The Birth of Arya, 28 May 2007 at 9:24pm

On Sunday evening about 8pm I started getting a really odd sensation in my pelvis. I didn't think it was contractions though, because it seemed to be the complete opposite of contracting. My husband, Mark and I walked the dogs as usual at 9pm ish and I assumed I was beginning to dilate because it started to feel painfully stretchy. It carried on until I went to bed about 11pm, and as soon as I lay down, the feeling switched to contractions. I managed to lie down for about two minutes before getting up again because it was so painful. I kept telling myself that I should get some sleep but absolutely could not lie down, and they were too close together to rest in between. I remember telling myself at that point that I understood why women had epidurals if they give birth lying down. So, I spent all night pacing around, bouncing on my birth ball, leaning on things and breathing heavily. Sometime around 2am, I lugged my ball upstairs because I wanted company. I found that if I bounced on the ball at the same time as leaning on the end of the bed, I could doze between contractions. Mark woke up and talked to me for a while, but went back to sleep pretty quickly. The whole night passed very quickly. At dawn I went downstairs again stopping to catch a mouse that the cat had brought in. I decided to call my dad in the UK as he's 5 hours ahead and I wouldn't be waking him. I had him time my contractions because I was pretty sure they were getting regular. The problem was that every time I said one had started he had to find his glasses so the timing was completely off.

After getting off the phone I decided to get in the shower where I stayed for an hour or so, because it was so soothing. Eventually I got out of the shower and went to get Mark to set up the paddling pool. I don't think he got the urgency because he dithered about feeding the dogs and so on until I got stroppy. By the time the pool was full though I'd got back in the shower and the water in the pool got cold. I spent the day in and out of the shower, watched half of Ocean's Twelve (not as good as Ocean's Eleven), and eventually got so tired I had to sleep. My contractions had slowed down significantly throughout the day and I got about an hours sleep. To be honest, I got really bored through the day just waiting for something to happen. When I got up, I decided to get in the pool where I could read my book – I couldn't sit down for very long without getting twitchy and, like I said, was pretty bored. Finally after a couple of hours, my contractions were maybe 4-5 minutes apart for 1 minute-ish, and I got Mark to call the midwife at 4.30pm. She wanted to know if I wanted to start or stop the labour, and since I said start, suggested getting out of the pool, walking and nipple stimulation. I said I'd call back if anything happened. When I stood up my contractions kicked in big time. I felt as if I went straight into transition because by the time I had made the five paces to the bathroom, I was crying and having contractions two minutes apart. Not wanting to jump to conclusions however, I decided that now would be a good time to take the dogs for a walk. So, off we went, slowly. The midwife must have wondered where I'd gone, because she called, and fortunately, mum told her that she thought it would be a good idea if she came over. By the time she arrived I was speed walking up and down the living room and could barely stand still long enough to be palpated. Sometime here I lost my mucus plug, which was pretty funny because I managed to fling it across the bathroom. I had an internal debate about cleaning it up and decided that since I was in labour someone else could do it. Shortly thereafter I dived back into the pool, and this is where everything gets a bit hazy. My memory kicks in again several hours later when I started to feel pushy and started bellowing like an angry elephant. I can honestly say though that it didn't feel anywhere near as bad as it must have sounded. The dogs were really cute and kept coming to check on me and lick my hands and so on. I made Mark get in the pool with me and started to get uncooperative about the fetal heart monitoring. Up to that point I had insisted they use a fetoscope, which meant that I had to lift my belly out of the water, but because I wouldn't move I agreed to let them use the Doppler as long as the baby didn't feel bothered by it. I was kind of annoyed by the monitoring because I had requested that I wouldn't be monitored, but that meeting was with a different midwife, and I couldn't be bothered to argue. Eventually when I was pushing I got so fed up of being constantly checked that I refused to let the midwives near me at all. The poor second midwife who I hadn't even met properly, (and nearly didn't get in the house at all because the dogs wouldn't let her in) became the irrational focus of my annoyance because she kept trying to monitor the heart rate. In the end I just snapped that the baby was fine and I'd tell her if she wasn't.

Pushing felt like it went on forever (2½ hours) but it really wasn't painful fortunately. I had expected that once you could see hair that the baby would just slide out. The midwives kept telling me that they could see about a nickel size piece of hair, or a loony, and then she still didn't come out. At this point I had the brief thought that I really wanted someone to arrive with forceps. The quote of the night, recorded on my sheet, was "if I push, will she come out." The answer to that was 'clearly not.' At some point I agreed to be checked (my only vaginal exam in the entire pregnancy) to see if there was a cervical lip, which there was, and as my contractions had slowed down to almost nothing I finally agreed to have some vaginal pressure applied. That, along with me getting on my hands and knees got me going again. Arya, was born very, very slowly. Just as she was crowning someone put more hot water in the tub, which went all over my leg, so I was yelling that it was burning me. The midwives thought I meant that I was tearing and were reassuring me that I was fine and I wasn't coherent enough to explain. My mum figured it out and grabbed the hose and nearly flooded the dining room. So, millimetre by millimetre I pushed the little sucker out and Mark got out of the tub to catch her, supervised by our two dogs, and of course the midwives. Mark announced that it was a girl, although there was some confusion when he found the cord in his hand.

After that we transferred to the living room. I had wanted to be left alone with the baby for an hour, but the midwives seemed determinedly focussed on the placenta and I couldn't get them to leave me alone. In the end I had a shot of oxytocin just to get rid of the wretched thing and get some time alone. Everything quickly settled down though and snuggled up on the sofa we got down to the important business of breastfeeding.