Aaaahh, here she comes!" That gets everyone's attention, but I know that she isn't about to fly out of me, she's just moving down nice and slow. I feel progress with the pushes as I stand and I am told that I need to come down to the end of the bed and kneel down to birth this baby. The end of the bed seems like a mile away. Again, in one big movement I make it to the foot the bed and slowly lower myself to my knees.
I've never birthed a baby in this position before and it feels a bit foreign. Jack is kneeling on my left at the side of the bed with his face close to mine while I push. Abby's head is coming nice and slow. To me, it feels too slow, almost stuck, but I know it's good for her to crown slowly. Ros guides me physically and verbally to push slow, then breathe, push a bit more. I hold my sweaty head in my hands and cover my eyes while I push. I WANT THIS BABY OUT NOW!! I reach down between my legs and feel her wet sticky head. I've never done this while giving birth and it's a wonderful feeling to touch my baby's head before she's even born. I feel a change in pressure once her head is out and it feels like forever before her shoulders come.
June 9th 11:45 pm
I feel the "pop" of her shoulder finally coming out from under my pubic bone and then it's a gush of warm wet baby and water. I feel such relief and I rest against the bed for a moment while Ros and Debbie wrap Abby in a towel and prepare to hand her to me. Ros carefully passes her through my legs to me, I hold her in my arms with her head on my left, and I am so happy she's here! Jack takes pictures, I am wiping Abby's face and head, gently rubbing the soles of her feet and talking to her, trying to get her to breathe. Within a minute or so, Ros tells me to put her down on the floor beside me. Debbie is on my right with the oxygen and mask ready to go. They suction her with a bulb and a deLee, and give her some oxygen. She is still very floppy and purple.
I alternate between being very concerned and upset, and then being ecstatic that she is here. I just assume that she will come around in a moment and all will be ok. As Ros and Debbie continue to suction her and give her oxygen, I am talking to her, rubbing her feet and trying to stimulate her. I look at Jack who is standing by the bed and I'm scared. Ros tells Jack to call 911.
WHAT?? I'm confused. She's going to come around on her own, right? What do you mean 'call 911'?? This can't be happening. I'm sure that as soon as the call is made, Abby will go, "Okay, fine, I'll breathe for you!"
She doesn't breathe. As Jack is on the phone with 911, our cell phone rings and it's Kim calling from the community center. I can hear the excitement in her voice as she asks, "Is my baby sister here?" Jack is holding a phone in each hand and tells Kim that the baby is here but she's having trouble breathing. I am repeating the midwive's information on Abby's condition so that Jack can tell the 911 operator. I hear the fear in Jack's voice but he is trying to stay calm.
I am still kneeling on the shower curtain on the floor, surrounded by a lake of bloody amniotic fluid. I feel a gush of blood and a cramp and I know the placenta is separating. As I watch Ros and Debbie with the baby, I massage my own uterus and check to see if the cord is still pulsating. It is, and I am still attached to Abby. One of the midwives asks the other for the second deLee. I quickly reach behind me and grab my own sterile deLee off the dresser, open it and hand it to Ros. Within minutes the first EMT (Fay) arrives, and we quickly clamp and cut Abby's cord. Fay scoops her up in a towel and hustles out of the room with Jack and Debbie right behind her.
June 10th just after midnight
I am exhausted. Concerned. Terrified. Bleeding. The house is eerily silent after all the commotion of the labour and birth. Ros and I are alone. She helps me to sit down and deliver the placenta. I am weak and upset. Ros helps me to get onto the bed and then helps me to scoot up to the head of the bed. She checks my perineum and my bleeding. The EMT's return to check on me. I'm fine, hardly bleeding at all. Just really worried about my baby and I just need to be with her. I am "high" from the birth but scared out of my mind. It's a crazy feeling. There is something huge missing. I should be in bed with Jack and Abby, calling my mom to tell her the news. Instead, my whole family is absent, I am empty and confused.
My head is pounding and I need some Rescue Remedy before going to bed. I needed to write this. I will write more about Abby's birth and death, but not tonight.