Scarlet’s Birth Story

My “due date” was June 23rd 2009 – however, as my midwives and husband will testify, I always knew I was going to deliver early.

The evening of June 14th 2009 my husband and I had decided to go out to the local bar with some friends. I left after an hour or so and after eating some delicious chicken wings…i remember the chicken wings very clearly! I had left my husband to have a few drinks with the hope that he would come home at a reasonable hour (we can but hope!). I went to sleep and I think he came home around 2 o’ clock in the morning. No biggie!

I woke up about 4′ o clock in the morning and discovered a little more watery discharge than I had previously experienced in the latter stage of my pregnancy. I got up to go to the bathroom, did my business, then noticed a tiny spot of pinkish liquid on the tile floor.

Hmmm. I kind of dismissed it but hoped in the back of my mind that this was either a bit of my mucus plug or my bloody show. I didn’t get my hopes up as even if it was my bloody show, labor could still be days away.

I went back to sleep.

At around 5.30 am I woke up again and went to the bathroom. As I made my way there I noticed a little discomfort in my belly. This felt like very low grade menstrual cramps, or more accurately, like I had a mild urinary infection. I noticed more pink watery stuff though. I think I smiled at this point as I got the feeling that this might be the early start of my labor. I remember dilly dallying in the bathroom wondering if I should clean the bathroom now (in preparation for possibly birthing in the tub), or whether to go back to bed. Thank the Lord I decided to stay up for a little while and clean the bathroom, then proceeded to dirty it up by having a bath!

Around 7am I went back to bed with the intent of laboring there for a while in the hopes of stirring my husband. I think at this point I said something to him about getting up soon because “he had a lot to do”. No luck there. After about an hour of increased labor and no signs of life from my beloved I went back to run another bath.

And this is where it gets a little blurry in my mind…

My contractions so far had been very “dealable”. I know that that is a made up word, but it fits the purpose perfectly! I do recall them getting a little more rhythmic and intense, but nothing like I had expected. Then something happened. Don’t ask me what, I either don’t know or can’t recall. Looking back I can only surmise that my labor “jumped”. It seemed like I went from a 3 out of ten on the scale to the 8, 9, 10 range. No long slow build up, no warning, no preparation time! I dealt with this in the tub on my own for as long as I could and then made my way back (much slower this time) to bed. I obviously had a conversation with my husband about him getting up because he did. I do remember this little conversation we had though…

ME: (through contractions) Time to get up honey, here is the list, I need you to do all the things on here

HUSBAND: (through sleep) Ughhh, do I have time for a shower?

ME: Yes. Just hurry back please.

Hmmm….looking back now, I really shouldn’t have said “yes”!

Of course, as soon as I give my husband permission to mess around in the shower for God knows how long, mother nature decides to put things into high gear. Thanks mom!

Time wise it’s about 10.30am. And I really don’t have much to write at this point as I really don’t remember. I remember feelings, emotions and little excerpts…but to even begin to write a logical and chronological account would be a waste of my time and yours! However I can piece together this stage from my memory, my husband’s (hungover!) memory, information from my Doula and midwives, and logic.

So, I am on the bed, kind of dealing with the physicality of it all as best I can on my own, which in my opinion, isn’t very well! I was very vocal at this point, there was writhing involved and the contractions seemed endless. They were coming extremely close together and had changed. Goodbye to the slowly progressive, dealable contractions and BIG HELLO AND WELCOME to what I now know was transition.

In truth I had been going through transition for about an hour already, whilst in the bath before my husband commandeered it. But it seemed to triple in intensity at this point.

There was conversation between my freshly wet husband and I as to calling the midwives. I refused and relented to calling our Doula instead. Good move. Whilst awaiting her arrival there was (apparantly) another conversation about the midwives, who were subsequently called. Anna will later tell me that she heard me in the background and immediatley knew that a baby would be making an appearence very shortly. I remember saying to (shouting at?!) my husband, “tell her that it feels like it’s coming out of me”, to which he looked between my legs and stated “don’t worry honey, its not coming out of you, trust me”. Ha! What did he know!

Birth story in progress…to be continued…